Author Topic: Woo  (Read 3051 times)

Offline Zulgaines

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Woo
« on: June 15, 2009, 08:31:26 pm »
Well Ekko and I just finnished our first Coop game. It was 40 planets and we finished in 7 hours. I have to say this game is just plain fun, one of the, if not the best RTS experience I'v had in a long time. Version 1.006D

A few things I took note of... When typing messages to allies, all your hotkeys still go off when you hit them, heh. The HP/Shields on the final command posts are a bit too high, once you get to the point that you can kill them  there's nothing really left in the area that could stop us anyway. We just kinda sat there for 15 or so minutes waiting on our fleets to bring the thing down with nothing but a trickle of ships coming from warps to stop us.

Some other things I noticed were heavy slowdown for both players when checking range(Z) on large groups of ships, a intense want for some kind of transport ship to stick my fighters on so they don't get blown away by ion cannons entering the area, and some way to interact with my ally economically would of been nice. That's it for now, I may remember more later.

All in all it was a wonderful experience, really it felt more like an experience than just a game, and when something like that finally ends after 2 or 3 days it's almost sad.

We'll likely be setting up another game soon, but we'd like to get maybe one or two more people in there with us who're willing to play a few hours a day, and skill level's not an issue, don't be afraid to give coop a try becuase you're new. This was actually my first finished game myself. :)
« Last Edit: June 15, 2009, 08:34:21 pm by Zulgaines »

Offline Ekkosangen

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Re: Woo
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2009, 08:51:05 pm »


Here's a picture of just after we won. I was kind of surprised to find that the command base blocked cruiser fire entirely. Can't wait to give a few more players + higher difficulty a try!

Offline x4000

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Re: Woo
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2009, 09:30:32 pm »
Well Ekko and I just finnished our first Coop game. It was 40 planets and we finished in 7 hours. I have to say this game is just plain fun, one of the, if not the best RTS experience I'v had in a long time. Version 1.006D

Hey, thanks!  So glad you guys like it so much, I think co-op is the most fun mode, too. :)

A few things I took note of... When typing messages to allies, all your hotkeys still go off when you hit them, heh.

Oh, whoops.  That used to not be the case, but evidently in 1.005 when I switched the keyboard modes, it started doing that.  Will be fixed shortly, thanks for reporting it -- I always use voice chat, so had not noticed it.

The HP/Shields on the final command posts are a bit too high, once you get to the point that you can kill them  there's nothing really left in the area that could stop us anyway. We just kinda sat there for 15 or so minutes waiting on our fleets to bring the thing down with nothing but a trickle of ships coming from warps to stop us.

It goes a lot faster in Fast & Dangerous combat style, but also I think that likely you are running into a balance issue with the smaller maps.  On an 80 planet map, by the time you take that you'll have a huge army of Mark III and Mark IV bombers, and they go down really quickly.  The main reason the health is so high is to prevent flash raids into their territory with late-game ships.  That's also part of why they are missile-proof.  On Friday, near the end of a 13-hour, 80-planet , 4-player game, we had kind of a straggling fleet (we'd gotten beat to hell multiple times right near the end, heh), we still took it down in just about four or so minutes once we got right up to it.  Maybe 80 Mark III bombers, and maybe 20 Mark IV ones. 

If this seems to be an ongoing issue, I'll adjust it, but I think that's one of the things about the end of the game.  You need to be prepared with tons of high level bombers to get through it, otherwise the AI has time to reinforce and potentially kick you off...

Some other things I noticed were heavy slowdown for both players when checking range(Z) on large groups of ships

Yeah, the matrix scaling for those is pretty rough on the graphics card, it seems.  I have been aware of this since this was added a couple of releases ago, and it's much better than it once was, but I just thought of another optimization that will hopefully help.

a intense want for some kind of transport ship to stick my fighters on so they don't get blown away by ion cannons entering the area

Well, ion cannons only hit ships with a lower level than them.  The idea is that you're supposed to bring higher-level ships to take out the ion cannons, then bring the rest of your stuff.  Otherwise you can flood the ion cannon with loads of low-level ships, but you'll take heavy losses doing that.  An armored transport ship is in the works, though, so this might be another use for that ship -- it will cost you knowledge to unlock, though, so that would still be something of a tradeoff.  I might do multiple sizes of transport ships, at different knowledge costs, but I haven't figured all that out just yet.  It's planned for the 1.007 DLC.

and some way to interact with my ally economically would of been nice.

Right now you can give ships between one another, including resource producers or even whole planets.  Also, if one of you is at the cap (300k) of metal or crystal, the overflow goes to your partner.  However, a way of giving specific resource amounts is also definitely planned for soon DLC, some other players also brought that up.  Not sure if that will be 1.007 or 1.008 yet.

That's it for now, I may remember more later.

Great suggestions!

All in all it was a wonderful experience, really it felt more like an experience than just a game, and when something like that finally ends after 2 or 3 days it's almost sad.

Ha, I know what you mean.  There's a map that my wife and I have been playing off and on since April, and the place names and such have taken on real significance for us, especially this one planet called Cuasnomas.  I doubt anyone else will ever play that exact map in the start positions we were in, which makes it even cooler (even if this game has a million players at some point, there are so many billions of scenarios that repeats are somewhat unlikely unless people share the map seeds that are their favorite -- I've thought that would make a neat map thread at some point).

Anyhow, thanks for the great feedback, and I'm really glad that players are connecting with the game so strongly.

We'll likely be setting up another game soon, but we'd like to get maybe one or two more people in there with us who're willing to play a few hours a day, and skill level's not an issue, don't be afraid to give coop a try becuase you're new. This was actually my first finished game myself. :)

Yeah, even with a skill gap, if there is one, that can work well.  The stronger players can take the more difficult positions and planets until the newer players get more up to speed.  I've done that several times, and it was fun for all involved -- another advantage over the combative pvp, where skill differentials are a real negative thing.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Woo
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2009, 09:36:11 pm »
Here's a picture of just after we won. I was kind of surprised to find that the command base blocked cruiser fire entirely. Can't wait to give a few more players + higher difficulty a try!

Awesome!  Looks like you guys had a great run of it. :)  Their home command stations are missile-proof partly to keep players from cherry-picking them from a distance.  There are a few other ships that are missile-proof, too.  Not just cruiser-missiles, but also those from MLRS, Anti-Armor, Spire starships, etc.  That AI command station means business! ;)

Looks like you guys were playing with a 5 and a 3, so the 5 was having most but not all of the tactics it uses, and the 3 was much weaker.  Quitch has just been getting into playing dual 7s, and I think they knocked him around a bit at first, but he seemed to really like the increase in the AI's skill and tactics.  They get a little bit smarter at each level up, and are using all their tactics by 7.

The more players you have, the more you have to work together, too.  The AI gets more ships when there are more players, and also gets more waves into your planets, so that makes it so that often at least two people, sometimes more, need to hit a planet at once.  In my alpha group (4 players), we often pair off on each planet we go to, and that can make for some interesting times with a bunch of battles raging at once all over the galaxy. :)

Thanks for playing!
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Offline x4000

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Re: Woo
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2009, 10:05:11 pm »
By the way -- Zulgaines, I'm thinking of starting a "What players are saying about the game" sort of page like what Starwraith is doing (http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evocomments.htm), in addition to putting quotes from actual reviews on there.  Mind if I quote you from your above post as follow?

"Well Ekko and I just finished our first Coop game. It was 40 planets and we finished in 7 hours. I have to say this game is just plain fun, one of the, if not the best RTS experience I've had in a long time. All in all it was a wonderful experience, really it felt more like an experience than just a game, and when something like that finally ends after 2 or 3 days it's almost sad. -- Zulgaines "
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Offline Zulgaines

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Re: Woo
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2009, 11:59:05 am »
Go for it man.

Offline x4000

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Re: Woo
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2009, 01:43:49 pm »
Thanks -- much appreciated!
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