Extended Edition Android Beta Test and Feedback!

@Bailywolf. The update should wipe your save game and let you start a new game. So there shouldn't be any problems no matter what you decide to do.

Missile bombers are nice. Despite being tracking missiles, they're not terribly accurate against fighter-class ships, and with limited upgrades, they can't get overwhelming. I think the missile speed might be a bit high, but I've only so far entertained this guest in the early game.

I'm playing with basic weapons again. Projectile cannons are VERY nicely balanced, if I may say so. They are cheap, basic, and nothing special, but if you invest in them, they can be powerful - their burst is effective without hurting critical stats, and range is important enough that it's loss (and accuracy's loss, along with lower rate of fire) makes the projectile cannon harder to employ. The shield upgrade is weak, but it makes this a viable weapon if you really invest in them. (one shield upgrade and full burst upgrade makes them formidable, in groups.) Haven't messed with energy cannons much, but it looks like the same story - their range is less, but the lost range from burst is less, too, making it harder to bring to bear, but not useless, either.

I like Bolters. Gatlings/Lasers are now two sides of a coin - hull damage/shield damage - instead of tier II and Tier III. I worry that lasers may be too effective on hull damage - they're 66% as effective against hull versus their damage to shields, where gatlings are Bolters are now very interesting, having the best range, but worst starrting stats, and yet the potential to be VERY nice if you upgrade them. Still exploring the results of this.

Haven't explored Bolter drones yet. My next task is a drone-centric game, so expect feedback on that soon. I'll try to use various PD's on my three ships - gatling, laser, bolter - to see what they do for me, though honestly I often don't bother with small guns until late-game.

So, after trying the missile bombers for a while here are my opinions....

They're slow, squishy and weak but after upgrades become quite strong. The upgrades for them have been done REALLY well in my opinion. At basic range they can be taken out very easily, which makes you want to upgrade their range, but doing that will reduce their damage. You have to make a decision on how you build your little fleets

My only problem with them is the same as the other bomber (plasma?). Their rate of turn can often make them near useless. If they're facing the opposite was when you warp into a zone (or when something warps in) then it can take them a considerable amount of time to turn and get into firing position. I've lost my capital ships on several occasions because they end up flying around in an arc to try and turn to face the enemy. For me, this make drones a clear winner VS bombers because the drones can turn and get to an enemy far quicker then bombers, which in turn means anything will start taking damage quicker AND have a screen of ships to protect your capital ships from damage.

I think personally that bombers would benefit from an ROT increase of around 33%, perhaps a little more but it's hard to say without seeing them turn faster on screen and in a combat situation

Agreed, the new update brings the game much closer to balance. The modifications to blue slot upgrade costs are a huge help. The changes to the laser REALLY worked for it, it absolutely is competitive as point defense now. Now that it works though, I do notice a problem. When multiple lasers shoot down a missile, they all have to recharge again before firing. Against large groups of missiles this makes lasers really struggle. Part of the reason the gatling and bolter work well is because they are great at handling many small targets. I recommend reducing the laser's recharge time to 0.5s, and just reducing the hull and shield damage by the same amount. The dps stays the same but the problem goes away.

Was something changed about rockets? It may just be me, but they seem easier to shoot down now.

The drone balance is better. Rocket bombers are really cool, as Marty said their balance feels well thought out. It does still seem that both bombers are weaker than bolter drones though. I don't think this is a bomber problem, instead I think it means bolter drones are too good. Bombers seem well balanced for taking out enemy capital ships. The problem is that bolter drones are good at that and at defense. I'll outline some suggestions for drones in another post.

As promised, I played some seriously drone-heavy games with bolters. They are still quite strong - overwhelmingly so. I think they need to benefit (in terms of balance) from drawbacks to squadron size, just like many weapons benefit from drawbacks to burst.

I think the changes to point defense are helping, but I'm not sure how, exactly. I AM having more trouble getting missiles and rockets through. This can make the early game a little harder for ships without fighters, since you either have to struggle to breach shields, or struggle to breach PD, or struggle to damage hulls with anti-shield weapons.

Speaking of which, the early game is disproportionately hard. Could we have an ally for the first 3-4 turns? That might help us handle early warships enough to gather a little scrap. Your ally's strength and duration could be varied from badass (on easy) to none, on hard. The ideal is always to increase difficulty on a curve equivalent to the player's rising capabilities. A graph of difficulty in this game is a pretty random, jagged line, but that line always seems to average out to a straight line. Increased difficulty on certain maps is usually due to random factors (lots of hazard zones in choke points or before difficult battles) or due to the species we face.

I still hate Trolgar. Not only do their weapons penetrate shields, their weapons COST ME MONEY. Have you considered increasing the scrap reward for bringing down ships with missiles equipped?

Been playing with the missile bombers, and find them nicely balanced. The killer upgrade for them is range, and I like their attack behavior (surround at maximum range, and try put missiles up the pipes of the enemy ship). Not great against other more nimble fighters, but very good against heavy ships. I'm reminded of the B-Wing fighters from Star Wars - dedicated ship killers rather than dogfighters.

Bolter drones still seem like the best option though.

Missiles are a funny thing. I love it when I have the overwhelming missile advantage, but hate being on the receiving end.

I like their shield-penetrating effect, but wish there was a red-class module that could harden my shields against missiles. Trading a red mount for shields that can interdict missiles seems pretty reasonable. Or perhaps some kind of Decoy/ECM/EW system that messes with the accuracy of missiles. Perhaps along a similar line, a target-painting laser that does no damage, but increases the accuracy of all your fleet's weapons.

I've died to missile fire more than any other weapon. Trolgars are the worst. Give me celestials any day. Their reliance on short range energy weapons and repair beams and repair drones makes them much easier to kill.

The difficulty is still all over the place.

I think I'd like the option of getting more scrap at the game's start, perhaps as a direct debit to final score. Or starting out with the same scrap regardless of difficulty, to keep those first half dozen turns from being such a repetitive slog.

First let me say that I'm a huge fan of your games. Please take this feedback as a sign that I enjoyed your game enough to download the beta, pay attention to how it plays, and provide you feedback.


Balance (+ good, - needs improvement) - better than Harbinger stock but still needs improvement.
+ Projectile cannons are no longer the obvious (and only reasonable) choice as a starting weapon. You have balanced them well. Good job.
+ You now stand a reasonable chance at winning without going for a carrier-focused strategy. This adds playability and dimensionality.
+ More than one path to victory. In Harbinger there was a well-prescribed recipe to winning on any difficulty (projectile cannons on large ships plus as many bolter drones as possible). There is no obvious path to victory now.
+ You have also balanced drones much better. They are no longer the only logical choice for fighters.
- The game is entirely far too hard at the beginning. In the 11 test games I've played, I have gotten past the first world once. I have died within the first 5 turns 4 times. Note that I beat Harbinger on every difficulty and with almost every starting ship, so I don't chalk that up to n00bery. I worry that you will turn off new players if they can't even get past the first world after several tries on easy. Suggestion: double the amount of resources (scrap and research) you start with. Players shouldn't have to choose between a fighter bay and a weapon.

Gameplay - overall much improved.
+ Unlike other folks, absolutely no crashes in 11 games.
+ Really like the non-linear campaign. Playing a difference path each time adds a lot for replay value.
+ Really like the variety in ship designs for aliens.
- Need to balance the spawning of "special" sectors. It thoroughly sucks to hit two or three in a row where your shields get drained, then your hull, and in neither case can you repair.
- EMPs. ugh.
- You should consider adding a way to trade scrap for research. As others have said, I agree that it's irritating to end the game with 10k scrap and zero research.
+ / - the "WTF" factor is certainly higher. I haven't decided if that is good or bad. In stock Harbinger, you only had to worry about being ambushed by roving packs of a dozen large ships. Now, you have to worry about that, plus traps, EMPs (ugh, again), strings of "special" sectors that drain hull/shield. It thoroughly sucks to get ambushed by a roving group of large ships after you have had both your shields and hull drained without a chance to repair. Suggestion: always allow repair at mission end. Period.

UI -to be frank, I'm not a fan of the UI updates.
- I find the red "your ship is damaged" boxes on the edge of the screen to be distracting. I know I'm damaged and don't need to be reminded.
- you changed the colors used to indicate hull damage to yellow. Not a huge fan of this change.
- The mission icons don't quite work right in this version. When you complete a mission, a sector can stay green. This worked well in Harbinger. When you completed a mission, the sector changed colors.

Not sure if this has been reported yet, but there is a somewhat game breaking glitch that can be performed when starting a new game. If you close the game after getting your starting scrap/upgrade packages and then reload the game, the first scrap/upgrade stuff will still be in your inventory, AND you get another "starter pack". It seems as if this can be done an infinite amount of times.

@Hurikane211 - I actually see this as a redeeming feature for how difficult the early game is Once I've done this 1-2 times I'm usually ready to start.

More feedback re "Special Sectors" - in general, this is a positive addition. However it does need some tweaks (+ improvement - needs work) :
- Right now, I avoid them if at all possible in the early game because they only hurt you. You either lose your shield, your hull, or are unable to run away from several opponents (see my previous point about how the early game is way too hard)
- The logic behind spawning them needs update. I'm playing a game right now (run number 12) where there are FIVE OF THEM in a row. Once I've gone through them, I have no shields, decreased hull, and have had no chance to repair. The next sector, of course, has enemy units.
- You should be able to shoot down asteroids. Doing so should reward you. That would change the mentality from "run away!" to "try not to die while you collect resources".


Regarding containers - in my experience ~75% of the time they are traps. HOWEVER

^Previous post got cut off. The "Edit" feature didn't work for me.

Regarding containers - in my experience, ~75% of them are traps. HOWEVER, this is not necessarily a bad thing. My strategy is to hang out on the complete opposite of the map and see what happens. Rarely, they are not traps (hooray), but in most cases they are. I find that if you are sufficiently far away, you can deal with whatever adverse thing happens easily, then collect the reward.

One final point re "Special Sectors" - I think you should consider doing away with them as separate entities (eg marked on the map) and just include them as regular sectors. It adds some variety to (randomly) hit an asteroid belt or a black hole.It also makes it near impossible to avoid them, as I have come to do.

Note that if you do this, you should also allow players to repair at the end of the turn. Even if you don't implement this enhancement, you should still allow players to repair at the end of every turn.

"Special sectors" adds a ton of variety, and is generally a positive addition. With some tweaking they will be an absolute blast!