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[JT]

A couple days later after having played this build some more, I realised how much I wanted to mention: Stian really outdid himself in this update, and since his "self" was pretty freaking awesome to begin with, that's scraping the ceiling of transcendence.  The sheer mass of sound effects and Alex's touches with the murkiness added to the soundscape just pull this update together as having some of the best sounds out of any modern sci-fi space game.  Almost makes me want to retract that age-old suggestion post about having a game option for no non-local sounds in space, because the sound effects really are just that good (but I still really do like that suggestion...).

Personally, I find that mandatory start of game tutorial sequences get old rather quickly. It's all well and good to have a tutorial available, but if the game's enjoyable enough for me to want to replay it several times, I really do not want to have to run through the tutorial every time I start a new character (and certainly not the same tutorial), and I'd really prefer not to have to keep around an old save file from the end of the tutorial sequence in order to skip it. The 'sink or swim' approach may not be all that friendly to new players, but if the starting conditions are reasonably fair, it's a lot more enjoyable, at least to me, when starting a new character after having already played at least one character a reasonable amount of time than having to go through the same old tutorial sequence yet again.

Mandatory tutorials tend to be awful -- 100% agreed.  We can take a page from a genre buddy here, though, and do it like Escape Velocity: Nova.  The old salt offers to teach you everything he knows about starships, and all you have to do is click Yes to have a decent tutorial.  Click No, and he bids you adieu and leaves you the hell alone.

Hmm, now I want to play EV Nova again...

Anyway, the problem with the current setup in Starfarctor is that you have a dialog-based system which specifies your starting scenarios, so it's difficult to shoehorn the player in as an amateur when the scenarios already imply a fair bit of experience.  But if there were an option that let you strike it off as, say, the son or daughter of an experienced captain who tries to teach you the trade, then Bad Things Happen(TM) and you take over the family business (piracy, military, trading, smuggling, whatever), followed by choosing how you end up by following the remaining starting scenario options.  Seems like it could work!

[Aklyon]

I generally like the harpoons Helmut, since they were the least specific of the vanilla missiles. Not odd like the sabots, not literal pain in the butts like the salamanders, not dumbfire like the reaper or the annihilators. It just missiles, in missile fashion, and does pretty decent damage. They certainly can snowball when en-masse (or aboard a gryphon), but they still have limited ammo.

[Troll]

Anyway, the problem with the current setup in Starfarctor is that you have a dialog-based system which specifies your starting scenarios, so it's difficult to shoehorn the player in as an amateur when the scenarios already imply a fair bit of experience.  But if there were an option that let you strike it off as, say, the son or daughter of an experienced captain who tries to teach you the trade, then Bad Things Happen(TM) and you take over the family business (piracy, military, trading, smuggling, whatever), followed by choosing how you end up by following the remaining starting scenario options.  Seems like it could work!

I'd say it fits sufficiently for now. I see it as the character being someone experienced in space, compared to your usual station clerk or bio-farmer. It also shows when you go and kick pirate ass 1 to 2 for your first fight (when you actualy do of course  )

[Gothars]

Just want to mention that the music of the Luddic Church is awesome, especially for neutral and hostile encounters. Sounds like a monastic choir mixed with Mongolian throat singing

finally got a chance myself to test the Gryphon for a bit, and i don't see what the problem is.

seems perfectly fine to me:

Spoiler

[close]

Wargh, yeah, that's what I was talking about. And I think that would be the problem with every version of the system that does not have very long reload times.
...I guess the idea to give a ship that already has fantastic alpha strike capabilities by grace of its weapons the chance for multiple such strikes is just pretty heavy

Regarding picking one weapon to reload: this seems like it'd be kind of hard for the player to accurately predict, hmm.

Mh, I guess it could just reload the weapon that's currently selected?

Another thing, i can't order the movement of a single ship, the whole fleet will try to defend the spot.

You can put down a "rally task force" order and then send the eagle to that. But I agree that this automatic assignment thingie is a bit overdone and tends to interfere with what you really want.

The new Hurricane is broken, no doubt about that. The short cooldown coupled with the massive damage and excellent tracking make it a no-brainer. At the very least, the reload time need to be longer, that weapon is just unfair.

Agreed. Harpoon spam in case of overload seems fair to me though, you often can take shelter behind allies to soften the blow.

[Tartiflette]

Agreed. Harpoon spam in case of overload seems fair to me though, you often can take shelter behind allies to soften the blow.

Some people complained that the AI sometime decide to get in your line of fire, I rather like that behavior: You can lower your shield and let the flux dissipate a bit before going back to work. With a bit of practice you can rotate your units fairly quickly and avoid a lot of losses facing a superior force. However many times I hated the AI when it decided to expertly get off my line of fire while I vented, allowing four or five harpoons to kill my ship.

[Thaago]

@ HELMUT

Re giving an order to a single ship to pull back - I ran into this and figured out a workaround. If you first make the point by clicking on the map and hitting "Rally Task Force" (I think thats the one? not at the game atm), then manually assign the Eagle to it, it will be the only ship to go there.

[Edit] Ninja'd!


I like the current state of the Harpoon. It is very, VERY deadly against destroyers with L10 missile officers, but the ammo is still limited (Gryphon aside) and the OP cost is significant. Trading one time spike damage for lasting performance is ok in my books.

[Megas]

Re: Animated Gryphon
That Gryphon should be out of commission for a while after that fight.  It just blew all of its spells torpedoes on that Onslaught and, presumably, the other ships.

[TJJ]

Re: Animated Gryphon
That Gryphon should be out of commission for a while after that fight.  It just blew all of its spells torpedoes on that Onslaught and, presumably, the other ships.

.....the Onslaught & 3 Dominators are out of commission permanently

I know we don't have logistics anymore.... but if we did, that'd be a trade of, what?
20 logistics taking out 70 logistics.... in ~30 seconds.

Though the more important point is; what could the Onslaught & Dominators have done to counter that? even in the hands of a human it would have been over just as quickly.

[Megas]

.....the Onslaught & 3 Dominators are out of commission permanently Roll Eyes

Other ships can take out fleets, just not as quickly as those that can torpedo spam.

Though the more important point is; what could the Onslaught & Dominators have done to counter that? even in the hands of a human it would have been over just as quickly.

Back in 0.65, this is why you assassinate Combat 10 missile flagships like enemy Dominator with triple Harpoon Pods immediately before they get a chance to launch their missiles.

This is why Aurora was - and still is - so deadly.  Gryphon can just do it more in one fight.

[Unfolder]

You should rename "Emergency Burn" to "Gank Burn" because the AI constantly uses it offensively to pop out of nowhere and wreck you

[Alex]

You should rename "Emergency Burn" to "Gank Burn" because the AI constantly uses it offensively to pop out of nowhere and wreck you

I'll take that under advisement. "Gank Burn" does seem to have a nice ring to it.

<goes back to nerfing Gryphon>

[Serenitis]

Is Jangala supposed to have the "Luddic Majority" trait?

[Ubik]

Is the new system where the factions check up your recent actions working as intended?

I mean I can understand that Tri-Tachyon and/or Luddic Path dislike me supporting the Hegemony....but why is it exactly the same for Sindrian Diktat and Luddic Church? They are no enemies of the Hegemony yet I get the same severe reputation penalties when found guilty of supporting the Hegemony.

Shouldn't they either just don't care or at least have a way smaller penalty for supporting a faction which is neutral to them?

[xenoargh]

I don't think the Gryphon needs nerfing.  

The problem isn't that it's OP, it's that there just aren't any available counters to that dynamic.  

There really should be a Large anti-missile weapon that Just Works well enough that you need that level of mega-spam to dent it.  I really want to see more ships like the Gryphon, thematically, that require a counter to defeat; in AI hands, it'd make players have to deploy more diverse answers than just Ye Old Super-Frigate / Destroyer when they reach late-game play.

[Alex]

Is Jangala supposed to have the "Luddic Majority" trait?

Yep.

Is the new system where the factions check up your recent actions working as intended?

It's a temporary, heavy-handed way of making sure you only align with one faction by the endgame. Looking at some ways to make it a bit less heavy-handed while accomplishing the same goal.

I mean I can understand that Tri-Tachyon and/or Luddic Path dislike me supporting the Hegemony....but why is it exactly the same for Sindrian Diktat and Luddic Church? They are no enemies of the Hegemony yet I get the same severe reputation penalties when found guilty of supporting the Hegemony.

Shouldn't they either just don't care or at least have a way smaller penalty for supporting a faction which is neutral to them?

They're not openly hostile, but espionage etc goes on all the time. Often through third-party-looking agents, such as yourself.

There really should be a Large anti-missile weapon that Just Works well enough that you need that level of mega-spam to dent it.  I really want to see more ships like the Gryphon, thematically, that require a counter to defeat; in AI hands, it'd make players have to deploy more diverse answers than just Ye Old Super-Frigate / Destroyer when they reach late-game play.

It sounds good as a vs-the-player thing, but AI fleets aren't going to have counters for what the player might bring. With something that extreme, there's only so much a balanced setup can do to deal with it. More specifically, a lot of fleets wouldn't even have access to a large turreted slot of the right type, whatever that might be.