Particle Fleet: Emergence

[Aklyon]

Black ball cannon? Eh?

All I did for Duty was build up (rebuild the hammer when it got cannon'd) (rebuild the partially-built marauder), omni up (re-omni when some of them died), clear the cannons and stomp forth with the fleet. My HQ did not move one bit post-cannons until the area was clear.

(this was also generally my strategy for the other maps, unless I split up some units. I am not a fast CW/PF player.)

[crazyroosterman]

Black ball cannon? Eh?

All I did for Duty was build up (rebuild the hammer when it got cannon'd) (rebuild the partially-built marauder), omni up (re-omni when some of them died), clear the cannons and stomp forth with the fleet. My HQ did not move one bit post-cannons until the area was clear.

there's a cannon I've seen which fires projectiles which look like black balls they hit like a brick but they take for ever to fire don't know what the official name is for them.
but in origin there's about 4 of them spaced apart on the mire wall surrounding the planet.

[Aklyon]

I do not remember those firing back. (also, why would your HQ even be near the planet half of the map on origin? Use your lathes or your omnis.)

[crazyroosterman]

I do not remember those firing back. (also, why would your HQ even be near the planet half of the map on origin? Use your lathes or your omnis.)

I wasn't referring to origin with my hq dying I was referring to duty I had my micro tank pretty much just for building omnis on origin.
but to get back on point yes they do fire back and like I mentioned they hit like a brick I lost quite a few ships to them without noticing granted it was because I was ignoring them but still......

[Misery]

For Duty, the trick is basically to rush the cannons.  The lower one is really easy to knock down, the upper one takes a little more work but can still be gotten at quickly.  You need to get your Omnis set up with at least reactors, and throw a huge pile of them over at that one.  Distract the gun that's near it by putting a ship (preferably a hammer) there for it to shoot at, and when that gun thing stops the recharge, send the omnis onto that island and they can take care of both the gun and the cannon quickly.    The upper cannon takes a bit more work, but if done fast enough wont get more than two shots at you.  Once those are down the rest of the mission isn't too tough.

are you referring to the cannon which fires a black ball? I thought you were referring to the cannon which fires out a line a particles but I haven't little to no trouble with them.
if your referring to the black balls then I agree completely also I just got past the mire wall just to have my hq die ,sigh, I really wish that wasn't a thing in this mission its a bit obnoxious.

Black ball?  What?

[TheVampire100]

Finished it finally. You know what was worse than the Particular Railguns? The ship-fortresses. You know, these rotating ships with massive missile launchers and blasters that spam their attack once you come close, destroying everything nearby. Even if you gang all your ships up on them they still manage to beat them all. I don't even get how I managed it but I did.

Anyway, now I understand what you meant about the ending.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Finding out at the end that what you saw at the beginnign was actual the ending of the game, leaves me unsatisfied. Especially since this leaves again the player clueless about what the hug actual happened in the game and it's world. Knuckecracker manages to create the illusion of a massive story but in the end you don't get any information. And you somehow except it to get better int he next game but no, it's the same as always. They did this in every single Creeper World game, right from the very first one.

[Aklyon]

Spoiler for Hiden:

The Seloi are rather distantly in the past in CW3. Or at least they do get mentioned.
They are literally the previous civ in PF:E. Pretty sure this happened before the third game, which still doesn't actually tell us anything about the interesting civ, nor the Loki. But its at least closer than before.

[Misery]

Finished it finally. You know what was worse than the Particular Railguns? The ship-fortresses. You know, these rotating ships with massive missile launchers and blasters that spam their attack once you come close, destroying everything nearby. Even if you gang all your ships up on them they still manage to beat them all. I don't even get how I managed it but I did.

Those ships are best destroyed by a Carrier.  It's possible for a Carrier to smash one up entirely on it's own.  Though that takes awhile.

[TheVampire100]

Spoiler for Hiden:

I've did soem research on the Steam forums and it looks like absolutely everyone is upset about the ending of the game. They also concluded like you that this game is set before CW3 (which makes sense, CW3 takes place in a world where humanity was wiped from the universe for good).

Like I said, Knucklecracker has a bi problem with building a big story base but they lack to deliver actual important information or a conclusion to the story. They build too much mysteries for possible sequels, While the games are good in themself, they could at least finally resolve the story or at least the "Loki arc" of the story and continue with something else.
We still don't know who the Loki exactly are except that tehy are an alien race that created the creeper for information collection and wiping the universe clean in the prcess. But collecting information for what purpose exactly? they combine it all into the arc but what does the arc do? What do they want with all the combined knowledge of the universe? Fidn out the purpose of life? Being gods?

I always have this unsatisfied aftertaste after their games in this is probably the worst one so far. Being a spin-off and not a direct sequel this can be excused but I hope CW4 (which they oviously are going to make lookign at how much they are holdign back fromt he story) will finally conclude the story. The gameplay itself is good enough to support the series, no reason to stretch the story so far across multiple games.

Tried that, Particulate interfere too much. The aircrafts seem to prefer particulate as targets over other stuff. It was a pure nightmare but now no more. I won't redo it and if I ever see a player-designed mission with that abnomination I will abort the hell out of it.

[Misery]

Quite frankly I constantly get the impression that while these games HAVE a story, they were never intended to be ABOUT it.  Typically, games that fit this often have flawed stories, from what I understand.  The campaigns in both games honestly feel like very extended tutorials rather than anything telling a story.  You get some dialogue, sure, but after that it's all about teaching you the functions of the next turret/ship/mechanic.  Or in the case of Farbor, it's all about driving you crazy.

In my case I don't really care... I know what the story is (which is very rare for me) but that's strictly because A: it was confined to text boxes rather than having to wait for people to act it out at the speed of a dead frog in sludge, and B: it was short and to the damn point for once.   Past that though.... eh.  I can see the problems that people have with it and understand them, but... it just doesn't seem like it was meant to have much focus from the start.  As I keep telling people though, it's the strategy and post-campaign content that are the reasons to really "get into" these games.

Though I reiterate that I'm hoping the developer adds more to Particle Fleet's random map generator.  It's just quite lacking compared to the one in CW3.  Granted THAT game has had three iterations to grow, so I guess that makes sense sorta.

[crazyroosterman]

Quite frankly I constantly get the impression that while these games HAVE a story, they were never intended to be ABOUT it.  Typically, games that fit this often have flawed stories, from what I understand.  The campaigns in both games honestly feel like very extended tutorials rather than anything telling a story.  You get some dialogue, sure, but after that it's all about teaching you the functions of the next turret/ship/mechanic.  Or in the case of Farbor, it's all about driving you crazy.

In my case I don't really care... I know what the story is (which is very rare for me) but that's strictly because A: it was confined to text boxes rather than having to wait for people to act it out at the speed of a dead frog in sludge, and B: it was short and to the damn point for once.   Past that though.... eh.  I can see the problems that people have with it and understand them, but... it just doesn't seem like it was meant to have much focus from the start.  As I keep telling people though, it's the strategy and post-campaign content that are the reasons to really "get into" these games.

Though I reiterate that I'm hoping the developer adds more to Particle Fleet's random map generator.  It's just quite lacking compared to the one in CW3.  Granted THAT game has had three iterations to grow, so I guess that makes sense sorta.

agreed that seems to be what most strategy game campaigns are built around from what I've seen but to give credit were its due the writing was actually pretty good.
also I seem to be the only person who doesn't hate those particle cannons I mostly ignored them during my last run in duty.
sure they did some damage but it was all pretty pathetic damage really but that's probably due to the rng being mentioned although that sounds like a bug to me and not intended.

[TheVampire100]

Quite frankly I constantly get the impression that while these games HAVE a story, they were never intended to be ABOUT it.  Typically, games that fit this often have flawed stories, from what I understand.  The campaigns in both games honestly feel like very extended tutorials rather than anything telling a story.  You get some dialogue, sure, but after that it's all about teaching you the functions of the next turret/ship/mechanic.  Or in the case of Farbor, it's all about driving you crazy.

In my case I don't really care... I know what the story is (which is very rare for me) but that's strictly because A: it was confined to text boxes rather than having to wait for people to act it out at the speed of a dead frog in sludge, and B: it was short and to the damn point for once.   Past that though.... eh.  I can see the problems that people have with it and understand them, but... it just doesn't seem like it was meant to have much focus from the start.  As I keep telling people though, it's the strategy and post-campaign content that are the reasons to really "get into" these games.

Though I reiterate that I'm hoping the developer adds more to Particle Fleet's random map generator.  It's just quite lacking compared to the one in CW3.  Granted THAT game has had three iterations to grow, so I guess that makes sense sorta.

That's the difference between you and me. While you hate big/long stories in games, I like them. I even select games simply for the story, not for the gameplay (however, that is a rare case). I think agood story improves a good gameplay a lot, it does not give you only somethign to play with, you also experience a well written "novel".. In some games I don't except much of a story actually, puuzle games for example, arcade games, but in some liek RPGs they are a key aspect of the game.

[Misery]

Eh, part of the reason I don't like stories in games is actually because I read so many books.  SO freaking many.  The things litter my room.  Going to any game story is usually an exercise in inferiority by comparison... I've never, ever found one that's even close to as good as any of the books I could reach down and randomly grab.   

Though, I still used to at least follow stories in games somewhat regardless.  It's when the horrid things started trying to be freaking MOVIES (and I'm the rare sort that outright hates movies) that I just stopped caring entirely.  At least something like Particle Fleet lets me read at my own fast pace; no actors slowly going through the motions.

Also to some degree they just get REALLY cliche'd.  RPGs, for instance.  Ugh.  JRPGs specifically.... those are usually pretty freaking bad. 

Not that it matters in the end, as I don't bother with AAA games and such anyway; many of the games I do play don't even HAVE stories. 

Overall though I have a hard time seeing the appeal of story-focused games.  To be fair though I have a hard time seeing the appeal in LOTS of things.

More specifically though I have a hard time understanding the way a lot of people look at this.  For example, in some games people seem to consider it a freaking sin if the story isn't good enough, or whatever.  But then there's other games where they easily could have a lot of story stuff, yet it's considered OK that they don't.  Isaac is a prime example.  The story in that is extremely basic, mentioned only in the opening bit, and then there's just nothing else to it.  It may as well not be there.  With so many other games even in the same genre people have such a major issue with it... but Isaac gets a complete pass to the point where nobody ever complains about it.   That sort of shifting viewpoint, I find that very hard to grasp at all.

[kasnavada]

I'm with misery on this one, but it's a matter of taste...

Game "story" are generally very simple though. I'd rather read if I want something engaging. What I look first in a game is new mechanics to understand =).

[Misery]

Yep.

Thinking about it, I think a lot of writers for games struggle to manage to fit a proper story within the framework of a game.  You have constant interruptions and structure restrictions caused by the gameplay itself, after all, which also gets things all stretched out.  And then there's the problem of fitting stuff in with the actual mechanics and all... few games manage that one.  You cant just have every single bit of the game be scripted, and it must follow certain trends that are attached to the gameplay.  Yet it's expected to take writing concepts and be completely coherent anyway.   I really don't envy writers for the jobs they must do in these games.  It sounds very frustrating.  As if the rest of development wasn't...