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[Wavenarra]

It's quite simple.

This game is almost impossible.

Starting out in every mission completely outnumbered and outclassed brings the entire game down to luck.

What's the point in having fighters and heavy ships when they are all completely useless against the enemies? I send in fighters, they're instantly destroyed by the enemies much more powerful ships.

I send in the heavy ships first, suddenly billions of fighters come out of nowhere and the capital ships swoop in with weapons that easily outclass mine, add to this the fact they NEVER have to vent flux is just infuriating.

Not to mention the loadouts seem to be determined to sabotage you. A mission with lots of fighters? Every single ship of yours has slow firing weapons without a single PD weapon among them. I did once have PD lasers - but they don't even count! They're too slow firing to even take out a fighter, and they require multiple hits to destroy missiles, which is ridiculous!

Then there's the opposite - a mission with lots of capital ships. Suddenly every single ship you own is only equipped with PD weapons!

Take the coral nebula for example - apparently I, the player, have a great advantage in fighter craft. THEN WHY ARE THEY SLOWER AND WEAKER THAN THE ENEMIES? IS MY ADVANTAGE THE ABILITY TO DIE QUICKER?

If you want this game to appeal to the general public, it needs to be made a lot easier. At the moment, it's just too hard.

[orion]

Well, lucky for you, they are about to release an early version of the sandbox mode where you build up your fleet and put what weapons you want on your ships. Then you can only blame a poorly made fleet, and ill chosen battles, on yourself.

Dude, chill... yea the game is a bit difficult, but it isn't meant as a simple game for the Facebook masses. If you approach it like that, then yea it will suck. But if you look at it as a game that actually requires some thought, where tactics (not pure rock-paper-scissors dynamics) and, yes a bit of luck, come into play more than how many mouse clicks per second you can do, then its a great game. Its not Starcraft, so you can't approach it like that.

[Wavenarra]

Well, lucky for you, they are about to release an early version of the sandbox mode where you build up your fleet and put what weapons you want on your ships. Then you can only blame a poorly made fleet, and ill chosen battles, on yourself.

Dude, chill... yea the game is a bit difficult, but it isn't meant as a simple game for the Facebook masses. If you approach it like that, then yea it will suck. But if you look at it as a game that actually requires some thought, where tactics (not pure rock-paper-scissors dynamics) and, yes a bit of luck, come into play more than how many mouse clicks per second you can do, then its a great game. Its not Starcraft, so you can't approach it like that.

The trouble is, there are no tactics! Tactics don't work because the enemy simply is far too powerful.

Put it this way - their fighters destroy my fighters. Their capital ships destroy my fighters. It's impossible to win because everything I do is outdone because I'm outnumbered and outclassed.

Not to mention they have tons of these semi-capital ships, that are too strong for my frigates to destroy but too fast for my capital ships to ever reach.

Fightercraft are a joke, way too weak to do any good.

[xanderh]

Dude. Face it, you're bad at the game. Quite a lot of people have actually completed all of the missions.
And personally, so far I have only beaten 2-3 of the missions, but I like the challenge. The game IS hard, but that's one of the major strengths of the game.

Also, remember to deploy some of your smallest craft first and take some of the objectives, that way you can bring more of your fleet unto the battlefield. And tactics do work, it's just that you seemingly can't find the tactics you need to use.

And the reason you get PD against capital ships is because they fire missiles at you, and you need something else than your shields to take them out.

take your time, and learn the game. Also, I can really recommend the random mission, it is extremely fun.

[Simberto]

Please no.

The game is very much fine. There are easy missions, which are easy, and probably win themselves pretty much without player interaction. And there are harder missions, which are hard. Some of them are so hard that i have not yet beaten them. But i am absolutely fine with that. Not everyone should be able to beat every fight very quickly. If that were the case, you could as well just watch a movie. I think that if a mission is called hard, it should be hard, not average.

I think one of the main things ruining good games is developers listening too much to the people whining about how the game is too hard. Games can be too hard, but people have to realize that they also can be too easy. I might be in the minority here, but i think that developers should be very careful when they listen to the community, because very often large parts of the community don't really know what they should want. A prime example of that would be WoW, which in my opinion got pretty ruined by too much listening to whiny people.

Edit: Also, to add something useful, you were talking about coral nebula. As you see, you are flying a large carrier, have lots of fighter craft, and fight a mostly capital fleet. Thus, you goals should be quite obvious. Take out all of the enemy fighters and bombers by deploying your interceptors first, and take some battlefield targets, preferably the nav buoys. The, just stay away from the enemy capital ships with the carrier, while your torpedo bombers, which you deploy next, do their magic. As long as the group returns to your carrier, it does not matter how many ships it has lost, it will rearm and reattack at full strengths. Their capitals will never be able to shoot down whole wings of your bombers, and will be destroyed very fast.

Note that this mission is marked as hard, and as such should be expected to be hard. Otherwise, why would it say so?

And fighters are very much not a joke. Bombers and Torpedo Bombers are a very dangerous threat to any capital or medium-sized ship. Very, very dangerous. If i am not mistaken, those dagger wings sport reaper launchers. Those things hurt like hell. If you ever want to blow a capital ship up in three hits, use a reaper launcher. Also, shooting them down with point defense weapons is hard when they have carrier support, and thus interceptors wings like Wasps are useful to kill them off. I am not quite sure what to think about the heavy fighters and support fighters, i think they are mostly there to combat frigates and medium-sized ships. I am not really a fan of those, i find wasps and bombers both far more useful.

[Wavenarra]

Please no.

The game is very much fine. There are easy missions, which are easy, and probably win themselves pretty much without player interaction. And there are harder missions, which are hard. Some of them are so hard that i have not yet beaten them. But i am absolutely fine with that. Not everyone should be able to beat every fight very quickly. If that were the case, you could as well just watch a movie. I think that if a mission is called hard, it should be hard, not average.

I think one of the main things ruining good games is developers listening too much to the people whining about how the game is too hard. Games can be too hard, but people have to realize that they also can be too easy. I might be in the minority here, but i think that developers should be very careful when they listen to the community, because very often large parts of the community don't really know what they should want. A prime example of that would be WoW, which in my opinion got pretty ruined by too much listening to whiny people.

Edit: Also, to add something useful, you were talking about coral nebula. As you see, you are flying a large carrier, have lots of fighter craft, and fight a mostly capital fleet. Thus, you goals should be quite obvious. Take out all of the enemy fighters and bombers by deploying your interceptors first, and take some battlefield targets, preferably the nav buoys. The, just stay away from the enemy capital ships with the carrier, while your torpedo bombers, which you deploy next, do their magic. As long as the group returns to your carrier, it does not matter how many ships it has lost, it will rearm and reattack at full strengths. Their capitals will never be able to shoot down whole wings of your bombers, and will be destroyed very fast.

Note that this mission is marked as hard, and as such should be expected to be hard. Otherwise, why would it say so?

Ah yes, I have tried this.

What happens?

The capitals simply take out every fighter ship and then the carriers easy as pie without any damage to them.

Then their fighters swoop in and take out the capitals with a couple of passes.

[Simberto]

Then you are doing something wrong. I just did this mission again to verify what i remembered, i firstly started obviously with my  Flagship, all of the Wasps and all of the other non-bomber fighters. I set capture orders for the three objectives on the right side of the map, a defend order about in the middle in between them, set both weapon groups with smaller/pd weapons on autofire and moved into that general direction, too. Before i even reached the combat area, my fighters had taken out 1-2 fighter wings and 1-2 frigates. I spawned the rest of the fighters and some of the bombers, blew up everything that got near me while staying at a safe distance from the onslaught and the other capitals. Set a Strike order onto the enemy carrier, it got blown up, spawned the rest of the bombers when i got all objectives, set strike orders onto the capitals one after another, sometimes when it felt safe i, too, got into the fray and shot them with my reaper launcher. Just be careful not to get hit by their torpedoes and you should be safe. Since they have only capitals left, your wasps can easily capture the rest of the objectives if you feel like it. Bombers blow up everything, end result: total victory, everything they own destroyed, and 1 lost 2 frigates and 2 fighter wings total.

[mendonca]

I have had a lot of fun losing at this game.

Only after a lot of losing did I start to win things, and believe me, it wasn't in any of the cases down to luck, or a lack of tactical choices, only a weakness in my own tactics.

And I also think the game is just about the right level of difficulty, if not in some instances (due to shortcomings in the AI) a little bit easy. Hopefull the AI will be even smarter in the next version.

[Wavenarra]

Even doing a random battle - the AI can just bring in more ships than I can!

I can't even capture the points - I sent in the fast fighters, they are INSTANTLY destroyed by whatever the enemy brings in. I send in capital ships first, they are instantly destroyed again.

It's just not fun when the AI can 'cheat' to beat you.

Equally, the AI ships are able to 'cluster' together to defend each other - my ships can't do this. They just fly everywhere instead of turtling like the AI can.

That seems to be the best way to win. Move as a whole group and you can smash through anything. This of course defeats the tactics of the game.

But if you do that, even if you hold all the points, the AI STILL can spawn ships, which simply can run around and capture the points. How am I meant to defend the points with not even enough ships?!

[Faiter119]

Even doing a random battle - the AI can just bring in more ships than I can!

I can't even capture the points - I sent in the fast fighters, they are INSTANTLY destroyed by whatever the enemy brings in. I send in capital ships first, they are instantly destroyed again.

It's just not fun when the AI can 'cheat' to beat you.

Equally, the AI ships are able to 'cluster' together to defend each other - my ships can't do this. They just fly everywhere instead of turtling like the AI can.

That seems to be the best way to win. Move as a whole group and you can smash through anything. This of course defeats the tactics of the game.

But if you do that, even if you hold all the points, the AI STILL can spawn ships, which simply can run around and capture the points. How am I meant to defend the points with not even enough ships?!

Simple fact is that you suck at the game. You need to get some tactics going and practice more. I currently have only the "Dire Straits" mission left, the rest i have beaten. i love this game for its difficulty and how it requires thought and skillful piloting to win. So stop complaining and get at it beating those levels. Practice practice and thinking is the key.

[megal00t]

gah... like mr totalbiscuit always says games nowedays are made way to easy... people get used to them and when a dev comes out with a game (demon souls for example) everyone jumps around and screams that they need to make the game easier. link about videogame difficulties:

[Simberto]

As far as i know, the AI does not cheat. I don't know what you do wrong, but it must be pretty substantial.

And you can keep your stuff together, "defend" and "assault"  are useful orders for that. And of course, staying together as a fleet is useful. That is nothing new. This means that you can concentrate fire and support each other. However, some ships also are better of not being in the middle of stuff, like standard carriers or freighters. Then, it is obviously useful to have stuff that hunts enemy carriers. And owning objectives is very useful, too, so that might make you split up a bit. Sound like a lot of tactics for me.

I also never have had problems with my fighters being "instantly destroyed". Sometimes they die, usually when they are outnumbered by a lot at that position. More often, they don't. That's what happens when you ride around in a small metal box with minimum defenses while the whole area is filled with high-velocity bullets, energy beams, missiles, torpedoes, explosives and so on.

Capitals can sometimes be blown up pretty fast. Usually after being hit by multiple Reaper Torpedoes. Those are the big, slow, red things. They are good at blowing up capital ships. In fact, they are pretty much the best thing to use if you want to blow up capitals. If you deploy fighters or bombers, you should also deploy at least one carrier, it makes them far more effective by being able to replenish their ammunition and being repaired and brought to full strength. Capital on Capital battles are very much skill based. If you manage to hit your enemy with a full salve of reaper torpedoes when his shields are down, you can blow up a capital ship in seconds. You also want to avoid the enemy doing the same to you. Nav buoys are very useful for this because they make you faster and more maneuverable.

Usually, the first thing i deploy are any wasps and talons i own, which tend to blow up anything that can reach the objectives at the same time as them. Maybe a carrier, too. Next thing i deploy with the additional points from captured objectives and lost interceptors are either capital ships or bombers.

If you don't capture any objectives early on, you will lose, because the enemy will have far more ships than you, which are also faster and shoot further. This might seem like cheating to you, but it is not the cause, since you can do the same if you just grab those objectives for yourself. However, you probably won't get all objectives in the beginning, so concentrate on a reasonable amount which is somewhat close to each other.

[Hopelessnoob]

You really need to take some of the buoys since you seem to have trobule with numbers. Also learn what each ships role is, if you're sending in daggers against anything but capital ships you're making a mistake, wasps against anything larger than a frigate is also a mistake. Frigates take down fighters and harass capitals well, Fighters kill fighters and bombers well. Capitals kill other capitals. Bombers kill capitals.

[Tobium]

I never had the impression, the AI cheats.
While I get the impression that you seem to be doing something wrong, I wouldn't state that you suck at this game.

Instead, try to look for specific mission help in the forum, this helped me a bunch.
And to get some success, try Sinking the Bis'mar NOW.

Analysis:
You notice, that the enemy has a huge ship that kills you easily. Also he has fighters, but no carrier.

Strategy:
Send out your flagship, your carrier and one interceptopr wing. Use a command point to rally your carrier to the far lower right. Use a command point to set up a light defense on your flagship. Grab the radar station. Set your PD to auto shoot. If you get attacked by a single fighter wing, you should be able to shoot down the fighter wing. Your tactic is to stay away from the battle ship, capture as many points as possible, but not necessarily hold them. If you have a healthy interceptor wing and a single fighter wing is attacking you, try to kill it swiftly. If lots of rockets from the battle ship are behind you, start to run away.
When all enemy fighters are gone, keep capturing the points, let the Bismar shoot the rockets at your general direction.
As soon as the bismar has shot all its rockets, send in the rest of the fleet, set your flag ship to auto pilot, use a command point to harass the bismar, and watch it being teared down. You might still risk loosing a ship, so keep an eye on them and order them to retreat as necessary.

At ANY point, if anything starts flying to your carrier, take over command of it, and start to run away. Don't forget that you will need the flagship to do something, like taking command of some point or rallying it somewhere far away.


This strategy is still no guarantee to win the fight, but you have a fair chance.


After the fighters are down, bring in the rest of the ships. Take over control of your carrier, and fly it to the lower right edge.
Then send out the command to harrass the Bismar.
For me, there is quite some planning involved in this small battle.

I admit that at first I was also lost, and there are three missions I did not yet succeed in.

[Simberto]

I would really not suggest using the Autopilot. This game is at least as much about flying your ship as it is about controlling your fleet. Sinking the Bismar and coral nebula are both very specific and focused engagements. Coral Nebula is about absolute fighter dominance and watching bombers blow up capitals, Bismar is about using small, fast strike craft to blow up a large ship. I found both to be the easier "hard" missions, because once you figured out that gimmick it is pretty much autowin. The Bismar does not even have a carrier, your interceptors are superior to their heavy fighters, and you have a carrier. Once the heavy fighters are dead, you just need to harass the Bismar until it is destroyed with your strike frigate. You can always get in, get some hits, and get out before your shields are down.