Harbinger PC Early Access Feedback

From a fine Commander elsewhere:

> The Easy/Normal/Hard mode gives a requisite amount of "hard" points per run. It may be open to...exploit? for earning early commander levels.
> Missiles from Missile allied/enemy fighters/drones do not show damage upon hit to either player/enemy ships
> The early support/formation ships *may* be a bit too expensive compared to their tactical/module output. (The earliest is around 1k scrap).
> When selecting a gun port for the light blue hexagons, a 'preview arc' may be an important addition for better UI viewing/decision making.

What I like about the game is it's able to very muchly capture the feel of a single pilot in space--albeit sometimes overwhelmed due to the need of scrap (especially when the map creates bottlenecks with strong ships in the way). Perhaps additions towards Engines/Thrust, and some kind of modulation (maybe via a device) to the HP/Shields to focus the 'energy' towards one or the other would help. In its current state, the randomization of missions and maps are a bit...forced in their feeling, though I'm assuming there will be addition of details to the various screens presented (like a tip that you can choose where you can warp in, amongst many others), as well as the steady price-of-mercenaries...it may not feel like they're an early game option as the idea has *great* potential, but it feels limited. You can only contact them for money/turns, instead of initiate helpful communication; most of them seem human, so I'm assuming there could be some kind of friendships formed for a common cause? Those tiny tidbits would help a ton.

A tiny bug(?) I've found was that while in battle, and you purchase a ship via the Formation screen, the Engineering area pops up and you're very much able to then edit your ships in the midst of battle.

This attachment deals with a possible bug--hosted on IMGUR, it shows a boundary that any single projectile shots stop at (it's not well hinted as I can't capture a video, but that tiny explosion is an enemy fighter, and there's a "map boundary" around 2/3rds of the planet [horizontal going up] where the shots [missile/projectile] stop). The Station's laser was able to destroy it though! But the bug is in short: "Map boundary stops projectile/missiles." Allied fighters also flew in to shoot at the enemy fighter, and the Bolter Fighters who tried had their shots disappear (as in, their shooting animation only shows but no shot comes out because the fighter itself is already out-of-bounds).



Next are suggestions and feedback:
+ I *very much* like the compact hitbox of ships--being able to dodge missiles by the *hair* gives a very intense feeling of a firefight (albeit a 2D firefight, but it still gives that fun thrill).
+ The *STORY* can really be improved; at the moment it seems to be a placeholder, though considering its background as a roguelike--it works perfectly.
> I've pondered over the score-to-commander rank, with two major ideas being a percentile modifier or the current 500/750/1000 hard difficulty score. The latter seems like an overall better thing, if only compared to the current setup as it can be incredibly easy to unlock the later better ships if you just go on Hard and...intentionally die for ~1k ranking points [It may make sense. Commanders don't get access to better ships by destructing their own flagships on several differing missions. ]
> The Escape Pod seems...inefficient in the earlier levels or games, which IMO may be a crucial feeling (if the scoring/rank gain mechanics will be changed) if a player is successful. While it does make sense as a +1 life at the cost of a major turret slot, it'll only be better used if either the player is already a high ranked commander in the current version (given better ships having ~3+ turret slots), or if the player has already progressed into a full-formation fleet, and can spare the loss of one turret slot.
> Why do formation-ships have the Escape Pod as a ready choice even before the flagship isn't dead? In all games I've played, if the Flagship dies, it does NOT matter if you have formation ships present and alive/escaped from the battle, unless you do have the Escape Pod.
> The game is...very intriguing and exciting. You aren't penalized for allies dying, Stations, Mercenaries or otherwise [otherwise being my ONLY time seeing another BSE ship that wasn't purchased by formation--it died in the battle before I could see what it could do though -_-] or time-limited by a # of set turns [other games I could think of are FTL...which is a very nice game, but UGH that limitation {on vanilla}]. You just go forward, with scrap to spare and the strength of the fleet you've built with you.
> The only drawback is the early game--in rank, or in gameplay. Little scrap and facing enemy ships with the current prices of 1.3.3.7, and you meet an early death (more likely than not). But if successful, it is easy for a tactical/strategic player to push forward and score a full formation fleet.
> I can easily escape from battles even with a tiny [|] out of [|||||||||||] HP ship by pausing, clicking the hyperdrive, and getting away. While it does make sense, and has been present in sci-fi stories for quite a long time (and the enemy AI chases you too...), there seems to be a lack of weaponry that *stops* this from happening. It may add to the..."fun" if there was variation in weaponry this way.
> There may be a very good point for tooltips or such when describing the upgrades. One prominent example is the "Burst Upgrade". Personally...the name is out of place when the upgrade itself equals "# of projectiles per shot//recharge cycle". That's not what came to mind when I read Burst, and only upon observation did I get the idea.
> I'm a bit...silly with pressing this, but it's just me and my silliness. Please excuse me here x3 Could I ask that the Commander be referred to either a third-person viewpoint [eg How Mass Effect accomplishes very well, by saying "The Commander" instead of gender-emplaced pronouns like 'He/She'...unless in future versions, we get to have a profile stating ALL our stats {which somehow covers that rank/score mechanic} + a profile pic to choose our gender {which can then reflect with pronouns}.

>My only visual and non-textual suggestion here may help with knowing the limitations of those light blue hexagonal tiles within Engineering--that Firing Arc of those guns. Maybe just a view-over when highlighted/pressed by the mouse. Which could probably also follow how one would view the overall 'range' of a red hexagon/turret. [eg I did NOT know that on the BSE Raven, the middle light blue hexagons had the...least maneuverability of a firing arc and only protected a very narrow area; I assumed it would protect at 'least' the midsection, which it technically did, but in a very narrow way]
> Could the 'player ship' as displayed on the Starmap change color towards a less 'cyan' theme and probably more towards "Green" or something that won't clash with the current location color the player is at? (which is white--the colors do not complement/contrast well, for us players with visual problems...)