Reduce combat rating kestrel.txt

[brendanjones]

Balance

This PR addresses the bug/feature described in discussion #9980

Summary

Simply reduces the combat rating required for the Kestrel mission to trigger from 8000 >> 6000.

I think the Kestrel mission comes too late. I don't agree with Saugia's comment on #8578 (comment) that "It's not designed to be rewarding to the player in a progressive way based on their place in campaigns or combat in the game." Why not? It's a nice combat ship progression from a Falcon/Leviathan, a nice alternative to a Bactrian, and is still outclassed by the various alien ships the player will gain access to.

Waiting until a combat rating of 8K basically guarantees the ship will be a fairly useless novelty, which I think is a waste.

Even if a new player has a combat rating of 6K then they still have to find the mission on Tarazad.

Screenshots

N/A

Usage examples

N/A

Testing Done

none

Save File

Any pilot above 6K combat rating

Artwork Checklist

n/a

Performance Impact

n/a

[Anarchist2]

We don't consider the Kestrel as part of standard progression because it's not our ship. Before all else, the Kestrel is an easter egg referencing Escape Velocity: a ship that exists out of the player's way, rather than something they are meant to or encouraged to run into.

[Saugia]

As in my original comment and as Anarchist has said, the Kestrel is not part of the game itself. It is an aside, a reference. The intention is not to have the Kestrel be available to the player as a readily in-game option to play the game - the purpose is essentially the same as in EV where it is outside the regular gameplay loop as an easter egg on the side.

Regardless of its comparison to other ships in the game, the fact that it's not supposed to be obtained as an alternative, rather, as a trophy ship of sorts, means we shouldn't be trying to make it easier to obtain in comparison. This is why, however, we have the condition to increase its accessibility in further playthroughs, which is essentially the original resolution to this PR's suggestion, so I don't see a need to further make it easier.

[brendanjones]

a ship that exists out of the player's way

I contend that at 6K combat rating and availability at a single planet with no other hints directing the player to that port/mission, it's still well out of the player's way.

[Saugia]

I would disagree. A lot of players play this game simply to fight. Some may play for trade, and others story. Those who purely play for combat and domination will gain access faster, and those who play the game through its story will get it as an aside in line with this. I'm not entirely opposed to looking at the number, but I don't think it's necessary as the Kestrel currently serves its intended purpose, and the increased ability through playthrough already is that easier obtainability.

[Saugia]

Although it would be pretty dependent on the player, if anything, I'd like to see what the average combat rating of someone who has completed the FW campaign is at, and the average of it after what's currently available for the Wanderers. In my opinion, the soft-spot would be somewhere in-between these campaigns (but would be fine if it's later, even if it's not here, I don't think that's reason enough to lower it).

Looking at the issue, cutting it in half is indeed way too much. I'm skeptical about still cutting a fourth out in this PR, since we made that availability mission in place of changing the combat rating like this, so further increasing its availability I feel should warrant a bit more.

[Hurleveur]

I dont think FW gives as much combat rating one might think it does, quoting myself #7477 you can do all of FW + some bounty hunting and only have 2400 combat rating (I did focus a lot on FW itself in that playtrough though iirc). I was playing single ship (I dont have the details caus I cant find my save rn)

[xX-Dillinger-Xx]

My question is why is it intended to be an Easter egg? In order for something to be an "Easter egg" requires prior knowledge to understand the reference. I had no idea and I doubt very few today have an idea what the intent is supposed to be. EV was 28 years ago. Just like @brendanjones, I feel like by the time you get it, it's kinda pointless. Even at 6000 it's still late in the game. Anybody that even knows what EV is, or rather was, would still be able to experience the same "wow, nice nod to EV" that they get at CR 8000.

It's not part of the game is an odd thing to say. Every player has one. Maybe back in 2015 or when ever it was put in the game, it made sense to have it as an Easter egg only, but not today.

On a side note. Endless Sky is not Escape Velocity and, I feel the that people need to stop trying justify every decision on what EV was and what MZ was trying to do back in 2015. Just my opinion.

[Saugia]

I do agree and make it often an argument that we aren't trying to be EV. However, it is important to consider MZ made the game under those terms as well, and we uphold a majority of what MZ based the game around, and we shouldn't be trying to move away from what MZ established just because it was a long time ago (this isn't to say we wouldn't adjust some things of course). That basis is largely what we pursue to this day. This isn't a matter of equating it to EV, but keeping it as it was originally intended within ES.

It's intended to be an Easter Egg because it's intended to be harder to find, access, etc., and yes, this can include prior knowledge. This is all within its own right as an easter egg, it's not meant as a standalone in ES content, it's meant as a reference and rarity. So I don't agree that we should be making it easier to obtain, as we already once did so with the re-playability and felt that was alright. This, however, is trying to take it further, which doesn't seem necessary.

So far, Anarchist, I and Amazinite agree that we feel the way the Kestrel is currently implemented is how it should be and what is desired. They're free to comment as well, but this was already a topic of discussion before and we've already made a decision on and already once made it easier to obtain in a way, keeping in mind this was without altering the original intent of the mission (combat rating, location, etc..), hence why this PR is unlikely.

Edit: Relevant comments from previous discussion:

#3824 (comment) Derpy's previous discussion on this
#3976 (comment) MZ's comment about the ship's relativity
#8578 (comment) A comment from zip about the nature of an easter egg

Within those and related PR's, it's already been discussed that we don't want to adjust the original mission's numbers. Here, it was discussed that an acceptable alternative was the new combat drop for new playthroughs. #8578 (comment)

The PR description states that

Waiting until a combat rating of 8K basically guarantees the ship will be a fairly useless novelty, which I think is a waste.

And with MZ's comment above, that's not the concern here, the ship is knowingly out of date by the time it is accessed, it's relevance isn't the intention, it's the rarity and uniqueness and difficulty/chance of finding it (which isn't based on an initial playthrough, hence the alternative).

So over discussion in the past, the idea is that we don't want to touch the mission itself, and found that the currently implemented workaround is the acceptable alternative.

[Zitchas]

Just to quote myself from the previous discussion, since the question of "what CR are people at at certain points in the story?" came up:

Just checking my own save, and I'm only sitting at 6901 right now, and this pilot has:

* Completed the FW campaign

* Completed Hai Reveal

* Completed the Emerald Sword

* Completed the Deep (without revealing Remnant)

* Completed all the main Remnant missions

* Done about a dozen pirate/marauder bounties

* Done 8 Remnant bounties

If I've done all that and I haven't even reached the CR for the Kestrel missions... Definitely a fairly well known captain. There's probably an argument to be made that merely having the Emerald Sword would be enough to get Tarazed's attention just by itself. Alien warship and all that...

That's two regular campaigns and two mini-campaign complete, three of which have the player being very involved in major events. That's literally all the major plotlines in human space that the player can be involved in other than the Sestor invasion. It's pretty much impossible to be any more well known without just dominating all the planets and getting a rep as a warlord.

So, not much has changed as far as I'm concerned. I'm still in favor of dropping the initial requirement down to 6000. Honestly, by the time I'm at 6k CR, Human space isn't even something I bother landing in anymore unless a mission tells me to go there, or I happen to need to stop for fuel onroute to somewhere else. I'm definitely not eagerly checking the spaceport for missions. So I doubt it's going to get found much even at this point, but at least it will be found.

At 8k, I consider the Kestrel to basically be reserved for people who amass big fleets and then dominate planets or run around slaughtering everything aggressively. It's certainly the only way to get it in a reasonable amount of time early enough in the game when using the Kestrel is actually going to feel fun instead of disappointing.

If I was being fancy about it, I'd probably set it to a fancy AND condition of some kind. The first part to check if the pilot is noteworthy (CR 6k or has completed a human campaign, or previously unlocked the Kestrel should make them famous enough, I think), and the second part checks to see if they're associated with something that catch a shipwright-dreamer's attention, namely being associated with aliens by either having completed "Hai Reveal" or arriving at Tarazad flying an alien ship.

and
	or
		CR 6000
		completed human campaign
		and
			CR 2000
			has global kestrel access variable
	or
		flagship shipyard is not Human
		completed "Hai Reveal"

[Saugia]

Although I'm generally defending the original discussion and decisions, I do appreciate the data provided. At this point I'm leaving it for some of the other devs to comment any thoughts as well.

[Zitchas]

I'd also just like to point out that while we have traditionally considered it to be a "non-lore" ship that is purely an easter egg... That's really not actually the case.

• We have an in-game character see it in a vision and design it.
• We have in-game missions where we deal with it.
• We have in-game unlock where we get to buy it.
• We have an in-game shipyard that stocks in.
• It has an in-character description.
• It is reasonably balanced for a "top-end of human space advanced shipyard" heavy warship.

While sure, it is definitely inspired by the EV/O/N ship by the same name, and is an easter egg reference for those who played that game; it is also most definitely also our own ship at this point. As we go forward in time, more and more players will encounter it without any of that context, and this will be the only Kestrel that they've ever known, and there is sufficient in-game story, lore, and connection for that to completely make sense. Honestly, it's got as much player connection as the Dreadnought introduction does (albeit shorter and with less pre-access teasing)

Looking through the previous discussion, and my quick (non-exclusive take) is that we were basically wandering down a rabbit whole of increasingly complex formulas and and/or statements; and finally we just got tired of it and accepted someone's decision of "stick with the initial 8k for the first time, lowered the second time".

And since that is apparently not actually a very satisfactory solution, especially to those who haven't played the game a dozen times, it has resurfaced again.

[Anarchist2]

I'm open to reducing the combat rating of the mission, but not to tracking more conditions than the mission already does. Combat rating already acts as a gauge of player progression; we don't also need to track their campaign progress or if they have an alien flagship.

[Saugia]

I wanted to keep reference to and based my feedback on previous debate and comments from previous discussions since this has been a topic before. The PR's idea was based around the ship's relevance, which as stated before and I agree is not the intention/what this change should be based around. However, in terms of a generality, I did say I would be willing to look at the numbers - I just wanted to make it clear that this isn't necessarily something that should be changed on the Kestrel's relevance, but something to look at gameplay-wise, which discussion has leaned towards instead.

Although Z 's data is only one example so far, his combat rating being ~6900 after game completion lines up with what I said previously where main game completion is around where I'd see this sort of combat rating. So I agree with Anarchist that we can look at the number (still not entirely sure about 6,000, but maybe), but as we already added one condition for quicker access, I don't think we need to add other venues outside of this number.

[Hurleveur]

Whilst we're talking about the Kestrel, in my opinion the niche use it had (high gun port and weapon space) has been destroyed by the new Bunrodea's heavy warship and it's 17 gun ports; I'd argue we should give it back its 18 gun ports.
It doesnt have to be irrelevant when it comes out, it could be niche (for ppl who dont wanna go cap the ships in bun space)

[ziproot]

I would like to point out that after you find it the first time, the combat requirement drops to 2000. That makes sense to me: it starts out as an easter egg at first, and once you get it, you are rewarded by being able to use it when it’s useful.

Everyone appears to be talking about the Kestrel as if it still always requires a combat rating of 8000 on every playthrough to unlock, when this simply is not the case.

EDIT: Upon further consideration, this seems like a good case for a plugin. Not all plugins have to be big new storylines. See zuckung’s plugins.

[mOctave]

Although it would be pretty dependent on the player, if anything, I'd like to see what the average combat rating of someone who has completed the FW campaign is at, and the average of it after what's currently available for the Wanderers. In my opinion, the soft-spot would be somewhere in-between these campaigns (but would be fine if it's later, even if it's not here, I don't think that's reason enough to lower it).

As I mentioned in #8578, I finished FW with around a CR of 1800. That was with a bit of bounty hunting iirc, as well as fleet play. I did focus heavily on the campaign and completing it quickly rather than grinding the best ship possible, though.

I think, if anything, a low CR would be typical of new players. A lot of the missions sound really urgent, and sometimes you don't realize that you can take a few months to do something that the FW wants you to do "as soon as possible." So, if you don't know you can more or less pause the campaign, and don't use alien tech, it's hard to build up anything stronger than the bare minimum needed to beat the Pug, which tends to contribute to a low CR.

I think Zitchas' 6900 is probably the highest you could reasonably expect any non-grinding player to get in terms of CR.

As before, I am in favour of the drop to 6k. And, the diff looks fine ;)

[Anarchist2]

At Derpy's request. We don't want this to turn into a slow roll towards making the Kestrel an automatic unlock.

Suggested change

	to offer
	# The Kestrel is a secret that can only be unlocked after completing the rest of the game. Combat rating is used to track gameplay progression.
	# After finding the Kestrel once, the threshold is lowered so players can use the ship during the human campaign on a later playthrough.
	# Any requests to reduce the requirements will be rejected.
	to offer