Print

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

[Illamon]

So I just started this game a few days ago and their are a few things that are beginning to make the game... while not unplayable, defininetely frustrating, and i feel that it is an unnecessary frustration.

1. The CR as it stands in combat seems to heavily favor the computer, to the point of I start a battle with around 87% and the computer starts at 72%. But I run out of CR WAY before them.

2. My second problem kind of ties in with the first. In those battles with CR problems I run into one of two kinds of ships, Phase or Carriers. Well the phase I just cannot kill because they are faster then anything I have and can just go out of range, vent and come back in, doing really nothing combat wise. The second are the speed Carriers generally, and I simply cannot keep up with them, so again my CR keeps draining and since they seem to have a boost to their CR longevity I am the one screwed.

3. Map size, these all tie into each other pretty well. Map size I run into a problem where the enemy has something like 3-5 carriers, even if they are not faster carriers they are literally at every different point of the map, so I have to go and hunt one down at a time, once again dropping my CR to nothing and by the time I engage the last one my engines fail I become dead in the water and they just missile me off.

So these are just some things that are legitimately effecting my game play. I LOVE this game, it is the first one of its kind that truly has what I want from this breed of game, but these negatives happen SOO often, I generally have to just restart from a save point and not even attempt the fight, not because I cannot win from force of arms but because it is not worth the time spent. If anyone has any pointers they can suggest to help mitigate I am all ears. Thanks for reading.

[Alex]

Hi - thanks for your feedback!

Re: phase ships - very much agreed; actually working on something that should address that for the next release.

1. The CR as it stands in combat seems to heavily favor the computer, to the point of I start a battle with around 87% and the computer starts at 72%. But I run out of CR WAY before them.

Generally speaking, larger ships have a longer peak time, which won't even count down unless you have matching forces nearby. For example, if all you've got is a frigate, and you're facing a destroyer, it's not going to lose CR at all. It's up to you to bring the fight to it. (If you've got two frigates, the destroyer's peak time will start to tick down, but it's got more peak time to begin with, so wearing it out isn't usually a good idea.)

I'd say if you're running all the way out of CR, you're probably either taking on enemies that are too powerful, or just not being aggressive enough. Stuff like the current phase ships notwithstanding; those are just annoying to kill as they are now.

Regarding carriers, what kind of ship are you flying? If you're in a frigate, I wouldn't expect you to have too much trouble chasing them down. Deploying some faster ships may be worthwhile to help chase them down, in any case.

If anyone has any pointers they can suggest to help mitigate I am all ears. Thanks for reading.

One thing to try is the "Safety Overrides" hullmod. It's available from the start of the game, and gives your ship much improved speed and flux dissipation, at the expense of a much reduced peak time and faster CR loss. The latter sounds like it'd just make the problems you're running into worse, and it might - but it also allows you to play a much faster-paced and aggressive style, and would let you chase down phase ships and carriers more easily, as well as deal damage to other ships more quickly. It may be worth a try just to see how that feels for you.

But, yeah, basically, I think that if you're running out of CR, the main thing is to just consider how you might do damage faster - whether it's more aggressive piloting, using a faster ship/speed-increasing hullmods/skills, etc. Or deploying more ships to help you end the fight more quickly. It's actually cheaper to field several ships at once and end the fight quickly instead of running your CR all the way down and using up a ton of supplies to regenerate all of it.

Hope this helps some!

[TrashMan]

There's also a hullmod that reduced CR loss for smaller ships

[Histidine]

Regarding carriers, what kind of ship are you flying? If you're in a frigate, I wouldn't expect you to have too much trouble chasing them down. Deploying some faster ships may be worthwhile to help chase them down, in any case.

Depends on the carrier. Condor's base combat speed is only 40 (which is catastrophically slow if it gets into an escape scenario), and Gemini isn't much better at 50.
Heron, however, goes at 90 (I always felt it was fast, but had no idea how fast until I checked the codex). Further, it's a good enough fighter to deal with one or two frigates, or a lone destroyer, that try to catch it; it doesn't actually have much in the way of weapons, but it has a pretty good shield and flux stats to use it with (unlike the aforementioned Condor or Gemini).

The player does pay quite a bit in deployment cost for those benefits, but it remains annoying to run AI Herons down (especially with level 20 officers) if they decide they don't want to stand around and be caught.

[Megas]

I have called Heron the Wolf that trades phase skimmer for two flight decks.  Heron is a match for anything up to destroyer size.

Herons are more common in 0.7 than they used to be.

Annoying thing about dedicated carriers is they seem exempt from "matching forces" CR rules.  Their CR always ticks down even if the carrier is a Heron or Astral and the enemy is a small ship.  Conversely, a small ship (at least a destroyer) does not lose CR if the only opponent is a dedicated carrier even if the carrier is bigger.