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[BillyRueben]

I've played for a little bit, and there are a few things I feel could be done to improve this game. I'll try to keep this short:


Beam weapons should be able to fire across friendly ships.

This would make beams worth the OP cost, and they would remain a "Fire Support" weapon. Beams need to be able to hit the target constantly for them to have any real effect, and a friendly ship always seems to fly near enough for my auto-fire to quit firing. This would also make the Tachyon Lance a much more attractive option for a fire support ship.


The Sector Map needs to be more readable in crowded areas.

When attempting to fly toward a major trading planet, there are usually a ton of other fleets orbiting nearby, making the task of selecting the planet itself a difficult one. I'd like to see some simple map filters that could fix this issue (Fleets, Planets, ect.). Also, is there a reason that asteroids are clickable?


The Field Repairs skill should be able to speed up CR recovery.

After the patch, a ship's CR and Hull are so closely intertwined that the Field Repairs skill seems almost useless. In most cases, your ship's hull and armor rating is going to be in better shape than the ship's CR rating, especially since taking damage lowers CR. If there was some way that Field Repairs could speed up CR regen as well, or maybe have a ship's maintenance cost halved when only hull or CR is being recovered, I think it would be better.


Trading doesn't seem dangerous enough.

Playing as a trader (to me) seemed very dull. I never really had an issue with any fleets that could catch me, and even when the bigger ones did, getting away with no casualties was never a problem. A few more "trader killer" fleets would make this a bit more entertaining.


Bounties

I get that bounties are new, and probably not completely fleshed out yet, but there are a few thoughts I'd like to throw out there to help improve them:

Bounties should hint at the composition of the target fleet. Nothing extreme, but it can be a little frustating when your bounties suddenly include three Onslaughts after you just defeated the last fleet that had only a few cruisers.

Bounties that are no longer valid shouldn't be displayed on the bounty screen. It just clogs up the screen and I find it confuses me more than it needs to.

The range of bounties in hyperspace should be displayed somehow. The game states that you can get credited for destroying ships near the system in hyperspace, yet I can never tell when close is close enough.

Keep a good spread of bounties. When your fleet is destroyed, nothing but high-end bounties is a rough grind back up.

I never know exactly how many ships do you need to destroy to get the bounty, or if a certain ship needs to be destroyed.

Finally, bounties on factions other than the pirates would be fun.

 

 

[Gothars]

Trading doesn't seem dangerous enough.

Playing as a trader (to me) seemed very dull. I never really had an issue with any fleets that could catch me, and even when the bigger ones did, getting away with no casualties was never a problem. A few more "trader killer" fleets would make this a bit more entertaining.

With that I agree very much (with the other stuff too, but it has been discussed before). Not once in my trader live have I encountered anything more dangerous than early ended food shortages and pinging patrols. That also has to do with the high density of civilization, I assume. There are not really any badlands you have to traverse for trade.

[Aeson]

Trading doesn't seem dangerous enough.

Playing as a trader (to me) seemed very dull. I never really had an issue with any fleets that could catch me, and even when the bigger ones did, getting away with no casualties was never a problem. A few more "trader killer" fleets would make this a bit more entertaining.

I agree as well. The only time I've ever had trouble with hostile ships as a trader was when I dropped out of hyperspace on top of a pirate fleet, and even that didn't go too badly despite my lack of anything more combat-capable than partly-armed Hermes shuttles, Cerberus freighters, and Buffalo freighters in my fleet.

[Megas]

Beam weapons should be able to fire across friendly ships.
This would make beams worth the OP cost, and they would remain a "Fire Support" weapon.

The only "Fire Support" weapons are Hurricane MIRV, Pilums, and Tachyon Lance.  Most beams that are not PD are "Close Support" like many kinetics.  Unlike ballistics, beams are bad.  Curiously enough, Phase Beam is labeled "Assault".

I rather have beams be effective at killing things, shielded or not, at least as much as "Close Support" ballistics (i.e., needlers, autocannons), most of which are great all-purpose weapons.  I prefer beams to use more of the same rules other weapons use.

The Sector Map needs to be more readable in crowded areas.

Oh, yes!  And easier way to select stations that are buried by fleets.

The range of bounties in hyperspace should be displayed somehow. The game states that you can get credited for destroying ships near the system in hyperspace, yet I can never tell when close is close enough.

If you do not have your +5 burn hyperspace bonus, you are close to the system.  This does not mean that "close enough" cannot be better communicated to the player.

[Thaago]

Trading doesn't seem dangerous enough.

Playing as a trader (to me) seemed very dull. I never really had an issue with any fleets that could catch me, and even when the bigger ones did, getting away with no casualties was never a problem. A few more "trader killer" fleets would make this a bit more entertaining.

Very much agreed! I think a large part of this is that the pirates are very weak, which makes any trading fleet with a combat safe. On the other hand, if pirates are too strong than the early game gets really rough.

I think Okim's Ironclads mod handled this very well a version or two ago. Many of the pirates were weak, but there were a couple of hulls/variants that were real nasty. In particular, there were pirates near the XLE far border that would go around in groups of 3 very fast, very deadly (to early/freighter ships) frigates. After a battle I knew that trading up there was just too dangerous.

If the pirates were broken up into multiple factions then this could be managed pretty easily. Pirates near the core worlds where trading "should" be safe could use weak ships, giving the player some easy kills. Meanwhile, near the outer planets things could be a whole bunch rougher. One faction gets there hands on a Tempest blueprint? Yikes!

[nomadic_leader]

The Sector Map needs to be more readable in crowded areas.

Good post, and I really agree with this part in particular. The sector map is a bit clunky UI wise, and is still waiting its turn to get smacked by the update hammer.

As for trading, if you make it more dangerous, make it a bit more rewarding too (at least for small scale start-game activities). But it would be interesting to be faced with more dilemmas like: "Do I deliver this valuable cargo to the planet and risk the fast pirate fleet, or do I give up and run for safety?"

But all the enemy fleets have pitiful burn speeds.

[SafariJohn]

  My opinion on burn speeds is that Navigation has got to go. I'd prefer very little in the way of Burn Speed increases be available. Maybe Augmented Engines would still give a Burn boost, and maybe, in the future when we can get autofac blueprints, we could get speed boosts in some direct or indirect way. "Blueprint acquired! Wolf gets +1 Burn speed!" perhaps? But no more skill-based Burn boosts, or at least spread any Burn boosts available around to various skills.

It is very overpowered, and I would say too overpowered, for the player to dictate the terms of engagement at almost all times. "My cruiser goes faster than your frigate! Hahaha!" Ridiculous.

[Megas]

I find Navigation very powerful... for frigates.  It makes frigates so much faster than everything else that I do not want to use anything else, with only two exceptions:  1) Fights with skilled capitals or Dominators, before I get Missile Specialization 10; and 2) hauling 20,000+ food from Eos to Askonia with 10+ Atlas ships.

Medusa with burn 10 feels slow compared to frigates with burn 13+.  Occasionally, when I need to be somewhere in a hurry, I use nothing but Tempests and Hounds to move at burn 15 (20 in hyperspace).