Alpha .702 now out!

[x4000]

Lots of generalized goodies: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Verson_.702

In particular, the actions now give you waaaay more specific information about what is actually happening with them, which should help a lot.  Before they were vague, and I knew that, but it was temporary.

Also, there are several new kinds of contracts now that you can take for gaining GP (yay variety), and in particular a new Defense Mode for combat.  It's one where you... well, I'll just see what you think and not say anything.

Also, Pablo's new Peltian theme is just awesome.

[Cyborg]

I like defense mode, but only because the points come easy. Played with it for a little while tonight, still seeing the major problems:


1) constellation setups that just encourage you to reroll (retreat and replay the contract)
2) giant ball of doom lives on
3) still don't like swarming behavior. We are supposed to want to move our ships around, but when we do, they go spiraling out of control. It actually made me quit tonight, totally had it. I want to spend more time on the solar map to figure out how to scheme and manipulate better, but I'm getting inundated with combat. I'm hanging in there, I know it's alpha, but I can't stress enough your most interesting part of this game is the solar map. I am beginning to wish the combat was bionic dues missions instead, then I wouldn't try to cheese the missions so much.


Good luck.

[Teal_Blue]

Lots of generalized goodies: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Verson_.702

In particular, the actions now give you waaaay more specific information about what is actually happening with them, which should help a lot.  Before they were vague, and I knew that, but it was temporary.

Also, there are several new kinds of contracts now that you can take for gaining GP (yay variety), and in particular a new Defense Mode for combat.  It's one where you... well, I'll just see what you think and not say anything.

Also, Pablo's new Peltian theme is just awesome.

You say GP?   Is that new?  Or a typo?

Sounds like we are getting there step by step, good luck. Game looks gorgeous though! 



p.s.   Just a thought... but if combat is rather cumbersome for some players, perhaps a partial answer to that issue might be to have actions available to the player,  that they can take to complete the contract, and to get BP  'without' combat being necessary.

 Such an option for non-combat resolution might be very useful... 

like say a 'Diplomatic' mode, or a 'Economic' mode, or a 'Buy Pirate Fleet' for combat, where another power fights, or argues, or economically persuades the other party (on your behalf) for the contract.

Its probably a lot like 4X, but it could give players a way to approach the game and not 'HAVE TO' get into the combat mode if they don't want to.

Just saying...

[Billick]

Sorry to be a downer here, but the combat is just a slog right now.  Micro-ing your flagship owns pretty much everything, but is super boring.  Trying to control the fleet and the flagship requires a lot of micro to keep everything alive, and it's just doesn't seem fun to me.   I agree that the swarming is annoying the way that it's working right now.  Not being able to zoom all the way out is infuriating.   The combat needs something, and I'm not quite sure what it is.  Again, not trying to be too negative, but I don't think this is going to fly in it's current state.  It's weird, because it's so similar to the AI War combat, which is really fun.  Hopefully you can come up with something that works better. 

The solar system stuff is quite fun though.  I love watching the different races interact with each other.  The music is really good, as usual.

[GrimerX]

Work has been crazy so unfortunately I have only had a chance to play 2 'local events'.  Just wanted to say my first impression is a good one and definitely looking forward to explore the game more. 
I agree the combat needs some work especially the balance between main ship/fleet, but I haven't had a dull combat yet.  It's interesting to figure out an approach with heavy turret constellations.

Minor feedbacks:
1) I have encountered a mouse stutter (OS mouse) during combat, *without* an FPS drop.  Not consistent, didn't happen in the 6.x releases and might just be a hiccough on my machine but will keep an eye on it.
2) Please don't spin the red 'scanner' animation when the game is paused -- that much activity on the combat map makes it seem as if the pause is not working -- I thought a few times I had lost control of my ship before realizing all the whirling wasn't actually the enemy ships moving.

Great job so far, keep it coming

[orzelek]

Might be slightly of topic - all versions on wiki are Versons by design or it's a nice persistent typo?

[Misery]

Ok, so, my current thoughts on all this:

1.  Battles are still a total mess.  I won the opening fight, after my fleet got obliterated due to.... I'm not really sure why, by simply circling the enemy fleet with my speedy flagship, letting it continuously fire on them while it didn't really get hit.   Finished off the enemy flagship the same way.   Constellation fights are pretty much the same.... my own fleet just doesnt matter in this case.  The main way to win seems to be to get the enemy to sit on top of one of them Hydral things that spawns a big wave of fighters for my side, which then attack him immediately when I charge my own flagship at it. I end up just ignoring the enemy fleets as well.... attacking them has no purpose.   Fights with ring constellations are still often impossible without cheesing them.   And I have to agree that the swarming motions of my ships ends up just getting them blown up.  It's worst with the Hypersonic Pods, which are kinda bad to start with, but are totally worthless in anything other than an extremely basic fight like the first one that you do;  they'll get themselves wrecked on the constellations.   Overall, I end up saving before each battle and just reloading over and over until I get a scenario which appears to be winnable;  if it IS winnable, it's very easy.

2.  I havent the foggiest clue what I'm supposed to be doing.  Is there some sort of goal I should be working towards?  I end up with long periods of not doing anything because I dont know why I should be taking any specific action.  Some explanation on this would help me with testing.   Currently I cant say much about it at all because I've no idea how things should be working or how the balance should due to not knowing what to do with any of them.

3.  Ships of all types look WAY too similar.  I mentioned it in Mantis, too.   It's very, very easy to simply lose track of everything once combat gets going.   There's little strategy right now, but once there is, this will be a major problem.  I've had a couple of battles lost simply because I couldnt spot the enemy flagship amongst the heaps of things that all looked the same.   Ships of all types just dont stand out enough, and they rather need to.    The only things that DO stand out are the Hydral tech things.

4.  Defense missions feel unfinished, and are too easy.  It feels more like some sort of stealth action game, since I can just ignore my own fleets and simply avoid the red things with my main ship.


For the moment, without knowledge of what I should be working towards, I cant really go any further, so that's all for now.

[Kingpin23]

I'm not in the alpha and dont know how battles play out but I have this question.

In combat mode are there certain points on the map or ships that can heal your fleet
Back to full health?  It can be a good option so you dont have to retreat al the time or startup a new battle
Or maybe ships regenerate health after 30 seconds or something..
Or a point on the map where u can rebuild your fleet and can get back into battle

[Gemzo]

Sorry to be a downer here, but the combat is just a slog right now.  Micro-ing your flagship owns pretty much everything, but is super boring.  Trying to control the fleet and the flagship requires a lot of micro to keep everything alive, and it's just doesn't seem fun to me.   I agree that the swarming is annoying the way that it's working right now.  Not being able to zoom all the way out is infuriating.   The combat needs something, and I'm not quite sure what it is.  Again, not trying to be too negative, but I don't think this is going to fly in it's current state.  It's weird, because it's so similar to the AI War combat, which is really fun.  Hopefully you can come up with something that works better. 

The solar system stuff is quite fun though.  I love watching the different races interact with each other.  The music is really good, as usual.

This is exactly what I experienced, down to the letter. I started the game, realized the fleet wasn't useful at all and just soloed everything with flagship. Then I went to take on a pirate base and had it be entirely untargetable (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=13176).

I'd love to be more helpful as a tester than this, but I don't know what to say besides that the fleet needs to be more interesting to use, as well as more useful. Not just better stats or whatever, but actual ways to use them strategically. Maybe have it so squadrons are grouped together when receiving orders? But still blobbing needs to just...not exist for anything besides meatshield fighters probably. I can't help but think of Fire Emblem for some reason, but this game isn't grid-based where having movement ranges and units blocking movement make sense, or just in general the inability to stack more than 2 units on one tile. That's really way too big of a change I think, going from RTS to turn-based strategy... But I just keep thinking about it.

[x4000]

Combat is something we're going to retool enormously, hopefully in the span of mostly today.

We're going to be scaling back the amount of things you have to manage, and at the same time giving you more interesting situations where you make choices that affect the strategic game.

Right now it seems that, confusion on the part of some folks aside (due to lack of documentation, which we can fix), people are really enjoying the strategic layer.  The definite consensus is that combat does not live up, and I get that.  So we're scaling that back in certain ways, to make it faster-paced (aka not a slog) and at the same time more meaningful in terms of the decisions you make during combat mattering, as opposed to just it being a proforma thing of "I go through this to validate the decision I already made."

This is kind of our hail mary, so to speak.  If the game isn't ready on the 24th, then we will be pushing back the release date and laying off about a third of our staff.  We're trying to hit the 24th in a fashion that is graceful and fun, though, to avoid the latter consequence.  We shall see if we make it.

[Mick]

I really hope things work out and it doesn't come to that.

[tigersfan]

I really hope things work out and it doesn't come to that.

So does everyone on staff here...

[x4000]

FYI, things are going to be kind of quiet on the release front until sometime Monday, because of the retooling and whatnot.  We haven't disappeared, but that's what is going on!

[GrimerX]

I really hope things work out and it doesn't come to that.

So does everyone on staff here...

How can we best help you?

[tigersfan]

I really hope things work out and it doesn't come to that.

So does everyone on staff here...

How can we best help you?

I think the best thing you can do, other than give us your best feedback (and the feedback we've gotten so far is awesome), is to get the word out about this game. The more people that know about it, the better launch we will have.

Chris or anyone else, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...