i like the lunar lander thing too. i think the docking sequences, with the camera getting really unhelpfully close to the ship, is an amazing way to really contextualize the ships. I found myself wishing starsector would have the same sort of thing, just a really gratuitous money shot of your flagship as you drag it into a station's wetdock. also opening the game with a lunar landing docking sequence was a really good way to introduce the movement mechanics IMO. i was a bit weirded out by the game starting with a lunar lander minigame but upon realizing that actually the whole game was gonna be that i was quite pleased with it
ive figured out the refit screen & how the controls & everything for it works, was able to refit the huge cruiser the game starts you with into a strata strike cruiser. but having said that, i still am completely unable to actually look at a ship & figure out what it's made out of enough to actually refit a ship shy of completely scrapping it (& having myself grounded for days on end as a result). if there was a button that made the armor & hull invisible so you could see what was underneath without having to mouse over every tile (and even then most of the time it highlights the hull itself) i'd find it a lot more usable but as is
i have a mouse where the middle button is a separate button just under the scroll wheel, and clicking in the scroll wheel just toggles it between clicky scroll mode & frictionless scroll mode (when my SO gets upset & yells at me absentmindedly flick it without realizing it & it makes them drastically more upset for it lol zzZZOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooommmmmmZOOOOOoo--). ANYWAY, the moment I opened up the SigInt screen, clicked one of those dials and then turned it I went, "Oh,
NO. I feel so bad for anyone who doesn't have my
exact mouse." But since I have the exact correct mouse, I can say the SigInt stuff is basically (otherwise) perfect. The signals being on a timer with degrading quality over time is :chefs kiss: mue perfectimisimo. Also the fact that most of what comes through on it is inane chatter (Id know all about that) makes it even better. Thinking about it, it reminds me a bit of the neutrino detector in SS, which I also enjoy way more for all the false positives. something about spying on radio transmissions that really Feels Right when you're just getting unwanted info on people's water shipments & the pulse frequency of the next star over. theres also a natural frustration to, intercepting perfectly transmission after transmission talking about people's milk deliveries, then intercepting an important piece of military intel but the only piece of the broadcast that was important got lost bc u didnt do it well enough -- which I love. It makes me strain myself to do better every time I get a signal, which makes me laugh when I get from it perfectly decoded gossip about the local pet groomer
also i like the world they're building. i was worried with the romani empire that they were just gonna go straight "italy circa 2,000 years ago", but they didnt & im very pleased with that. It reminds me so much of Deserts of Karahk that when I looked up the dev & saw that his youtube channel has the Deserts of Karahk credits saved to it I sat through the whole credit sequence to see if he'd actually worked on the game (didnt see that he did tho)
while typing this i tried to screen an enemy warfleet with 2 full strata cruiser's worth of cruise missiles, did it wrong & the entire volley looped back around & targeted my own fleet LMFAO 10/10 would incinerate my own fleet with a barrage of nuclear warheads again. Oh! The way that the game handles campaign-level long range strikes by loading in a combat map with the target fleet & the missile & just treats it like a mini-battle with the game's normal combat mechanics is really neat & a very good idea
I'm quite enjoying it thus far. It's awkward, but it's an awkwardness that really captures the feeling of commanding an old warship. Sometimes in a bad way, but mostly in (IMO) good ways. I think i've circled back around on my litmus test from earlier; I don't think I'd enjoy the game as much if it were a smooth, frictionless experience. Wiping my own fleet with a poorly fired barrage of cruise missiles
feels right. It makes my fleet feel like something that shouldn't be in the hands of an idiot (read as: me), which makes them feel more real & compelling -- for me anyway
edit: i had to get out of bed to come add, i can't stop noticing this; when the ships are parked with their legs down, don't a lot of the smaller ships look like the mechs from ghost in the shell?