WIN070 (0.7.3)
=== Bugs and oddities:
Last Download file name is not synchronized with version number.
Had to delete steam dll files to run without Steam getting in my way. Did not check to see if Spacewar or not. Deleting is much easier than modding the game code to ignore it.
Drone Fire Rate overlaps with another upgrade.
Arriving at the ‘edge’ of a POI that opens a loot screen with no fuel will not pause the ambush timer while the loot screen is open. This can result in the player’s main weapon being disabled while the enemy ship is unfrozen upon exiting the loot interface. This is would be exploitable with an attack drone, because the player shields regenerate quickly (as if not in battle).
With no upgrade all POI’s get the resource icon, even when the text+colour distinguish other destination types.
_ suggest still applying the distinguishing icons for readability/QOL reasons.
Sockets are gate-kept by the first boss; I was confused by the resource locations not rewarding the expected orbs.
_ Perhaps substituting/occupying the socket icon on the HUD to indicate they are disabled would make it less confusing.
_ Reloaded after defeating first boss, no bonus modules!? sockets re-locked on load?
Scan enemies don’t count torwards the (optional) difficulty total; This is time consuming and enough of a PITA to make it unviable as an exploit path for me.
_ By the same measure, I found myself save scumming (even when that sacrificed desirable POIs) to avoid the ambush timer. Perhaps it should be made much more forgiving for players late on activating the [B]EACON (edit: while still hard on those who gleefully seek more fodder)
ie (many edits due to markdown weirdness...):
global.difficulty_pursuit_flagged_count = max(
global.difficulty_pursuit_flagged_count,
max(1 + min(
global.difficulty_pursuit_flagged_count,
(global.fodder_killed / 3) + global.elite_killed + global.boss_killed
))
)
(late edit:) oop, found that pursuit-ambusher’s peak-damage value doesn’t scale; so with focused save-scumming I can become immune to them, then start farming fodder.
Also, what is the LY distance between sectors? And should it count torwards Mission/Job/Quest completion?
Not yet had opportunity to see if [G]ATHER should work after defeating boss.
First boss frequently called reinforcement waves of size 10! ( Even if I accidentally replaced random function call with my bias mod version, the limits would have been unchanged. ) Should reinforcement wave size be scaled to how much damage the player could have done?
=== Remarks:
I’ve taken {4 hours, aggressive save scumming/POI regeneration, and one extremely cheating/biased random mod} to defeat the 0.7.3 progressive boss;
compared to the previous 8 hours to prestiege in WIN070 with the exploitable [F]lag enemies option.
I dunno what the intended progression curve looks like, but clearly (its actual) trajectory has shifted dramatically.
