Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

General Discussion / Re: Learning Wall

« on: September 25, 2011, 05:41:17 PM »

Wow, I feel pretty foolish for not noticing the small little escape pod ejecting from the command ship and flying towards the target "new" command ship.  It was hard to see with all the other little fighters and such that had been harassing me in the area.  Not sure how to make that clearer unless perhaps a message of some kind indicating that your command shuttle is in "en route" to the new command ship was added.  Could just be me not paying enough attention, though.    The screen kept moving because of the command shuttle and I just thought it was either me moving the mouse or an issue because my command ship was toast.  I don't think it was the bug you mentioned.  Hopefully you've squashed that one, I know I hate when little bugs come crawling back out. 

I read the manual, took your advice, and had another go and did much better now, at least on the medium missions.  The hard ones, aside from Sinking the Bis'mar, have proven too daunting for me thus far, heh.  I had a go driving one of the assault frigates (once they, ahem, kind of blew up my command ship) and it moved at a top speed of about 30.  Boy, did I regret that move!  I also tried the Dominator-class in Predator or Prey, but hated the movement speed on it.  I tried to capture the buoys as it suggested, but failed to take and hold them.

I will look forward to the campaign when I can proceed at a slightly slower pace.  I don't think I'm quite ready for the hard and impossible scenarios yet.   

2

General Discussion / Re: Learning Wall

« on: September 25, 2011, 03:53:59 PM »

Thank you so much for the reply Alex.  I appreciate it!  The game is certainly intriguing and I am excited to see the upcoming developments.

I'm going to keep playing with the different war room options and see if I can figure out how to best use/control my units.  I didn't realize Defend would still leave them free to move about so much, but now that I know, it makes sense that they still wandered off.  I'm going to give the manual and codex another look through for inspiration.

I see what you mean regarding the Apogee.  I just tried that mission again and see that the high intensity laser has a pretty long range.  It appears the missiles also have a longer range, though their ammo seems very limited.  I can understand why you may not want to center the screen now.  Instead, it makes me want to zoom out more, but I'll get used to it as is I suppose.  I'll try taking more of the Nav Buoys.   Can you provide any pointers on getting some of my ships to actually then defend it so the enemy isn't able to just take it back?

Another option I have is to switch command to a new ship.  I've noticed when I do this that the screen does not need to zoom or center to the new ship.  Not sure if I'm missing something or if I'm supposed to have to drag my view over to where that ship is manually.


Thanks again.  It sounds like you are on the right track, and I look forward to the continued development!


 

3

General Discussion / Re: Learning Wall

« on: September 25, 2011, 12:20:30 PM »

I'm experiencing a large amount of frustration with Starfarer right now, and I'm hoping that someone can show me either the error in my ways, or if this is how things are supposed to work.  I'm a very new player, but so far my experience has been a bit underwhelming, which is unfortunate, as I really want to like this game.

How do I get my ships to listen and stop flying off to get singled out and killed?  I set command orders to take over a couple points and to defend nearby them, yet some of my ships still wander off on their own.  How do I prevent this behavior, and what should I be doing?  I watched two online tutorials from a few months back and played the in-game tutorial and still don't seem to be doing this right.

How are you guys making use of your capital / flagships?  Their weapons seem to have a very short range and their speed is atrocious, so trying to engage anything ends with me giving chase as they either outrun me or outflank me.  Right now, I feel either like a sponge absorbing bullets with no other real purpose, or like a turtle always showing up after the action has come and gone.  Shouldn't I be able to lock onto targets and fire missiles or long range beams or something?  I actually enjoyed the smaller ship in Sinking the Bis'mar since I got to actually dodge and use some tactics.  The big ships are a bore.


I've also got a few suggestions as someone new that I suspect other new players may also have.  Obviously, these are just my opinions and may not jive with the goals of the game, and I understand if that's the case.  Anyway, I'll just share these thoughts I jotted down while playing:

Make it more obvious when firing a weapon that it is either on cooldown or out of ammo.  I am normally looking at the action on the screen and not at the bottom of the screen where the ammo display/info is.  Instead, I end up losing time/firing angle when I try to fire a gun that isn't ready or has no ammo left.  I think either a subtle "Out of Ammo" or "Weapon not ready yet" overlay on or near the ship would help quite a bit.

Same as above but with Flex.  An obvious indicator on/near your ship that you are nearing overload would be handy.  Again, I don't find myself looking at the lower left corner of the screen when I'm taking damage/fighting someone.

Hotkey or option to keep the screen locked with your ship in the center.  I understand the desire to look around while flying, but it can be disorienting when I'm trying to aim and end up moving my ship nearly off the screen in the process.  I don't care for this and it detracts from the experience.

Allow access to the controls list while in battle.  As far I could tell, you can only access the controls list from the main menu settings.

Tips on the main page seem to cycle randomly.  I think I saw them all, but I had to keep clicking and cycle through the same tips a half dozen times to get to them.  I would just make this sequential instead.

More in depth tutorials to explain game mechanics.  This game does not seem to work well with the old "jump in and see how things go" philosophy.  In fact, its downright frustrating.  I have completely destroyed some of the scenarios while others left me without a clue how to proceed.  I suspect I am missing some things.

As far as space strategy games go, I'm coming from a background of playing games like MoO2, Sword of the Stars, and recently, SPAZ.  Anyway, those are my thoughts. Once the 4x type campaign elements are added to the game,  as well as ship design, I really feel like this game can be fantastic.  That's why I've supported the project, but even if the game doesn't end up being what I expected, I can at least enjoy the fact that I supported indie development. 

4

General Discussion / Re: Preorders and Sales

« on: September 24, 2011, 11:38:37 PM »

Found out about this one tonight and pre-ordered after doing a tad bit of research.  I love the fact that people are making these types of games again.  It's so refreshing.  I look forward to playing and spreading the word.  Best wishes!