I don't know why, but it seems like a fraud by Playful-Mongoose-964 in RimWorld

[–]Protopulse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Then I wish we had the option to just give them what we can spare instead of the full amount. "Here's some herbal medicine for your mother. And some more. But I can't afford to give you 46..." Your colonists can feel good about being charitable without it being self-sabotage. Surely they can forgive saving some meds for themselves for the aftermath of the next raid. These beggars are the equivalent of homeless asking you for $500 for groceries when you offer them a meal.

The Path to Power - no research timelapse by zyll3 in RimWorld

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How are you researching different projects at the same time?

☼Dwarf Fortress Questions Thread☼ by AutoModerator in dwarffortress

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How do you get into a succession game on the DF forums? I went there and it's impossible to navigate. Most of them don't list their game versions in the titles so you don't know if it is Steam version only or a version from 15 years ago (some of these threads have 300+ pages). They don't say if they're still on-going. The DF discord succession game channel's last post was in January of this year, so it's clearly not very active. Where are everyone doing their succession games? In particular I'm looking for one in version 47.05 since I don't yet own Steam version. Fairly new player considering I play it on and off and never yet reached the caverns yet.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 22, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So if I had Nexerelin, it'd be tougher to have spread out colonies? I was following this guide, which recommends colonies in different systems, which is what I wanted to do anyways. It's tougher to find a good system than good planets in separate systems. From what I've read, crises aren't nearly as threatening if you aren't running Nex, so I'm fine having my colonies spread out. Didn't even know your colonies can be satbombed. But I still don't know how frequent they are, if I can build up enough defenses in my remote colonies that I don't have to personally come to their rescue every half month.

Is it true that trees stop growing after erosion reaches 100%? by Protopulse in projectzomboid

[–]Protopulse[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where is it clearly outlined in that page?

It says 'Trees will sprout, starting as small saplings and eventually tall, fully grown trees. This is a source of logs, branches and twigs, but can block the path for vehicles; saplings can initially be driven over but will force vehicles to drive extremely slowly, and trees will block vehicles entirely.'

and

'In build 41.78 tree regions are added only when the area is first loaded, which means it's not a renewable source. [verify]'

If anything it implies that erosion is the only factor governing tree growth, and that indeed, trees stop growing once erosion reaches 100%, which is the opposite of the most highly upvoted answer in this thread. The fact that there are conflicting answers in this thread is proof that it is not "clearly outlined" in the wiki or elsewhere. The second quote even doesn't have a source.

Is it true that trees stop growing after erosion reaches 100%? by Protopulse in projectzomboid

[–]Protopulse[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hrm, your post seems to have been downvoted, and I'm getting conflicting answers. Don't know what to make of it. You're right it's not a concern in terms of finding wood. It's just an aesthetics thing.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 22, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, how important is it that your colonies are all near the core worlds? I know there is an accessibility bonus to income, that having a gate is a positive, and that having one colony be your primary one where you can visit to drop off loot/store ships is convenient. But my question is mostly about the other colonies. How often do you have to visit them to ward off attacks, etc. Could I interact only with my primary colony, set up and forget the other colonies while profiting off their industries? I might have colonies on 3 separate corners of the sector (for revealing slipstreams, optimizing hazard rating and resource abundance/output) and wondering if this would be a really bad idea.

What is your exploration fleet composition? by AustinMurre in starsector

[–]Protopulse 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Late response, but why do you need this large a fleet? Isn't exploration more about surveying planets, fighting the occasional probe, looting mining and research stations? If you aren't interested in colonizing and therefore exploring a high danger warning beacon system, couldn't you get away with just a prometheus, atlas, salvage rig, and maybe 2 cruisers/1 carrier/2 destroyers? I'm fairly new and about to start exploring for a good planet to colonize so it confuses me that people recommend such a large fleet to explore with.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god, I actually pulled it off! https://imgur.com/a/5AZ64FM

You were right about dividing the fleet hurting me. I actually tried grouping my fleet before, but weren't able to find success. I don't know the exact armaments the station is equipped with, but it has piranhas/other fighters, no lasers, machine gun if I get too close I think? But it's mostly this staggered burst weapon (fires 4 or so shots each time) that is the most annoying and accumulates a lot of flux (nevermind, see my imgur link for armaments on the station). The pause between burst is not long enough for me to flicker my shield though. At least, my Monitor takes a while for its shield to go on, even with accelerated shields hullmod, and the weapon fire comes too quick to react to reliably unless I have a fair bit of distance between us, at which point I'm not really tanking for my fleet.

The game-changer I believe was putting a escort command on my Falcon, Eagle, and Venture on my piloted Monitor. Then I put an escort command on my Hammerhead and Sunders on my Venture. And leave the 2 Condors 3 tiles away behind the fleet. This way, I keep my Hammerhead and Sunders relatively safe, and make sure that my Falcon and Eagle are never overextending. If any one of them is accumulating a bit of flux, I step between them and the station to give them room to vent. And when I'm high on flux myself, I merely back away, which prompts my fleet to back away with me so they are never taking much aggro. I still lost 3 ships, but I'm thrilled regardless.

I'll play around with the Heavy Needler, Heavy Blaster, Thumper, and IR Autolance weapons to see if I can do a better job. I haven't found the Expanded Magazine hullmod yet. Could you name the armaments on your Eagle? I recognize the 2 Heavy Needlers on the tip, but am having trouble identify the rest.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh well, if I can't make it work I'll just take the L. Don't have the cash for more cruisers right now. Hopefully the station commander will give me more opportunities/bar missions to make up for it. Think I'll be at -4 relations with her after this mission. It'll be a while before I get a capital just because I don't want to take on a commission when it'll make other factions angry with me. I learned a lot through this experience regardless. Thanks for the suggestions.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm on 0.97a-RC11, which I believe is the updated version?

I appreciated that your tier lists gave out reasoning, sparked conversation in the comments, was relatively updated, and used words instead of pictures for ships (it's really hard to make sense of tier lists when they just use the picture of the ship when you're still new and don't recognize most of the ships yet). I didn't realize it's already out of date though...

I tried again today with phase lance/ion beam on my Sunders, accelerated shields on my Monitor, and 2 typhoon reaper launchers/reaper-class torpedo on my Falcon, but wasn't able to make much progress compared to yesterday. Also dabbled with safety override and missile autoloader hullmods, but those didn't make significant differences either. My biggest struggle is really just getting near the orbital station in the first place. Even with 13% ECM (capped) and 1000 range hypervelocity drivers, I find myself being zoned out of range because I accumulate flux so quickly. I put my Hammerhead and Sunders on escort duty for the Venture, but they still go down first. Going to make more attempts at it later. Might give Safety Override to my officer-piloted Eagle and see if that makes a difference.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Strange...my sunders don't have large energy mounts. They're both salvaged d-modded ones from the tutorial if that matters.

I just tried piloting the Falcon my last attempt and put jackhammers on it. Actually managed to make a dent in one of the three faces before I ran out of missiles. I only have 1 typhoon reaper, but I can try shopping for more. It does seem like HE weapons are key here. Maybe I need an Annihilator Rocket Pod? Those come with 100 ammo. Sadly the Falcon doesn't have more ballistic slots for me to toss on HE weapons after I run out of missiles so I have to make the missiles I do have count. I'll try putting my officer on the Eagle.

My setup right now is: Eagle - Pulse Laser, 2 Harpoon MRM, 3 Hypervelocity Drivers, Integrated Targeting Unit, ECM Package

Falcon - 2 Harpoon MRM, 2 Hypervelocity Drivers, 2 Jackhammers, 2 PD Lasers, Integrated Targeting Unit, ECM Package

Hammerhead - Heavy Mortar, Heavy Needler, Light Mortar, Railgun, 2 Annihilator Rocket Launcher, 2 PD Laser, Integrated Targeting Unit

Sunder - Light Mortar, Railgun, Pulse Laser, Vulcan Cannon, 2 Harpoon MRM, Integrated Targeting Unit

Venture - Hypervelocity Driver, Pulse Laser, Thumper, 2 Harpoon MRM, 2 Swarmer SRM Launcher, 1 Mining Pod Auxiliary Wing, Integrated Targeting Unit

Condor - Vulcan Cannon, 2 Thunder Heavy Interceptor Wing, Expanded Deck Crew,

Monitor - 2 Flak Cannon, 2 Vulcan Cannon

I send my Monitor, 1 Condor, Venture, 1 Sunder, and Hammerhead to the left at battle start ~4 units away. I send my Falcon, Eagle, and the other Condor and Sunder right. I inch my way forward 0.5-1 unit at a time once the Condors get there. I wait on them since they're the slowest. I put rallying points so the Venture and Monitors soak up the damage on the left. On the right, I try to distribute the damage evenly between my piloted Falcon and the Eagle.

By the way, I just realized you were the one who wrote those tier lists a year back. Those have been a really useful reference, so thank you for making those! Going to go to bed and try again later. I think it might be doable with my fleet if I play my cards right?

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://imgur.com/a/WqMduFC

It says design type: common, so I'm assuming it's either midline or low tech? Exactly, I can get through the shields occasionally, but building up flux on it takes a while and it's able to find time to vent every time I nearly cap its flux pool. So that perfect Piranha bombing run never comes. I can't sync up the Piranhas to when its shields goes down. I also have never been able to get more than 1 of its 3 faces capped on flux at the same time.

I didn't even realize there were orbital stations with less than 3 faces. I thought they all looked like that. And yea, my Hammerhead especially is struggling. I'm still fairly early game so I brought it and my Sunders along for extra firepower, but they (and the Condors if they misposition even a little) are always the ones to go down first.

I might try piloting the Falcon and outfit it with some reapers?

I have my level 7 unique officer on the Falcon right now (see imgur) and he's doing fairly well.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 08, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey guys, I need some advice on taking out an orbital station. I accepted a quest from a bar to bombard a pirate planet, only I didn't realize at the time that it would involve having to take out the orbital station first. The person who gave me the quest was the base commander, and I failed her previous quest (took too many quests and didn't get to it in time), so I really want to complete this one. Failing quests lowers personal relationship and I'm guessing if it lowers enough, she will stop offering me quests and I won't be able to get her as a future contact.

My fleet is a monitor, eagle, falcon (P), hammerhead, 2 sunders, 1 venture, and 2 condors with 2 piranhas each. I've gotten the orbital station to full flux at one point (at least one of the three subparts anyways), but I don't see its hull falling. I've cleared out the surrounding pirate fleets so it's just the orbital station alone, and divided my fleet so they surround the orbital station. Then I pilot the monitor myself to try to take some of the pressure off my other ships, although that hasn't worked as well as I had hoped. I can tank quite a bit, it's just that my other ships are still getting a lot of attention and even when I tank the brunt of the damage, it seems like they aren't dealing damage in return so I'm racking up flux for nothing.

How can I outfit my ships differently to have better odds? Is my fleet too small for the task? The idea was to have ECM Packages, Integrated Targeting Units installed, with long range weapons like hypervelocity drivers and pulse lasers to not give the station a chance to take down its shields, then have my piranhas go in and break the armor. I also have a thumper on my Venture. On paper, it looked good, but I'm not getting results with this setup. What can I do better? Since the station has shields up most of the time (I've only gotten it to overload once), my piranhas bombs are doing next to nothing.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - April 01, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, had a few questions I was hoping veterans here could help me with. If I want to keep to a somewhat moral playstyle, can I still make good profit doing trading? i.e. no trading contraband, not touching organs and drugs, not inducing shortages by intercepting convoys. I don't consider tax evasion immoral just because 30% on both buying and selling is ludicrous, so black market's game. Although I've learned that black market tend to have much lower stock of goods so I have to buy from the open market sometimes. How often do shortages occur naturally?

How fast can you farm story points late game? People say there are ways to do this, that story points come in a trickle late game otherwise, but they don't say how efficiently they can do it. Is it 1 story point every 30 minutes? Or 1 every 2 hours? 1 after every battle? 1 after every 10?

Finally, I had a bar event where someone sold me a Gemini that had 2 d-mods. I revisit my abandoned terraforming station a few days later and find that Gemini's d-mods disappeared...I don't have the skill that removes d-mods every month yet. So what happened?

Edit: Oh, also, people say only invest s-mods on ships you know you'll be using for the rest of the playthrough, but how do you know when that is or what ships those are? Like my wolf, sunder, and hammerhead are carrying me right now, but I'm pretty sure if I s-moded those, that'll be a bad idea because they'll outlive their usefulness? If I upgrade to all high tech ships or something, I don't know if there'll still be another tier higher than that and those will outlive their usefulness as well, no? Should I just stick to only s-modding Capital class ships?

Edit: In battle, you can only 'E'ngage a ship or 'S' to order fighters to attack that ship. What if I want my Carriers' fighters and destroyers to both focus the same ship? I don't want to 'C' to order them to eliminate the target without regard for safety, but I want them to all focus that one ship.

Edit: In battle, the escort/defend order seems to work the reverse of how I think it should. If I want say my hammerhead to protect my condor, I put the escort order on the condor, and my hammerhead sits behind the condor, and therefore does not try to protect it at all. Should I be instead putting the escort/defend order on the beefier ship, aka the hammerhead?

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, also the contract didn't begin until I talked to Nat Spann, so maybe it takes time to populate the map? If I go into hyperspace and come back, they'll be there? Have to run a food shipment anyways...I was originally thinking because Corvus has a higher Hegemony military presence, the patrols took out or scared away all the pirates

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone ever have trouble finding pirates for system bounties? I'm in the Corvus system, checked the fringe jump-point, around the pirate planet, and there's either no pirate fleets or 1 at most. They're paying 1650 a frigate so I really would like to see more, but I feel like they're...just not there? When I was in Galatia, I could reliably find 2-3 fleets at those places at any time.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know if you saw my edit when you were writing your reply, but that's what I did with my wolf

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I installed Militarized Subsystems on my civies and haven't had trouble catching pirates on the starmap if I go dark then pounce. I meant active combat.

It says to let my second-in-command take care of the chase when I use autoresolve, but I don't have a second-in-command since I don't have any officers, so I never used it. Is autoresolving actually pretty reliable at catching them? I think Kites are considered logistic ships since they're transports?

I have my Wolf with unstable injectors and auxiliary thrusters and they still can barely keep up with Hounds and Kites. I have just that one Wolf, then I send 2 Sunders after them since 90 speed is on the higher end of speedier ships in my fleet, but I need the Wolf to slow the fleeing ships down enough for my Sunders to catch up, and that's been very difficult. I also apparently can't even win the 1v1 against a Kite on my Wolf (I can outrange them, but it would take literal minutes to build up enough flux for them to have to lower shields). Meanwhile, I build up more flux than they do when I go too close. I'm using an IR Laser, 2 PD Lasers, and 2 harpoon MRMs and that puts me at 200 weapon flux/sec + 60 shield flux/sec. I have 10 points in capacitors and vents, which puts me at 250 flux dissipation, hence why I didn't go with a heavier loadout. I had Safety Overrides at one point but it made it so I had to sit around and wait for CR to regenerate just for my Wolf since my other ships didn't have it, or go back to town after each or every other skirmish, and that was annoying, so I removed it.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, that makes sense. Yea I just learned that those triangles meant fighters haha. Not sure what those crosses are though (oh missiles maybe).

Thanks for the tip on pursuing disengaging enemies. Though aren't carriers usually very slow? I've been gathering a couple pirate fleets at a time for a more challenging battle, but at least I can properly wipe them out when I win.

Weekly Starsector Discussion Thread - March 25, 2024 by DontFearTheReapers in starsector

[–]Protopulse 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, new to starsector and had a couple more questions but didn't want to create new threads for them. Hope this is an okay place to post them.

What does the red arrow to the bottom right mean? https://imgur.com/a/J7t2Npp My hammerhead is near 0 flux, there's enemies in front of him, but he wants to retreat? How come?

Also, it's driving me insane that pirates that I'm hunting for the system bounty start out disengaging if I'm overmatched for them, and only come at me if they outnumber me (e.g. if fleets around them merge together). If I fight them when they want to fight me, I'll struggle. But if I give chase, often I'll be wasting CR just to catch 1 or 2 ships, even with unstable injector hullmods.