Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions

[keith.lamothe]

Or alternately make the nebulae do wonky stuff to ranges, either on their own or by placing something along the lines of a perma-stealthed, invulnerable radar jammer MK1 there.

That would work great, actually, thanks for the suggestion   I'll just double the ranges on the champion stuff and the nebula stuff and make nebulas always act as radar jammers.

Also, can units you get from nebula ops enter other nebulas? I assume not for game balance reasons, but is there some sort of in-universe reason as well?

You need a shadow drive to transit a wormhole going to a low-gravity grav well (nebula), but going back is normal because it's going to a planetary grav well.  In other words the nebula ships can leave the nebula, but never return.

[Toranth]

Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.

The bigger problem in my mind is that the default gun on the Frigate is only range 2500, which means that when the Shadow Vessel is told to attack something, it gets right up in the enemy's face.  I would suggest making the main gun's range just a little longer - 4000, to match the shortest ranged of the default modules.

Someone suggested bumping up their speed a bit, which would help mitigate their "average-ish" range.

I could bump it from 80 to 90 (effective speed, on normal) but it's supposed to be lower than the 100 of the guys in the nebula, and I think that's as fast as I want those.

I don't have a problem with the speed of the Shadow Vessel... but last night, I got the Destroyer and the Bomber modules.  I immediately unlocked mini-Bombers Mk III, and sent my triple-drone-moduled Champion forth to do battle.  "Fly, my pretties, fly!" I cackled as my hordes swept forth, destroying all enemies in their path... except for one of the worst, most annoying AI ships - The Zenith Bombard.  Bombards kite.  And more importantly, Bombards have a speed of 44, faster than the mini-Bomber's speed of 40. 

That's right, my mini-bombers were being outrun by Bombards.  By Bombards!
Could we get a smidge more speed?  The Neinzul Enclave drones all have speed 90.

Or alternately make the nebulae do wonky stuff to ranges, either on their own or by placing something along the lines of a perma-stealthed, invulnerable radar jammer MK1 there.

That would work great, actually, thanks for the suggestion   I'll just double the ranges on the champion stuff and the nebula stuff and make nebulas always act as radar jammers.

Or, for variety, mix up the Radar Jammer nebulas with Armor Inhibitor, Attritioner, Black Hole Generator, Grav Drill-like slow effect (Not quite that slow, however), planet-wide Anti-Missle, Anti-Sniper, or anti-Dark Matter turret effects... All sorts of fun things.

[Coppermantis]

If the Nebulae are going to have planetary effects of varying types it will need to show text in the corner similar to Black Hole Machine warnings to ensure that the player knows what challenge he/she's facing.

[keith.lamothe]

Tooltips stopped working on Mac on ship design page after we got Destroyers.

Do you have any more information?  Any error messages or anything in the error logs?  I can't think of something that would stop the tooltips unless there was some kind of error.

Once his Champion Ship appeared at my Home system instead of his.

That's not actually a bug, it uses the same respawn logic as the home command cores do when someone has lost their home command, so it doesn't always go to the same place.

Destroyed the 1st system (Nebula ?) got Destroyers and the fabricator (Which we couldn't build anything at).

Was there only one foldout facility or two?  Should have been one for each player.  Neither player could build anything at either?  Do you have a save? 

I assume there is still aload more stuff to be added as installer was tiny (10mb)

That's basically all the art, but the units that use it are still being implemented.  The music included in the official release installer will be quite a bit larger though.  The code and language-file changes are all delivered to everyone via normal update so none of that's in the installer, etc.

[keith.lamothe]

So a question: We destroyed the first Nebula ? Got to Destroyers, got the new facility foldout. Is everything impliemented at that point ?
The reason I ask is we both felt very underwhelmed by it. Reason why I stated previously "so far interesting idea, curious how it's going to develop"

Yes, that's about it right now, though it also gives you a new module line (picking from 2 possible ones).  We open our expansions for beta-access very early on, this is actually later than usual because we wanted to get the champions thing at least to the beginning of playable.  But lots more to come

[RCIX]

I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire

[TechSY730]

Sadly, I still haven't gotten a chance to really try this out.
And I think I will still wait because of this upcomming change:

When playing as the Normal+Champion role it now only shows the Champion UI (XP/Hull/Shields) instead of the Normal UI (Metal/Crystal/Energy/Knowledge) when you have the champion selected and are in planet view on the same planet as the champion.

The current behavior as described on the current version thread just seems so annoying to deal with it would be a deal breaker for me. Sorry.
But I do look forward to trying this once this change gets out.

[Cinth]

Sadly, I still haven't gotten a chance to really try this out.
And I think I will still wait because of this upcomming change:

When playing as the Normal+Champion role it now only shows the Champion UI (XP/Hull/Shields) instead of the Normal UI (Metal/Crystal/Energy/Knowledge) when you have the champion selected and are in planet view on the same planet as the champion.

The current behavior as described on the current version thread just seems so annoying to deal with it would be a deal breaker for me. Sorry.
But I do look forward to trying this once this change gets out.

It's not that bad. Just have to remember to deselect your champ before changing planets.

[Draco18s]

I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire

The expression "catch fire" is intended as a joke; the CPU does not usually catch fire. Occasionally referred to as "SDI" for "Self Destruct Immediate".

Emphasis on "usually."

[keith.lamothe]

Emphasis on "usually."

I liked that, too.  I particularly liked the combination of that and the conspicuous absence of any wrist-slapping template about the tone being too light for an encyclopedia or whatever.  No, the writer may have been laughing when they wrote "usually", but they weren't kidding.

[pheonix89]

Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.

Flak turret: Small slot. Launches a moderately powerful energy bomb at one target that hits enemies near it. Bonus versus light, ultralight and swarmers, or other appropriate targets for a flak weapon. Does lousy damage versues ultra-heavy and structural, and is inefficient versus single enemies, because each shot is weaker than the the equivalent salvo from other light slot options.

Sniper turret: Unsure on slot size. Does lousy damage, has the worst base DPS of any turret of equivalent MK and slot. Unsure of multipliers. On the upside, strikes from unlimited range and might do engine damage as well.

Weapons Bank: Doesn't actually do anything as an unlock. Instead, adds double, or possibly triple versions of small mounts as medium mount options.

Hardened shield: Basically equivalent to the fixed version, but for the shadow ship. Probably has a lower armor rating. 1/4 hp. Against enemies without serious armour piercing or enough firepower that the 80% doesn't apply, holds up better. If they can hit that hard or have enough AP, it folds like tissue paper. Best used on destroyers and up in conjuction with a normal shield. Immune to armour boosts to prevent massive cheese.

Fleet shield: Identical to a normal shield of the same MK, but takes longer to regen, has a somewhat larger bubble and actually shields friendlies. Having one of these near a siege starship is a BAD thing. Probably best in conjuction with a normal shield.

Support module: Provides limited armor and munitions boosts to friendlies. Possibly should be split in two. If possible, should take advantage of being on a module to boost the shadow ship and its turrets as well. Boosts increase in strength and area with MK. Might be worth giving the standard shield 5 armor per MK just to improve the utility on this.

[keith.lamothe]

Champion 1 = A

Intentional, because it isn't a unit of your player and thus isn't considered for the UI (to see its UI you could Ctrl+H to cycle to it), but I see your point about making it C instead, it would make sense to just show that champion's UI, though that will be a bit tricky without actually switching the UI overall.

Player ships + player champion = B

Making that A instead... Are you sure you want to have to select only a champion to get its UI?

Player ships + champion 1 = A

Same thing as the first: not actually your player's unit, so it's not considered, but I'm able to make it "mix" UIs (showing your sidebar, and the champion player's resource bar) I guess it could work.

Player ships + both champions = B

Same thing as the second: you want that to be A, but are you sure you want to have to select only a champion to get its UI?

To get to C - stats -> Switch UI

Or Ctrl+H to cycle to it, which will switch your UI automatically.  Or select it and hit Ctrl+M to open its modules, which also switches your UI, although you then have the module screen up too.

It's so weird and unintuitive.

I'm doing the best I can

[keith.lamothe]

Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.

I've already got the modules for them planned out   Mantis if you like, but probably a lot of the ones you're thinking of are already on the list, and others are infeasible, so it goes   But thanks for the feedback!

[pheonix89]

Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.

I've already got the modules for them planned out   Mantis if you like, but probably a lot of the ones you're thinking of are already on the list, and others are infeasible, so it goes   But thanks for the feedback!

Ok. Thanks for the feedback, and I guess I'll just wait and see a bit. BTW, were any of the ones I mentioned impossible or unfeasable for technical reasons? Would be nice to know before I start making technically problematic suggestions.

[Oralordos]

From the ui design of the module system and what I know of programming, I would say that the weapons bank suggestion would be unfeasible. The other modules have all been done in the game in a non-module way before and don't look like they would take too much effort.