Drox Operative

[Cyborg]

Still struggling with it. I accidentally sold my shield generator, nowhere to repair, and choosing heal at a planet does nothing but repair my components.

Flying around, still messing with the combat mechanic. Trying really hard to like this game, but I'm not getting into the politics at all yet. How long before it gets good? Is this really just a boring beginning or is the whole game like this? It feels like I'm mowing the lawn trying to clear up fog of war and mashing buttons to kill the monsters while I do fetch quests.

I guess I was hoping there would be a giant space war that you can affect or be a part of.

[eRe4s3r]

Well the start certainly feels like that, the exploration part of this game is solved very awkwardly. You essentially play the game just on the Minimap when you explore. (Else you wouldn't know where you already explored or not)

And from what I can tell, diplomacy only matters little as the game will always speed by you more or less (the more you explore, the more it speeds by you ;P) Not saying player decisions don't have an effect, they do. But it is all kinda localized. I am sure in later levels we could potentially change the outcome of a war (if both sides are at least evenly matched) but It doesn't seem easy to prevent the extinction of anyone no matter your tech, you get a mission and have to do it, and then you fly away and 2 seconds later the planet is dead.

It may be worth considering getting that money back after all. I expected the game to be like, a 4x game, except we play a mercenary while the AI plays the 4x ;p But so far I am not seeing it taking that direction.

Still I am waiting at least until 1st July to decide. On that matter, the site doesn't actually say anywhere how we could get our money back if we wanted. Does anyone know? Not that I am considering it "strongly" right now (heh, Mantis speak is taining me) but I would at least like to know.

[Castruccio]

You will need to email Steven Peeler at the contact address if you want to use the money back guarantee.  Might I remind everyone that this is a beta game from a one man developer that has been out for less than a week, and the game may stay in the beta stage for 2  months or more?    I'd venture to say that the game is in much better condition at this point than AVWW was at the same time in its development cycle.  There's only been 1 Drox patch so far!  Give the guy some time. 

[eRe4s3r]

I don't feel particularly urged to get my money back. I was just wondering how it would work. But I have absolutely no idea how beta's with Soldak games go... do we get drastic gameplay changes and additions, or even revisions or is it all just fine tuning? Because the whole race/sector idea needs some serious overhauling. Because there is just not enough to do and affect (or worse, there is too much to do and nothing really doable). In land based games you are exploring the dungeon and finding stuff and assorted but in drox it just doesn't pull you in right yet. I guess, my main qualm would be that the dungeon teleporter mechanic has no counter in drox. Which slows the game immensely down imo.

[Castruccio]

In my experience the betas typically skew toward fine tuning but there are occasionally some drastic game play changes if those changes are realistic to implement.  There is a big discussion going on over on the Soldak forums  about much of what you mention, so the designer of the game is definitely getting the message about people needing a bit more direction and involvement with the races.

[zebramatt]

It's funny. I very nearly bought this entirely on the back of Keith's in depth write ups.

Then Cyborg and eRe4s3r detracted somewhat and I held off.

Very much on the fence now!

[keith.lamothe]

I accidentally sold my shield generator

There's a buyback option on the vendor screen for the last two things sold there.

nowhere to repair, and choosing heal at a planet does nothing but repair my components

There's a few buttons at the bottom of a planet vendor screen: Identify All, Repair All, and Repair Structure (there's also one for repairing a single component, iirc).  Repair All is just your components including your armor, Repair Structure is your green bar.

Your shields cannot be insta-healed by anything, but if you click on a friendly planet so it brings up the menu it should also give you a +recharge buff that speeds up your shield recharge.  There's also "Ancient Recharge Stations" out there that do it much faster but are harder to find.

Trying really hard to like this game, but I'm not getting into the politics at all yet. How long before it gets good? Is this really just a boring beginning or is the whole game like this?

My first sector was weird due to some thing that made one race colonize everything really fast (hasn't happened again in 4 more sectors) ; it was fun at first and kinda boring at the end because there were just two races allied and it took forever to get enough +relations with the second one.  Never felt bored after that.

It may be that this game is just peculiarly suited to me and to none of you.  Some games thrive off of mentally filling in details, but having played Crusader Kings 2 recently I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it almost entirely because of mentally filling in details (it gave me mostly bare facts, but it just screamed that there was a real drama going on in there, great stuff), and I don't feel like I'm having to do even 20% of that in Drox and I'm enjoying it more.

But yea, helping a race in the early-4x-colony rush, making ruthless political decisions (I hope that boss finds you tasty, dudes, because I'm outta here!  My allies will be by in an hour to clean up the scraps), making careful stat and gear choices to deal with a lot of interlocking dependencies to make my ship powerful enough to fight well, rejoicing when I find just the right piece of gear from a drop or a vendor, fighting for my life against boss fleets and knowing that whether I kill them or not matters... I find all that really, really fun.  As I've played more I've found myself wanting more (fleet fights with NPC allies are possible because they can send multi-ship patrols into monster or enemy space, but I want a lot more of that), but I'm happy with what's here.

If you're not, well, thanks for really trying to like it, and I dunno why our experience of it is so different... but I guess that's the way it happens sometimes.

[zebramatt]

That's not helped my fence sitting one iota! 

[keith.lamothe]

That's not helped my fence sitting one iota! 

Fences are uncomfortable objects upon which to sit; if that is insufficent motivation to cease sitting upon a fence, I'm not sure what I can provide

[madcow]

I'm finding the control options a little confusing. I didn't have as much time to play around with it last night as I thought, but the default controls are really weird (I spent some time flying in a circle because I couldn't figure out why I wasn't turning, heh) and I wasn't able to find one I like, probably due to my own missing of an obvious option.

What options do you guys that have the game use control-wise?

[StevenPeeler]

eRe4s3r, your post should be up now. To combat spam, we moderate a new user's first 3 posts.

I'm reading all the feedback here also though.

[zebramatt]

That's not helped my fence sitting one iota! 

Fences are uncomfortable objects upon which to sit; if that is insufficent motivation to cease sitting upon a fence, I'm not sure what I can provide

Actually, I probably spoke too definitively before. It has made several iotas of difference. Namely: I intend to play some Crusader Kings 2 first (which I picked up just a few days ago on special); and try to ascertain how alike you and I are!

[keith.lamothe]

Actually, I probably spoke too definitively before. It has made several iotas of difference. Namely: I intend to play some Crusader Kings 2 first (which I picked up just a few days ago on special); and try to ascertain how alike you and I are!

Let me know if you wind up being a little-known Scottish count who takes care of his people, suffers under various unsavory kings (that he nonetheless feels duty bound to be loyal to), endures personal tragedy, and in his last years becomes king of Jerusalem!

[Castruccio]

I don't feel particularly urged to get my money back. I was just wondering how it would work. But I have absolutely no idea how beta's with Soldak games go... do we get drastic gameplay changes and additions, or even revisions or is it all just fine tuning? Because the whole race/sector idea needs some serious overhauling. Because there is just not enough to do and affect (or worse, there is too much to do and nothing really doable). In land based games you are exploring the dungeon and finding stuff and assorted but in drox it just doesn't pull you in right yet. I guess, my main qualm would be that the dungeon teleporter mechanic has no counter in drox. Which slows the game immensely down imo.

Your Drox post is live over on the Soldak forums but I'd like to see your GUI Mock up (it isn't appearing in the thread).  Can you post a link to it over there?

[Cyborg]

It may be that this game is just peculiarly suited to me and to none of you.  Some games thrive off of mentally filling in details, but having played Crusader Kings 2 recently I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it almost entirely because of mentally filling in details

I love Crusader Kings 2. I bought it when it came out (rarely do I purchase games new). I wholeheartedly agree that it needs a little bit of imagination to enjoy the drama as it plays out.

I'm just not seeing that in Drox Operative. I'm going to wait for another patch to see if there are any mechanic changes that bring some excitement, but right now this game is way too slow for me.

Like others, I think we assumed that a 4x game was being played by the computer while we were playing a part, but that's just not getting across right now, and the combat mechanics need an overhaul. Right now I'm just spamming weapons at the greatest range possible.