First-time player thoughts

[yeahjim]

Hi. Bought the game. I like it!

Some thoughts:

-Auto-explore needs fixing. I'm not so worried when it craps out and simply ceases to work, but it's sent my away team off far beyond what their O2 capacity will allow for and has gotten them killed a couple times.

-Recently bumped into Gashers. Very easy to lose your entire away team because they block the passage back to shuttle. I know the answer: buy a ranged weapon with damage to several adjacent squares. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a decent choice for several sectors. I just don't like Gashers, and I think they need to be toned down a bit. The slimes are a little easier to deal with because there is a Boss Slime type of guy and you can cut off production at the source. Likewise, the Floating Eye guys seem to only appear in shipwrecks, and are usually easier to cordon off. Gashers = too hard, too unpredictable. It's almost to the point where I'm thinking of skipping planetary exploration until they stop spawning.

((I'm in the late teens, sector-wise, and I've lost half of my senior officers several times (mostly because of the top two notes above.) With that in mind, and considering how slowly officers progress, it would be nice if there were some high-cost cloning feature available for deceased officers whose bodies could be tracked down and recovered.))

-I like that traveling between previously explored star systems is pretty much a slog. That's how it should be. But I would like to see more dynamism within a star system after it's already been explored... I kind of vaguely get the impression that unrest exists in the galaxy, but I don't see it ever.

-Why doesn't the bio-filter work underground?

-I'd like to have a note for planets with cave systems.

-In fact, shouldn't there be a general note-making thing in game? Like, right click a planet, and type: "Gashers. Avoid." or "Black Malaria - no big deal."

-I'm given to understand that there is a trading mechanic in place... but I've never made use of it. I don't even check to see what the prices are. I just find crap and sell it at the nearest place. I can't see warping around to increase the take by 20%, less travel expenses. Usually, I enjoy trading in space games, but something about the basic physical structure about AI, these boxed-in systems, makes it feel pointless. That's part of it. It also may be the fact that it's turn-based. In real-time games - like Escape Velocity and stuff, somehow the stakes seem higher. You'll be cruising along in deep space with these little red dots behind you, hoping you get to somewhere civilized before the pirates blast open your cargo bay, wondering if it was the right decision to take such a risk for a greater margin on the galactic market. I just don't feel it with AI. The individual sectors seem totally static, despite the fact that market fluctuations exist.

-Speaking of which, why do all these other ships just chill out while the pirates are blasting at me?

-Seriously, how is there not ship boarding?

-Is there ever going to be a ship for sale that I'm going to want to buy?

Now... one thing to mention as well is that we only hurt the ones we love. There are plenty of small(ish) games I play that don't make an impression on me one way or another. Plenty more I play, dislike, and delete. AI is not one of those games! I'm actually really into it - I think it's almost fantastic, and it's far and away the most fun I've had with a new roguelike this year. It's just that I want more, more, more!

Lastly, Thank you for making the game. Having a lot of fun with it.

[Kazeto]

I don't know about ships for sale as it is, but doing racial quests (the ones you get from embassies) for a single race 0enough times will give you that race's ship. The easiest is probably the bankers' quest, you just need to thrown a few millions of credits at them.


Now moving onto the next thing, oxygen. I don't know what your oxygen capacity is, but I stopped having this problem once I got over 100 of it (any of the “walker” items—mountain walkers, water walkers, hazmat suits, or thermal isolators, depending on the planet—also help) which is something you can have by mid-teen sectors, really. The game tracks absolute distance to where you are from the pod rather than real distance as required due to the terrain being a maze, so some planets are really risky until then.

I've seen the auto-explore weird out and continue to explore for a bit longer, though, so it is a possibility that it did that in your case. But I have no idea what triggers this, and it did stop before I got across the point of no return, so I can't say if it's the same thing.


With gashers and the lack of a multi-target weapon, I don't know if you dislike crafting or simply are not aware it exists, but even without any officers that have crafting-enhancing skills, you can make items that aren't all that bad. So you can just go to an earlier sector, buy every item that is cheap enough, dismantle it, repeat with station from the next or previous sector, and after not too long you will be able to craft your own weapons. And those fairly often are multi-target.


Officer training ... once you get good at making your away team people survive, it's easy enough to get a lot of experience by sending all of your officers on away missions. The only issue is oxygen because with all 6 officers on away team you will have ridiculous amounts of health compared to the damage dealt by monsters. Add a scientist with that skill that constantly heals damage and you'll be a juggernaut (I had been walking on planets that dealt environment damage to me, and my health actually regenerated instead of being lost over time).


The one about other ships doing nothing while pirates shoot away at you, I honestly have no idea but I suspect it has to do with how race relationships work. I've actually seen other races attack each other more often than I get attacked (though, considering I have a set of weapons that can destroy anything that looks wrong at me from half a sector away, I don't blame them for not trying) and usually stuff like that evolves into a sector-based war between the two nations involved while the rest of the nations chill out, spare the really rare situations where a third race joins too (why, I have no idea).


Outside of those few, I more or less (with some more, with some less) agree with what you wrote, so I'll end there.

[yeahjim]

Kazeto,

Thanks for the advice. You're right - I'd mostly ignored crafting, at my own peril. I also hadn't ever run into hand scanners despite multiple playthroughs. That definitely makes things easier. However, I dunno, I guess I was just never a fan of the infinite spawner baddies in roguelikes.

Auto-explore is definitely wonky and can get you killed. Not in the sense of, "oh, now enemies are blocking my way back," but in the sense of your guys walking off to one corner and asphyxiating. It seems to happen more on shipwrecks and planets with ruins on the surface.

[Kazeto]

Originally Posted by yeahjim

Thanks for the advice. You're right - I'd mostly ignored crafting, at my own peril. I also hadn't ever run into hand scanners despite multiple playthroughs. That definitely makes things easier. However, I dunno, I guess I was just never a fan of the infinite spawner baddies in roguelikes.

Ah, true that, those can be annoying. But for the most part, having any area-of-effect or multi-target attack capability (I haven't ever seen the former in this game, but the latter is easy enough to obtain) makes those easier, or at least more manageable. Sure, there are still places that simply can't be completely cleaned out, but it's always possible to control their population well enough to clear the whole map of goodies and other monsters.

And if we are talking about multiplying enemies being annoying, then here's a more annoying one: puffers, the monsters that can multiply themselves on death. Admittedly, those only annoy the completionists as they deal low damage compared to other monsters, don't seem to deal any status effects nor inflict diseases, and don't even move (and thus are great for getting experience once you get a shotgun or machinegun or whatever else of that sort).

Originally Posted by yeahjim

Auto-explore is definitely wonky and can get you killed. Not in the sense of, "oh, now enemies are blocking my way back," but in the sense of your guys walking off to one corner and asphyxiating. It seems to happen more on shipwrecks and planets with ruins on the surface.

I think that one has something to do with how auto-explore doesn't stop until everything is explored and some caves and shipwrecks have tiles that count but cannot be seen without a hand scanner (or can't be seen ever, in some cases, unless there's an item I'm missing that allows teleporting during away missions). Considering that the auto-explore seems to work in small-ish steps, it's not inconceivable that it could try to reach such a spot and run like a moron between two close-but-not-yet-close-enough locations.


Oh, and it's possible to stop such foolishness of the script by simply right-clicking anywhere. So if you pay attention, that's some sort of solution.

[ibol]

Hi, yeahjim,
First, thanks a lot, glad you're having fun!

Now, a lot of good has already been said here, but I'd like to address a few points:

Auto-Explore:
For a start, auto explore does have a few flaws, but not as many as you might think. For a start, it's meant specifically to *not* be omniscient. It is just as clueless as you about unexplored areas. Also, when in space, the auto-explore doesn't work with other ships around. That's your job (as the captain)

Gnashers: yeah, they like your shuttle for some reason. Use that knowledge accordingly

Bio-filter underground: unsure. will check. Must be an oxy-atmo planet.

Alien ship behavior: Each race has its own behavior. Gruff are dangerous until you win their respect, while monks and unifiers start out friendly. Once you start taking sides in quests, you'll really begin to see some interactions...

Ships for sale: yep, they just keep getting better, the longer you play.

Trading Mechanic: I never played it much myself, until I found out how much others used it and liked it. I guess I can understand the turn-based aspect of your thoughts, but all that stuff does happen, and if you miss it, you miss it.

Note-Taking System:
This has been suggested in one form or another several times. I will judge interest and work vs. reward over time...

Again, thanks,
Bob