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My thoughts so far.
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Okay that's far I'd say I'm about a third of the way through my first campaign on easy and I've unlocked about 40% of the tech and ships so I think I have a pretty good grasp of the game so far and what's working and what's not. first I'd like to say that y'all have done an excellent job building a classic style RTS and I very much appreciate the hard work and I understand that there is the intention to include additional content including ships and stations and maybe even more weapons down the road. while I agree that stamping out all the bugs is priority number one I think there are few things that need to either be changed or added in the next patch or two that would have a significant positive effect on gameplay
. I will start however with a couple of bugs that I've noticed. first the ships seem to clip through other ships in space stations when passing over them. if memory serves in harbinger this was not an issue that's what either pass over or under each other and honestly I never got close enough to a space station to drive through it it simply wasn't necessary . second I have noticed the enemy ships and stations continue to fire after they explode up until the point that the explosion dissipates. this is very annoying and is cost me a couple of stations. Okay with the bug report out of the way we can go on to those things that are working good. the system itself is very simple in the classic Westwood RTS Style and to anybody with experience in these older games you pretty quickly figure out the ins-and-outs of everything. the scope of the game is smaller then it's older counterparts but this actually works in it's favor because it keeps things manageable and the pace stays fast without turning into a rolling horde Fest. for the most part the weapons and ships are adequate to the game needs and the resource system is very simple and easy to keep up with. the fleetwide upgrade system for weapons is also a vast Improvement over the individual gun upgrade system used in harbinger and makes upgrading the weapons viable something that was not necessarily true in harbinger. the research system is simple and I like having the option to spend upgrade tokens to advance research. Okay now to the things that aren't working quite so well. first off the space stations. the ones available to the player are small underpowered when compared to hostile stations and not really beneficial Beyond functioning as a light alarm system for approaching enemy fleets. Once you've unlocked the three turret station sorry still haven't got all the names memorized there's no point in unlocking the other two. Militarily they serve no practical purpose. you almost never recall your ships from the front line so you don't really need the jump station and the other one has no redeeming qualities compared to the one that you unlock first. it has less weapons bless health and less Shields then the 3 turret station. there is no single specification where it is superior and therefore for the player it is a waste of resources to unlock it much less build it. the station is redundant and needs to be revamped into something practical that serves a purpose such as a Cruiserweight battle station with additional Point defense turrets and Hangers since there are no stations that have both turrets and Hangers available to the player. second the boarding system. I was very pleased to see the option to utilize Marines to capture targets however the system as it functions now is not complete or very intuitive to use. the Lack of the ability to regenerate or replace lost Marines after combat or boarding actions renders the system very clunky to utilize. In its current state a ship or space station is only reasonably capable of conducting a single boarding action before it's Marine complement is render too small to be viable for offencive action. this makes the boarding system more of a novelty rather than a fully functional Tactical and strategic option. In order for this feature to be used and enjoyed to its fullest extent and method for replenishing Marines must be added to the game otherwise it will remain a feature with great promise that was never fully realized. third the repair system. Currently while it is possible to repair any ship or station completely the method with which these repairs are conducted is both inflexible and severely limited because of the use of the additional resource of upgrade tokens to repair ships when tokens are not used to build ships or stations. what this means is that it is quite often more cost-effective to scuttle the heavily damaged ship or station and replace it with a brand new one rather than use the repair feature to fix it. there is the additional problem that the only way around not spending upgrade tokens to fix things by bringing the damaged vessel back to your battle station is hampered buy both the extreme time it takes to conduct significant repairs and the fact that this option is not available for space stations. I would suggest two options that can either be implemented together or as and either or function of one or the other. first remove all upgrade tokens from repair cost. if you don't have to spend them to build the ship upgraded weapons included then you shouldn't have to spend them to fix it. that's just basic logic. second some form of mobile repair be it repair drones or a repair Cannon that fits in a turn slot or defense slot should be added to provide space stations with the same repair option as Starships. here again with only the most basic attention paid by the player it is very simple to render the current repair system unnecessary through new construction and selling of heavily damaged stations and ships and to some extent not only is this cheaper then repair but you technically get your new units at a discount. with the simple changes this would restore the system to actual viability and make it more attractive for all repairs as opposed to just light damage. Fourth the researchable support ships. the three researchable support ships currently in game are for the most part unnecessary. because of the nature of the game and the rate at which you are normally able to accomplish research none of the ships are going to be a priority and will likely only become available to you during the late late game for each mission. at that point in the mission they no longer serve a purpose as you will have reached a point where you are economically secure and Firepower alone will be your primary concern. I suggest that this be fixed by implementing one of the two following suggestions. First make these ships unlockable items as opposed to researchable items. the pro of this is that once unlocked the benefits are always available to the player once he decides to build ship. the con of this is that it does not actually improve the usefulness of these vessels which in my opinion is marginal at best. Each ship is essentially and Novelty vessel and will never form the backbone of any battlefleet in their current configurations. it may Simply Be The Players money is better spent on the higher-end carriers and battleships. the second option is to replace the vessels with researchable modules that fit and either a turret slot or Point defense slot. the pro of this is that it makes your ships more customizable and allows you to assign these abilities 2 much more durable ship hulls. the con is that as research options they will likely remain very late game but at least there will be an impetus to utilize said upgrade modules which will have far more utility then the current ships that are available from the research. Fifth and finally weapons ranges. In harbinger one of the things that set the various types of weapons apart was the fact that some weapons were short ranged some weapons were medium ranged and some weapons were long-ranged. in Siege all of the weapons essentially have the same range. this removes the attractiveness of a whole host of weapons including the particle cannons and the missiles Beyond there bomber application. while I realize that the Maps are smaller then those of harbinger I don't believe this justifies dumbing down the different weapons ranges to a single unified figure. it would be nice to actually have a reason to mount Cannon or missiles because their reach was significantly more favorable then lasers and other available weapons. While the unified range doesn't necessarily detract from gameplay it does render a significant number of the available turret weapons superfluous at every stage of the game. it would be nice if you were actually weighing other factors besides raw damage when deciding what to purchase for your ships and stations. without this you quickly find that only one or two weapons are worth researching upgrading and using in the game. once again I would like to say that I am enjoying this game and that I think it's a fairly good job has been done on it so far. I simply see places where these minor changes could have a profound effect on gameplay thereby rendering the game even more enjoyable. |
Messages In This Thread |
My thoughts so far. - by starfox1701 - 11-07-2017, 04:12 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by AdmiralGeezer - 11-07-2017, 04:56 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by starfox1701 - 11-07-2017, 09:36 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-07-2017, 07:13 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-08-2017, 06:52 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by starfox1701 - 11-08-2017, 09:04 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-08-2017, 11:39 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by starfox1701 - 11-16-2017, 03:45 AM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-16-2017, 07:24 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by starfox1701 - 11-16-2017, 10:23 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by Forty In Red - 11-22-2017, 02:15 AM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by AdmiralGeezer - 11-22-2017, 08:40 AM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-22-2017, 08:29 PM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by Forty In Red - 11-27-2017, 02:38 AM
RE: My thoughts so far. - by joe1512 - 11-29-2017, 04:45 PM
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