There absolutely has to be some kind of test drive thing for ships. Imagine you're a new player, go into a ship when you finally made some good cash and then just stare blankly into a wall of stats. Sure the stats give a nice picture but a new player will hardly ever get a "feel" for the ship just based on stats.
(Missions I think kinda exist for this, but it's in a totally different place many people straight up just miss or ignore. Also most of the ships are available there, not all of them.)
Edit: I don't see why I shouldn't take you seriously tough, you're always so helpful, grammatically correct and to the point unlike someone else I know of ;)I had to put this signature because it happened multiple times I've got in trouble for making a joke (when it didn't seem like that to some). So I'd rather not continue getting warnings for being goofy you know. Also in general: If you're taking everything some stranger on the internet said to heart, you're probably doing something wrong.
Heh. The same people expecting the Internet to be any sort of fantasy land where everything if flowery and everyone's nice to you need a serious re-evaluation of how they see life and human nature in general so that they can then reconsider their role in it. You should not change what you say or the way you phrase it because some living barnacle that can only drink beer with SOY MILK gets offended by it. Just be aware that what you say, where you say it and how you phrase it can either get you laid or get you laid off, as simple as that.Edit: I don't see why I shouldn't take you seriously tough, you're always so helpful, grammatically correct and to the point unlike someone else I know of ;)I had to put this signature because it happened multiple times I've got in trouble for making a joke (when it didn't seem like that to some). So I'd rather not continue getting warnings for being goofy you know. Also in general: If you're taking everything some stranger on the internet said to heart, you're probably doing something wrong.
And I actually witnessed what it's like for a new player to stumble upon a list of ships. A friend of mine has been streaming the game to me, just so I can guide him somewhat through the beginning. He played a bit, eventually got some money, went to the buy screen and literally went "holy *** what do I do?". If I wasn't there he'd seriously just pick something based entirely on looks alone. Which is totally fine, you should experiment in games. But some mistakes here can really cost you a lot, and you're either gonna have to load a save from way before, or continue the grind.
There absolutely has to be some kind of test drive thing for ships. Imagine you're a new player, go into a ship when you finally made some good cash and then just stare blankly into a wall of stats. Sure the stats give a nice picture but a new player will hardly ever get a "feel" for the ship just based on stats.
some living barnacle that can only drink beer with SOY MILK gets offended by it. Just be aware that what you say, where you say it and how you phrase it
I understand the sentiment, I thought of that option a few times myself. But I have to say, for me, piloting a newly bought ship for the first time has always been an important part of the experience. The big reward moment for finally saving up enough money to buy it. I feel like a test driving option would just lead to more time spent in the shop looking for the perfect ship, and less time in actual gameplay.Fair point, but you could argue the same about the current simulator. It just gives you a vague look on how will certain loadouts work (sim opponents have weird builds, no officers and therefore always same personality), you still need to go through at least a couple of battles to truly see the performance of a ship. I'm just saying, if it's not a total hassle to implement elegently, it would be nice to have. Won't be the end of the world, as there are plenty of guides around + wiki.
To really get a feel for a ship, a simple test drive would not help anyway - you'd need to try it out with different loadouts, against different enemy types and fleet constellations, or in certain logistical situations. If you'd try to find out those things in a test drive option, you'd better off just playing the game.
Some planets lets you test-drive with blueprints the planet owner faction has (and charge you higher!) while others don't.
I understand the sentiment, I thought of that option a few times myself. But I have to say, for me, piloting a newly bought ship for the first time has always been an important part of the experience. The big reward moment for finally saving up enough money to buy it. I feel like a test driving option would just lead to more time spent in the shop looking for the perfect ship, and less time in actual gameplay.
To really get a feel for a ship, a simple test drive would not help anyway - you'd need to try it out with different loadouts, against different enemy types and fleet constellations, or in certain logistical situations. If you'd try to find out those things in a test drive option, you'd better off just playing the game.
There absolutely has to be some kind of test drive thing for ships. Imagine you're a new player, go into a ship when you finally made some good cash and then just stare blankly into a wall of stats. Sure the stats give a nice picture but a new player will hardly ever get a "feel" for the ship just based on stats.
I understand the sentiment, I thought of that option a few times myself. But I have to say, for me, piloting a newly bought ship for the first time has always been an important part of the experience. The big reward moment for finally saving up enough money to buy it. I feel like a test driving option would just lead to more time spent in the shop looking for the perfect ship, and less time in actual gameplay.
To really get a feel for a ship, a simple test drive would not help anyway - you'd need to try it out with different loadouts, against different enemy types and fleet constellations, or in certain logistical situations. If you'd try to find out those things in a test drive option, you'd better off just playing the game.some living barnacle that can only drink beer with SOY MILK gets offended by it. Just be aware that what you say, where you say it and how you phrase it
Please take you own advice here, the language seems overly harsh.
Test riding ships is probably the biggest improvement to the simulator there can be. I would also like to have all the player obtainable ships in the enemy list. I consider selecting CR to be mostly a hassle, I wish all ships in simulator had it set to 70%, including ships that currently don't have that much (which means damaged ships in your fleet).
Re: the OP
I could take or leave #1 as playing against anything above/below 70 CR isn't all that common. I don't want to fight against handicapped opponents and the small bonuses that 100 CR gives isn't typically a game-changer. Would it be nice? Sure, but it's not a big deal to me.
Points 2 and 3, I'm just about in full agreement with. The caveat with point 2 is that I don't care so much about importing my loadouts so much as I am concerned with fighting actual loadouts I could be facing. Or in other words, RNG loadouts that the game may generate against me. Ideally, it would be both/and: I could designate a loadout or have a "real-world" RNG loadout based on certain parameters (i.e. fighting a Sindrian Diktat ship).
I, too, have suggested adding officers to sim ships because as the game progresses, un-officer'd ships become less and less of a threat. They no longer represent a "real" enemy you'll be fighting. I don't think it needs to go into great detail: just an option that throws an RNG officer at a certain level against you. That way, you'll have a better sense of how your current ship/loadout does against a true threat.
The "test drive" function of point 4 is tricky to me. I've flown just about every ship in Vanilla (except some obviously bad flagships) and I think if I had the option to test drive any ship, I might get stuck in the simulator min/maxing instead of playing the campaign. I kind of do that already with the current simulator. I don't think it takes away from the experience, per se, but it does lessen the carrot-on-a-stick to continue to advance. The whole "whoa, I want that!" when you encounter a new/bigger ship can be the impetus to find where to get it, fight for it, etc. Basically, I can see both sides and I'm not sure what side I fall on but I can justify them both.
@Arcagnello
Please refer to the forum rules (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=2668.0) regarding sexual content and refrain from referencing it.
I'd like there to be the option to do simulator battles with anything that the player has discovered. It would ruin the surprise of fighting the Guardian or a Radiant if it was in the sim menu from the very beginning, but afterwards it would be fun to fight against at will.
Quote13 new special weapons specific to this enemyRandom thought - are these weapons going to be hidden from the out-of-campaign missions (unlike say, Sparks and other [REDACTED] fighters)? I'd hate to accidentally spoil myself if I decided to jump in there for whatever reason.
Oh, hey, that's a great point! They definitely shouldn't show up there (and already don't show in the codex), but I forgot about the missions aspect of it. Done.Perhaps there could be a variable check based on whether or not the player has a save file where they have encountered anything [REDACTED] in the campaign, and only what they have seen of the [REDACTED] in the campaign appears in not just the missions, but also the codex.
That might make sense, yeah - I'll have to take another look at this when I finally get around to updating the Codex! I wouldn't want to do anything halfbaked about it now since it'd likely be wasted effort in the long term.
... If starsector is Pokemon, does that mean that if we take a Kite (S) into battle as our flagship for 20 levels it turns into a Guardian?