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[cyborg]

Trying out some of the Hard Missions, such as The Last Hurrah, and I understand that the way I'm playing is just flying my ship around and trying to shoot stuff. Obviously, this is not very smart.

So I'm trying to learn a little bit more about what the weapons do and why should appreciate each type of ship. For example, if I'm using some big slow spaceship, where are my support aircraft? How do I know which weapons are going to do well against the enemy? I tried sending off small fleets to defend objective points, and they get murdered.

I need a plan, and to make a plan I would like a little help in identifying what these ships are good for. If you would chime in with how you determine what does what, I could apply it to the rest of the ships.

[Alex]

Have you looked at the manual? It should help answer some of your questions.

The section on damage types sounds like it'd be particularly useful, and then there's the "Hints & Tactics" one.

[cyborg]

I did see the manual(it always sounds patronizing when people tell you rtfm), but where it loses me is trying to come up with the process for how to plan. I can see the enemy ships when I am first launching, and I have six battlefield targets to capture to stop reinforcements. So trying to match up whether i should be racing to the targets, or just going after a couple, or trying to pick out which ships to send where.. I want to know more of the thought process. It's unclear to me how the weapons match up to the enemy aircraft, because they all sound good and I have them on autofire anyways.

[Alex]

Ah, ok. The reason I referred you to the manual, btw, is that I started typing out a longer answer and realized I was basically saying what's in the manual to begin with. Did not mean to be patronizing, just trying to help - the manual isn't exactly in-your-face and is a bit easy to miss.

As to the thought process...

Some objectives are more important than others in different circumstances. For example, if you (or the enemy) have a lot of reinforcements, comm relays become very important. If you have slower ships, you'll want nav buoys. Capturing *all* objectives is generally pretty hard, most battles will just end when one side runs out of ships.

As to what to send where, the goal is to make sure your ships can at least capture, and preferably hold the objective. Generally, higher tech ships perform better (those are the bluish ones), so you'll need more/less ships than the enemy depending on relative tech levels. The ship tooltip does a fairly good job of telling you how strong a ship is - at least, it's enough to give you a general idea. Figuring out who will win in specific matchups is down to experience.

Refitting fighters is an important consideration. You don't need a carrier right away, but if you have some fighters, you'll want to bring one in after capturing an objective or two, and keep it behind your lines, but as close to the fighters as possible, so they can refit quickly.

Strike ships (bombers, and other ships with torpedoes) are another major factor. They are generally not great vs light, fast ships, but very good vs large ones - so you want to bring those in a bit later on in the battle, when large enemy ships are on the field. On the flip side, interceptors can help counter bombers (though not larger strike ships).

Is this roughly what you're looking for? I'd be happy to answer more specific questions, or elaborate on anything, really.

[cyborg]

As to the thought process...
...
Is this roughly what you're looking for? I'd be happy to answer more specific questions, or elaborate on anything, really.

Let me try again using these as hints and try to watch the ships a little bit closer. Basically, I am losing battles without understanding why, so let me just map what you said to what is there and see if it makes more sense. If it doesn't, I'll drop another line. Thanks for replying. I thought you might be getting irritated with noobs, hence the manual suggestion, but that's good.

[Alex]

Good luck, curious to hear how it goes

I'll just add that piloting your flagship is going to be a large part of success in the harder missions. Even if you give all the right orders to your fleet, a simple mistake - such as not noticing incoming bombers in time, or simply getting surrounded - can be ruinous. So can being too cautious, though.

[Flare]

How many torpedoes and bombs do bombers carry anyway? I couldn't transfer my command to them to see how much they have.

[Alex]

One torpedo for the Daggers, and ten bombs for the Piranhas.

[cyborg]

I made a video of what I'm doing. I hope this clearly shows why I'm confused. I also think that future gamers might need a little more information.

To explain:

The first thing you see me doing is looking at the different ship types. I don't see any carriers(I'm looking for the word "carrier"), but I do see wing aircraft. I decide to try and capture two different smaller objectives. At this point, you cannot see the different weapon types of the ships that I'm selecting. All you see is their name and the title. I'm not able to pick the right ship here because I don't know what they have or what they do. I think that for a lot of the people that have been hanging around for a while, this is old news, but for new players, it might help to actually give a short description beneath the bar graph. Strengths and weaknesses. It could even be written well if you feel that is too direct.

The second thing you see me doing in the video is flying off to the objective and just sitting there. I want to be able to look at the other ships to see how they are doing, but the camera doesn't go over there. This is a moment of boredom, as I am just guarding an objective while being unable to see what's going on. All I have is the war room, and you see me pause a few times impatiently to see what's going on. You might want to consider letting the player watch the battle at other locations. I don't really know how everything is going until it's too late. Also, it would be more exciting.

A few minutes go by, and I noticed that the fleet on the right side of the map is beginning to wander off the objective. I tried to pull it back, but it doesn't feel like I have enough control over their behavior. Those ships are doing what they want and getting killed in the process instead of falling back. I would like to be able to make them fall back forcibly.

Finally, I decide to move my fleet towards the right with some reinforcements. Mainly because I'm bored sitting there waiting for something to fly straight into my missiles. It looks like I'm not doing too bad. I suffered some hull damage, but I've taken a lot of ships with me. When I get there, there are these huge behemoth ships, and I am trying to get them from a distance. They instantly target my ship, and I go down in a blaze of glory. On a positive note, this battle is awesome and it really got my excitement up. I have everything on a very large TV with surround sound, and the cannon fire really sounds like cannon fire, booming across my room. The fantastic effects... it's extremely satisfying.

What would be more satisfying is greater control over the battle, being able to view other parts of the battlefield, being able to understand the different ships (I need more than the bar graph), and understanding what the heck just happened.

[Blips]

The first thing you see me doing is looking at the different ship types. I don't see any carriers(I'm looking for the word "carrier"), but I do see wing aircraft. I decide to try and capture two different smaller objectives. At this point, you cannot see the different weapon types of the ships that I'm selecting. All you see is their name and the title. I'm not able to pick the right ship here because I don't know what they have or what they do. I think that for a lot of the people that have been hanging around for a while, this is old news, but for new players, it might help to actually give a short description beneath the bar graph. Strengths and weaknesses. It could even be written well if you feel that is too direct.

You do realize that these battles are just to give us a taste of the game right? A bunch of things are missing (aside from the actual sandbox game) that will help solve your issues once they're in place. The ship fitting screen will give you the chance to check out ships in detail and install different weapons / gear / etc if you wish to do so.

The second thing you see me doing in the video is flying off to the objective and just sitting there. I want to be able to look at the other ships to see how they are doing, but the camera doesn't go over there. This is a moment of boredom, as I am just guarding an objective while being unable to see what's going on. All I have is the war room, and you see me pause a few times impatiently to see what's going on. You might want to consider letting the player watch the battle at other locations. I don't really know how everything is going until it's too late. Also, it would be more exciting.

Unless I've drastically misinterpreted what the devs are going for, this is not CoD in space. If you need to be seeing explosions / gunfire every two seconds this might not be the game for you.

[Alex]

Thanks for taking the time to record it and share your thoughts. I'll respond to what you're saying and interject with some (what I think are) helpful hints.

I made a video of what I'm doing. I hope this clearly shows why I'm confused. I also think that future gamers might need a little more information.

To start off, I completely agree that more information needs to be presented to the player. Finding out some things is too painful at the moment. It should get a lot easier in the next version, with a highly detailed fleet screen you can look at before battle. That screen will also let you customize your ships. Being able to create quick custom battles just to check out certain ships should help too.

The first thing you see me doing is looking at the different ship types. I don't see any carriers(I'm looking for the word "carrier"), but I do see wing aircraft. I decide to try and capture two different smaller objectives. At this point, you cannot see the different weapon types of the ships that I'm selecting. All you see is their name and the title. I'm not able to pick the right ship here because I don't know what they have or what they do. I think that for a lot of the people that have been hanging around for a while, this is old news, but for new players, it might help to actually give a short description beneath the bar graph. Strengths and weaknesses. It could even be written well if you feel that is too direct.

There's a "flight decks: X" on the tooltip. In this mission, the only ship with a flight deck is the Gemini, which is primarily a freighter, so it's not designated as a carrier. I'm not saying this is intuitive. In my defense, lots of carriers *do* say carrier

At the start, the main thing you care about is speed so they can take objectives faster. Armament etc doesn't really matter until slightly later - so pick the fastest stuff. I wouldn't bring in the Conquest right away - leaves you with too few faster ships - but it's certainly doable that way.

The second thing you see me doing in the video is flying off to the objective and just sitting there. I want to be able to look at the other ships to see how they are doing, but the camera doesn't go over there. This is a moment of boredom, as I am just guarding an objective while being unable to see what's going on. All I have is the war room, and you see me pause a few times impatiently to see what's going on. You might want to consider letting the player watch the battle at other locations. I don't really know how everything is going until it's too late. Also, it would be more exciting.

Parking the bulk of your fleet strength (aka the Conquest) in an out-of-the-way waypoint is a strategic error, one side effect of which is boredom Still, on watching the video, it doesn't look like the lull in action was that long - some bombers and destroyers showed up to keep you company.

To watch the battle from the perspective of another ship, switch to the war room, click on the ship, and press "F" (or the "Show Video Feed" button). You can also unpause the game while in the war room. So if you chose not to bring your flagship in right away, this is how you could play until then. Alternatively, you could transfer command (select and press "X", or "Transfer Command" button) to another ship that's already deployed.

A few minutes go by, and I noticed that the fleet on the right side of the map is beginning to wander off the objective. I tried to pull it back, but it doesn't feel like I have enough control over their behavior. Those ships are doing what they want and getting killed in the process instead of falling back. I would like to be able to make them fall back forcibly.

Agree completely. The next version includes a major revamp of how you control your fleet. Working on this right now, actually. I think the problem isn't that you don't have enough control, but rather that the UI lets you think you have more control than you really do, and then it's frustrating when your fleet doesn't obey the way you'd expect. The ships have an involved AI and just can't respond to commands in the way RTS units do.

Finally, I decide to move my fleet towards the right with some reinforcements. Mainly because I'm bored sitting there waiting for something to fly straight into my missiles. It looks like I'm not doing too bad. I suffered some hull damage, but I've taken a lot of ships with me. When I get there, there are these huge behemoth ships, and I am trying to get them from a distance. They instantly target my ship, and I go down in a blaze of glory. On a positive note, this battle is awesome and it really got my excitement up. I have everything on a very large TV with surround sound, and the cannon fire really sounds like cannon fire, booming across my room. The fantastic effects... it's extremely satisfying.

Thanks for including something positive

The main reason that last battle goes badly for you is the enemy controls both nav buoys and both sensor arrays - so their ships have large range and speed bonuses. Your flagship is normally faster than the Onslaught battleships, but not when you take the objectives into account. Tactically, what you want to do is circle them and keep firing broadsides, but with the speed/range disadvantage you're at by then it's not possible.

Oh, and I wouldn't put the missile group on auto-fire - it's generally more effective to target those manually. Likewise with the broadsides (groups 1 & 2), though they would do ok - but you can do much better manually, and the damage is significant enough to be worth your attention.



I hope this helps a bit. Again, thank you for taking the time to post this. If anything, I'm happy because a lot of the issues you point out are going to be addressed in the next version.

P.S. It doesn't seem like you're doing too badly, at that. It took me a quite a few tries before I could consistently beat it.

[cyborg]

You do realize that these battles are just to give us a taste of the game right? A bunch of things are missing (aside from the actual sandbox game) that will help solve your issues once they're in place. The ship fitting screen will give you the chance to check out ships in detail and install different weapons / gear / etc if you wish to do so.

Unless I've drastically misinterpreted what the devs are going for, this is not CoD in space. If you need to be seeing explosions / gunfire every two seconds this might not be the game for you.

Hey hey, don't be so quick to toss out new recruits. It was constructive feedback, and I thought I put it nicely. I don't have a short attention span, I just want to always have the ability to either be doing something constructive or viewing the action. I don't think that's a twitch gamer symptom, is just I want to be playing the game if at all possible instead of it playing itself. And that's possible, I just didn't understand that it was possible. So no harm there.

Actually, most of my observations were misunderstanding the controls to be able to view other theaters of war, switch ships, stuff like that. That's not so bad. I'm not expecting Gratuitous Space Battles meets call of duty(I don't play FPS at all for the most part), although it should be noted that multiple people are calling this game Gratuitous Space Battles that you can participate in. This is a little bit incorrect, but that last battle in my video really could give somebody that idea... How exciting was that? There is so much that you could do for machinima and storytelling with a scene like that. Maybe I got a little too excited over the graphics there, but I don't think you should be too discouraged that somebody is a little awestruck by a space battle. It's a good sign. Really. If it means anything, I used to get excited over Trade Wars battles, which were completely done in ASCII text.

To start off, I completely agree that more information needs to be presented to the player. Finding out some things is too painful at the moment. It should get a lot easier in the next version, with a highly detailed fleet screen you can look at before battle. That screen will also let you customize your ships. Being able to create quick custom battles just to check out certain ships should help too.

Awesome. That would help me a lot. I don't come from a strong background of space games like some of the other people on this board, so I'm sure that's part of it. It might seem like rock paper scissors of what defeats which ship to a lot of people, but to me it's brand-new.

There's a "flight decks: X" on the tooltip. In this mission, the only ship with a flight deck is the Gemini, which is primarily a freighter, so it's not designated as a carrier. I'm not saying this is intuitive. In my defense, lots of carriers *do* say carrier

Oh! I misinterpreted that to be decks that contain armaments. Obviously, now that I think about it, this is about loading out spaceships.

At the start, the main thing you care about is speed so they can take objectives faster. Armament etc doesn't really matter until slightly later - so pick the fastest stuff. I wouldn't bring in the Conquest right away - leaves you with too few faster ships - but it's certainly doable that way.

Yes, I noticed that problem. Some of my solutions that I tried were letting the faster ships out first, but I got bored really quick with that because I didn't know how to change my view or switch ships. I was staring at the war room and black space feeling stupid; didn't last long with that strategy. So problem solved there, that was a control misunderstanding.

Parking the bulk of your fleet strength (aka the Conquest) in an out-of-the-way waypoint is a strategic error, one side effect of which is boredom Still, on watching the video, it doesn't look like the lull in action was that long - some bombers and destroyers showed up to keep you company.

Yes they did, and took out half of my hull. I was amused and encouraged by that. I hadn't seen the big ships yet, so I figured I may as well go for the win.

Agree completely. The next version includes a major revamp of how you control your fleet. Working on this right now, actually. I think the problem isn't that you don't have enough control, but rather that the UI lets you think you have more control than you really do, and then it's frustrating when your fleet doesn't obey the way you'd expect. The ships have an involved AI and just can't respond to commands in the way RTS units do.

Okay, sounds like we are going to get a mix of control and some clarity as to what is possible with the AI controlled ships. If we can get a retreat, that would be cool, as it felt like my ships were a little bit suicidal and giving up on the objective. I guess you don't want the user to be kiting or just running away all the time. Something that could be looked at in play testing.

Thanks for including something positive

The main reason that last battle goes badly for you is the enemy controls both nav buoys and both sensor arrays - so their ships have large range and speed bonuses. Your flagship is normally faster than the Onslaught battleships, but not when you take the objectives into account. Tactically, what you want to do is circle them and keep firing broadsides, but with the speed/range disadvantage you're at by then it's not possible.

No problem. I've probably put in about 14 hours so far into playing, which is pretty good considering we don't have a campaign yet. Most of those hours are spent repeatedly dying, so it's not out of lack of effort that I come here asking for wisdom. I don't mind losing; the game would not be fun if you won all the time. It would not be nearly as enjoyable if the space battles were not as cool as they are! It should not be a bad thing to appreciate space battles, or that I'm somehow unfit or less of a gamer because I do. Believe it or not, I can play everything from Europa universalis 3 to really old games like Sacrifice to all kinds of RPG's and also AI war. It's a strong variety of games, some with different pacing, so I have the attention span. It's just about knowing how to play, and you cleared that up for me on a few things.

Oh, and I wouldn't put the missile group on auto-fire - it's generally more effective to target those manually. Likewise with the broadsides (groups 1 & 2), though they would do ok - but you can do much better manually, and the damage is significant enough to be worth your attention.

Do we get bonus damage for manually firing them or am I just more likely to not miss?

Thanks for replying. You have great patience, and I appreciate that. In return, I hope I can contribute some video tutorials on YouTube when you are ready for production. Something for the ultra-noob.

[Alex]

... I used to get excited over Trade Wars battles ...

Ahh, that brings me back. Calling into a BBS early in the morning, trying to get in before the other guy. Those were the days

Okay, sounds like we are going to get a mix of control and some clarity as to what is possible with the AI controlled ships. If we can get a retreat, that would be cool, as it felt like my ships were a little bit suicidal and giving up on the objective. I guess you don't want the user to be kiting or just running away all the time. Something that could be looked at in play testing.

Very briefly, I don't want you telling the ships how to do something, but rather what to do. Pulling back units is annoying enough in an RTS setting with perfectly responsive units - I'd just as soon you couldn't even try to do that. If they engage more than you like, recruit more cautious captains!

No problem. I've probably put in about 14 hours so far into playing, which is pretty good considering we don't have a campaign yet. Most of those hours are spent repeatedly dying, so it's not out of lack of effort that I come here asking for wisdom. I don't mind losing; the game would not be fun if you won all the time. It would not be nearly as enjoyable if the space battles were not as cool as they are! It should not be a bad thing to appreciate space battles, or that I'm somehow unfit or less of a gamer because I do. Believe it or not, I can play everything from Europa universalis 3 to really old games like Sacrifice to all kinds of RPG's and also AI war. It's a strong variety of games, some with different pacing, so I have the attention span. It's just about knowing how to play, and you cleared that up for me on a few things.

Cool, glad you're getting some mileage out of it! Yeah, the graphics are definitely a big part of it. I'm not a graphics *** by any means, but I certainly want SF to look good And yeah, the difficulty is high on purpose. Very few people are going to explore the mechanics much beyond the depth required to win.

Do we get bonus damage for manually firing them or am I just more likely to not miss?

Thanks for replying. You have great patience, and I appreciate that. In return, I hope I can contribute some video tutorials on YouTube when you are ready for production. Something for the ultra-noob.

You're quite welcome.

No bonus damage, but you get to pick the target the LRMs go after - it's the currently targeted ship. On autofire, they'll pick suboptimal targets. Usually you want to time them so that the target can't just shoot them all down with flak - so, when the're overloaded, venting, or turned away. For the Hellbores, it's tricky enough to time the shots that autofire is likely to miss more than you would.

[Flare]

Will there be a manual for each weapon in the game when we are able to customize our ships?

[Blips]

Will there be a manual for each weapon in the game when we are able to customize our ships?

I highly doubt it...