Star Traders: Frontiers

Star Traders: Frontiers

nephilimnexus 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 7:05
Just what are the consequences of various wars?
Duel of Assassins is straightforward - the losing side may end up with dead contacts. That part is easy. But what are the consequences of all the other types of wars? As in, what difference do they really make?

Spy wars shift infleunce, we know that. That makes sense.

What do trade wars do? Do market prices take sudden shifts? Do trade laws get increased or decreased on planets? Does a planet's ecnomy go up or down?

What about solar wars? We know that planets don't change hands and all ships are randomly generated rather than persistant, so does this have any real effect considering that there is no real way to do any kind of real damage to a faction's navy?

At least Alliances got fixed so that you can gain rep with both parties at once by doing the missions. That was sorely needed and I'm grateful it was fixed to make more logical sense.

But beyond the types of missions that we handed by our contacts while they're going on, do these wars actually have any lasting effects when they end? Meaning that, other than the money, is there any real reward for participating in them?

Let's say you're roleplaying a Zealot (though why anyone would do that is beyond me) and you really want to cripple your opponents in a lasting way, so you jump in on all your side's little wars to do as much damage as possible. But is there any real damage? If your side wins a trade ban by 5 points or 50 points, does that make any difference? Does winning or losing at all make any difference for that matter?

I'm sure it does something, right? The wiki[startraders.gamepedia.com] gives some info, but if it is accurate then contact influence and some random embargo & tax events are the grand total of a war's possible outcomes. Surely that can't be all there is, though. There's got to be more to it, right? I mean, a solar war where fifty ships get blown to dust results in some random planet getting a tax hike and that's it? Surely not. It would mean far fewer encounters with their military ships (since they have less of them now) for at least a few years, I would imagine.

So tell me, what really happens when wars end? I'm really curious.
最后由 nephilimnexus 编辑于; 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 7:06
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Sugarat 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 7:35 
Rumors, contact influence(This matters since their services will be unavailable if they fall beneath a certain level). This forces you to stop trading in certain quadrants(trade bans) etc. So it impacts what you can or cannot do at that specific time. Maybe that contact with rare trade goods gets murdered and all that effort spent getting rep up with him is wasted etc.

I am having a blast role playing as a zealot with a few diplomats in my crew manipulating the politics in game. Just remember this game just left EA and it already has amazing depth. Roll a new character if you are bored with your current one. Most of the impact curently of these systems are felt early on in a Captain's career when you are still trying to make money and get gear.

I think they need to make it harder to get the best stuff in the game(weapons, ships and money in general) and up the survival pressure mid/late game so that you care more about contacts.
Sugarat 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 7:59 
If I use CK2 as an example. Even if you had a massive sprawling empire there was always the chance that the next event will see you sit and play as that retarded cousin with one county to your name. It is an emergent story engine and tragedy or the possibility of tragedy is a big draw to play just one more turn.
nephilimnexus 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 8:27 
引用自 Sugarat
If I use CK2 as an example.

I completely agree! But the question remains, is STF doing that? Are wars really making huge, sweeping changes or are they just... not all that? Like I said, we know it affects contacts and possibly causes tax & tariff events, but what else? There's got to be more to it, right?

This is why I originally suggested having persistant ships & captains (which the devs immediately shot down, sadly), because then wars really would matter - a lot. Knocking out half an enemy's navy would during a solar war would be something that could take them years or even decades to recover from.
Sugarat 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 8:54 
What you want is already there though. It just not that visible later in the game since you do not care that much about survival anymore. Early on contacts dying makes a hugr impact on your game. You need to up his/her influence and keep them propped up since your survival is tied to them. I like the way they have it currently and do not think changing faction lines will help for what you are feeling.
cadfan17 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 9:29 
My personal views on conflicts-

1. Make conflict outcomes explicit in a way that tells you, with detail, what happened and how much you influenced it. For example, if you’ve contributed to the score of a conflict, it’s end might have a splash page that tells you exactly what happened to all known contacts, vaguely what happened behind the scenes to unknown contacts, how much total conflict score you personally added, and if results are variable based on margin of victory, some text to let you know whether it was a big or small win or loss.

2. I get why planets don’t change hands. The whole structure of this society is built on that. But it would be nice if a few things could happen.

2a. System ratings could change. For example, maybe beating down a faction in an economic conflict could increase the economy rating of some friendly systems while decreasing it for your enemy.

2b. Contacts could spawn on non faction planets. For example, maybe a spy conflict that Zenrin wins against Rychart could result in a Zenrin black market across contact spawning on a Rychart world. This would let you operate in Rychart systems more effectively, even though Rychart doesn’t like it. Or maybe a “traitor” contact spawns in one of the losers systems, and depending on its influence you can access some of that systems resources (fuel, etc). That wouldn’t flip the system, but earning a traitor by winning a spy war and getting a safe harbor in hostile territory as a result would be cool, thematic, and useful.

2c. It would be nice if winning and contributing to conflicts could earn you personal rep, particularly, with contacts who don’t offer missions.

2d. The end of a conflict could, if won, erase some of your negative rep with the loser. This would represent your faction imposing its will on the loser. They don’t have to like you but they do have to tolerate you a little.

3. Long term I would like to see more direct story tied to conflicts. I would be willing to pay for this as an expansion.
nephilimnexus 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 9:31 
True, once you've already bought all the gear and hired the crew you need from a contact then they become completely expendable.

The issue with early game vs late game contact fatalities is that in the early game we don't have enough money or influence to use half the contacts and by the time we do, so their lives really don't matter yet... while in the late game we've got enough crew skills to just reveal a dozen new ones every week, making them easily replaced.

I know planets can't change hands (bummer) but there should still be some kind of persistant, maybe even permanent, consequences to wars other than contacts.

Since I know they'll never do persistant ships & captains, maybe they could at least change up the random encounter lists to reflect a faction's naval capacity, and allow wars to effect that. Total up all their military & shipyard points for a quadrant to determine the highest level of ship & equipment those ships can spawn with, and have wars cause positive or negaive variables to that (or change those military/shipyard ratings themselves).

For example: One side wins a solar war by 10 points, so 5 points of military and/or shipyard rating are sliced off it's planets at random due to the victors doing some orbital bombing after attaining supremacy of the skies. Meanwhile, the victors get to add that many points to their own planets, chosen at random.

Another example: Someone wins a trade war by 10 points, so 5 points sliced off one side's economy and added to the winning side.

Do this long enough and eventually the losers will no longer be able to spawn anything but Scout Cutters with level 1 weapons and their economies will fall into complete ruin. The winners will prosper, having stronger economies and navies.

So now there would be very good reasons to support your side (other than generic cash for missions). You'd be helping boost your economy for trading and opening up your shipyards more for better, cheaper ships & equipment.
nephilimnexus 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 9:40 
引用自 cadfan17
2d. The end of a conflict could, if won, erase some of your negative rep with the loser. This would represent your faction imposing its will on the loser. They don’t have to like you but they do have to tolerate you a little.

I was thinking they should add a Notoriety system like "Pirates!" did back in the 1980s. Simply put, you blow away enough ships and everyone starts to fear you. Vaporize fifty enemy battleships and, lo and behold, their frigates stop trying to pick fights with you all the time. They just turn and run at first contact.

That's the thing that always bugged me about kung-fu movies. The hero will knock twenty goons senseless, yet goon number twenty-one still tries to rush him anyway. Don't these guys understand the concept of "morale checks"? Don't they know when to just give up?

I mean, we have morale checks already, but they only apply once combat is already joined. I'm talking about a morale check for before the fight even starts. Because when you see a L40 pirate in a Titan coming at you, you don't attack him first and then go into retreat mode on turn one (which is what the game currently does, by the way). You just bail, right then and there.

Game needs to add that, or rather correct that little oversight in the combat system. After a while it gets kind of eye-rolling to have a faction ship automatically force you into combat because you're at -500 with them and then immediately try to flee because, oh yeah, you're in a Titan and they're in a Scout Cutter and maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, eh? Honestly, little guy, ya shudda just ran from the get-go. I would have probably let ya go, too. Being sporting and all.
Trese Brothers  [开发者] 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 9:44 
The wiki is a community project and if anyone wants to help improve the details there, that's always exciting:
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Conflicts
nephilimnexus 2018 年 8 月 30 日 上午 9:45 
I'd have to know the details before fiddling with the wiki. Hence why I asked in the first place.

;)
Lt.Stock 6 月 28 日 下午 4:51 
It affects the influences and the types of rumors. A solar war victory for the winning faction results in influence increases for military contacts and positive rumors for systems with high starport or military ratings likely to happen and vice versa.
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