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| Post Number: 21
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GORDON 
90%
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 36125
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2014,10:44 |
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The launcher still says beta.
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I don't give a fuck!
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| Post Number: 22
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Troy
Group: Privateers
Posts: 3857
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2014,11:04 |
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All the menus and UI still looked pretty beta to me when I installed this and fired it up once. Will wait.
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| Post Number: 23
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| Post Number: 24
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2014,11:27 |
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Ya, it looks/says beta. Â It's not done yet. Â You've bought games in beta before. Â They just called it pre-ordering. Â This is pre-ordering as well, except you get to play it now. Â And then, on its release date, it will be all packaged up and pretty looking. Â Except again, this way, you get to play it now. Â I like this version of pre-ordering better than your version.
Edited by Cakedaddy on Jan. 02 2014,11:28
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| Post Number: 25
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 02 2014,23:49 |
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Played my first game against Troy.
Gordon: Don't play this game.
Everyone else: First I "did the tutorial" which was a video of someone playing the game. It gave you the info you needed, but not in a walk through kind of way. They just breezed through an overview of the game. The first thing I noticed was how identical it is to TA. The ore spots on the ground are the same graphic! Build a bot factory and a bot mech. That bot mech can build level 2 buildings which builds level 2 units. Energy and metal storage instead of an infinite amount being available as you build it. The similarities went on. Of course all of that makes sense. Just sayin'.
Built a game for us to play. Just went with whatever was there. Turns out, there were two planets in our solar system, and a sun. Our commanders DID end up on the same planet. Not sure if that was luck or design. But getting to the point where I found my commander was the first challenge. Had no idea what I was looking for. But, I did end up finding him. Troy found his and we started building. At first I (we?) thought the map was going to be HUGE, but it turned out is wasn't that big. It was big, but as I built, it got smaller and more manageable. We told each other where we were so we could get a fight going easier. He lied about his position. I built a base, rushed nukes and built some artillery for protection. Had resource issues from the very beginning and didn't get them under control for quite a while. Troy helped by taking out some of my factories lowering my resource demands. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out how to launch my nukes. Had three launchers up. I had queued up nukes and everything. WOULD NOT FIRE. Then, out of the blue, one goes. It took out a bunch of his ground units. I wanted to hit his base! Then, back to not being able to fire them. Was getting kind of pissed. Turned out, I just didn't know what I was looking at. The number I saw was the number of nukes queued, not built. Anyway, Troy was pecking away at my base, but my artillery was holding him out. Then he had to quit and I WON!! So, I'm undefeated so far. :-)
First impressions: Not good.
VERY hard to figure things out. VERY. Unit selection is balls. Just enough to play a game, but no variety. Controlling a battle is. . . well, I haven't figured it out. I think learning the unit icons will help. But I had no idea what I was controlling, how many there were, etc. I did know where they were going though. Icons might be too big. In other words, I saw all these huge looking icons heading into my base and I figured it was over. Next thing I knew, mine were gone, his were gone, and not much happened. In SupCom, I can drive my units around and make them do things. In this game, the scale seems to be wonky. Couldn't get a feel for it.
I could never find things. I would build units and send them to stage up somewhere. Then I'd forget where they went. With a round planet instead of a flat 2D map, up becomes down, left becomes right. VERY easy to lose your bearings. I do think that will clear up with experience. Eventually, I was learning my base layout and new in what direction Troy was coming from based on where my factories were. Playing on a round planet is WAY different from a 2D map.
Couldn't find where I build things. In my base, everything looked the same. I knew I had a nuke launcher. But fuck me if I could find it. Nope, that's power. Nope, that's an extractor. Nope, that's a bot. Nope, that's a different bot. FUCK. Where is my nuke. Right now, everything looks the same. Yes, I will eventually learn units by look. But right now, it's difficult.
UI does a poor job of telling you what you have selected, are looking at, are on the planet, etc. See above. Can't find shit and/or know which direction shit is.
Round planet is HARD.
I found a bug with a blue circle. No idea what caused it, but it was annoying as fuck.
Making my long range artillery shoot stuff. Couldn't do it very well. His forward base was inside the range circle, but my gun would not fire on it. kept shooting things in front of it. I don't think it was an aiming/spread issue as it was fairly accurate when targeting distant things there were a bit closer than his base. Seems the range circle lies.
Rendering of the planet was slow. When I would zoom way out, it would draw the planet in chunks. Kind of like when you zoom out in google maps satellite. It draws in squares.
Potential: EPIC
Once we get used to the round planet, I think the realism of the battles will be much greater. Multiple planets? Awesome. Ya. Can't say much more than that. You've seen the videos, and I can see it in the game. But, it's going to be a bumpy road getting there. I don't think I could beat the dumbest of AI right now.
Things missing:
Metal converters. Only source of metal I have found are extractors. There are two levels. But that means your base is going to creep all over the place. Will be impossible to protect your metal.
More units. You get 2 or 3 per factory. We are used to 5-7. BUT, we can shoot planets at each other out of the box.
In summary: It's going to be a good game some day, and then a great game. It will be a good game when I learn how to play it as is. It's very similar, but VERY different from other RTS games. And the UI is beta and not extremely helpful. It's going to be a great game when it's finished. I've only played one game, but I think it's going to take me about 10 to feel comfortable with what I'm doing. I'm not talking about figuring out the perfect build order, etc. I just mean learning which was is up and what things are/do. But, this is a HUGE leap in RTS scale. But a good one.
Opinion: They should have left the off planet element out for now. I'd rather see a cleaner UI and more units than planet hopping/smashing. Yes, that is going to be REALLY cool. But the game is so clunky right now that when we smash our first planet, while epic, it will come after blah/clunky battles that may not be that much fun. But it would be a much more fun/playable game right now if the planet stuff wasn't there. As is, we will fight and play sandbox style to get a planet to smash, and then it will be shelved for a later date.
I could be wrong about that. I played ONE game. And this game is HARD. So my opinion may change after 10 games.
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| Post Number: 26
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Troy
Group: Privateers
Posts: 3857
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 03 2014,06:41 |
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I'm going to keep telling myself this game is just beta. Reserving judgement for now.
The units were awful boring, and it was buggy as shit. Also what Cake said.
Edited by Troy on Jan. 03 2014,06:41
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| Post Number: 27
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 03 2014,12:42 |
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Let me stress though, much of my problem was based on the round planet map. Once I over come this, it becomes a much more playable game. The second major hurdle is learning the units. Third, working with them. Once this is accomplished, I think the game is very playable in its current state. It will just get old quickly with one faction and limited units.
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| Post Number: 28
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 04 2014,23:29 |
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Played 2 more games. Set the AI at .25 economy. Had a smaller planet that Troy and I did our game. Said Scale 2. First thing I did was spin the planet a few times to get a feel for it's layout. See if I could keep my bearings better. Started building. Ran my resources out building again, of course, but not as bad as the other night. In this game:
Paying attention to the planet terrain helped me keep my bearings. Had a vehicle go scouting for the enemy. Once I found them, I was able to figure out where they were in relation to my base pretty quickly. Focused my units and stuff on that side of my base. I learned that the advanced metal extractors that level two construction bots build pull WAY WAY WAY more metal than level one. I think they boosted this number so high right now to account for the lack of metal converters in the game. This will help keep the base smaller. Played with the walls by building some. They were walls. Never got attacked this game. At .25, I had a functioning level 2 base before he even got the basic metal extractors and energy plants built. When I moved in to attack, he hadn't even built any factories yet. PERFECT!! Unit balance seems out of whack right now. Had level ones hitting the commander in a decently sized wave. He chewed them up REALLY fast taking only a few scratches. Level two rolled in, same amount, and he got rolled. HARD. Popped pretty quickly. Did not have any vehicle/bot to vehicle/bot combat as he didn't have any factories. But level 2 bots/vehicles beat up commanders.
Second game tonight: Set the AI to .5 economy. I would equate this to a solid easy AI. Playable in that he gets a functioning base up, but doesn't roll you. Managed my resources better and kept my base smaller. Did not build walls. Found his base and I could see it from my base. Meaning, when I was hovering over my base, I saw his buildings on the horizon to my left. That was REALLY cool. First time getting that perspective in an RTS. Almost took a screen shot to show. So, I setup some long range artillery to see what I could hit. I still haven't figured out artillery. When you select it, there's a large red highlighted area which I interpret as how far it can shoot. So, I select targets and click on them. I get a 'buzz' sound. Don't know if that buzz is "target accepted, commence firing", or "invalid target". I get the same buzz targeting things inside/outside that red area. When it shoots, it looks like the rounds are hitting the ground right in front of him. But, my buildings are taking no damage. Graphic glitch? Don't know. I never knew what it was shooting at. Couldn't track the rounds through the air. Had some vehicle/bot combat, but couldn't tell you about balance. It happened quick with even looking losses on both sides. The enemy had some airplanes in my area, so I build anti air. Then I got the message "Metal extractor destroyed". I looked, and he had a small group scouting my exterior extractors. I sent stuff down to kill them. This kept happening. So, I mounted an attack on his base. His base was REALLY spread out. All over the place. Had to search all over the place for stuff. I built a tech 2 radar and it covered the whole planet. Was still hard to see the brown dots that represented radar blips. I was able to take out his main base area pretty easily. Then I just had to find his commander. I looked for a moving brown dot and sent some planes to scout. That was him. I sent ground units to take him out. He was rushing my base. I moved my commander out and took him out on the edge of my base.
Lessons learned:
1. You CAN learn to play on a round planet map.
2. The icons are different enough that learning them isn't hard. By the third game, I could local mechs, radar, artillery, etc by their icons.
3. Playing on a planet is going to be HARD. On a flat map, you normally only have to worry about two sides of your base and the other two are 'off the map'. Not here. Attacks can come from ANY direction. In the second game, he had scout groups all around my base just fuckin' with me. Was pissing me off.
4. Encountered no bugs, and when you get a little more used to things, the game seems less clunky. You get used to it.
5. There are "High Health" walls in the game. They die really really quickly. Forgot to look for tech 2 walls. They are not the walls of TA. No kill zones with these. Well, with first impressions any ways. They might be cheap enough that you can build them many layers thick. That will be way more effective.
6. Multiple engineers can work on the same project.
7. You never get a feel for the battle as a whole. At most, you can zoom out and see half of what is going on. The other half is on the other side of the planet. I do think that more time in the game and battle awareness skills will increase.
Much more pleasant, less frustrating experience tonight.
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| Post Number: 29
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 06 2014,02:26 |
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Played another game. Getting better. Was building a bigger base and was finding it hard to keep track of all my engineers again. Had most of them working, but I think I did lose track of a couple of them. I forgot to adjust the AI economy and figured I'd be in trouble. I was not. They didn't harass me like they have in other games. Not sure why. Took me a while to locate them as well. Still learning how to find a base on the planet after it's been scouted. Once I found it, sent about 175 unit squad up to their base. Was a mix of tech 1 and 2 units. I saw a massive blob of units in front of their base and was concerned. When I hit it, they looked like they were all level 1 units and were handled pretty easily by my mixed squad. I rolled into his base a bit to cripple him, but didn't kill. Wanted to play with some other stuff.
I built more nukes to learn how they worked: You build them and queue up nukes. They start getting built. You can assign engineers to assist building the nukes. Once the launcher has a nuke, it stops making nukes. One nuke at a time. So, I built 2 more launchers. Launched a nuke and it went where I wanted it to. Worked well. Very well in fact. I'm on his base picking a target. I click to launch. On the horizon, I see the flare of the rocket and the trail of smoke coming up from my base. Tracked it heading to their base. Zoomed out a bit to watch it arc down and dive onto the target. BOOM. Nuke damage. It was a really cool perspective watching it take off and fly towards you, instead of the old 2D overhead view. Quite fun.
Then I built an orbital launcher. It says something about being used to launch units to other planets. When it was built, I clicked to see it's build options. Well, wasn't that a fun little list of things you can build! After seeing this list. . . nukes shmooks!! Orbital lasers baby!! That guy was tough. He flies really slow, but he's a one shot killer of any building on the ground. He'd never hit a moving target. I tried to use him on their commander when I was done playing, but he was under water. So, orbital laser can't shoot under water. I think there is a defense for him though. There was something called an umbrella. Didn't build it though. It was an orbital defense building or something.
The other orbital laser defense. . . orbital fighters!! Fast moving aircraft used for taking out orbital stuff! Other orbital stuff:
Radar. 2 levels. I built the advanced and it showed me the whole planet. Meant to build the smaller one too to see the difference but forgot.
Solar panel. Generates a shit ton of energy.
Planetary transport. Transports units to other planets. I sent one engineer to the other planet to build a nuke launcher and see if I could nuke between planets. You can not. But it was cool to see how it would use the planets, then the sun, to slingshot between planets. You could zoom way out to see it's trajectory.
I think that was all it could build. But having a whole other battlefield in orbit around the planet sounds pretty cool.
I did see the option to build the 'small planet thrusters', but none of my solar systems have had asteroids or moons yet. BUT, they did release an update where you could nuke between moons, so, they are out there. Just haven't seen them yet.
CONS: The battle between my squad and theirs was VERY fast. My level two units insta popped his first level. My level two units insta popped their walls (they would build them one at a time all spread out. Not sure what they were supposed to do) and defensive turrets. The fighting was rather clunky as well. Not very polished with vehicle movement/path finding, rounds being lobbed and landing, etc. It was more like a bunch of random explosion noises, some flashing lights and bullets flying. Random units exploding. Then it was over. It was very hard to track the progress of the fight.
Level 2 is MUCH more powerful than level 1. I would argue that there is no point in building level one combat units. They can't take out level 2 defenses or units. And that's what everyone will have.
PROS: When something significant happens, like a building being destroyed, a building being completed, you can click on the message and get taken to that spot on the planet. I know, not ground breaking. But I don't remember that being in any other TA/SC game, so, they figured that one out. And given the round planet. . . it helps a TON.
Liking the game more with each game I play. Definitely beta. . . but it is also playable. Not a replacement for SC/SC2/Etc yet.
And why didn't Stranger buy it? Biggest cheerleader for buying it now and he doesn't even have it yet!!
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| Post Number: 30
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 16 2014,22:45 |
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Speaking of PA (in that other thread), they did release and update. They added a handful of new units and structures.
Attack engineers that build land mines and teleporters.
Gun Ships (air)
A 'catapult' gun that is anti ground or something like that.
An orbital factory that builds units that are only buildable by that factory.
A level one bot and vehicle.
And some other stuff. Basically, a little bit of everything. They said that some of the units are still using their 'box' skins. So, the destroyer looks like an 8 bit destroyer.
The AI is starting to play. My first games, adjusting the AI resource thing (setting difficulty) didn't seem to do anything and the AI was easy to beat. This time, they were harassing me from different directions and built a massive base. Since I was just building stuff to see the new units, I didn't have a very big base and no production. He nuked me for the win.
All the other games, he built level one units only. This time, he had a mix, so, our battles were much more interesting. They adjusted some balance stuff, but not sure to what affect. I did notice walls hanging around for a bit longer. In fact, I'm not sure I killed any. But, I wasn't trying. I was aiming for the gun in the middle of them. Old AI would build one wall unit in front of a laser tower. Now it surrounds the tower. They were much harder to kill. They did a lot more damage to my units too. So, damaged was changed, but not sure exactly how much, etc.
So, ya. Decent update with more stuff to play with.
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| Post Number: 31
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Leisher
Top 3%, yo.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 26651
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jan. 17 2014,06:09 |
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I'll install this on the 22nd when I get my next allotment of bandwidth. (I'm running around 80% right now because of the Steam sale.)
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| Post Number: 32
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Feb. 27 2014,14:27 |
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There have been two updates since we last talked about it. They are calling it in Beta now with today's update.
It's also on sale for $30.
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| Post Number: 33
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| Post Number: 34
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Troy
Group: Privateers
Posts: 3857
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jun. 23 2014,22:06 |
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There are now 7-8 options to choose for your commander?
New units, and a single player?
And the dev guy in the video that launches when you play freaks me out.
Game looking much more polished, though, and playing smooth.
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| Post Number: 35
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Leisher
Top 3%, yo.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 26651
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jun. 23 2014,22:39 |
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(TheCatt @ Feb. 27 2014,17:40)
QUOTE
(Leisher @ Jan. 17 2014,09:09)
QUOTE I'll install this on the 22nd when I get my next allotment of bandwidth. (I'm running around 80% right now because of the Steam sale.) Allotment of bandwidth?
Consumption.
My current plan allows my household 500GB for our billing cycle. That includes all internet traffic: emails, streaming, downloading games, porn, surfing these forums, etc.
During the last Steam sale I went close to the ceiling. Although, the penalty for going over isn't much.
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| Post Number: 36
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Cakedaddy
Group: "Members"
Posts: 6241
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jun. 28 2014,23:02 |
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Played a game with Gordon. First game was us vs two normal AIs. We got steam rolled, but, we were busy exploring our build options to play well.
Second game, us vs 1 AI. And he dumbed him down to .8 (from 1). We did much better. Had our bases up and protected and were keeping him under control. We got so far as to get some stuff launched into space. Then we started gong for the kill. We rolled through his base and cleared it out. But his commander wasn't in it. I decided to build on another planet and sent an advanced bot into space. Was tracking it for a while as it slingshotted around the sun towards the destination planet. Went back to the main planet to continue cleaning up the AI resources and stuff. Went back to check on the progress of my space bot. I zoomed out to find the planet I sent him to. That's when I noticed the planet's orbit had changed. It was no longer the outer most planet and it was heading for the sun. Hmmm. We watched as it rolled around the sun and headed right for out planet. Braced for impact and BOOOOOOMMMMMM!! The little planet smashed into our bigger planet. It killed both of us. Turns out, smashing a small planet into a big planet kills both planets. Game over. So, ya. We contained him early. . .
I scouted the game after death and turns out the enemy AI had colonized all 5 planets in our solar system and had an absolute shit ton of shit built on all planets. It kicked our asses REALLY hard.
But: The game is WAY more polished than before. Unit selection has increased quite a bit. Lots unit and building options. I would say that they have one faction just about complete. Lots of new units and animation. Saw a lot of rockets taking stuff out. Flame throwers. etc. I still feel that tech one is almost worthless and tech two is OP. Watched tech one stuff get chewed up by basic defenses. Then the defenses would get chewed up fast by tech two bots. Barely touched the outer space stuff, so not sure how much changed.
They've come a long way in the last 6 months. Well done.
No idea what the different commanders do.
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| Post Number: 37
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Troy
Group: Privateers
Posts: 3857
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jun. 29 2014,07:03 |
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Cool - good to hear.
I will try to be on and play tonight.
Not even a single screengrab from you two getting smashed to small bits by a planet? Some beta testers you are. Booo
Edited by Troy on Jun. 29 2014,07:25
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| Post Number: 38
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| Post Number: 39
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GORDON
90%
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 36125
Joined: Jun. 2004
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Posted on: Jul. 03 2014,08:08 |
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I am not sure how I feel about this game, as a concept.
The regular RTSs like TA and Supcom.... you had a basic map and didn't even have any left/right wrap around, and that has always been fine. The other night with Cake we were taking out what we thought was his main base, and looking for his commander, and generally feeling pretty good with ourselves for kicking his ass.... then... what? You can jump to another fucking planet? I had a deep feeling of exhaustion and "you gotta be fucking kidding me."
So I dunno. Maybe it was the shock of... basically.... the enemy jumping to a completely different map in the middle of our game, and we didn't realize that could happen....
I know what it is.
3+ maps per game. We can jump around between them, and exploit away. A computer can handle playing 3+ maps at once, hit the metal extractors, manage resources efficiently, etc. Humans can not. I guess this game will be fine in a strictly multiplayer environment, but P vs. AI there is no way a human can play 3+ maps at once the way a computer can.
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I don't give a fuck!
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| Post Number: 40
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Leisher
Top 3%, yo.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 26651
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Jul. 03 2014,09:32 |
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Should I be practicing this game or Sins? Or something else?
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