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[MidnightSun]

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.

This gets me every time. I think that's the primary reason I'm relatively poor at flying the small, quick crafts where rapid circle-strafing is most useful.

[Moriarty]

The Ctrl-A\D is interesting and may be useful.

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. 

Because everything not moving isn't sufficient when the only thing on the screen is the flagship. You can't tell if the game is paused/not without manually controlling it. You should be able to tell just by looking at a basic indicator. And yes, there is the text log, however that disappears quickly and doesn't always show.

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.

I'm afraid that's poor balance / game design. I realise its not SPAZ and I have no problem with complex games (my preference is for complex games actually!), its just that if a "easy" mission requires I actually read around to be able to win it, something is wrong with the game's design/balance or the level itself (a combination in this case IMHO). You should NOT expect to die lots, dying isn't fun in this game (some games make it fun an basically "free" - SF isn't one of them - it punishes you).

From reading the replies it seems that most players who have stuck around enjoy a painful learning curve, but what of the ones (like me) who don't? Ok, once upon a time I did, but no more. I've not played the game any further than a few minutes of campaign (I lost my second fight BADLY and that was purely tactical so am probably just giving up on the game until the balance is improved).

[Thana]

I'm afraid that's poor balance / game design. I realise its not SPAZ and I have no problem with complex games (my preference is for complex games actually!), its just that if a "easy" mission requires I actually read around to be able to win it, something is wrong with the game's design/balance or the level itself (a combination in this case IMHO). You should NOT expect to die lots, dying isn't fun in this game (some games make it fun an basically "free" - SF isn't one of them - it punishes you).

Well, after going through the tutorials, I had zero trouble with the first mission, and that was way before the game introduced the current default of player ship taking only half damage. Not reading the manual did become an issue after finishing the second mission and after reading it, I started going through most of the missions marked "hard" with little trouble. That seems fine to me on balance, especially since I'm a pretty mediocre player in general.

From reading the replies it seems that most players who have stuck around enjoy a painful learning curve, but what of the ones (like me) who don't? Ok, once upon a time I did, but no more. I've not played the game any further than a few minutes of campaign (I lost my second fight BADLY and that was purely tactical so am probably just giving up on the game until the balance is improved).

Don't know what to say. Maybe the game isn't a good match for you for some reason? The game does assuredly have a learning curve, but I certainly never thought of it as painful. EVE, it ain't. No, it felt like a pleasantly gradual increase where I improved every time I played. (And reading the manual was full of "oh!" moments from the tips and deeper info.)

[Kommodore Krieg]

The Ctrl-A\D is interesting and may be useful.

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. 

Because everything not moving isn't sufficient when the only thing on the screen is the flagship. You can't tell if the game is paused/not without manually controlling it. You should be able to tell just by looking at a basic indicator. And yes, there is the text log, however that disappears quickly and doesn't always show.

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.

I'm afraid that's poor balance / game design. I realise its not SPAZ and I have no problem with complex games (my preference is for complex games actually!), its just that if a "easy" mission requires I actually read around to be able to win it, something is wrong with the game's design/balance or the level itself (a combination in this case IMHO). You should NOT expect to die lots, dying isn't fun in this game (some games make it fun an basically "free" - SF isn't one of them - it punishes you).

From reading the replies it seems that most players who have stuck around enjoy a painful learning curve, but what of the ones (like me) who don't? Ok, once upon a time I did, but no more. I've not played the game any further than a few minutes of campaign (I lost my second fight BADLY and that was purely tactical so am probably just giving up on the game until the balance is improved).

Well at this point you need to ask yourself whether the fact that you can't beat an easy mission without reading around is poor game design, or poor player skill.  That's not an insult, because this game IS more challenging than most, but between the tutorial and browsing the control settings, all in game, I had no trouble with that mission.  I think I died a few times before I beat it, but I persisted and won.  It IS easy by this game's standards, those standards are just higher than 90% of the games you and everyone else is used to playing.  If you don't enjoy challenging games that require learning anymore, maybe this game just isn't for you.  That's perfectly fine, but it you should acknowledge that before pointing out apparently poor design that may not actually be poor design. 

It really sounds though like you don't want to control your flagship and play the game as a pure rts.  You can stick your flagship on autopilot, but you really can't play this game as a pure rts, it's just not designed that way. 

[Dreyven]

I'm afraid that's poor balance / game design. I realise its not SPAZ and I have no problem with complex games (my preference is for complex games actually!), its just that if a "easy" mission requires I actually read around to be able to win it,
Your problem here is that the game doesn't feature an "easy" AI, the AI stays the same in all missions... whether this is good or bad could be discussed but i personally like it that way.
The only differences between a Hard and an easy mission is the amount of Fleet points worth of craft you and your enemy have and how good the weapons/mods you are equipped are to fight the enemy (Point defense, strike, etc)
This will require players to have a certain amount of "skill" or experience with the battles to beat them, even at half damage you need to fly decent to accomplish things
something is wrong with the game's design/balance or the level itself (a combination in this case IMHO). You should NOT expect to die lots, dying isn't fun in this game (some games make it fun an basically "free" - SF isn't one of them - it punishes you).
On half damage you are actually quite sturdy and can take a lot of hits, i can only agree in one point
you loose stuff too quickly in campaign mode, or simply don't gain enough money.

From reading the replies it seems that most players who have stuck around enjoy a painful learning curve, but what of the ones (like me) who don't? Ok, once upon a time I did, but no more. I've not played the game any further than a few minutes of campaign (I lost my second fight BADLY and that was purely tactical so am probably just giving up on the game until the balance is improved).
It's sad to hear, because the game is actually really promising and i personally didn't find the learning curve to be very steep.
Interesting to hear would be what you mean with "purely tactical"?
Did you try flying the ship all by yourself?
also it would be necessary to know the details, which ship against which other ship

[Moriarty]

It's fine to question my skill, however this thread is now becoming a "my anecdote beats your anecdote". For my part I would re-iterate that I've stated exactly what I did on the first missions and why I expected it to work. I'm not just saying "I lose, its too hard", I'm saying /why/ I lose and pointing out how the game doesn't appear to work in the way I'd expect it to. Those expectations are driven both by the tutorial and decades of playing similar games.

If you don't enjoy challenging games that require learning anymore, maybe this game just isn't for you.  That's perfectly fine, but it you should acknowledge that before pointing out apparently poor design that may not actually be poor design.

You're right, I don't enjoy overly challenging games any more (used to). There are just too many good games out there now that its not worth my time spending hours trying to figure out how to actually win at a "bad"(over-difficult) one.
I'd also counter by pointing out that this game is sold to everyone of all skill levels. I don't remember a nice big warning saying "this game is difficult and you're unlikely to enjoy it if you don't want to work for your victory"; there isn't a demo after all.

t's sad to hear, because the game is actually really promising and i personally didn't find the learning curve to be very steep.
Interesting to hear would be what you mean with "purely tactical"?
Did you try flying the ship all by yourself?
also it would be necessary to know the details, which ship against which other ship

Purely-tactical = a mission where you only have one spaceship and fly it yourself. On the first campaign fight there was only one enemy (frigate) and I won. The second one there were some fighters and they utterly annihilated me.

i can only agree in one point you loose stuff too quickly in campaign mode, or simply don't gain enough money

Heh, I'm afraid you're not agreeing with me there because I never played the campaign long enough to experience either of them. ;-)

I figure at this point I'll just leave the game and come back when its at a later stage in development. The community is active enough they won't miss any bugs I might report.

[Thana]

I do hope, Moriarty, that you can get your enjoyment out of the game sooner or later, in some way.

[Simberto]

At the moment, the tutorials are not very thorough, but as far as i know, they are basically only placeholders, too, like most of the stuff we are playing. For example, they completely fail to mention the most important commands, "attack" and "defend", of which there should always be one on the map, because it keeps your fleet sticking together. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to produce lengthy and complete tutorials of an alpha build where lots of core mechanics are still subject to change.

It is important that starfarer is pretty much mostly about piloting a ship, and only a bit about fleet control. I don't really think it will ever be overly interesting to play it only on the tactical screen, but that could just be my opinion. However, i gave it a try, and you can win the mission you mentioned by simply giving an assault/defend order somewhere, and putting your destroyer on autopilot. Your ships will usually blow up the carrier, and then continue to slowly mop up the rest of the ships. I must also say that when piloting the destroyer myself, i did not really have a problem killing the assault frigates, i just shot at anything that got too close to me (focussing the carrier a bit to stop the fighters from replenishing)

As far as i know, the escort commands at the moment don't work really well, and basically should not be used.

If you have half damage enabled, which it is by default, you can only ever gain half the points in any mission.

However, you have some good points, some things in this game are not quite fleshed out enough for a complete release. Tutorials are missing, the campaign beginning is quite steep, and there could be a lot more to teach new players how the game is supposed to work. But you have to realize that this is not a complete release, it is an Alpha preview, and you were told so upon buying it. I, for one, am completely satisfied with what i got so far, and hope that it keeps getting better. That will probably also involve smoothing out the start for beginners. The game itself is not actually hard by itself, just the choice of missions that are in the build is, and there is a lack of a good tutorial. Give the enemy less ships, and you have an easier mission, that is not something that is so out of the way that it would change the general concept of the game.

I also didn't find the missions in the game that hard. (Sure, some are, but they are described as "Hard" or "Impossible", so i expect them to be hard. You just need to know two things: Set an assault order, and put PD weaponry on autofire, and they are suddenly much easier.

[LuckStealer]

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).

is beta, stop making such of fuss from it

[Moriarty]

is beta, stop making such of fuss from it

I'm well aware it's beta (maybe even late-alpha). As such at this stage the product can be improved if constructive feedback is given.
Conversely, people who say "stop whinging" in about as many words aren't encouraging said constructive feedback.

Fortunately the rest of the threads repliers are much more open minded. Thanks for your replies guys.

[BruTaL]

The first mission isn't so much about fleet tactics at all, just shooting the other ships down before they get yours. Don't even order your mining drones out, just set the other ship to capture a point and follow it. I can post an older video of me doing the first mission if you want.

[Flare]

...

is beta, stop making such of fuss from it

It's beta, people are supposed to make a fuss about things. Though preferably, if they're going to play the game from an early perspective, they should probably suggest how things aren't clear rather than declaring how things should be before they get all the things down pat.

[MidnightSun]

is beta, stop making such of fuss from it

Well, if several people are all complaining about an overly-steep learning curve, obviously there are improvements that can be made.

In this case, I think it's nothing to do with balance at all and everything to do with the lack of a comprehensive in-game learning environment. Sure, there is a manual PDF and a great community, but if one has to turn to those in order to progress appreciably in the game, there's something wrong.

Personally, I gradually picked up more and more tactics (although I actually didn't learn to strafe until I joined the community), but was still able to do fine in most of the missions. But, I think a more comprehensive tutorial system coupled with more guided tooltips or prompts through the early stages of the game would help a lot, even in the early alpha stage. That way, people who do invest in the game aren't discouraged as easily (and in turn recommend the game to others).

[Thana]

It's beta, people are supposed to make a fuss about things. Though preferably, if they're going to play the game from an early perspective, they should probably suggest how things aren't clear rather than declaring how things should be before they get all the things down pat.

Nitpick; it's actually alpha, not beta. Hence the version 0.5a. The game isn't anywhere near feature-complete yet.

[Reshy]

I don't see why PD weapons aren't on auto-fire to start with.  I think that would solve a lot of issues with first impressions.