Cosmoteer Release Candidate 0.15.7 RC1

newageofpower

Walt Nuke explosions will now become "anchored" to any ship hit by the expanding shockwave.
An Engine Room will now act as a central delivery point for adjacent thrusters to which crew can deliver batteries without having to travel to each one individually

Y E S! I thought this would take longer. Has Engine Room capacity increased too?

Walt

newageofpower Has Engine Room capacity increased too?

No, why would it?

Ultranova

newageofpower Engine rooms automatically distribute the batteries they recieve to the thrusters (I assume after the engine room has full power), not store extra batteries that will be specifically stored to distribute to the thrusters when they're running out. Crew still have to bring power to the engine room if the thrusters need more power.

Nordwolf

Walt An Engine Room will now act as a central delivery point for adjacent thrusters to which crew can deliver batteries without having to travel to each one individually.

This is an insane buff, but at the same time I really like it thematically.

Also I don't feel like you "fixed" nukes in any meaningful way, exp guns don't seem to work anymore but the nuke bombs are not affected much:

Walt

Nordwolf Also I don't feel like you "fixed" nukes in any meaningful way, exp guns don't seem to work anymore but the nuke bombs are not affected much:

It should now be no worse than getting hit with a regular nuke. Which is still pretty bad considering how cheap storages are. Making storages and (maybe) launchers less explosive is still an option, which might also be good for other reasons.

Dalas120

The new loading screen looks nice!

Walt An Engine Room will now act as a central delivery point for adjacent thrusters to which crew can deliver batteries without having to travel to each one individually.

Bug: when filling up a boost thruster via an engine room, crew bring many more batteries than are needed.

I don't really like this change. It makes crew and crew management less important. It adds complexity (more rules and exceptions) but reduces depth (less crew management). And it's a HUGE buff to engine rooms, which were already must-haves.

(also, did I miss something? It sounds like this has been discussed already, but I didn't see anything on the discord)

Walt Weapons firing at small, fast-moving targets (such as PD firing at projectiles) were being more inaccurate than intended.
Walt Fixed-direction weapons would sometimes fire too early.

Glad these are fixed!

Nordwolf Also I don't feel like you "fixed" nukes in any meaningful way, exp guns don't seem to work anymore but the nuke bombs are not affected much:

In the experimental balance mods, wasn't the nuke storage explosion reduced?

Or, why not make the nuke explosion instant? That would get rid of any weirdness, and is probably a lot easier than making lots of physics changes.

SpaceCat

Walt An Engine Room will now act as a central delivery point for adjacent thrusters to which crew can deliver batteries without having to travel to each one individually

^ First thing i tested ofc.
Like the new rule and engine "blocks" are less congested now.
Noticed when the engine room is not accessible crew will still deliver power directly to the thrusters.

I asked this before the RC already.
Many thruster arrangements are built so that some thrusters are closer to a reactor then the engineroom.
Sometimes thrusters are even adjecent to the reactor when the engine room is not.
Would very much appreciate that crew delivers power to thrusters directly if they are closer to the reactor then the engienroom-hub.

I know @Walt said this was tricky - but crew does decisions based on distance all the time - so i speculate it might be not too tricky.

ty for all the bugfixes - so many that i went tldr 😉

regards,

Walt

SpaceCat I know @Walt said this was tricky - but crew does decisions based on distance all the time - so i speculate it might be not too tricky.

The problem is that when crew are delivering power to and engine room, they have no idea which thruster will receive the power. The engine room itself decides that on arrival.

kwhwwymwn

edit
log file :
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/490394794489806849/687414241392721930/log_2020-03-11_21_35_42.txt

i think it's a missing / in the french translation, if it's that, i fixed it
https://cosmoteer.oneskyapp.com/collaboration/discussion/project/163776#/topics/437431/

newageofpower

Walt It should now be no worse than getting hit with a regular nuke.

Uh. It still looks much worse than a regular nuke or two in Nord's video.

Dalas120 I don't really like this change. It makes crew and crew management less important. It adds complexity (more rules and exceptions) but reduces depth (less crew management). And it's a HUGE buff to engine rooms, which were already must-haves.

With the massive increase in crew demand coming (from Walt's Factory Centralization Plan) crew management is going to be more vital than it is in version 0.15.6 despite automated thrust block power distribution. Walt is adding this to make centralized power and engine blocks more compatible; currently it's an quite a pain in the butt to efficiently run multiple engine blocks off of a single MR/LR's capacity.

Engine rooms are dominant in Elimination/Arena, but almost unseen in Domination; I wouldn't call them "must have".

Walt

Dalas120 reduces depth (less crew management)

Is there actually any interesting crew management in how engine room pods were designed before this update?

There was some concern that decreasing congested crew speeds in non corridor rooms (as I did in the balance prototypes but haven't yet decided whether to include that in this update) would really hurt engine room pods. Allowing crew to deliver power to the engine room is in part a reaction to that concern, but also I just think it's cool.

Dalas120 And it's a HUGE buff to engine rooms, which were already must-haves.

I'm considering reducing the engine room buff back down to 50% as it was originally intended.

Dalas120 also, did I miss something? It sounds like this has been discussed already, but I didn't see anything on the discord

It's been discussed before yeah, but I don't remember where.

Dalas120 In the experimental balance mods, wasn't the nuke storage explosion reduced?

Yes, I might still do that.

Dalas120 Or, why not make the nuke explosion instant? That would get rid of any weirdness, and is probably a lot easier than making lots of physics changes.

Because I don't like how that feels, plus it's better for performance if the damage is spread out over multiple frames.

SpaceCat

Dalas120 Bug: when filling up a boost thruster via an engine room, crew bring many more batteries than are needed.

Also expierienced by now. No matter if used in normal mode or after depleting in boost mode.

Might this be in conjunction with (?):

Walt The problem is that when crew are delivering power to and engine room, they have no idea which thruster will receive the power. The engine room itself decides that on arrival.

Walt

newageofpower Uh. It still looks much worse than a regular nuke or two in Nord's video.

The ship in that video is getting hit with 16 nuke storages. Pretty sure 16 real nukes would do a lot more damage than that.

Dalas120

Walt Is there actually any interesting crew management in how engine room pods were designed before this update?

Once you've built an optimized stand-alone engine pod I don't think there's much, but (for me at least) crew does have a lot of influence over how you arrange engines and reactors. Especially on smaller ships that try to power engines, shields, and weapons from the same reactor.

Walt There was some concern that decreasing congested crew speeds in non corridor rooms (as I did in the balance prototypes but haven't yet decided whether to include that in this update) would really hurt engine room pods.

That's a good point. I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing though - it might force people to plan room for corridors and walkways around thrusters.

newageofpower Engine rooms are dominant in Elimination/Arena, but almost unseen in Domination; I wouldn't call them "must have".

Isn't that because many Dom ships are too small for engine rooms, or don't even bring reactors (which makes engine rooms bad)? Almost every medium-large ship I've seen has used engine rooms by all thrusters.

SpaceCat

Walt Uh. It still looks much worse than a regular nuke or two in Nord's video.

The ship in that video is getting hit with 16 nuke storages. Pretty sure 16 real nukes would do a lot more damage than that

Then again it is hard to fire 16 nukes at once - but still easy to deliver the storage bomb!
In the clip you see the ship igniting long before it gets to the target.
Nukes rly should explode in a short flash and not dragging for so long - not saying instant damage but very short.
(maybe making nuke anchoring obsolete ...)

newageofpower

Dalas120 Isn't that because many Dom ships are too small for engine rooms, or don't even bring reactors (which makes engine rooms bad)? Almost every medium-large ship I've seen has used engine rooms by all thrusters.

More that the majority of Dom combat is about trying to control the nodes; if your ship is insanely fast but regularly flies out of the node its usually a bad thing. Once the fleet sizes go up faster ships dedicated to hunting other ships can be useful, but zone control is the bread and butter of competitive domination.

And yeah, I play mostly 1.5m Elimination/Arena, where everything but turning thrusters (and usually those too) are always mounted on engine rooms. But the complaint about engine rooms being ubiquitous on 1.5m+ ships is like complaining shield generators are almost always featured under armor or weapons.

Dalas120 That's a good point. I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing though - it might force people to plan room for corridors and walkways around thrusters.

That would make thruster blocks further away from a reactor unworkable. Already even with storages touching the block , fed by double walkway can deplete on some of my centralized reactor designs.

Walt

SpaceCat Also expierienced by now. No matter if used in normal mode or after depleting in boost mode.

Already fixed.

Nordwolf

To me it seems like crew doesn't have a good idea of the ER power consumption, they seem to wildly underestimate the amount of crew needed to deliver the power, like half the crew stays in their bunks/quarters most of the time when ER is slowly running out of power. This is very noticeable on medium distances from a large reactor.

CaptainRedstone

Nordwolf I found a bug where crew don't consider thrusters to be connected to an engine room until it's operational. Could this be related?

Walt

Nordwolf To me it seems like crew doesn't have a good idea of the ER power consumption, they seem to wildly underestimate the amount of crew needed to deliver the power, like half the crew stays in their bunks/quarters most of the time when ER is slowly running out of power. This is very noticeable on medium distances from a large reactor.

Can you please send me a saved game?

CaptainRedstone I found a bug where crew don't consider thrusters to be connected to an engine room until it's operational. Could this be related?

This is intentional.

Kroom Its possible to add an option to the MultiAmmoStorage similar to DistributeEvenly but for all the combined amount? so when adding ammo or removing ammo all storages will have the same amount.

If I understand you correctly, that's basically what PrioritizeLeastAmmo does.

Nordwolf

CaptainRedstone I don't think it is, it's mostly related to the fact that crew doesn't consider pickup delay on larger reactors. It's every noticeable in ERs because of the huge needs in electricity there and low supply on each thruster individually.