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Post by shaithis on Feb 21, 2011 11:45:32 GMT -5
Wow. I have been trying to make headway in this game for days, and so far have lost 15 captains. This most recent one just baffles me - I engaged a pirate, traded misses and 2-4 damage hits back and forth, and all of a sudden I take 26 damage. Sup, zero hull, long time no see. I had almost full stats (incl hull and armor), and am dead the next turn...
The next game, I encountered a moon runner merchant from a Clan on my way to deliver the very first quest to the Cadar capital (so, first 10 seconds of the game). I said "what the hell" and engaged it. It tried to run, but I was faster. I tried to board it AND TOOK 56 DAMAGE! I managed to die in the first 30 seconds of the game!
Military captain career, by the way; I put points into quickness, stealth and pilot. So I had decent warrior / strength for most of my deaths. I have spent most of my time playing on Demanding after my first string of deaths on the higher difficulty levels.
I am normally very decent at these types of games, particularly when I figure out all of the math / combat system, but I just can't make any headway here. I understand what the skills are supposed to do, but then I take a few levels of quickness and cannot land a barrage on a pirate after five rounds. There seems to be quite a bit more randomness than actual combat calculations. Not having a save feature (besides being able to re-import from the free version, which is just silly), doesn't really help things.
I must say that I am very disappointed overall; the premise and content is very enticing, but it's just not playable, unless I am having the worst string of luck ever.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 21, 2011 12:46:55 GMT -5
I will come back to this post in a day and see if I can find anything action-able in it.
I will continue to investigate how encounters are happening in the early turns of the game -- I must be missing something because in v3.4.9 it immediately skips all encounters before turn 20.
"There seems to be quite a bit more randomness than actual combat calculations."
There is an element of random chance in combat, but I think you will find that is true (if you look deep enough) of almost all the games in this genre. Star Traders is a model of a table top RPG and does use dice.
---
Anyway, I'll be back looking for things to fix later.
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Post by oldalchemist on Feb 21, 2011 12:56:50 GMT -5
The harder difficulty levels are hard.
Demanding and Challanging are pretty much survivable.
My advice: Get a ship with lots of engines. Don't use torpedoes if you're in orbit. It might be worth it to spend the first bunch of turns playing the explorer game on a planet with wild and urban locations.
Having decent a decent rep and updated permits with all factions means that you get to pick most of your battles. It's expensive to maintain, but cheaper than a total hull rupture. Once you've got a sweet ship, then pursue your main goals.
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Post by oldalchemist on Feb 21, 2011 13:01:11 GMT -5
Also, get armor.
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Post by shaithis on Feb 21, 2011 13:31:28 GMT -5
I will come back to this post in a day and see if I can find anything action-able in it. I will continue to investigate how encounters are happening in the early turns of the game -- I must be missing something because in v3.4.9 it immediately skips all encounters before turn 20. "There seems to be quite a bit more randomness than actual combat calculations." There is an element of random chance in combat, but I think you will find that is true (if you look deep enough) of almost all the games in this genre. Star Traders is a model of a table top RPG and does use dice. --- Anyway, I'll be back looking for things to fix later. All of this occurred on the previous version; I just noticed an update available this morning. I have Elite. I understand that there will always be randomness, but it really does seem like the standard deviations are very wide. Your combat system seems to favor critical hits / misses as significant deciding factors, possibly from there not being enough effect of standard actions. Also, torpedoes seem to be very highly valued, and the inability to easily replenish them doesn't help when every new encounter you face has a full set. This has been my logic for raising stealth early on at the expense of other stats (didnt help game before last when I had 7 and got smacked with 3 torps in a row). It would be nice to have a better idea of how damage is calculated across the board, perhaps I am picking the wrong skills or choosing the wrong opponents to fight. I really do want to figure this out; obviously there has to be a way if other people are having success, and the challenge does appeal to me. The harder difficulty levels are hard. Demanding and Challanging are pretty much survivable. My advice: Get a ship with lots of engines. Don't use torpedoes if you're in orbit. It might be worth it to spend the first bunch of turns playing the explorer game on a planet with wild and urban locations. Having decent a decent rep and updated permits with all factions means that you get to pick most of your battles. It's expensive to maintain, but cheaper than a total hull rupture. Once you've got a sweet ship, then pursue your main goals. I'd love to, but you can't exactly have your pick of ships early on. My understanding is that you have to fly around and do contracts in order to get rep for promotions, etc. This is where I keep getting waxed, usually after a contract leaves me with engine damage that I can't repair - can no longer run from pirates which suddenly whack me for 25 damage. I don't understand where to buy permits - do I need to go to capitals? Most worlds I go to don't offer them as an available option, even after I buy a pardon. "Don't use torpedoes if you're in orbit" - I don't understand this statement, are you saying "don't use them in close range?" I know this already, it's in all the manuals lol. Armor gets gone after the first torp, so... |
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Post by oldalchemist on Feb 22, 2011 15:06:55 GMT -5
Start a Javat Explorer.
Do your starting contract, and then return to the Palace to buy your permit and warrant. Then, go to the Javat wild/urban world off to the left a few sectors. Cache most of your water (sip from the cache when you're under 5) and spend your points in Explorer. Explore until your holds are full or your crew is skeletal, then return to the urban exchange and unload the artifacts, weapons, and electronics you find. (Better results if you've got some records in the hold when you explore.) Your reputation with Javat (and any trade allies) will soar. Buy rank and records. Go sell records to factions that aren't in a spy war or trade embargo with Javat, ideally Thulun since there's another urban/wild world around the corner. Selling records boosts your rep. It doesn't take many to get enough rep to buy a Trade Permit. Once you've got a permit with a faction, sell artifacts, weapons, and electronics. You can end up with a ton of XP, and $400,000 pretty quickly. Buy a bigger ship or get lucky facing a pirate.
You're going to hop worlds when you run out of crew to recruit in spice halls.
By "in orbit" I mean "on a planet square."
You need a positive rep to buy a permit.
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Post by fryhtaning on Feb 25, 2011 8:48:16 GMT -5
I unfortunately have to agree with a lot of with the OP is saying.
A few weeks ago, I got to lvl 23 Paragon III on Challenging before my ship turned mutinous after a tragic chain of events and killed me. It was an epic round that cemented my love for this game.
Shortly after that were a couple of small updates.
Since then I have been trying to do some quick unlocks on Demanding before I settle into another long-term career. The one I'm currently on is the Rapid Rank (II?) where you have to get rank 6 in 4 years. Which basically means nonstop contracts without failure from the get-go, or lucking out and getting an early conflict that you can take advantage of.
Problem is, I'm having the same problem as the OP. First round is usually delivery contracts which go off without a hitch.. and usually gets me to rank 1 or 2. Next round has spy contracts or bounty hunting (I start off as Bounty Hunter with the Picky Beggar, but upgrade Pilot to match the Hull value first before furthering Warrior/Tactics), and sometimes I'll get through that round, but often I'll engage an easy target, get to short range, and on the first "Board" action I'll blow up in one hit. If I'm lucky enough to get rank 2 or 3 off that second round of contracts, I will die 100% either from a random battle torpedo to the butt as I escape, or from attempting to board a freakin lvl 1 Smuggler.
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Post by oldalchemist on Feb 25, 2011 9:58:55 GMT -5
Rapid rank is a cakewalk for an Explorer. Go to a planet with Faction Urban and Wild Zones (Javat, Thulun, or Rychart) and explore (with a few records in your hold), sell the booty to your faction, get promoted, repeat. You don't even have to leave the orbit of the planet.
Selling artifact, weapons, electronics, and records are a huge faction boost. I don't know of anything that jacks it up faster with less risk.
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Post by fryhtaning on Feb 25, 2011 13:17:53 GMT -5
My level 23 was an explorer, so I'm not really in the mood to play another one for a while.
Regardless of your strategy being true, the issue is still that there's no point playing a Bounty Hunter like a Bounty Hunter, or you'll get blown out of space within 15 minutes. It's early in the game and the contracts are low rank, easier, and usually within 10 AU, so I can't imagine BH gets any more playable an hour into the game if it can't dominate every early level 1 smuggler it comes across on a contract. I couldn't 1-shot a level 1 smuggler with the Overlord I finished the level 23 with, let alone anything near my level.
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 25, 2011 13:52:09 GMT -5
"the issue is still that there's no point playing a Bounty Hunter like a Bounty Hunter." I disagree, but I suppose that is why I love playing BH on Insane. I just hit level 29 this morning on my current Captain. If a BH is loosing battles to level 1 smugglers I suspect something is wrong. Can you post your build, stats and attributes? I'm really curious -- are you leaving some of the critical skills at 1? -- Another point is that you might be pushing for advancement too fast. Purchasing Rank at a Faction says "I am ready for bigger jobs." If you are always buying Rank just beyond your ability to play the contracts then you are pushing too much. Just because the Captain could purchase Rank doesn't mean you need to purchase Rank -- even if you are going for Rapid Rank you can buy 6 in a row at the last minute. Try backing off a little bit on the Bounty Hunters. With practice, you should be able to hit 100% of the contracts for the first 100. cynik and crew -- can someone drop that screenshot on here showing the Hard BH with 90 successful jobs and 0 fails? |
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Post by Cory Trese on Feb 25, 2011 14:09:36 GMT -5
There are many possible ways to improve the game. That is very clear to me.
My challenge is finding actionable issues that I can adjust, test and release.
Statements to the effect of "it really does seem like the standard deviations are very wide" are difficult (if not impossible) to make into actionable work items.
At this point in the evolution of the game changes are happening slowly -- months of hard work have yielded an application that, under testing, appears stable and predictable.
Certainly, there are edge cases. Player tutorials are lacking and the game has millions of permutations. I am working to push those edge cases back and improve all aspects of the game.
I appreciate your feedback.
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Post by oldalchemist on Feb 28, 2011 12:55:23 GMT -5
Some classes are better for certain awards. Explorers are also pretty easy for getting the doctor/wound award since you usually only take one hit at a time while exploring and you've got the cash to pay for the treatment afterward.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 2, 2011 7:00:49 GMT -5
Seconding Cory's blog post, I really like the fact that I can die unexpectedly, that you can't predictably win every combat no matter how powerful you are. It gives a great feel to this game, the feel of life and death. Of course it's a great pain in the 8ss when a long lived character dies - but death makes the living so much sweeter. An excellent design decision, Cory.
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 2, 2011 11:01:39 GMT -5
Learn to swallow your pride and surrender if you're outmatched. Usually, pride kills me.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 2, 2011 22:16:56 GMT -5
spike -- Thank you sir. I am continuously trying to find ways to explain defeat better. One idea I had last night was -- "How about after you win/loose, you get to see the other character's skills and attributes?" That way you'd be like "OMG I got killed WTF" ... "Oh rats! He had 45 Warrior skill and 55 weapons on-board. Darn Cadar!"
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