Big thumbs-up for this idea. An in-game tutorial (optional) would be awesome, and a reference would be very welcome - even in the form of a wiki. (i.e. help info created directly from the game data files to reduce repeated hand-editing of changing info...)
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Game discussion / More first impressions (warning: incoming tl;dr)
April 12, 2014, 11:10:35 AM
Pardon me as I input my own $0.02.. I've put in probably around 8 hours so far, and this is what I see so far..
I concur with others on the graphics and performance - everything looks beautiful, the textures mesh incredibly well, and the cartoony portraits don't detract too much. ;-) However, the threaded (or not?) world save still induces momentary lag and a disruption of gameplay. The music stays on tempo, but the timing used in movement/combat doesn't realize that multiple frames have been skipped during world save and thinks you suddenly got a decent boost in dV. (FYI, Quad Core i7, 24GB, Win7 x64, GTX670, SSD)
Conversation system is cool. Dialog could use a touch of editing, but the game it still alpha. Not only forgivable, but encouraging to see expandable systems in place. Kudos.
Multiple levels of each equipment type adds to the fun. Also, almost every upgrade perceivably changes the gameplay feel. Good balancing in that aspect, but not sure how this will scale in the future. (The "best" of the RCS systems gives the smallest and lightest ships incredible handling, but if you want to expand the RCS system availability later.. what do you do? Ship-specific or Tier-specific upgrades? Don't mind me, just being overly analytical!) :-D
Another kudo: combat ships (with upgraded RCS/thrusters) are fast and responsive, and the Freighter - with the same equipment - still feels like a dump truck. Freighter with basic equipment is unbearable - as is proper. (And a Freighter should never turn on a dime..) Only concern - auto-docking with a freighter from an oblique angle may take a long, long, long time for it to spiral in to the docking terminus.
Core gameplay - the flying and fighting - was a little difficult to get used to, but it's an acquired skill. I can now complete the first mission without dying 10x just from practice. ;-) Lead your targets, keep tabs on your rotation given the firing line hints and keep oriented on your target. Avoid fixed-position weapons, they're much too hard to actually hit the target. Turrets ftw!
Speaking of dying.. there is currently no death penalty. This seems.. unbalanced.. Maybe a grace period of X levels, then loss increases slowly until level Y, then full death loss (some/all money or cargo/items) after that? This is tough to balance - you don't want to penalize someone so much that their character of 50 hours real-time becomes useless due to a run of bad luck or playing while impaired..
Character progression in some ways is good, other ways puzzling. The entire Engineering tree has direct and immediately discernable affects. The Piloting much less so. A 1% difference in RCS speed is below human perception, and a 5% increase might be perceivable, depending on the fitting. It takes many, many more "points" to fully level up Piloting than all other disciplines put together.
However, a level-locked ship piloting tier works wonderfully. Making some piloting skills a prerequisite for cargo hold optimization/expansion seems odd, but I trust you have a valid reason :-) "Social" skills gaining cost reduction of repairs/refueling seems a good idea, but a touch useless due to the aforementioned lack of death penalty.
I understand this is all strictly "placeholder", but you've got some really great ideas in here that would be perfect in a finished product. And some of the things may just need minor tweaks and shouldn't be thrown out. Please understand this is all constructive criticism - we all can make this system work, then by all means don't throw away something slightly imperfect in favor of something completely different just because people are "complaining" about it. ;-)
As for monetary balance.. I can spend 1 hour mining and earn maybe half of what I can earn from selling rat loot. Experience gain is much, much faster when mining, but the description on the Prospector character creation page talks about MONEY.. which I don't see. ;-) And once you have a big enough ship and fittings, nothing I've seen can really touch you ratting. That being said, you have to rat for a long, long time to get enough loot to sell for the next fitting. (i.e. High payout drops are semi-rare.) About that point I turned to "long distance" courier missions for 5K a pop. Which might need some balance too.. 2 systems away = 5K? With a fast, light ship this takes a minute or 2 MAX, and the biggest shield yet (that I've seen) requires about 40K: that's 8 missions, maybe 15-30 minutes. This would take a significantly longer ratting in a heavy frig/light cruiser or even strip mining in a Freighter with a pair of 3rd tier mining lasers.. unless I'm missing something. Kinda makes sense if you're wanting to reward exploration. Just remember: you get more of what you subsidize. (i.e. if you want more exploration and roaming, the reward that more than sitting in one place staring at rocks.)
Speaking of mining.. it feels good. Kinda boring as it should be, but with enough required continual interaction that "AFK mining" will not be a reality. (Gotta keep mashing them buttons!) Speaking of, starting the mining laser and opening a window (skills, journal, etc.) allows you to take your fingers off the mining laser key - the cycle will finish even if you close the window.
One slight problem with freelance mining missions.. I've had them give missions to mine more at one time than my ship will hold, yet not allow me to put the cargo in the hangar and still complete the mission. And then not be able to finish/abort/get rid of the mission?
There are a couple things not made immediately clear in any game documentation or forum posts that I've seen:
1) the meaning of the symbols in the left/right of the System Hover Tooltip. In the Galaxy view, hover over a system.. it'll give you the name, the faction, a crossed-swords number, a gear number, and the presence of stations/asteroids. Very nice, but what do those numbers mean?
2) item/ship availability - how to know where to go for a new hull, bigger fittings, etc.
3) what is the real gameplay difference between the Civilian Radar and the Radar Basic 50?
4) where are the Boosters that INCREASE cargo space? (No, +96% is not enough for me! Mahaha!!)
5) how do I turn on ship self-repair after buying the skill? (Combat Consumables)
6) How do you even get into the alien area?
That's about all I can think of at the moment.
To sum up: great game even in its early stages. Very glad I paid the full $15 for it. Looking forward to seeing it grow in the future. I might even have to buy copies for a few friends and start twisting arms..
I concur with others on the graphics and performance - everything looks beautiful, the textures mesh incredibly well, and the cartoony portraits don't detract too much. ;-) However, the threaded (or not?) world save still induces momentary lag and a disruption of gameplay. The music stays on tempo, but the timing used in movement/combat doesn't realize that multiple frames have been skipped during world save and thinks you suddenly got a decent boost in dV. (FYI, Quad Core i7, 24GB, Win7 x64, GTX670, SSD)
Conversation system is cool. Dialog could use a touch of editing, but the game it still alpha. Not only forgivable, but encouraging to see expandable systems in place. Kudos.
Multiple levels of each equipment type adds to the fun. Also, almost every upgrade perceivably changes the gameplay feel. Good balancing in that aspect, but not sure how this will scale in the future. (The "best" of the RCS systems gives the smallest and lightest ships incredible handling, but if you want to expand the RCS system availability later.. what do you do? Ship-specific or Tier-specific upgrades? Don't mind me, just being overly analytical!) :-D
Another kudo: combat ships (with upgraded RCS/thrusters) are fast and responsive, and the Freighter - with the same equipment - still feels like a dump truck. Freighter with basic equipment is unbearable - as is proper. (And a Freighter should never turn on a dime..) Only concern - auto-docking with a freighter from an oblique angle may take a long, long, long time for it to spiral in to the docking terminus.
Core gameplay - the flying and fighting - was a little difficult to get used to, but it's an acquired skill. I can now complete the first mission without dying 10x just from practice. ;-) Lead your targets, keep tabs on your rotation given the firing line hints and keep oriented on your target. Avoid fixed-position weapons, they're much too hard to actually hit the target. Turrets ftw!
Speaking of dying.. there is currently no death penalty. This seems.. unbalanced.. Maybe a grace period of X levels, then loss increases slowly until level Y, then full death loss (some/all money or cargo/items) after that? This is tough to balance - you don't want to penalize someone so much that their character of 50 hours real-time becomes useless due to a run of bad luck or playing while impaired..
Character progression in some ways is good, other ways puzzling. The entire Engineering tree has direct and immediately discernable affects. The Piloting much less so. A 1% difference in RCS speed is below human perception, and a 5% increase might be perceivable, depending on the fitting. It takes many, many more "points" to fully level up Piloting than all other disciplines put together.
However, a level-locked ship piloting tier works wonderfully. Making some piloting skills a prerequisite for cargo hold optimization/expansion seems odd, but I trust you have a valid reason :-) "Social" skills gaining cost reduction of repairs/refueling seems a good idea, but a touch useless due to the aforementioned lack of death penalty.
I understand this is all strictly "placeholder", but you've got some really great ideas in here that would be perfect in a finished product. And some of the things may just need minor tweaks and shouldn't be thrown out. Please understand this is all constructive criticism - we all can make this system work, then by all means don't throw away something slightly imperfect in favor of something completely different just because people are "complaining" about it. ;-)
As for monetary balance.. I can spend 1 hour mining and earn maybe half of what I can earn from selling rat loot. Experience gain is much, much faster when mining, but the description on the Prospector character creation page talks about MONEY.. which I don't see. ;-) And once you have a big enough ship and fittings, nothing I've seen can really touch you ratting. That being said, you have to rat for a long, long time to get enough loot to sell for the next fitting. (i.e. High payout drops are semi-rare.) About that point I turned to "long distance" courier missions for 5K a pop. Which might need some balance too.. 2 systems away = 5K? With a fast, light ship this takes a minute or 2 MAX, and the biggest shield yet (that I've seen) requires about 40K: that's 8 missions, maybe 15-30 minutes. This would take a significantly longer ratting in a heavy frig/light cruiser or even strip mining in a Freighter with a pair of 3rd tier mining lasers.. unless I'm missing something. Kinda makes sense if you're wanting to reward exploration. Just remember: you get more of what you subsidize. (i.e. if you want more exploration and roaming, the reward that more than sitting in one place staring at rocks.)
Speaking of mining.. it feels good. Kinda boring as it should be, but with enough required continual interaction that "AFK mining" will not be a reality. (Gotta keep mashing them buttons!) Speaking of, starting the mining laser and opening a window (skills, journal, etc.) allows you to take your fingers off the mining laser key - the cycle will finish even if you close the window.
One slight problem with freelance mining missions.. I've had them give missions to mine more at one time than my ship will hold, yet not allow me to put the cargo in the hangar and still complete the mission. And then not be able to finish/abort/get rid of the mission?
There are a couple things not made immediately clear in any game documentation or forum posts that I've seen:
1) the meaning of the symbols in the left/right of the System Hover Tooltip. In the Galaxy view, hover over a system.. it'll give you the name, the faction, a crossed-swords number, a gear number, and the presence of stations/asteroids. Very nice, but what do those numbers mean?
2) item/ship availability - how to know where to go for a new hull, bigger fittings, etc.
3) what is the real gameplay difference between the Civilian Radar and the Radar Basic 50?
4) where are the Boosters that INCREASE cargo space? (No, +96% is not enough for me! Mahaha!!)
5) how do I turn on ship self-repair after buying the skill? (Combat Consumables)
6) How do you even get into the alien area?
That's about all I can think of at the moment.
To sum up: great game even in its early stages. Very glad I paid the full $15 for it. Looking forward to seeing it grow in the future. I might even have to buy copies for a few friends and start twisting arms..
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