Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: muffalo on November 23, 2019, 01:05:14 PM
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Hello, new player here and I want to give some feedback on the tutorial mission that you have to take when you start campaign for the first time ever. I am not sure what happened there - whether I am severely messing something up or a patch bumped some numbers that threw balance off but I have no idea how to finish it right now (playing on Normal). I searched all debris fields, I traded food with pirates, trying to be efficient, etc..
When I was sent to salvage old ships, I mothballed everything and came back to the planet. There I was told that I'll be given supplies and weapons which would be enough to repair the ships and I did in fact receive those! However, they were enough only to repair only 2 ships - Hammer and Carrier, even after scuttling the rest. And... my leftover supplies are going to last for several days. Ok, I reload, keep only the Hammer, scuttle everything else and bring the ships I have to top condition. After all, I was told those miner pirates have a bunch of rusty DIY ships. And it's actually even better this way - IMO dealing with one new ship is much more enjoyable to a new player, compared to suddenly getting dumped a fleet of random ships on you.
Anyway, I am using some fancy maneuvers and manage to trick only one fleet in attacking me. It consists of 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers, 3 combat freighters, 1 shuttle and some drones, everything in very good condition. A shadow of doubt starts to creep in: that... really doesn't look like "some rusty buckets" that commander guy told me about; and where the hell did they get a hold of Cruiser and 2 Destroyers? How do they pay for supplies just chilling there while I am going broke maintaining my handful of ships? Anyway, maybe they have horrible weapons so I engage anyway. Looks like that doubt I had was right, they wipe me out in seconds.
I am going to restart now - thankfully I don't have to actually finish the mission and can skip it now.
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Yeaaaa you're not really meant to have only one ship to fight pirates. That's why the game gives you a ''fleet of random ships''. Not that you need all of them there but it's nice to have an actual fleet. Also if I were you, I'd start my first game on Easy.
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Yup honestly I doubt if I would beat them even I had that fleet fully repaired. And the game doesn't give enough supplies to repair them anyway. Maybe you are right and it's a difficulty thing but I think it's more of a bug anyway - it looks like the mission is unbeatable on that difficulty.
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Yup honestly I doubt if I would beat them even I had that fleet fully repaired. And the game doesn't give enough supplies to repair them anyway.
Been a while since I played the tutorial but honestly just buy all the supplies you can at the Hegemony planet. Supplies might seem like a huge problem in the beginning but the trick is to have enough cargo space to have enough even if the all hell breaks loose.
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There is very little safety net in the tutorial. You start off pretty much broke, and if you say fly into the sun or burn all your supplies there's no real way to recover from it. The tutorial definitely needs to be nicer. Some things might include
- Free dock repairs
- Better mini rewards from the missions, more money loot. Getting 50 supplies for completing a tutorial step would help a LOT.
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Heading out now, but: it's possible that *mothballing* the ships you've recovered from Tetra may cause the tutorial to give you less supplies for repairs or just not repair them (since it may skip over those ships). Made a note to have a quick look when I get back.
(Edit: hi and welcome to the forum, btw!)
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Thanks, I appreciate it! In case it helps to repro: I tried to load and un-mothball them right before arriving but it didn't work. Something to note: in that situation you are lacking crew (until you get more at the planet) and maybe that was something that affected supplies count too.
I am still getting a hold of the game and don't know what the size of "normal" engagement is supposed to be but overall my preference would be to scale down that engagement dramatically. Dealing with 1, maybe 2, new ships and a much smaller pirate fleet would be much less overwhelming and in the spirit of tutorial, compared to dealing with a whole bunch of new ships of different sizes, types, weapons, etc etc..
Also it would fit the story much better because the way things stand now, that quest guy is a big big liar: "just a couple rusty ships", "you could probably beat them with just your starting Wolf and good maneuvers". Sssssuuuuurreee.. ;D
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Oh, your ships do get a free repair as part of returning with the salvaged ships. The mission reward doesn't actually say that, also it will not fully recover ships that are under crew and it doesn't do anything to repair mothballed ships. It also doesn't have the standard "repair ships" option that planets normally have. It's not a very good reward if players can accidentally ruin it.
It costs me 95 supplies to repair the tutorial ships after returning to the planet. If you play your cards wrong and miss out on the free repair, that's $9-13k gone from your tutorial reserves. I'm sitting at $10k at this part of the tutorial so that's half my money gone. A newbie will keep their ships fully repairing back to the dock so they'll lose out on the free repair as well.
Having a pile of wrecked ships is a perfect point to give a mini tutorial on supplies. I think the best option is to just give the player 100 supplies(probably more) when they return, that way they always get a consistent reward and can see how important supplies are for fixing up the fleet.
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It was a long time ago since I've played the tutorial, but I've never realised that you get a free repair. Does the tutorial teach you to mothball ships after you recover them?
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Nope it doesn't teach you to mothball. After you recover the ships, your maintenance goes through the roof because they are super damaged and it teaches you how to stop repairs. After that it gives you a scary popup about how the ships are in a really bad shape and how bad things are about to happen to them. At that point I started experimenting and found how to mothball them.
I am doing the regular campaign now and it's so much easier than the tutorial lol. I actually have money and supplies and don't get overwhelmed with a ton of random ships and weapons for them. I am currently hunting some pirate scouts and trying to learn to drive Wolf. I think taking things one at a time incrementally is much easier than "Here's a bunch of destroyers, carriers, frigates, shuttles and a whole bunch of random weapons for them. Go kick that pirate fleet consisting of cruisers, destroyers, shuttles, freighters, drones".
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Took a look; it does appear that mothballed ships would not get repaired. So: changed that (so that they get unmothballed and then get repaired), and also added an extra 50 supplies (100 total) to storage at that step.
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Oh that storage annoys me sometimes!
I never remember it exists, and eventually I end up at war with the Hegemony and still have to pay for stuff stored on their planet.
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Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done. At least the Hard Missions feel like there should be a way to win. (Normal Tutorial = Impossible Mission)
Campaign start, no Tutorial with just a couple ships made more sense for learning curve, more opportunity to learn things one-at-a-time AND understand what each ship is and all its features do.
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Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done.
Ok let's not exaggerate that much.
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Yeah, I mean it's easy enough to Blitz, getting to the mining station is basically the hardest part.
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Last two times I did the mission, the miners drifted far enough away that I could rush to the gate, fix it, then get out without a fight. Then I can go back and pick off those fleets after the system bounty gets posted so I get even more money.
These days, I pass on the tutorial. Got to get a head start on the zombie pirate horde and maybe scaling bounties. Before my character can play space cop, he needs a home, and the sooner he can explore, the better.
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Oh that storage annoys me sometimes!
I never remember it exists, and eventually I end up at war with the Hegemony and still have to pay for stuff stored on their planet.
To be fair, I've seen a lot of new players gloss over it as well. The rewards from returning the derelict ships aren't announced like normal quest rewards, so it gets lost in the fluff. It'd probably be better to dunk the rewards directly into the inventory, and maybe include some extra crew as well.
The previous "salvage the tutorial ships" mission doesn't actually allude to the rewards at all. The player enters the mission pondering if they can or can't afford to recover the ships, but learning what ships are worth salvage is an experienced skill, not a tutorial skill. In truth, they are guaranteed a free fill up when they return so the question is moot. It'd probably be more important to say something like "Don't worry about their condition. Bring them all back and we'll fix them up, on the house." The quest reward can teach by example, giving the player the repairs, crew and supplies that they need to manage their new ships.
The tutorial mudskipper should probably come with crew (it fits 100), that way the player only has one concern on their plate at a time and can go directly to the salvage operation. There still isn't enough crew to supply all the tutorial ships, but it's enough to keep them in the green while introducing the fleet crew topic. The tutorial fleet needs ~200 extra crew in total, which will set players back $10k($40/crew!). That's most of your starting bank! But if the mudskipper has 100 and the quest reward gives 100, the player should be mostly set.
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Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done.
I mean if the bug is gone and the ships get fully repaired, it probably is winnable but I am too lazy to go and check. I still dislike that mission, it was good until the point where the ships are salvaged - all those ships and weapons are just too much to handle for a tutorial. In my opinion, the whole salvage quest should give you some strong destroyer or whatever and a handful of weapons to learn equipping it. The pirates should have some easily beatable ships so that a new player wouldn't have to deal with a fleet of cruisers and destroyers for their first battle. Then at the end you go back to report, they tell you "cool, now we take back our stuff, you are good to go" and then the normal game begins with the starting ships. Additionally, supplies are very unfun to deal with in tutorial - they are dwindling with every day, you are super broke and only learning what's going on.
In contrast, now that I got to play regular campaign a bit, the learning curve is much more fun there. I started with Wolf and got to hunt pirate scouts earning some money from Hegemony. Then I got a Gemini on the black market; it was tempting because it seems to be both a freighter as well as a reasonable combat unit. I installed some fancy bombers and now can take on both stronger pirates as well as some trade quests. I am saving for a destroyer now and will try to take some bounty quests afters that.
This wasn't smooth by any means. I took a few unprofitable deals, got caught and crushed by a pirate destroyer (well technically it was a stalemate), tried to do bounty and stumbled on AI ships that wiped me (turns out that warning beacon was there for a good reason). But overall it was much steadier learning curve than tutorial.
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Yes I agree. The tutorial shouldn't allow you to recover so many ships. Recovering one frigate is enough to teach you the mechanic. Afterall, one of the commonest "mistakes" a new player make is running out of supplies. Recoving a Venture is also a "trap" as you can't possibly defend youself against most pirates that can now catch you.
I feel like the Total Supplies to Finish Repairs information should be placed on the Supply Use on the main screen instead of on the fleet Screen. It is a much more valuable information than supplies used for repairs and CR recovery.
I second that skipping the tutorial is more fun, though that might simply be because of the "galatian stipend". Also I think there may be a large difference in difficulty depending on what start you have chosen.
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Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done. At least the Hard Missions feel like there should be a way to win. (Normal Tutorial = Impossible Mission)
It's perfectly winnable. It's not particularily hard once you know how the game works. Usually I don't even bother trying to split up the 2 pirate fleets at the jump point and just go after them both at once. But if you go through the maneuvering to split them, it's a simple fight if you salvaged all the ships (as the tutorial tells you to).
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It's perfectly winnable. It's not particularily hard once you know how the game works.
Well. I think the point of a tutorial is that it should be perfectly winnable if you don't know how the game works. Because that's kind of the point of a tutorial.
Outmaneuvering two enemy fleets is probably too tall an order for the entry level player. That kind of maneuver requires practice, and you basically autodie if you screw it up. Players will naturally learn it over time anyway. Instead, I think the tutorial should introduce a more useful topic: team battles. Towards the end of the tutorial you took care of the lesser pirate patrols and have all the information to break out of the system, so it makes sense to try busting out. The planet has a defense station to take care of home, so if they loaned a small fleet, the combination of their firepower and tutorial ships should be enough to break through one of the gates. Once the jump point is open, they can call for help and their overall problems are solved. That way the player gets a taste of a larger battle, they learn about having allies in battle, and they still have the safety of it being a totally one sided thing.
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It is also perfectly winnable if you don't know how the game works. The tutorial isn't particularily harsher than the rest of the game, and it scripts the enemy fleet as well as constantly reminding the player to quicksave and quickload if things go wrong. A perfect environment to learn how to get good enough. If you can beat the tutorial at your chosen difficulty (and it's not that hard to do so), then you can also survive the more chaotic and far more swingy environment outside the tightly scripted tutorial.
Having a team battle show up in the tutorial is a good idea, but making the tutorial essentially "safe" is entirely counterproductive, because the rest of the game is very much not safe.
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but making the tutorial essentially "safe" is entirely counterproductive, because the rest of the game is very much not safe.
Do please detail the number of games you've played where players get a game over in the tutorial. Being safe is half the point, the other half is teaching the most basic skills that players need to get started. Don't think of the target audience as "a pro gamer doing Starsector for the first time", the target audience of a tutorial is more like "Your grandpa". If it doesn't make sense to him, or if it goes off the rails doing inexplicable things, or if it demands too much of the player at once, it's not a good tutorial. Losing the tutorial should take a special effort, and I don't mean "try the same thing except better" but more like "why did you scrap your flagship" or "why did you use transverse jump" or "why did you fly into the sun". I mean, those are all funny ways to lose but you really have to earn them. Except for that last one, everyone does that their first time.
The game tutorial is pretty nice for the most part. Most of my complaints really boil down to nit picking. There are spots where the flow of events can be smoothed out a bit, and places where the player could use better information. The fleet salvaging mission is particularly important because the difference between doing that "right" and doing that "wrong" basically determines if you win or lose the tutorial. It could use a little love.
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I agree that there should be more information about the mothballing mechanic when you first recover those derelict ships since that can make the difference between a successful salvage exploration run and a fleet that is bleeding CR while rushing back to the core world. However I think the 2 fleets guarding the jump point should stay, the game makes you save before you go fight them so you can load back and it is a perfect place to practice kiting fleets or fighting an uphill battle.
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A quick question for those having trouble with the tutorial: was this on easy or normal mode? That will help in terms of feedback on difficulty.
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Aye, if the Tutorial on "Normal" is winnable, I'd like to see some veteran player get it done. At least the Hard Missions feel like there should be a way to win. (Normal Tutorial = Impossible Mission)
It's perfectly winnable. It's not particularily hard once you know how the game works.
You should never need to know how the game works to complete a tutorial.
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How else would the tutorial confirm that you have understood what it's trying to teach?
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I will say that the final battle of the tutorial is intended to be a bit of a challenge for a new player, since it's a good place to practice combat - it's essentially a fairly predictable "main-menu-mission-like" setup with low stakes (since you've got a save right before the fight). And if the player can't beat it and doesn't at least learn a bit about combat from trying to do so a couple of times, I think chances are they'll have a tough time with other parts of the game - where the stakes are higher.
... I'm basically echoing what some of you are saying here, aren't I? But, well, it's exactly the intent of the setup.
If it gets too difficult due to issues with the ship-salvaging portion of the tutorial, though, that's definitely an issue!
The fleet salvaging mission is particularly important because the difference between doing that "right" and doing that "wrong" basically determines if you win or lose the tutorial. It could use a little love.
So, right, that's a fair point; made a note. I wouldn't say you could outright *lose* it, since it's possible to not even fight the fleets guarding the jump-points (and I've seen first-time players figure that out), but, yeah, the scary-looking supply costs for ship recovery, and people trying to mothball ships when they don't really need to, it all gets a bit confusing there.
The guard fleets are a lot weaker on "easy", btw - iirc they don't even have the Venture.
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A quick question for those having trouble with the tutorial: was this on easy or normal mode? That will help in terms of feedback on difficulty.
My troubles were on normal, I haven't tried on easy.
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The fun thing about the tutorial for me is that I have not even completed it. I got really annoyed at the damn supply shortage as soon as I got my hands of those salvaged ships, mothballed them (after learning how to from a walk thru before buying the game) and went to the base with no money.
Starting a new, normal difficulty campaign and learning to figure everything out as I stumbled, crashed and burned my way thru the unknown was much more enjoyable and somewhat entertaining, in a screwed up sortn of way.