New DLC

[zolobolo]

PS: I would leave Ion Cannon as is, just doubled damage against shields. And made RF mod much more power-hungry.

I dont mind how the Ion cannon is rebalanced just that it has anything going for it: Cost efficiency, unique mod, higher damage output, lower energy usage any of these

[gaerzi]

As a low-hanging fruit, there's a number of typos and other text errors that were reported that could be addressed, as well as some bugs that have already been fixed in the report thread and just await to get officially fixed in the base game.

[zolobolo]

I kinda funny thing I found (but not important enough to fix with prio) is that captured Pirate bases cannot be refit if the Marauders have been annexed.
I believe I could do that if the base was captured via boarding though

The funny thing is that I thought this is one interesting use for researching Asteroid Base tech: allows refitting captured Pirate Bases which do perform well as a defensive platform and benefitting from Chondrite Armor - but it seems the tech does not have that niece but useful effect either

If I recall correctly, Pirate Bases contained Heavy Hardpoints which I was looking for in base layouts

Asteroid bases came into the game with the Tinkers expansion: they make sense for Tinkers as they can move and the Tinkers have an asteroid belt right at their home planet. The issue is that all other races got the tech even if they dont have asteroid belts and if they research it and find a planet with the attribute it still doesnt make sense to build it. So a quick fix might be to not show it as a research if the player doesnt have the planet with the resource and the long term fix is to give the asteroid base something to do for the other races as well - movement or weapons hardpoint for the improved armor to make a difference. I suggested long ago giving it heavy weapons point as all starbases lack that option (except for Pirate base) and would be a 2 for one solution also limiting the application of planet sniping exploit at least for planets with this resource but it would necessitate not only a change to the hardpoints but also changes to the blueprints of the AI factions so they actually use the things

[gaerzi]

I kinda funny thing I found (but not important enough to fix with prio) is that captured Pirate bases cannot be refit if the Marauders have been annexed.
I believe I could do that if the base was captured via boarding though

I've never managed to annex a Marauder (the option never came, I'm not sure what's needed to trigger it reliably), but I like to capture orbital infrastructure so I've often conquered Marauder worlds with their pirate bases intact and refitting them was always possible in my experience.

Asteroid bases came into the game with the Tinkers expansion: they make sense for Tinkers as they can move and the Tinkers have an asteroid belt right at their home planet. The issue is that all other races got the tech even if they dont have asteroid belts and if they research it and find a planet with the attribute it still doesnt make sense to build it.

Yeah, it's generally among the very last tech I research, due to how little use it has. The only other faction that has asteroid belts on its home planet is the Ashdar Teros, and they start with decent orbital facilities. If random planets could have it, it would be of slightly greater use, but since in the entire galaxy there's only two planets with asteroid fields, Dzibix and Rastaban, well, who cares.

[zolobolo]

I've never managed to annex a Marauder (the option never came, I'm not sure what's needed to trigger it reliably), but I like to capture orbital infrastructure so I've often conquered Marauder worlds with their pirate bases intact and refitting them was always possible in my experience.

The option should randomly trigger if playing Gremak, have good relationship and influence to purchase the annexation
I believe it is not offered up to any other species and even at top relationship and abundant influent the option might not crop up

If random planets could have it, it would be of slightly greater use, but since in the entire galaxy there's only two planets with asteroid fields, Dzibix and Rastaban, well, who cares.

I was wondering what the use of an asteroid base is altogether even if the belts were available to all planets: their only advantage seems to be the armor plating they have but since they cannot get weapons fitted they are not targeted at all

Yes they cost slightly less Wrench and around half as much metal then Space Stations but those I never find the need to actually build. Starting one on home planet and Shipyards are sufficient in most cases and if not: building outpost and converting it is a faster way to gap the requirement for planets that lack production

[zolobolo]

Yep it seems refitting Pirate Base is not possible if the faction has been annexed
If I recall correctly the tech should be activated when the base was captured so what is missing here is the assimilation of tech when the faction is annexed

[Serenitis]

Yeah, it's generally among the very last tech I research, due to how little use it has. The only other faction that has asteroid belts on its home planet is the Ashdar Teros, and they start with decent orbital facilities. If random planets could have it, it would be of slightly greater use, but since in the entire galaxy there's only two planets with asteroid fields, Dzibix and Rastaban, well, who cares.

Debris/Asteroid Belts can be added to the procgen fairly trivially.
\setup\planet_decks.lua
The various planet type definitions start @ line 438, and finish @ 497.
All you need to do is add "debris_ring = x," to each planet type you want them to appear around.
Where x is smallish, somewhere around 1-5.
This keeps them somewhat rare, but still gives you the occaisional opportunity to mess with them.

Even with this asteroid bases are still not worth building imo, as they have only 1x station + 1x system slots. Which is so underwhelming.
Doubling up those slots makes them at least situationally attractive as shipyards/fighter bases/gravwells/etc.
\Lua state\Drawers\Ships\UniversalAsteroid\UniversalAsteroid.lua
Start @ line 15 and add in whatever slots you want.

[zolobolo]

Is there a chance for a minor update?

Is there something that you feel needs to be addressed in the short term?

There are a couple of things I was hoping they make it into an update (mentioned them in forum here and there):

- Bug: Allied empires do not get relationship penalty if they have more pops then the player but the player does not vote for them preventing an organic split within allies if the player is not winning. This feature was listed in change log at some point but I think it fell out of the system soon afterwards in a consequent update
- Bug: Fast Tactical Animation option is reset during game restart
- Possible bug: Haduir AI ships not benefiting from Ancient Stargate bonus: AI ships do not have 1 Turn travel time from home system and thus the AI does not benefit from the coolest faction bonus. If its a bug then maybe it could be fixed but if its due to AI script not able to handle the modified value then of course its not really a topic
- Possible bug: Increased raider activity does not effect harpies they do not invade anymore. Might be intentionally deactivated permanently along with pirates or only temporary for balance testing but not turned back on again. I dont mind pirate raids to be deactivated as I think the concept needs a rework but Harpy raids were useful to necessitate rear-guard units even if the player owned a slice of the map without any neighbors in their backyard. Was also a good reason to clean up nodes to prevent Harpy raids originating from them
- Quality of life: Prioritize transports when offloading and onloading units from and to planet to reduce micro MGMT: Player needs to manually select transports and offload troops to prevent military transports with boarding units to loose their units before transports but doesnt see the planet status during that process to determine how many more troops are needed to prevent rebellion. If troops are offloaded from planet screen civilian transports do not get priority to offload and units with boarding function can loose their troops before them
- Balance: Ion cannon effect, mod or rebalance stats to make it a viable option compared to lasers with RF mod
- Balance: Asteroid base needs some additional hardpoint to make them viable as their increased armor does not provide benefits for civilian use
- Balance: Slight bonus to Gremak AI as this faction usually gets the hardest time when competing with the others
- Balance: (though discussed a longshot): Additional long range modifier to bases and planetary defenses to erase base/planet sniping exploit (one of the last ones remaining besides scorched earth tactic which would then be resolved with planet habitability degradation from the DLC)
Longshot balance: Alter boarding module to be a torpedo instead of close range effect so it can be countered by the AI and used by the AI. Pirate ships I would equip with this module then for example

Naturally I am all in on the additional 3 DLCs planned (more factions would allow the creation of epic games without color and faction ship/leader repetition) but was hoping the above are small enough modifications that they can make it into the game even if there is no publisher support

Found another one I forgot about long time (only applicable for Phidi): when sending pops single storage transports are not prioritized over trade ships with several containers. Meaning the transport of a single pop can take away double amount of trading capacity from the trading queue even though simple transport are also available to be used

[Captainspire]

I've tried other 4x games and even got the new Masters of Orion game. hated it was a glorious passion. I went back and played this. Just as excited as the 10th time playing it

Looking forward to the DLC.

Is there a chance for a minor update?

Is there something that you feel needs to be addressed in the short term?
There are a couple of things I was hoping they make it into an update (mentioned them in forum here and there):

- Bug: Allied empires do not get relationship penalty if they have more pops then the player but the player does not vote for them preventing an organic split within allies if the player is not winning. This feature was listed in change log at some point but I think it fell out of the system soon afterwards in a consequent update
- Bug: Fast Tactical Animation option is reset during game restart
- Possible bug: Haduir AI ships not benefiting from Ancient Stargate bonus: AI ships do not have 1 Turn travel time from home system and thus the AI does not benefit from the coolest faction bonus. If its a bug then maybe it could be fixed but if its due to AI script not able to handle the modified value then of course its not really a topic
- Possible bug: Increased raider activity does not effect harpies they do not invade anymore. Might be intentionally deactivated permanently along with pirates or only temporary for balance testing but not turned back on again. I dont mind pirate raids to be deactivated as I think the concept needs a rework but Harpy raids were useful to necessitate rear-guard units even if the player owned a slice of the map without any neighbors in their backyard. Was also a good reason to clean up nodes to prevent Harpy raids originating from them
- Quality of life: Prioritize transports when offloading and onloading units from and to planet to reduce micro MGMT: Player needs to manually select transports and offload troops to prevent military transports with boarding units to loose their units before transports but doesnt see the planet status during that process to determine how many more troops are needed to prevent rebellion. If troops are offloaded from planet screen civilian transports do not get priority to offload and units with boarding function can loose their troops before them
- Balance: Ion cannon effect, mod or rebalance stats to make it a viable option compared to lasers with RF mod
- Balance: Asteroid base needs some additional hardpoint to make them viable as their increased armor does not provide benefits for civilian use
- Balance: Slight bonus to Gremak AI as this faction usually gets the hardest time when competing with the others
- Balance: (though discussed a longshot): Additional long range modifier to bases and planetary defenses to erase base/planet sniping exploit (one of the last ones remaining besides scorched earth tactic which would then be resolved with planet habitability degradation from the DLC)
Longshot balance: Alter boarding module to be a torpedo instead of close range effect so it can be countered by the AI and used by the AI. Pirate ships I would equip with this module then for example

Naturally I am all in on the additional 3 DLCs planned (more factions would allow the creation of epic games without color and faction ship/leader repetition) but was hoping the above are small enough modifications that they can make it into the game even if there is no publisher support

Found another one I forgot about long time (only applicable for Phidi): when sending pops single storage transports are not prioritized over trade ships with several containers. Meaning the transport of a single pop can take away double amount of trading capacity from the trading queue even though simple transport are also available to be used[/quote]

[nweismuller]

Here's hoping all is well with Arioch and Sven! I still love this game, and building my little seahorse utopias.

[zolobolo]

Here's hoping all is well with Arioch and Sven! I still love this game, and building my little seahorse utopias.

Indeed
Interestingly there still hasnt been a major contestor in the genre (space 4x) IMO

[dearmad]

I just long for the dlc... this game is really fun.

[zolobolo]

I just long for the dlc... this game is really fun.

Deto

[nweismuller]

As do I, but I'll admit at this point my optimism for continued development has been flagging. I don't know what's going on with Arioch and Sven, but I hope that they'll be able to find their way back to this game- I have full confidence in what they can accomplish in future updates. Even in its 'incomplete' state without the future features, Stars in Shadow is already one of my favorite games, and I'd gladly pay up front for a future DLC.

[PrivateHudson]

If, as it seems, there is fan census in progress, I'll also add a word. The material for DLC2 shown by Arioch looks really great, and (possibly) in high degree of readiness. Probably, not only me keeps hope alive to see one day a final push turning already good game to perfect.