Hey everyone, i honestly didn't know where to put this. It's abit of suggestions but at the same time it's also general discussion and my thoughts and comments on the current game build.
Let me start off by saying i love the feel and the potential of Starfarer. I actually bought this and Spaz around the same time oddly enough so.
That being said there is obviously a few hurdles and bumps to get over. Let me start off with my general thoughts and annoyance.
First off the one thing that really stands out and bugs me is the amount of blandness and lack of a better damage model on ships. Although areas get grayed out it really has no effect on the overall status of a ship. Meaning if i concentrate my entire firepower on the engines they never get shut off or completely destroyed. This completely removes any tacticalness of "Lets kill his engines then board him". Also be good to see holes open up and crew members fly out!
Ships being damaged and exploding..... One thing about space battles is always seeing the ships explode or start losing power. Right now your ships do not lose any weapons... do not have pieces tear apart and do not have any inner explosions or small explosions going on. What im trying to say is ships just explode and thats it. Why do larger ships not split inhalf? Or have pieces start falling off? Not to mention why are there no escape pods flying out of ships just before a explosion?
Another let down for me was the complete lack of boarding options, or simply disabling a ship to have a smaller "assault" vessel dock beside it and have marines cut in and take over the vessel.
Shields are one huge annoyance for me. I love the fact that you can activate them at will, but i hate how low of a tolerance they have. It's honestly ridiculous how fast flux builds up when your shields are being hit. Especially on Flagships and larger ships. Shields really need a stronger and more balanced system. The most obvious problem that i think is just how much flux the shields build up when being hit.
Fighters/Bombers i almost feel like fighters and bombers arent doing what they should be doing. Bombers of course are fine. But what bugs me is the utter uselessness of all fighters. I dont like the fact that huge cannons can hit fighters and i find them far too slow. The way they attack is ridiculous. They run straight at large ships and dont seem fast enough. Fighters should focus purely on bombers/other fighters and smaller ships. I honestly completely dislike how Fighters are currently implanted, maybe ive just watched too much battlestar galactica and star wars. I'd really like a system like Star Wars Empire at War where the fighters actually engage other fighters in cool dogfights.
Capital Ships...... MAN ARE THEY AWESOME. But at the same time i find so many key components missing. For one i feel that all capital and large ships should be able to launch fighters from their hangar. They should automatically have fighters inside them. Preferably one squad obviously. Not only that but why do the largest ships have no AA or Flak? I know you cant equip Flaks or choose your layouts yet but it should be a auto given that Large Capital ships and Huge Destroyers have built in AA. Instead of everything requiring slots some ships should just be given basics. Capital ships should have basic AA turrets that fire on their own... even if it's not overly strong.
Tactical Map, the tactical map lacks very key functions... i havent figured it all out yet... but i'd really let to set fighters to guard or patrol areas in space or ships. Not only that but the current warp in at the bottom of the screen is getting abit old in space games.
Ships having general features.... What i mean by this is that every crew should have a crew amount shown, the amount of flux shown... (i think it should lower as the ship takes more damage) the engine speed etc etc. The more damage ships take the lower everything gets. Right now it's simple.... pound them till shields drop in like 2 seconds... pound them some more... and watch them explode.
Ship abilities! Some ships should have personal abilities. What i mean by this is that certain ships should be able to boost other ships, shield strength wise or flux wise. Not only that but change it up abit! You could perhaps have a huge battleship and it should have a a mode or a switch where you can get it to disengage from it's wings or armor support and turn into a speeder lighter version. Stuff like that is interesting.
Damage models... i covered this already abit but my biggest gripe in all space games is the utter lack of damage detail or the way of dealing with damages. The game is very complex so why not allow you make simple decisions on the field of battle to repair and stop inner fires etc. What i mean is.... lets say the engines take a rocket hit and they are broken and draining power. Why not enable it so you can disengage the engine and see it fly off to stop it from adding flux or something. Why not give you the option of sealing areas on the ship down if a ship takes heavy damage. But at the same time this would obviously slow your crew down in your ship causing it to reload slower etc etc. Same thing applies to getting boarded. Why not allow you the option to lockdown the ship or venting the entire ship or self destructing? These are all things that you never see in any space game!
My current thoughts on balance.... as of right now theres obvious balance issues. To run through a few that i've noticed.... Shields really need a tuning they feel useless and so many situations. Small Frigates/Smaller ships.... they really arent upholding to what they should be and people have even made jokes plenty of times on the forum about small ships being useless. battle lenghts.... honstly find that battles need to last longer. Not as a whole but if two capital ships engage it should be a decently long battle. Instead of this hammering back and forth for 10 seconds then another 10 seconds of killing hull. Fighters/Bombers need some serious looking into. They should really be smaller and faster, they shoulnt be getting hit by huge cannons.
Anyways, thats all on my mind as of right now. Obviously everything is being worked on and its just the combat build. But it doesnt help to throw things and ideas out there. I really do see great potential for this game, and i and im sure others are interested in a real and true space game. The time has come to go abit beyond the classical shoot back and forth for 20 seconds and watch ships explode, if you get fighters and capital ships more balanced and create the epic feel and visual of battles that we see in movies of huge carrier and capital ships fighting back and forth and you add another element of not just the ships but the crew and dealing with damages to the ship the game will go quite far.
Best of luck, and i love the game so far. (Sorry if this is the wrong area?)
