1
Discussions / Re: Highfleet... ugh
« on: August 25, 2021, 03:42:08 AM »
I quite enjoyed Highfleet, to be honest.
It's probably a subjective thing, but I found the combat gameplay to be very engaging and I quickly got used to the lack of a crosshair. Corvette fights are quite hectic. I don't quite understand how WASD to move, space to fire missiles, F to fire flares, C to fire counter-missiles, R to change ammo types, and B to deploy fire suppressant is too many keys? Starsector uses just about the same amount of keys, even slightly more and it's just as natural.
As for the 1v3 fights, IIRC the dev felt that including friendly ships would cause a lot of frustration for players, as a mistake made by the AI would mean losing expensive components or a ship entirely. I don't entirely agree with that, as the enemy AI seems smart enough for the most part, but it's easy to get enemies to friendly-fire into their peers.
Ship construction felt versatile too, once I got the hang of it. The in-campaign shipwork screen doesn't really bother me all that much: there's not enough time to construct an entirely new ship from the ground up, so I just use it to do minor refits or to replace missing parts.
I was able to come up with this flagship replacement after a few days. Granted, this guide helped quite a lot in figuring out the mechanics: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567187029
Aircraft and cruise missiles don't actually appear in the main combat. Instead they're sort of a minigame where you have to engage them and only them alongside your fleet. Different guns also have very different playstyles.
You don't have to land anything to access the city screen either.
It's probably a subjective thing, but I found the combat gameplay to be very engaging and I quickly got used to the lack of a crosshair. Corvette fights are quite hectic. I don't quite understand how WASD to move, space to fire missiles, F to fire flares, C to fire counter-missiles, R to change ammo types, and B to deploy fire suppressant is too many keys? Starsector uses just about the same amount of keys, even slightly more and it's just as natural.
As for the 1v3 fights, IIRC the dev felt that including friendly ships would cause a lot of frustration for players, as a mistake made by the AI would mean losing expensive components or a ship entirely. I don't entirely agree with that, as the enemy AI seems smart enough for the most part, but it's easy to get enemies to friendly-fire into their peers.
Ship construction felt versatile too, once I got the hang of it. The in-campaign shipwork screen doesn't really bother me all that much: there's not enough time to construct an entirely new ship from the ground up, so I just use it to do minor refits or to replace missing parts.
I was able to come up with this flagship replacement after a few days. Granted, this guide helped quite a lot in figuring out the mechanics: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567187029
The aim reticle allows the player to learn a lot of cognitive skills regarding the game systems in terms of projectile speed, spread and just the 'feel' of weapons. There is NONE of that in highfleet. Compare nailing that out-of-range heavy blaster shot on a Hound, to.. whatever the hell's going on in Highfleet. It's terrible, feels bad, and makes me not want to play the combat. I also hear it gets worse, with aircraft attacking your fleet (well, your flagship since of course) and other such things like cruise missiles.
Aircraft and cruise missiles don't actually appear in the main combat. Instead they're sort of a minigame where you have to engage them and only them alongside your fleet. Different guns also have very different playstyles.
You don't have to land anything to access the city screen either.