Harbinger PC Early Access Feedback

From a fine Commander elsewhere:

I've enjoyed your game and want to send a few feedback points that I yhink are relevant to improving new player experience.

When first starting I found the cryptic-pictogram based UI offputting and confusing. Tutorial helped a bit. It's a touch ui so you can't add tooltips but some better ? buttons in more places would help.

When it then prompted me to review the game I gave it 3* (since changed) because of that and the dire character/story writing. Racist genocide in spaaace against man-kidnapping sirens, really?

You prompt for review at the point of maximum frustration before the good bits become clear.

Active mission UI still is a bit confusing just where do you want me to go? Higlighting the star system for the selected mission item would help a lot. Also should stop highlighting the current sector for pick-up-item goals you've completed - yes I know the item is onboard, mission highlight following me around is just confusing.

Mission acceptance dialog doesn't make it at all clear that the mission is all the listed objectives, it isn't asking you to pick one of these listed missions. Took me a while to work that out. It could use a note saying "All objectives" or something.

Waiting for shield recharge in empty/friendly sector is incredibly tedious. Made more so by the fact that the shield and hull bars don't indicate the lost portion in faded/shadow colour so you're left guessing about when shields are fully charged. Has it stopped moving? I think it's stopped moving...

So yeah. Some gameplay and UI niggles. Fun little game though and few bugs which is nice. Only one I found was shield recharge beam sometimes getting "stuck" on always missing. I'm impressed by the QA. Minimal bugs.


Few wishlist items. Paid addon pack?

* extra score for games started with smaller/cheaper flagship. With ability to swap flag to purchased escort later or buy flagship upgrades like escorts. Right now why would you start with anything except a massive capital ship?

* Scanner to see hostile ship loadout at least for weapons you've seen. Looking at tiny turrets is kinda frustrating. UI gets in the way of gameplay.

* some way to see your point defense arc of fire. Would make manouvering more useful. Right now it's wild guesswork.

* progressive subsystem, weapon damage as you get your hull pounded past a certain point, and temporarily by ion weapons. Fighting at 100% capacity down to kaboom? Really? Would make repair drones / laser more interesting too.

* let player turn repair laser on and off so it doesn't waste scrap when you're on your way to a station anyway.

* make manouvering a bit relevant beyond keeping desired distance, pt defense arc. Some main weapons with arc of fire? "spinal mount" fixed-forward weapons? Shield quadrants? (Though then it'd need to be easier to manouver ships with turn control)

* mention in description that lasers can fire at incoming missiles too. Though not as effective.

* that help tip that always pops up reminding that missiles ignore shields could mention that they're vulnerable to interception.

* weapon description shoild show category icon (missile, laser, plasma etc)

* escape pod as blue slot, warp-capable escape pod (like nemesis's) as red slot? Right now pod is never really worth it.

* boarding and capture?

* some variety in blue slot items. Hull plating? Shield recharge generator? Short range rockets? Engine/turn thruster boosts? Warp recharge generators?

* upgrade to allow vulcan, flak etc to engage incoming missiles. At the cost of range/damage.

* area of effect nukes. Re fighters.

* some weapons with minimum ranges where they can't fire. Have some disadvantage to warping in on top of the other guy. Maybe allow player to fire them anyway at the risk of blast damage to friendly ships

* short range smasher weapons - single target high damage low rate of fire and slow aim/projectile. Tradeoff for poor effectiveness vs fighters and need to get to "knife-fighting" range.

Yeah, I know. You're flooded with wishlists. So ignore that. Please think a bit about the UI and new player stuff though.

Nice game