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[Moriarty]

Hi.
I've just bought the pre-order and figured I'd post my first-thoughts. Before I get into a rather long winded account of my issues with the game I figured I'd start by saying fundamentally it looks quite funky and has a lot of prospective. There's lots of polish here already (i.e. mission descriptions and general lore).

That said, following is a big wall of text. This probably includes some bugs. I've split off the obvious ones I could find and put them in the bugs forum:

This is 0.5a


Combat tutorial:
   The mouse movement system is horrible. I hate how the screen moves to where the mouse /was/ in relation to the background. I've played countless games in my time but few have had a look-around system that grates as much as this does. Maybe I'll get used to it.
   
   Combining the way that manually aiming PD lasers works with the way that the mouse look works is very... unpleasant. (autofire didn't work for me on the first two playthroughts, see bug).
   
   Shift - A/D makes the ship strafe. Fine. But when I do this it ALSO makes the ship turn to point at my mouse. Arrrrg. I was already disliking the mouse-look and control scheme before this. :-(
   
Outcome of playing the combat tutorial: I really don't like combat in this game. :-( It's so much nice in SpacePiratesAndZombies or any other space game I've played. I anticipate just leaving battles to the autopilot.

Fleet tutorial
   I'm playing 1024*768 windowed (so I can write this at the same time).
   I've just deployed my drone wing and been told to assign orders. I move my mouse and and pan it over the fighter icons. Up pops a nice page full of information and stats about the fighters, BUT, much of this information is off-screen (to the right), at least when I enter the fighter-box from the right side.
   
   Is there a way to speed up the game? For some reason pressing "+" results in it going to the map page (despite not being on the "controls" list).
   
   It's never really clear when the game is paused when you're on the combat-view. It does occasionally say "game paused/unpaused" in the top left, but that's not particualrly helpful when its disappeared and it doesn't always show.

   Outcome of playing the fleet tutorial: I like the possibilities of this, however its rather unwieldy at present, particularly the interface. I can't really offer more constructive feedback other than that its just a bit messy and cluttered and it doesn't help that the ships don't always do what you expect, despite having been given orders. Its also hard to tell what orders a ship/whatever currently has. I think you need to get input from people who haven't spent a long time getting used to the system


   
Mission: "Turning the Tables" - The game claims this is "easy".
   Attempt 1: I set capture orders on both points, the mining drones go off in each direction. I set "destroyer escort" on the Hamatsu. The destroyer does nothing whatsoever (I'm staying in map view at this point).
   I then manually took command of the destroyer and tried to kill the two close-support frigates. Yeah right. The things just kite out of my range. I can't catch them (too slow) and can't hit them. My fighters get destroyed doing whatever.
   Ok, So failed take 1.
   
   Attempt 2: I again set "destroyer escort" on the Hamatsu. Then then give each of the capitals a "light escort" order. I then just hit play and wait (in the map view, never having left it). My destroyer flies to the top of the map leaving the hamatsu to fend for itself. At the top of the map it then reverses and flies downward (backwards, hence reverses, rather than turns around).
   The Hamatsu gets destroyed. Failure number 2.
   
   So what am I doing wrong? Do I need to manually pilot the destroyer? Despite having given it escort orders? I've not given it "autopilot" orders, it follows those should be given automatically when its assigned a role. Also, surely if its not on autopilot it shouldn't be automatically accepting orders or classed as "in standby".
   
   Attempt 3:
   Same orders as take 2, but after issuing them I click "autopilot" on the destroyer. Things look up, it actually does stuff this time!
   
   But for some reason the fighters escorting the hamatsu go flying far off to the left to attack fighters near nav alpha (left) while the combat and both fleets are going on towards Sensor alpha (right).
   I leave the battle on auto and the destroyer on autopilot much like me can't hit the support frigates which just kite it. It does take out the assault frigate though. Eventually the strike carrier is destroyed, the support frigates retreat and I get the score of 29%. Whooo.

   I get a "new high score of... previous high score of 0%" - you may not wish to show the "previous high score" if it is 0%. Seems kind of pointless.


   Attempt 4:
           Can I actually destroy those damnable support frigate? I decide this time to set the destroyer as escort again (plus manually autopilot), but give the fighters an "intercept" mission against the first support frigate I see. I have no idea what happens next, but one set of fighters disappears (turns out destroyed) and the other is miles away attacking some other fighters despite having a nice big arrow pointing at the still surviving frigate which has 3/5 of its hull intact.
   Outcome: Defeat. The hamatsu is disabled. Oh well.
   
   Outcome of mission: It's pretty obvious the tutorials haven't prepared me for the game if I'm losing an "easy" mission multiple times despite years of playing these sorts of games. Typically these things are a cake-walk at this level.
   I appreciate that kiting is a valid tactic, but I don't expect it to be used against me to such effect on a an easy mission where I have no recourse against it (it's obvious the fighters are useless for this).

[Doom101]

first off let me say welcome to the game and the forums,

2 you get used to the camera controls or at least i did.

3 i never use strafe and i get along just fine without it

4 when your IN combat and not on the map there are a play and pause icon on the left side or at least i think there are these light up accordingly.

5 dont ever play windowed mode.

6 no way to speed up the game you're meant to take an active part not stand by.

7 compared to the other missions that one is "easy" difficulty does not scale the AI it scales the odds from what i can tell number of ships and what type on either side.

8 i find the best way to beat the first mission (haven't done it in awhile myself) is to have everyone stick together, light escort the cruiser with the fighters and manually pilot the destroyer close by.

9 restarting the game almost always fixes the autofire bug you described never had it happen more than once to me. and trust me autofire makes combat WAYYYYY less frustrating i can't imagine having to constantly switch to my pd weapons and manually target missiles, well i can and it sucks. EDIT i just looked at your bug report post as well, the flashing light on autofire means it on but you have control of the weapons selected so it won't do anything unless your off them for example if you set you PD lasers on group 3 to autofire but manually select it it will do nothing, try selecting your main guns or your missiles. and as well the weapons must be in range of a target such as a missile or an enemy to actually fire otherwise it would waste ammo/flux.

10 the reason the destroyer didn't respond to orders the first time is because it was YOUR flagship you cant give yourself orders unless its on autopilot, your meant to always be ingame with your ships, autopilot is more so you can take a drink while your ship crosses the vast emptiness of the combat field.

11 i suggest you try the campaign its the "New game" button on the main menu it will better prepare you for the missions i myself have beat very few of them with a good score. but just so you know you shift click or shift ckick and drag the mouse to buy less than 500 of something it will come in handy trust me.

the tutorials are great for the basic of the basics but the campaign will prepare you the most, you'll be able to learn what ships do what without sitting and staring at the codex for hours, although it definitely helps that it's there.

Finally again welcome to the community i hope you enjoy your stay, and remember its only in alpha its not even beta!

btw under options there is a setting that is basically easy mode and normal mode its the half or full dmg setting at half you only take half of the incoming damage on full you take the normal amount of damage.

[Dreyven]

Okay, before everything, here are some things

1 you have to use autofire, without it you will have a hard time, use it preferably for Point defense
2 i assume you played in the Black star and did not transfer command, this means that the destroyer escort command on the ISS hamatsu itself does nothing because if not set on autopilot, you will have to control the black star by yourself... the game is really dependent on you taking active command over 1 ship
3 strafe is usefull, but don't use it while controling PD... it's mainly for keeping your hardpoint guns pointed on the enemy

Just played this mission and had no real problem with it... here a quick overwiew what i did

1 click on the Hamatsu and use light escort
2 assign the second mining drown to the light escort command
3 use a carrier rally group on 1 of the 2 nav points
4 exit tactics screen, fly alongside the ISS Hamatsu and engage in battle near one of the nav points
5 make up a target priority for yourself, in this mission try to kill the bomber wing and the interceptors first,
use your PD on autofire and fire with your main gun
6 watch your troops over the tactics screen now and then, help the hamatsu if it is in trouble... if a mining drone get's dangerously low use Refit and repair

[Flare]

If those frigates are kiting you there are several ways of catching them. First is to capture the nav point to give your ships a boost in speed.

Secondly there is a trick that involves the engines actually pulling you back, the point being is not to engage the engines when you have a speed bonus that would disappear latter.
Before we get into this, we have to establish that every ship that doesn't have any flux and hasn't raised shields will get a speed bonus. Specifically the maximum speed limit will increase. Now if a ship is 200 units fast when not incurring any flux, and it fires its guns, the maximum speed limit will go down. The ship however, may still keep going at 200 units fast instead of the 150 units that is the result of having flux in the system of the ship. This could only be done if you don't engage the engines and leave it at 200. Only when you're firing your engines does your ship actually try to reach maximum speed. And since your maximum speed at that point is lower than your actual speed, engaging engines will slow you down.

A third way to do it is to cause the frigates to overload on flux. Your sabots are quite handy for this. On good shot and it's usually the case that the frigates in that mission overload.

[Moriarty]

Thanks for the replies folks. Don't worry, I'm quite familiar with development cycles (I've done a little myself). The post was meant as a "these are first impressions" as usually people using a product have gotton used to it.

4 when your IN combat and not on the map there are a play and pause icon on the left side or at least i think there are these light up accordingly.

I've not seen this myself. There are play/pause icons on the map view, but not on the combat view.




Some interesting thoughts there. I've put my thoughts on autofire and autopilot in the bugs thread. The other things are useful to know but I think there are two take-home messages here:
1) The tutorials could use some work. (might be on the todo list)
2) Due to the game design, I'm guessing there's going to be a spectrum of game player types:

Fleet: Control the fleet from the map, don't participate in actual combat. Aka, the strategist

Ship: Control the flagship, ignore the fleet, go around blowing stuff up. I.e. a Tactician

Every player is likely to be on the spectrum between those two somewhere. Myself, I'm very towards the Fleet end. I'd suggest the game shouldn't punish any valid play styles that it allows. If a play style isn't valid then it should be discouraged somehow with a gameplay mechanic and not just by "failing" the mission.

[Iscariot]

I've not seen this myself. There are play/pause icons on the map view, but not on the combat view.

You can hit space at any time, in tactical or in the combat screen to pause or play the game.

Every player is likely to be on the spectrum between those two somewhere. Myself, I'm very towards the Fleet end. I'd suggest the game shouldn't punish any valid play styles that it allows. If a play style isn't valid then it should be discouraged somehow with a gameplay mechanic and not just by "failing" the mission.

This has been discussed at great length in the 'Fleet Control Feedback' thread, you're welcome to peruse it, but if I were to give a succinct response, I would ask how you feel your style of play is being 'punished'? If you're talking about not being able to play the game entirely from the tactical screen, then you are absolutely being discouraged with a gameplay mechanic. The computer isn't going to fly your ship, or prioritize your targets as well as you are.

[Moriarty]

You can hit space at any time, in tactical or in the combat screen to pause or play the game.

Thanks, I know. My problem is that there's no easy visual way to tell that the game is paused or not while on the combat screen. I have to press space several times to see what the state is.

This has been discussed at great length in the 'Fleet Control Feedback' thread, you're welcome to peruse it, but if I were to give a succinct response, I would ask how you feel your style of play is being 'punished'? If you're talking about not being able to play the game entirely from the tactical screen, then you are absolutely being discouraged with a gameplay mechanic. The computer isn't going to fly your ship, or prioritize your targets as well as you are.

I shall take a look when I have a moment.
However, on the matter of punished, its the simple fact that the game is very difficult to complete with just tactical. I would disagree this is a gameplay mechanic that's discouraging because it offers no feedback as to why you fail, you just fail repeatedly (albeit in a different way each time). For all I know maybe my tactics just don't work. Yes I appreciate the AI won't be as good as me, but the AI is also less lazy than me; I don't want to have to manage /both/ tactical and fleet simultaneously. Thats just my take anyway.

[Flare]

Yes I appreciate the AI won't be as good as me, but the AI is also less lazy than me; I don't want to have to manage /both/ tactical and fleet simultaneously. Thats just my take anyway.

If you're afraid of the incompetence of the AI screwing things up without your oversight, the AI has been designed in such a way that it is quite competent at executing your orders so you wouldn't have to worry about them so much and could be free to command your own ship.

[Iscariot]

I shall take a look when I have a moment.
However, on the matter of punished, its the simple fact that the game is very difficult to complete with just tactical. I would disagree this is a gameplay mechanic that's discouraging because it offers no feedback as to why you fail, you just fail repeatedly (albeit in a different way each time). For all I know maybe my tactics just don't work. Yes I appreciate the AI won't be as good as me, but the AI is also less lazy than me; I don't want to have to manage /both/ tactical and fleet simultaneously. Thats just my take anyway.

There's a lot of complexity built in the the maneuvering, fire control groups, and combat controls. I may be speaking out of line, but it is my impression that managing those aspects on an important component of your fleet, ie your flagship is an integral component to the gameplay.

That said, I do agree that the command system needs refinement, but I steadfastly disagree that the solution is as draconian as pulling out command points or refining it to the point where ships can accomplish challenging missions with no manual flying. The entire command system is heavily automated to allow manual flying to even be possible in a fleet engagement-- that is the intention, as far as I can surmise.

[Icelom]

Combat tutorial:
   The mouse movement system is horrible. I hate how the screen moves to where the mouse /was/ in relation to the background. I've played countless games in my time but few have had a look-around system that grates as much as this does. Maybe I'll get used to it.
   
   Combining the way that manually aiming PD lasers works with the way that the mouse look works is very... unpleasant. (autofire didn't work for me on the first two playthroughts, see bug).
   
   Shift - A/D makes the ship strafe. Fine. But when I do this it ALSO makes the ship turn to point at my mouse. Arrrrg. I was already disliking the mouse-look and control scheme before this. :-(

Going to address this, dont manual fire your PD weapons.. thats just creazy your problem was you were still on the selected weapon type you cant have the control group you have selected auto fire (if there are 1-3 control groups and you want them all to auto fire hit 4)

Having the ship turn to point the mouse is awsome once you get used to the system, makes circleing the targets keeping weapons front alot easier. It gets really fun when trying to block salamnders with your omni as you have to drop the strafe and what not but you get used to it.

As for the panning, i quite like it it only pans when you want to (mouse at the edge) and thats great for set targets without having to go to tactical.

Basically most of your complaints really come down to not quite understanding the gameplay system yet, i think alot of this stuff will feel alot better once you get used to it and learn how parts of the game work. Took me a while to get comfortable with combat orders... ie if i really need a certain ship to follow an order i force it to. Basically the AI has a priority on commands so if you have 10 active commands your ships cant be everywhere at once and will prioritize if you want to force something you have to manual asing it to that order, furthermore alex has stated the escort commands are not what htey could be and he is working on them for the next release.

When i first started the AI ran circles around me kiting and just kicking my can, but once i got used to it i can now easily best a much larger ai force just from the correct tactical orders and piloting of my flagship. The ai is very good but it does not make the hard decisions sometimes necessary like to eat tons of hits on your armour to keep your weapons firing instead of sheilds and stuff like that.

Anyways have fun and fly safe.

[Reapy]

I don't know if anybody has looked in the key bindings, but by default ctrl + a or d  will strafe you without turning to face the mouse.  I find that I like to use either ctrl or shift depending what I want to do.

I still have some bad habits to break as the last game I played with controls like this is subspace and that is generally how I want to maneuver my ships around.

The one thing I dislike with strafe, but I can't really see a way around it, is that the controls are backwards when you are facing down on the screen. I guess I have no trouble thinking of up/down as relative to the ship, and rotating left/right is fine relative to the ship, but when I hit the strafe its like I want to push left to go to the left of the screen, not remember where the ship's left is to go that way.

I think over time I will eventually overcome this, and also I can't see a different way to change it, it still somewhat irks me and feels unnatural.

But yeah, CTRL + Strafe  == no mouse look.

[Thana]

Thanks, Reapy, I didn't know that!

[Icelom]

I don't know if anybody has looked in the key bindings, but by default ctrl + a or d  will strafe you without turning to face the mouse.  I find that I like to use either ctrl or shift depending what I want to do.

I still have some bad habits to break as the last game I played with controls like this is subspace and that is generally how I want to maneuver my ships around.

The one thing I dislike with strafe, but I can't really see a way around it, is that the controls are backwards when you are facing down on the screen. I guess I have no trouble thinking of up/down as relative to the ship, and rotating left/right is fine relative to the ship, but when I hit the strafe its like I want to push left to go to the left of the screen, not remember where the ship's left is to go that way.

I think over time I will eventually overcome this, and also I can't see a different way to change it, it still somewhat irks me and feels unnatural.

But yeah, CTRL + Strafe  == no mouse look.

Ya i agree i get mesed up if my ship is upside down as soon as i start strafing... nothing like strafing into a torp barage you meant to strafe away from.

[Kommodore Krieg]

You can hit space at any time, in tactical or in the combat screen to pause or play the game.

Thanks, I know. My problem is that there's no easy visual way to tell that the game is paused or not while on the combat screen.

This has been discussed at great length in the 'Fleet Control Feedback' thread, you're welcome to peruse it, but if I were to give a succinct response, I would ask how you feel your style of play is being 'punished'? If you're talking about not being able to play the game entirely from the tactical screen, then you are absolutely being discouraged with a gameplay mechanic. The computer isn't going to fly your ship, or prioritize your targets as well as you are.

I shall take a look when I have a moment.
However, on the matter of punished, its the simple fact that the game is very difficult to complete with just tactical. I would disagree this is a gameplay mechanic that's discouraging because it offers no feedback as to why you fail, you just fail repeatedly (albeit in a different way each time). For all I know maybe my tactics just don't work. Yes I appreciate the AI won't be as good as me, but the AI is also less lazy than me; I don't want to have to manage /both/ tactical and fleet simultaneously. Thats just my take anyway.

Well, the visual indicator that the game is paused is that everything is frozen in space and not moving...it also says in the text combat log "game paused" and "game unpaused".  I don't mean to sound snide it just seems like a really odd complaint.  

The game IS difficult to complete with just tactical, but that's what the pause is for.  Fight, pause (spacebar pauses if you didn't know), issue orders, resume.  As for why you are failing, just read around and keep trying, there is also a game manual stickied on this forum with all the basics you might need beyond the tutorial.  But this game is MEANT to be a challenge, it's not meant to be arcadey like SPAZ, and it delivers.  You need to expect to die a lot, but by practicing you will learn.  

[Gaizokubanou]

   Shift - A/D makes the ship strafe. Fine. But when I do this it ALSO makes the ship turn to point at my mouse. Arrrrg. I was already disliking the mouse-look and control scheme before this. :-(
   

Hello.  You can strafe without turning the ship with Alt - A/D.  I'm pretty certain that this keybind can be changed.