First Impression Notes

A forum for chatting about in-development game features.
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sven
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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby sven » Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:52 pm

Captainspire wrote:I haven't explored this yet but is there a way to refit Old ship 1 to New ship 1 and not have to manually refit a ship?


Right now there's not, and we all agree there should be. I should probably add this question to one of the official FAQs :)

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Tue Sep 08, 2015 10:16 pm

Spent a little more time playing today, this time as the Humans:

  • Humanity is pretty interesting to play. However, your ability to do well with them is entirely dependent on what sort of start you roll. If you roll a start in a galactic corner with nothing but red dwarfs and pirates nearby, you are consigned to a slow and painful demise. Get a great start and you become an unstoppable juggernaut capable of flattening anyone in your way. If it's possible to have the game seed a half-decent world every time whereever the Humans start, that'd go a long way to preventing #1. As for #2, well - that's just how 4xes are.

  • I also learned that sending colony ships with your scouts is a terrible idea: if you run into pirates, your colony ships magically die if you autoretreat, even if everything else gets away.

  • In this game, the marauders are an absolute joke. I camped one of their planets with my entire fleet and waited for their command cruisers to wander off. Soon as they did, I attacked and wiped out the small ships sitting around. Soon as those cruisers returned, they too were blown to bits -- with the almighty power of the nuclear missile.

  • When you haven't researched fighters, a star base's hangar slot comes with a planetary invasion force, in case you have to invade the planet you built the base at. Hee hee.

  • Is it just me, or are there a ton of arid and ice worlds in most galaxy setups?

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby evil713 » Wed Sep 09, 2015 2:37 am

What if humans started with a battlestar galactica kind of ship, an ancient warship with a hogpoge of weapons on it. a battleship at 3/4 health?

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Gilleous » Wed Sep 09, 2015 5:26 am

The reference to Battlestar actually made me think what the humans in SiS remind me of. They remind me of the humans from Titan A.E.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:03 pm

With the new patch, I started up a new game as the Yoral this time (in 13662, this was before I noticed 13665 was out to hotfix bombers). I decided to try out the new limpets + boarding combo and coilguns, with missile spam in case all hell breaks loose:

  • The new hull slotting is pretty nice, at least for the Yoral destroyers. A standard destroyer hull can carry three nuke missiles now? Wow.

  • However, the heavy destroyer hull is totally useless early on, especially as the Yoral. Rushing heavy coilguns doesn't do you any favours right now, especially with their small range and the lack of shields in the early game. Frigate hulls are also 100% useless - the scout frame is significantly better given its turret slot, not to mention it is actually cheaper.

  • Torpedo destroyers are ridiculous. Sure, torps are slow. This doesn't matter if the target is a planet without missiles or enemy ships that you can close to point-blank with. This being said, a torp destroyer costs around 650 production - not as cheap as missile cruisers were previously (about an extra 200 production, or two/three turns at a factory planet). For that extra investment, you get four x2 torp racks + one x2 missile, against three x3 missiles and a x1; less standoff capability, far more short-range killing power.

  • I was unaware boarding doesn't work against stations. Have not tried boarding against ships yet, same with limpets against ships. The light cruiser frame is pretty good for boarding, since it can carry two packs of limpets, a boarding module and two marine quarters. Not sure yet if the quarters make sense, or adding speed would be better.

  • With the new tech tree setup, the game seems to take longer to get up to speed. It's not as easy to rush the factory and lab improvement techs, although it's not like anyone will hurt you if you decide to do so. I do find it a bit funny that once I get fusion power, I can immediately get quantum reactors, bypassing antimatter entirely. Same deal with durantium vs adamantium, though that was present last-patch too. Also unsure why I can research Hive Worlds after nanoscale fab, given its huuuuge RP cost.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby sven » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:51 pm

Unbroken wrote:With the new patch, I started up a new game as the Yoral this time (in 13662, this was before I noticed 13665 was out to hotfix bombers). I decided to try out the new limpets + boarding combo and coilguns, with missile spam in case all hell breaks loose:


Thanks for the point by point feedback. It's worth noting that several of the new weapon specials added with the tech tree revamp are currently unimplemented, and do nothing in game. These include the limpet's "Inhibit Mobility" and the LR kinetic weapon mod that you can unlock with superconductors.

Fixes for both of these may be up as soon as Sunday evening, but, until then, I'd avoid trying a limpet-based strat.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Sat Sep 12, 2015 4:09 pm

sven wrote:
Unbroken wrote:With the new patch, I started up a new game as the Yoral this time (in 13662, this was before I noticed 13665 was out to hotfix bombers). I decided to try out the new limpets + boarding combo and coilguns, with missile spam in case all hell breaks loose:


Thanks for the point by point feedback. It's worth noting that several of the new weapon specials added with the tech tree revamp are currently unimplemented, and do nothing in game. These include the limpet's "Inhibit Mobility" and the LR kinetic weapon mod that you can unlock with superconductors.

Fixes for both of these may be up as soon as Sunday evening, but, until then, I'd avoid trying a limpet-based strat.


I'll still try boarding out either way.

I've also noticed the game's been more temperamental when starting it up. Still has a bunch of the random bugouts I posted about previously in the bug thread, and it seems if I try enough times it fixes itself, which is bizarre.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Sat Sep 12, 2015 5:14 pm

Little more to add:

  • Boarding works more or less as intended. You don't get any info about how the boarding action went currently, however. I now know that the 'green' ship-bar is the trooper level. Two light cruisers with one boarding module can easily overwhelm a single enemy Phidi cruiser with a total of three actions. It took four or five to neutralize a Marauder command cruiser, but that was a nicer prize. This was done with only a single boarding module + two quarters on my cruisers; going to try multiple boarding modules and see if that helps at all.

  • Raiding a ship currently does damage directly to the target's armor and systems. Since it bypasses shields, it's pretty effective against tougher targets like Marauder cruisers.

  • Apparently you can fire torpedoes at incoming missiles. Surprisingly, this works very, very well at missile removal. I certainly would not argue over having a 'fighter suppression warhead (FS)' modification that enables munitions-based PD weapons to do double damage (or 1.5x) at the cost of halved damage vs. ships.

  • Planet defenses need more ammo. It sucks using dual torpedoes only to run out of ammo on the second combat turn.

  • Having an outpost ship in your fleet results in you being harassed with the option to build an outpost every turn. If this could be changed so it prompts you only the once upon system entry, that'd be great.

  • Coilguns are fairly decent weapons now. The heavy variant can do some good damage, especially against shielded targets. A shame they are very range-deficient though.

  • I also learned that ships have a shared ammo pool. This means if you stick missiles on a torp destroyer, it'll draw from the total stockpile. That can be either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. Good due to more ammo for torps, bad if you don't like having a useless turret slot.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Tue Sep 15, 2015 1:37 am

Ran through part of another new game as the Orthin, focusing on beam weapons. The Yoral game was basically 'won', however once the games progresses past a certain point, I can only get four or five turns in before the game implodes as a result of no memory. I usually play a game until it starts giving me too much grief with the memory issues.

  • I found the Orthin did well with research, which is no surprise, but good lord they are weak early on. Not only do they only get 2 production per colonist (compared to the Haidur and Yoral's 3, and Humans I think get 2.5), but they have the weakest early-game ship frames I've encountered so far.

  • The Orthin only get the destroyer frame as an early-game ship, with two turrets only. This, combined with the weak production makes missile boat spamming quite a bit trickier than normal. It's also more difficult to get your eco rolling as it takes longer to build factories, colony ships, labs, defenses and ultimately ships. This effect will compound over the course of the game, especially if you don't spam factories on your homeworld right away.

  • Their cruiser setups aren't bad, but they are expensive: the escort cruiser setup I had with turbos in the turrets + PD turbos and dura armor cost almost 1k production (!). I recall Haidur escort cruisers being quite a bit cheaper than this, likely because the Orthin variant carries more guns in each turret. For that price, you can easily squeeze out three missile boats and you can do so earlier in the game. For around 700 production, you can get a similarly-set up heavy cruiser. It's a shame their hulls are made of paper, and that even three 1x heavy turbos don't do a lot of damage at range.

  • Perhaps I haven't noticed them, but I think there's more Glacier-type worlds than Iceballs. Orthin colonies tend to be kind of bad on the other common world types (particularly Arid, I always have craptons of Arid worlds in my games). Nothing wrong with that, other than it can set the Orthins further behind if they have an early setback.

  • Generally, I feel like the Orthin are more 'fragile' than the other races I've played, with the possible exception of the Humans. I have no doubts the Orthin can thrive in a big galaxy where they have time to build up and outpace everyone else at the research game though.

  • I also learned you can intercept an AI's colony ship and blow it to pieces without any repercussions. Brilliant way to handicap the AI early on if you start close enough to them, and there's no risk involved unless the colony ship is escorted.

  • I was also unaware the AI on Hard cheats to the point where it's kind of silly.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby evil713 » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:05 am

where the Orthin shine is there gunboats, sofar they are the only race with a siege mount and a weapon to go with, coupled with there small size means you can print your own artillery.

That being said they need escorting, the orthin gunboat needs all its power dedicated to that weapon leaving next to nothing for defence. yes you can equip pd but if they come at you gunning your going to lose ships.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Tue Sep 15, 2015 2:18 pm

evil713 wrote:where the Orthin shine is there gunboats, sofar they are the only race with a siege mount and a weapon to go with, coupled with there small size means you can print your own artillery.

That being said they need escorting, the orthin gunboat needs all its power dedicated to that weapon leaving next to nothing for defence. yes you can equip pd but if they come at you gunning your going to lose ships.


I always used my bunches of early-game missile boats as artillery. The only time I would've wanted a very long-range direct fire weapon was actually in said Orthin game, where an AI's planet defense kept shooting my missiles down (using 2*7x ions). However, the easier way to solve that problem is to offer the planet a punching bag or two to enable the missiles to slip through.

I could see proper artillery ships being useful if the battlemap was a bit larger than it currently is or if there were targets that actually required that level of firepower to defeat. I'll take a second look at them and see how they perform.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Mon Sep 21, 2015 12:42 am

Played for a bit as the Gremak this time, mostly to check out the new Vipers:

  • The start I had for this game was absolutely bonkers. Nothing like having two ocean and two garden worlds close at hand to take over with no competition. The downside is I have yet to see a single Swamp planet that is not the Gremak homeworld in any game I've played thus far.

  • I noticed the Gremak also have only two production/colonist and lack the research padding of the Orthin. That said, their basic hulls make up for the tech deficiency by being far better than the Orthin destroyers. Because the Enfi also are 2p/colonist, you don't get any extra helping hands from them and since they give zero research, the Gremak start very slowly tech-wise (plus their research hero gives no RP). Even getting guidance systems takes at least twenty turns.

  • As far as their basic hulls (destroyer & light cruiser) go, they synergize very well. Gremak destroyers are point-defense boats and can equip a Viper in their missile slot, while the cruisers are great for missile boating with four (!) turrets plus the dedicated missile slot. The light cruiser also has three system slots - a real boon especially once you get shields as the bonus slot fits a deflector with no power problems using a nuke reactor. It's a very flexible frame as it can be configured to do many different things with the sole drawback of being expensive to build (600p per, roughly).

  • The midgame Gremak hulls are pretty nice too, with the exception of the escort cruiser - with only three turret slots, it is awful. Its sole saving grace is that it is cheap, as it can't be super tanky (two sys-slots only), nor does it have any dedicated PD mounts. The regular cruiser and command cruiser are both good ships, and can soak a lot of damage with slots for dual deflectors.

  • Scouts cost way too much to build, assuming you want an extra one, as the Gremak due to the awesome light cruiser frame.

  • I cannot figure out how to refit ships. Every time I try to, I get redirected to the ship design screen with the checkmark-okay button greyed out. I must be missing something really, really obvious. Stockpiling production is quite nice - I can let an industrial world build up capacity and unleash it on new ship frames.

  • Also had a case where a splinter colony I found under pirates didn't join me after I defeated said pirates. I did click the correct option, and nothing happened. I simply got two troopships together and invaded them instead, in traditional Gremak style. Logs are uploaded as game_532, unsure if that'll help pin the issue down or whether it was a one-off.

  • Vipers are an interesting weapon. 1.5x damage over a nuclear missile, instant travel time and unlimited ammo at the cost of tiny range. They are definitely worth using on small ships where they can close distance rapidly, but I'd rather get regular missiles on larger ships due to the range deficiency. Destroyers make a good Viper-boat as they can shrug-off enemy missile fire with their hordes of PD weapons.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby Unbroken » Sat Sep 26, 2015 1:46 am

More games, Teros-style:

  • I figured the Teros would feel and play a lot like the Haidur and for the most part, that is true. There are a few differences though: easily the biggest one is the extra industry. That +3 industry per colonist is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It lets you get your industry up and running a little earlier than normal, which means earlier colonies, etc. etc.

  • As for their ship frames, some are good and some are bad. Among the good: I am quite impressed with the light carrier ship frame, mainly when you fill it full of Bombers and go ruin somebody's day. Since it can carry four total, with nuclear torpedoes you can hammer someone for 100 damage if they don't carry effective PD. What makes this quite nice compared to Yoral torpedo destroyers is the fact that bombers have unlimited ammo. The carriers are also reasonably sturdy, plus the turret slot can be used for a regular gun, a PD weapon or even a boarding module -- with 100 crew, a few good raids could turn a close-combat battle around. Plus, the light carriers are dirt cheap at ~520 production with durantium armor and every time you get new torpedo tech, your bombers automagically upgrade. Cool, huh?

  • However, the Teros missile cruiser is terrible (why pay 500 production for 2 missile, 1 turret and 1 PD when you can have carriers?), and the escort cruiser is okay-ish. Its main problem is that it is expensive as hell due to four turret slots, like the Haidur model.

  • With the way fighters work currently, you need to focus in one weapon category to be the most efficient with your RP. The reason for this is that bombers use your best missile to calculate damage, while starfighters use the best beam. Since missiles are still a better choice early on, there's no point getting early starfighters as the Teros, as they'll be much weaker without the beam tech to back them up.

  • I learned that capturing colony ships is far, far more effective than killing them. Although there's a couple UI issues with them (already posted), you basically gain free population off the AI. Better still, if that's an early-game colony ship, you save yourself a bucketload of production making one to colonize with, a clear win-win situation.

  • I also learned that this is also key when you colonize a world that is big, but not well-suited to your species. Swipe some colonists and disembark them on a world more to their liking. Result? You gain a bunch of slots AND population capacity. Once you've got a few different species in your empire, shuffle them around via transports and reap the reward!

  • I also learned that a ship with heavy railguns can bombard a planet without being shot back (the planet in this instance was using Disruptors). I'm not sure if this is because railguns are awesome, which they are, or because disruptors are range-deficient.

  • I don't know why, but I kept seeing the AI double-up on space stations at their planets. I'm not aware of any bonuses of doing that, and I don't think the AI ought to be doing that anyways.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby sven » Sat Sep 26, 2015 4:48 pm

Unbroken wrote:I don't know why, but I kept seeing the AI double-up on space stations at their planets. I'm not aware of any bonuses of doing that, and I don't think the AI ought to be doing that anyways.


The AI's building the second station in order to unlock the ability to construct super-heavy hulls -- right now, the largest ships require 2 construction modules at the colony where they're built. Thus, you can unlock them by building either 1 Shipyard or Fleet Base, or by doubling up on smaller stations. The AI tends to double up. It's not necessarily an optimal strategy, but, there is a valid in-game reason to do it.

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Re: First Impression Notes

Postby evil713 » Sun Sep 27, 2015 2:39 am

Also a fun thing to do is build 2 starbases and put maneuvering thrusters on them, Nothing says doom like a pair of star bases coming at you.


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