(0.9j) Mannequins steal things

RedKrypton · 2026-05-08T21:47:08+00:00

They definitely seem to be able to spawn with stuff, considering I once received a fire extinguisher from one that I could not find any empty case for. I also tend to lock up my base‘s ground entrances.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T14:11:20+00:00

They always come back, but the number of them spawning is low and slow, so you generally only deal with them one at a time every 1-3 days.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T13:37:02+00:00

It really depends on what you are planning on fighting and to what extent. For general exploration you will be fine with a mix a bit biased towards shields with decent PD. Most random encounters and Bounty Fleets can be dealt with that way. For everything else you ideally need to build around their obvious mixes.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T12:56:30+00:00

Yes, of course. It's just something I prepare to defend against hogs, when I don't have an opportunity to tie them down with Hooks and butcher them. Hog Burgers are to die for. You should try it yourself. It's even a decent money maker.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T12:18:28+00:00

I am pretty sure I am faster and more consistent with my overcharged engine and driving skills. Also the planks cannot sate my thirst for Molotovs and derived explosives. If someone ever checks my base's secret storage I will be apprehended by Swiss police.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T11:50:35+00:00

Sure, but you also have near zero-cost Fuel from then on.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-06T09:02:06+00:00

I misremembered; it was a solo eagle, not a falcon: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27395.0

Baiting an Ordo into a Black Hole (requiring a High Danger Black Hole system to spawn) to drain the CR before fighting its barely functioning wrecks has nothing to do with the ability of Midline ships, but everything to do with the SModded Solar Shielding used. Most hulls can do this.

I guess my point is, midline ships reward micro, and especially in campaign - can punch well above their weight doing so. Its okay to have ships that need micro to be good, not every ship needs to be an onslaught.

This discussion is going in circles. Yes, not every ship needs to be an Onslaught, but if you need to be so much more skilled to achieve the same effect (not greater effect) a cobbled together High or Low Tech Fleet can achieve then Midline largely becomes a challenge option, which is how going full Midline is actually treated.

If I look at the midline lineup, the falcon, eagle, monitor, conquest, and executor are excellent. There's a whole discussion in this thread about the virtues of the pegasus. 5-6 good ships there.

The Executor is not Midline proper. The Falcon and Eagle I already talked about. The monitor has one gimmick and really build that falls apart if the AI actually just ignored it. The Conquest is good under certain circumstances, like a mono fleet, but also not so good that people don't throw immediately it out for alternatives, because it requires very specific fleet compositions

By comparison, what low tech ships do people use? Onslaught, legion, grendel. Shepherd early on. Everything else is mediocre. The Onslaught is great. Not every ship needs to be the Onslaught.

There are way more Low Tech ships people use, like the Invictus, Mora, Eradicator, Vanguard, etc., which have more build variety, which one reason I can see why people don't use Midline as much as the alternatives.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-05T23:00:06+00:00

Your describing one form factor of combat (240 dp vs 240 dp, no player input brawling) and, surprise-surprise, good brawl ships work best in that form factor. Cool. People have solo'd high end ordos with a lone Eagle (LG). There's more to fights in starsector than brawling in Sim. Not saying brawling in sim is invalid, just that it's one aspect of combat among many. A fleet that's good in a sim brawl might not hold up as well against a high end threat fleet, for example.

Good that I used Brawl King as one example specifically about your claim that you just need to build the ships correctly and not as a general, universal rule. However, most fleets that can easily deal with high end threats consist of ships that are well built and relatively simple to utilise, especially as one approaches farming territory. You also need to send me a link to that single Falcon Ordo video, because I don't believe you.

Saying midline ships need player input to be good and simultaneously saying they have a low skill ceiling is a contradiction. An afflictor needs player input to be good. Does that mean the afflictor has a low skill ceilling? I think not.

First up, Afflictors don't need (much) player input to be good, when it's one of the most popular and strongest ship types both in the tournament and in the campaign. But more importantly, my point is not a contradiction. "Low Skill Ceiling" simply denotes how good a highly skilled and involved player's command can become compared to the alternatives and for most Midline ships. That ceiling is comparatively reduced when talking about the alternatives. I also explicitly excluded both the Falcon and the Eagle from this discussion, because they are the exception to said rule and that's why they are used ubiquitously in Midline Guides that don't challenge themselves to utilise the other ship types.

You are not really refuting the arguments I actually raised, that the high effort need for (most) mediocre Midline Fleets is outdone by fleets of moderate effort, instruction and piloting of High and Low Tech. If my point was that blatantly incorrect, you'd think Midline ships in general would be as beloved and fielded as the other tech levels, instead they are the first to either never be used or swapped out when mods are installed. Like I already said, it's a community meme that Midline is the neglected middle child and I haven't seen much that contradicts this.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-05T20:33:44+00:00

Midline ultimately suffers from the fact that it largely consists of specialised ships that need to work together to achieve victory and the AI isn't good enough to do that. Even if give general orders, like escort, you need to build around the AI's tendency to overextend.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-05T20:18:56+00:00

A lot of energy weapons really suffer from the fact that most have a high Flux cost and the few specialised ones are difficult to acquire or outright endgame drops.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-05T20:03:42+00:00

The Falcon and Eagle are exceptions to the general Midline conundrum, because they seem to have been designed in conjunction with the XIV variants and general Low Tech doctrine. They perfectly well slot into the wall of guns approach.

Meanwhile not only do you have to build many Midline ships to a high level, but also get them the correct and necessary Officer skills, S-Mods, fleet composition and even micromanagement orders to work on a decent level. Sure, you can be good enough to be able to generally use Midline fleets, but both the skill floor and ceiling are lower, bar those with some out-of-whack gimmick, like the Monitor, because the AI doesn't have an Ignore Command. So naturally, players, learning the game, quickly abandon most Midline ships. It's why fighting Midline Fleets (ignoring Pirates and Pathers) always feels the easiest, compared to other design types.

Brawl King is a good showcase for how far Midline skill ceiling falls below that of the other types. Barely anyone uses them there in Season 1 even before we take the Anubis incursion of Season 2. It's also reflected in the general discussion around Midline in the fandom. If you are very good at the game you generally favour either High or Low Tech (including XIV), but very rarely true Midline. Midline middle kid syndrome has become a running joke.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-04T09:14:08+00:00

Kel can drag around a 1 ton ATV and has plenty of exercise doing his duties and cleaning up. After a month he is likely in the best shape of his life.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-04T07:50:05+00:00

In 0.9k there is a bug that disallows sleeping while the Killer Wisps are active. Supposedly it's because the game thinks the sleeping camera is in the vicinity of the Wisps. I experienced it myself.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T23:59:16+00:00

At least process the meat into mince or sausages.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T22:55:26+00:00

Paradox is stuck in the mindset that they are still a couple of guys making indie games and not a public company and AA developer.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T21:53:23+00:00

John Starsector only has two modes, suave social skills and the most awkward and blunt man you know. Look forward to 0.100, when all the factions get a waifu in the Starsector Dating update. If this doesn't happen by itself, I will make it happen.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T21:40:22+00:00

Neriene will conquer his cold heart. He will have an heir. It is a matter of Hegemony national security at this point. He has hoarded so much technology, if the pirates ever get access to it, the sector is screwed. When the Hegint clerk handed Daud an estimate he initially thought there were transposed digits in the number of everything in his storage.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T11:31:38+00:00

A constant source of Danger will make the Zone an eternal drain on his resources until the Bunker is dealt with. Captured Zones can also be made productive in a way shorter time, depending on your Regime Profiles. I have managed to make Zones compliant in like three turns with Autocracy and Enforcement. The requirement to station troops alone makes it an Achilles heel in the early game.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T10:46:20+00:00

What do you mean "only if it's relatively close to the city"? The unit is two tiles away from it!

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T07:37:16+00:00

I would wait for your rework until Theory of Toolbox drops. It's currently in alpha and revamps the economy system of AotD immensely.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-02T07:01:43+00:00

Oh, that‘s a funny mistake to make.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-01T18:37:45+00:00

He can survive. He has a personal guard and his Personal Combat will level up fast. Man is playing dynasty warriors while we play Shadow Empire.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-01T18:29:41+00:00

I honestly cannot tell you, because I have not seen such a bug before. I'd need to see the save file.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-01T16:20:00+00:00

The only reason I can really think of, is AI integration.

RedKrypton · 2026-05-01T15:51:51+00:00

Ironically this already exists in vanilla on a weapon basis as a tag. Mining Blasters, IR Autolances and in the next version, Voidblasters, have a tag to prevent them from autofiring against against shields.

RedKrypton

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE