New version .806 now out! (super duper combat updates!)

[Castruccio]

I agree concerning the BP problem.  The mouse wheel weapon switch is also a great idea.

Concerning the combat speed, are you wanting combat as a whole sped up or just the flagship speed?  I agree that some speed adjustments need to be made and that the default is a real turn off.

[x4000]

I find myself playing it as I would play AI war.  Lots of pauses.  I assume that's intended.  In other words, it's not crazy action like Diablo but I assume people could (and will) play it  that way without pausing (and with the speed turned way up).

Sure, that's something that I expect people will do in terms of trying to size up the situation.  It's still built for extra-quick pauses for that particular reason.

There might need to be another increase in amount we're allowed to zoom-out to fit the range of some of the new primary weapons. The longer ranged ones can have their effective range cut off at some resolutions especially towards the bottom (I got this problem on my 1280x800 laptop).

The game bumps up the zoom amounts depending on your screen resolution, but it's not perfect yet.  Thanks for the heads up about 1280x800, I'll check out that size and tune it to fit.

Firstly, I discovered something about the flagships in general here.... up to this point I'd been only using the Thoraxian ship, since it's the one I randomly started with.  Thusly, I'd been basing all of my opinions about the mechanics as approached by that one ship.

When I tried out some of the others..... ugh.  Honestly, I cant tolerate it.  They're all just WAY TOO SLOW.  Frankly I'd thought the Thoraxians werent very fast, but it turns out they ARE the fast ones.  The others are so slow as to be painful.  ALL of them.  If even the Thoraxians were that slow, I'd be going for the "skip all battles" thing as soon as that was implemented.  I dont tolerate "slow" very well, really.

Even with the game speed multiplied (above 2), they still move like a brick in sludge.  It's also utterly impossible to avoid things when moving like said brick, which is absolutely necessary on the higher difficulties, particularly as enemy range increases.... you cant just tank everything there (and you cant defend as much now with less abilities available VS weapons).  But they cant avoid pretty much anything.  And dealing with situations where there's nothing in your immediate area and you need to move accross the battlefield to get to other targets is torture.   Yeah, I know about the speed-up buttons, but honestly, if I have to use those just to put up with the fighting at all, there's something wrong.  Ideally I shouldnt need those at all.

So that right now is the big one for me.  Others are likely to disagree, but.... there it is.   

The Thoraxian ship is what's keeping me invested in the combat.... without it, I'd not be wanting to do it.   I'll be sticking with only that one for now.

I see your point.

* The speed of all the player flagships has been increased to about 25% higher than the thoraxian version used to be (it was the highest-speed one, which is still true in the enemy flagships, but for the player they are all now the same speed).

Secondly, the weapons.  An option to use the mouse wheel to switch between them would be wonderful here.  Trying to do it with the number keys, considering the high frequency of switching, just gives me hand cramps.  Granted part of it is that my arm is acting up a bit, but still, it'd be a very nice control option to have.

Got it, that is something I will add.  We had that in Valley 2, recall, but I had not thought of that yet.

Third, and this is another big one:  There's nowhere to get BP.

I think probably 99% of all of the BP I'd used in my previous game (restarted now because of changes) all game from ship destruction..... but they hardly give you any now, and of course to get it that way a mission of that type needs to A: exist, and B: have alot of ships in it.  I actually dont think I can test any further with this build, because there appears to be literally nothing to do.  The only friendly missions that ever appear are the pirate ones (which of course only happens if there ARE pirates at the time), and those dont give BP.  And were I stuck with one of the slow flagships, nearly all of it would have to be pumped into repairs as it is anyway, due to them being forced to tank most attacks (again, not playing on Normal here).  You can get free repairs from some missions, but when you're dealing with other things (particularly assassination attempts) is when that bit could be an issue.

I'll mess with it a bit more, but I'm pretty sure I cannot go any further at this point.

Yeah, will address this today.

I agree concerning the BP problem.  The mouse wheel weapon switch is also a great idea.

Concerning the combat speed, are you wanting combat as a whole sped up or just the flagship speed?  I agree that some speed adjustments need to be made and that the default is a real turn off.

Bear in mind that the battle speed slider is right there on the quick start menu, and a lot of the tooltips for the speed adjustments mention it, too.  The flagship speed is now modified, but adjusting the default up is something that would have a lot of folks crying rage, I think.  People were really up in arms about it previously when the default was faster.

[Hyfrydle]

Am I the only one who preferred the previous slightly simpler combat model. It didn't have too much to think about and allowed me to quickly get back to the solar map portion of the game which even in it's basic form I'm enjoying.

The combat portions seem to be taking precedence over the actual game and I want them over quickly as they are only a small part of the actual game.

Perhaps the text based interface will solve this and to me sounds like a better way of dealing with combat. And the moment it feels like the game has a bit of an identity crisis and is trying to cater for two very different types of gamers.

I hope this doesn't come across as too negative but I really hope the more strategic section of the game gets some loving and the combat is not given quite so much attention.

[Mick]

Was it alpha testers who didn't like the high speed, or video watchers? There could be quite a difference in speed preference when it comes to watching the game and actually playing it.

[x4000]

Am I the only one who preferred the previous slightly simpler combat model. It didn't have too much to think about and allowed me to quickly get back to the solar map portion of the game which even in it's basic form I'm enjoying.

The combat portions seem to be taking precedence over the actual game and I want them over quickly as they are only a small part of the actual game.

Right now too many of the combat portions are really long, is the main issue.  Having occasional big battles is great, but having them every 5 minutes is not cool.  That's something that the new actions that are coming will address.

Perhaps the text based interface will solve this and to me sounds like a better way of dealing with combat. And the moment it feels like the game has a bit of an identity crisis and is trying to cater for two very different types of gamers.

I hope this doesn't come across as too negative but I really hope the more strategic section of the game gets some loving and the combat is not given quite so much attention.

We're focusing on both, don't worry!

Was it alpha testers who didn't like the high speed, or video watchers? There could be quite a difference in speed preference when it comes to watching the game and actually playing it.

Actually it was both.

[Misery]

All the stuff you said sounds good to me.

And I'm thinking the solar map stuff should be more interesting/complex/difficult? with the BP costs more.... balanced.  It was seeming too easy before, since I could just hit any option as many times as I wanted.  Was speeding through the game much too fast, so interesting situations didn't have enough time to generate.


And despite the twitchiness of the combat, I have found myself doing the same thing as Castruccio, and pausing every now and then to look at things to determine what weapon to use or ability to activate.  It makes for an interesting experience in it's current state.  The whole thing is alot like a shmup overall, except..... tactical.  Most of that genre are not very tactical, hah, unless "SHOOT ALL THE THINGS" is considered tactical somehow.

I think the only remaining issue with the combat is the allies not doing much.   The rest seems good to me.

Good fix to the weapon projectile speed, too.  They feel like they have actual impact now.


Ah, that reminds me of a question:  What about special effects?  Generally I'm not one to care too much about graphics, and frankly the game looks pretty damn good as it is, but something like the nuke weapon made me think of this.  When that impacts, it just.... blinks out of existence.  When it's a nuke.  I remember that the first time I fired it, I'd actually thought that either I'd fired the wrong thing (because it looked like the usual missile) or that it had glitched out somehow.  The Gigacannon as well... it's sometimes hard to tell that it properly impacted with large ships.  I often find myself pausing to check their remaining HP to make sure that it properly hit them.

That though is all pretty minor stuff.


Also I agree on the bit about some types of combat being too long.

PARTICULARLY the assassination attempts.  They were getting a little absurd in my game.

Which reminds me of one other issue I'd found:  Escaping the enemy fleets is a bit too easy.  Just getting away from them all, either to leave the battle, or let your shields recharge.   Even when the flagship is slow as heck, it's still not hard to do this.  I dunno what to suggest for this one, but it was an issue that has occurred to me many times now.

[x4000]

Cool.

In terms of the solar map, there is some stuff that I have planned that should help with that.  Honestly my biggest focus for a very long time was in making the simulation of the solar system itself really complex and interesting, and that has definitely been achieved.  But the ways in which you can interact with it are somewhat anemic, and that's on the top of my list to work on.  And yeah, the BP costs are wonky in a lot of places, too.

For the special effects, a lot of those are simply on my to-do list still.

In terms of escaping the enemy fleets, that really isn't supposed to be super-duper hard.  Withdrawing is supposed to be something that you do periodically, not something that is a "fail state" permanently.  The risk of completely dying in combat is supposed to be fairly low even on harder difficulties -- but the risk of failing to achieve your goals in combat, and thus failing in the solar portion over time, is a lot higher on harder difficulties, for instance.

[Misery]

Well, the escaping bit is more of a problem mostly just with the assassination missions.... Considering how easy it is to get away, they end up being a little pointless, yet even when you take zero damage they manage to waste some time because you have to wait for that timer.

[x4000]

Ah, right.  Originally I wanted to have those be inescapable, but people complained about that early on in.  The AFA, Burlust Duel, and Assassination missions in particular I wanted to be inescapable.  I suppose that on Hard and Misery difficulties, I could just go back to that...

[ElOhTeeBee]

All the stuff you said sounds good to me. The whole thing is alot like a shmup overall, except..... tactical.  Most of that genre are not very tactical, hah, unless "SHOOT ALL THE THINGS" is considered tactical somehow.

As a longtime shmup fan, I feel the need to point out that many of the best entries in the genre do have fairly complex scoring mechanics, or simple mechanics that nonetheless produce excellent gameplay.

[chemical_art]

Ah, right.  Originally I wanted to have those be inescapable, but people complained about that early on in.  The AFA, Burlust Duel, and Assassination missions in particular I wanted to be inescapable.  I suppose that on Hard and Misery difficulties, I could just go back to that...

It would a lot more organic to simply make it more difficult to escape rather then just ban it outright, wouldn't it?

[Mick]

Perhaps the 'inescapable' style missions should provide a penalty to withdrawing, or something of an opportunity cost. What do you lose by escaping an assassination attempt as oppose to blowing up your pursuer? Perhaps you could have a situation where a player is basically dogged by as assassin they keep escaping from, and each of those 'battles' is essentially moving the game clock forward and preventing the player from advancing their goals until they deal with the situation once and for all. Withdrawing from a battle might be the better choice as a temporary measure if bad timing put the player in a weak state, but the best long term benefit would be to finish the battle, putting a moratorium on future such events.

[x4000]

Ah, right.  Originally I wanted to have those be inescapable, but people complained about that early on in.  The AFA, Burlust Duel, and Assassination missions in particular I wanted to be inescapable.  I suppose that on Hard and Misery difficulties, I could just go back to that...

It would a lot more organic to simply make it more difficult to escape rather then just ban it outright, wouldn't it?

That's true... all I have to do is jack up the speed on those flagships to an insane amount, and then the only way to escape would be to use afterburners.  That might make those fights impossible, though.

Perhaps the 'inescapable' style missions should provide a penalty to withdrawing, or something of an opportunity cost. What do you lose by escaping an assassination attempt as oppose to blowing up your pursuer? Perhaps you could have a situation where a player is basically dogged by as assassin they keep escaping from, and each of those 'battles' is essentially moving the game clock forward and preventing the player from advancing their goals until they deal with the situation once and for all. Withdrawing from a battle might be the better choice as a temporary measure if bad timing put the player in a weak state, but the best long term benefit would be to finish the battle, putting a moratorium on future such events.

Right now the penalty is that the race thinks less of you for running away like a coward.  Introducing a reward for killing them is not a bad idea.

[Cinth]

Ah, right.  Originally I wanted to have those be inescapable, but people complained about that early on in.  The AFA, Burlust Duel, and Assassination missions in particular I wanted to be inescapable.  I suppose that on Hard and Misery difficulties, I could just go back to that...

It would a lot more organic to simply make it more difficult to escape rather then just ban it outright, wouldn't it?

That's true... all I have to do is jack up the speed on those flagships to an insane amount, and then the only way to escape would be to use afterburners.  That might make those fights impossible, though.

I would think that assassins would have a deployable (maybe an ability based) of some sort that would inhibit their target from escaping, like a jammer. 

[chemical_art]

I was thinking an interdictor as well. Perhaps rename assassination to ambush, and have as part of it one or more structures to prevent escape. Then destroying them could provide an alternative method to end the mission.