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EDIT: this game pays big dividends for social play, so look me up! I'm UNYU - HappyKitty //2475. If you just search for "HappyKitty" it should pop up. Also, join the Discord server ASAP - that's the best place to ask gameplay questions and set up voice comms for your squad! https://discordapp.com/invite/gTnSTh So the old thread for Dreadnought (PC, PS4) got archived and has been dead for two years; in those two years, poo poo has changed. (Old thread for reference: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3827977) Dreadnought is a game of giant spaceships, explosions, and 8v8 team-based action (like World of Warships only not so unforgiving). You play as a mercenary ship captain, contracted by various futuristic megacorporations to fight in their various byzantine proxy wars (there's lore, but it's not really my thing; I will reserve a post beneath this one for it nonetheless). You command a range of ships of varying sizes and combat strengths, from small, fast Corvettes, to the hulking, mighty Dreadnought - and with five tiers of ships spread out over three manufacturers, there are lots of spaceships to choose from, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Throw in a wide selection of modules for support, offense, electronic warfare, and ship repair, and you've got a game with tons of flexibility for niche tactics and innovative combat strategies. Best of all - it's free to play! There's a premium currency that's mostly for cosmetic items and experience boosts, as well as a few "Hero Ships" that only have one module configuration, aren't that good or useful, and whose only real strength is that they can rack up experience more quickly than the ships bought with in-game credits. You do not have to sink a single red cent into this game to experience everything it has to offer - and there are some in-game opportunities to collect premium currency in case you feel like treating yourself to a fancy new space jacket, or whatever. The gameplay itself is not pay-to-win. Now let's talk about the space boats you'll fly:  Dreadnoughts. The titular ship class is all about being big, being heavily armored, and being a threat the enemy can't ignore. They're usually slow (though with the right configuration, they can be made more mobile), and their guns are ill-equipped to deal with ships smaller than a destroyer, so don't expect to chase down any enemies; your job, as a Dreadnought pilot, is to be a flying loving fortress that requires a concerted effort to take down, a mobile rally point for your team, and a nuclear weapons platform to spew area of effect death onto your enemies. Oh, did I mention that Dreadnoughts can be equipped with nuclear weapons? Yeah, they can be equipped with nuclear weapons.  Destroyers. These are the workhorses of your fleet, offering medium damage and medium survivability. The Destroyer is the most flexible class; they can be configured for long-range electronic warfare and team support, mid-range slugfests, or up close and personal speedboats equipped with plasma rams and flak cannons to shred your opponents. This is the recommended starting class; I suggest that your first few times out, you take a Destroyer, to get the feel of the game.  Artillery Cruisers. Big huge gently caress-off space cannons. They spit out a huge alpha strike that does maximum damage even at their longest range, and are the game's equivalent of a sniper. They're made of paper though, and will melt pretty quickly if anyone gets too close - but a lot of them (especially at higher tiers) come with some nasty defensive modules that can surprise an opponent looking for an easy kill, as long as you keep your wits about you. Certain models (from the Oberon manufacturer) allow for a full 360 degree firing range, while the other two manufacturers' lineup of Artillery Cruisers only fire in a narrow arc in front of your ship - a decent tradeoff, since those two manufacturers' ships also pack the most punch per shot.  Corvettes. loving speed demons. These little buggers are all about sneaking around behind enemy lines, scouting and spotting enemy forces, and ambushing the unwary. They excel at hit-and-run tactics, picking off unwary stragglers, and when they heat gets turned on them, yakkity saxing the gently caress on out with afterburners or blink warp drives that make them a nightmare to shoot at. However, they die quickly when their speed drops, so if they run out of energy or get hit with a stasis module of some kind, they can be swatted down like flies. Corvettes are also notoriously hard ships to learn to fly (though some of the best Corvette pilots can do some wacky poo poo like taking down Dreadnoughts solo just by hovering somewhere the guns can't track them). For this reason, you won't get access to your first Corvette until you hit Tier 2 ships; I guess they don't want brand new players hopping into them on day 1 and getting frustrated because they keep bumping them into the terrain, slowing down, and getting lit up. Keep practicing at them, however, and you'll be a goddamn shark.  Tactical Cruisers. These are your support ships, equipped with the latest in remote repair technology as well as a suite of electronic warfare countermeasures designed to frustrate your enemies' dastardly plans. They range from purely dedicated band-aid boxes for bringing your team's HP back to full in seconds, to setups that effectively say "gently caress you" to the repair aspect and just go for straight electronic warfare. Some of the most fun I've had in this game has been in Tactical Cruisers; maybe I'm just a masochist, but scanning your team's health AND maintaining situational awareness to stay alive and out of fire AND timing your countermeasures just right is some of the most white-knuckle, split-second decision making action I've ever experienced in any online game. WHY SHOULD I PLAY THIS GAME Because it's fun, free to play, and visually impressive. While it definitely rewards a souped-up graphical setup, it plays and looks quite good even at lower detail levels. Strategically, there's a HUGE amount of flexibility, especially since there's no real "meta" to speak of; because you can build a fleet of up to five ships, and each ship can have two separate loadouts, you aren't necessarily locked into a single strategy in each match; as such, there's no such thing as a permanent "hard counter" to whatever the enemy team is bringing, since you can switch your ship when you die - and the opposing team can do the same. Has the enemy's artillery gotten wise to your corvette tactics? No biggie, hop in a dread and just tank the artillery while your team gets some destroyers across the field. Oh, wait, you killed some artillery and now they've set up 3 tac cruisers in a healball you can't break? Best hop in your own artillery and snipe their healers. Oh poo poo, the two healers we just killed came back in corvettes and murdered our artillery. gently caress it, fast destroyers with flak to clear out the corvettes. And so on. It's not a game where one single tactic will win every match for you. Even if you theorycraft a strategy for your squad that works well in one match, chances are, if you play against the same players in a subsequent match, they'll have caught on, so you need to be constantly innovative and thinking on your feet. So what's my personal draw to this game? Well, if you, like me, have officially won (i.e. quit playing) Eve Online, and are feeling that itch to spin ships in a station AND actually get to fly them and blow them up without losing the in-game equivalent of your monthly car insurance payment, then, Dreadnought will scratch that itch my friend, and scratch it good. Even if you're just a fan of giant spaceships and explosions, you'll like Dreadnought. While it's true that the battles are smaller in scale, if you were the kind of Eve player who liked small squad combat, the action will be more fast-paced, the tactics much less rigid, and the explosions much less distant (and there are actual ramming mechanics that can deal actual damage; they're still module-based, so you don't deal ramming damage by default, but heck, that's better than what Eve Online offered). If you've played Dreadnought already a couple of years back and you're wondering why you should give the game another chance, there are a few very good reasons: they've rebalanced a lot of modules to make them all mostly useful, and to nerf some of the more overpowered ones (it's no longer possible to perma-scramble someone, for example), and they've FINALLY fixed the Veteran tier so thought Tier 4 ships are no longer allowed in; only Tier 2 and Tier 3 ships. That means that as soon as you get your first Tier 4, you're going to be queuing up for Legendary - and unlike the old days, where Legendary matches could take FOREVER to pop off (because new Tier 4 players were sticking to the Veteran Tier (which is a misnomer, since a dedicated player can get into Veteran matches in the span of like, a solid afternoon of Recruit Tier play), Legendary matches now take place almost around the clock - and with ship rebalancing, there is no longer a huge combat advantage with Tier 5 ships (still some advantages, mostly in breadth of module selections, but it's nothing like the soul-crushing slaughter you'd expect from your first dip into Legendary under the old tier system). Also, here's a goofy video I slapped together of some stream highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gv9GwhXRpQ HappyKitty fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 06:08
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Placeholder post for Dreadnought lore.
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Dec 6, 2019 06:09
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Strategy and Community I put these two in the same post because, honestly, the best strategy in this game is ~tHe PoWeR oF fRiEnDsHiP~. If you are trying to play this game solo, you will have a worse time than if your attitude from the beginning is to play with friends. You won't necessarily have a bad time - but you will have a better time playing in a squad, with voice chat, where you can coordinate, make split-second decisions, and actually make detailed plans about what you're going to do and how you want your squad to support you. Dreadnought's player base is at a tipping point much like Eve Online was in 2005. You have a few players who really loving love squad gameplay, who theorycraft and develop tactics, but those tend to be older players who ground their way up to the top and just sort of made those friends along the way. However, because the ones who play in squads are the old guard, they're also just better players. So you end up having, on a smaller scale, a situation not quite analogous to the Eve Online experience, but with a similar effect: players who don't know how good this game can get if you just loving work together will come up against a squad of players who have both the advantage of more experience and squad coordination, and lose - over, and over, and over, and over again. That's how Eve Online began hemorrhaging players back in the mid-2000s; older player corporations like BoB who cracked the alien secret code of "working together" had such a material advantage that they could poo poo all over newer players (and they did), with ridiculous recruitment requirements like positive kill/death ratios to "prove their worth", leaving newbies out to dry when they weren't actively loving them over. Then Goonfleet came along with its radical idea that "maybe we should actually try to play this massively multiplayer game as a multiplayer game and it will be better for everyone" and integrated newbies from the day they joined, and the player base took note - and grew. Dreadnought doesn't have the explicitly antagonistic framework of Eve Online; it's not like losing a ship in a battle has a permanent cost. Additionally, even the players who do typically squad up don't do it for trolling reasons, or to increment their e-genitals. However, right now the narrative among a sad majority of seasoned players is that squads are somehow ruining the game because it makes the game impossible to play solo, and people who squad up are taking unfair advantage of... the joy of having friends, I guess? Some players even want squads, as like, a concept, to be banned - which is some hilarious crybaby bullshit, since the solution to getting killed by a squad is to be in a squad yourself. What I want new players to understand from Day 1 is that there is no reason not to be in a squad if you can. Sure, solo queueing as soon as you enter the game might be quicker (and I will often do that at first just to see who is actively playing), but as soon as you know that your buds are playing, loving mash that squad invite button. Then, when you're squadded, go to the Discord server. Get in a voice channel. Win the loving game. Seriously, since I started playing almost exclusively on squads with active voice comms, the only games that our team has ever lost are either matches where the matchmaking algorithm has a loving seizure and puts us up against a team full of level 50 players and filled out the rest of our team roster with lower level players and bots, or games where the other side also had at least one squad. This game would be so much more energized by a goonrush of players who already come to the table expecting to work together and innovate, and that's what I hope to do. Sure, fine, but HOW DO I SHOT MISSL Start with the tutorial; even if you're the type to jump head first into competitive gameplay, you get an achievement for doing it, so do it. The tutorial starts with a sparse, almost non-existent UI, and progressively builds up more UI elements. It's a decent enough way to ease you into the UI, which can be busy at times (though it's not nearly as cluttered as, like, the average MMO or anything). You fly through some space beacons, shoot some space cans, fiddle about with your ship's energy system, and then shoot some spaceships. It's pretty barebones, but it gets the job done of at least making sure you don't gently caress up completely the first time you hop into a battle. Here's a video of the tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hqyc1LnS-c So now that the tutorial is over, let's get you into some games! When you hit Play, you'll be able to select your fleet (which, at the beginning, will be Recruit). Below each fleet there will also be a Manage Fleet button. This is useful for later on, when you have a few ships and want to mess around with your fleet composition; for now though, just select Recruit. The game will pop up some different game mode options. Most of the time, you're going to just hit "Any", and it'll queue you up for whatever game happens to generate first, with the exception of Proving Grounds. Proving Grounds is a PvE match where the enemy team consists of all bots. Few people play Proving Grounds with any regularity, and I'd actually advise you to skip it, or to play it maybe once or twice, just to figure out how your modules work. When you have confirmed your fleet and game type, you'll see your current Recruit fleet loadout, and a big ol' button marked PLAY above that; pres butan and you'll be shoved into a queue. When a match begins, there'll be a little warning noise, and then you'll start loading the map. At first you'll have a sort of orbital view where you can select which ship you want to spawn in (don't worry about being locked into it for the whole game; you can switch to another if you die). If for whatever reason it takes longer to load the map and you miss the initial ship selection screen, you will default to whichever ship in your fleet is in the first slot to the left when you're looking at your fleet setup screen. (I put together an imgur album for those steps, but it should be pretty intuitive. There's a Quickplay option from the main menu that puts you instantly into whatever kind of game you queued for last, but for the first time, you should select it manually; I don't remember what the default is for a new account, but I think it's just Proving Grounds. Feel free to mash Quickplay for subsequent games, though.) Okay, I'm in the game. What the gently caress do I do now? Depending on the game mode, you will have different objectives. Remember which game mode you are playing, and stick to those objectives. There is a Team Deathmatch mode, which is just standard "kill more enemies before they kill you" gameplay, but there is also Conquest and Onslaught. In Conquest, you are trying to capture control points (at opposite ends of the map) and control territory (by stationing any ship bigger than a Corvette somewhere on the map); in Onslaught, you are trying to get 300 points by killing a mix of players, NPC fighters and assault ships, and most importantly, command ships. New players tend to always go for player kills, even in Conquest and Onslaught - resist that impulse! While obviously you will need to clear enemies out of the control points and beef over turf in Conquest, and eliminate players guarding their command ships or assaulting yours in Onslaught, you shouldn't go chasing down kills too zealously, or get bogged down in a slugfest when there are actual game objectives to pursue. The biggest thing to remember is to try to keep three things in mind: your ship's role, your ship's engagement envelope, and your ship's durability. Here then is a crash course in the four starter ships, their roles, their engagement envelopes, and their durability. THE AGOSTA. This is the tier 1 Destroyer from Jupiter Arms. Its role is mid-range DPS. The repeater turrets deal their maximum damage within 2400 metres, but the drop in DPS from 2400 to 7000m (their maximum range) is actually quite slim; your tempest missiles also have a maximum range of 7000m. So your maximum engagement envelope is going to be 7km - don't bother shooting at anything farther away than that (helpfully, your target reticle will turn yellow when your enemy is within maximum range, and red when at optimal range). However, you also have torpedos with a maximum range of 3000m, autoguns that only work on targets within 1200m, and flak turrets that SPEW damage within 800m. This means that your ship has some flexibility for close-range fighting. However, just flying up to an enemy and engaging at point blank range is not always a good idea. Even if you rush in and unload your torpedos, autoguns, high damage flak turrets and, hell, some tempest missiles too, remember that other ships (especially other destroyers) will usually have close-range solutions as well. With that in mind, it's best to think of not the maximum and minimum engagement envelope, but the ideal engagement envelope. For the Agosta, I suggest 3000m. That gets you close enough to use torpedos, and if you want to put on some pressure, you're close enough to scoot on up to the 2400m at which your main guns have the most power, but you won't be skirting too close to point blank. At first, until you get good at attack runs, save your flak for shooting at corvettes (which typically need to get within 1000m anyway to be really effective), and your autoguns for basically whenever they turn green (green means "good to go" on modules like autoguns that just sort of do their thing automatically within a certain radius of your ship without your having to target anyone). You are better off staying at the 3000m mark and using your module reboot to skip the cooldown on your tempest missiles and torpedoes, rather than heading straight in just for the sake of adding autoguns to the mix. If, however, you get your enemy down to a piddly amount of HP, feel free to get up close and personal, turn on the autoguns, and finish the job. With 17000 HP and a shield absorption rate of 75% (ie, your shield soaks up 75% of incoming damage as long as it has energy allocated to it) it is... not a pushover, but not designed for tanking. The upside is that your shields deplete more slowly, so you have time to fall back if you take too much damage. THE CERBERUS. This is the tier 1 Oberon tactical cruiser. It has a beam weapon/repair beam, tesla turrets, a beam amplifier, a repair pod, repair autobeams, and an internal repair module. As you may have guessed, repairing poo poo is kinda this ship's whole deal. Your main beam is most effective within 1200m, with falloff out to a maximum range of 5000m. When you aim it at an ally, it repairs them; when you aim it at an enemy, it hurts them. Simple as that. Later tactical cruisers from other manufacturers will do one or the other (the Jupiter Arms tac cruisers only deal damage with their main beams, while the Akula Vector models only repair); however, for now, your main beam is versatile. However, tactical cruisers are priority targets, as a good tac pilot can single-handedly keep a time alive under heavy fire, if they keep their wits about them. Your ideal engagement envelope, therefore, is twofold: as close as possible to your friendly ships (ideally within 1200m), and as far as possible from enemy ships. With the Cerberus, because you have a stationary repair pod that you can deploy AND auto-repair beams that heal every ally within 1100m, your best position is clustered around your fleet. At Recruit, that might sometimes feel like herding kittens, but at later tiers, the healball (where two or more tactical cruisers repair the team and each other) is a tough nut to crack. It has 13000 HP, so don't try to go on the offensive. If, however, someone gets close enough for the tesla turrets (700m), feel free to switch weapons and punish them for it. Your shields absorb 85% of incoming damage, which is nice, but only for a few shots, since they deplete quickly. If you take fire, switch on your own autorepair (module 4) and bug the gently caress out. THE RURIK. This is babby's first artillery cruiser, and it's a mixed bag. Artillery is a bit of a niche role, and not every match will have one. However, it can be an infuriating thing to go up against, because a good arty pilot can keep the enemy pinned down within a 7000m engagement envelope. That main gun? Yeah, it's got no falloff, so a hit from 7000m is as good as a hit from 1000m. Siege mode ramps up your damage and gives your main gun an area effect blast, though the projectile it fires is slower. Be careful when using it: it will drain all of your energy and bring you to a standstill for seven seconds. It's useful against a slow target or a target that has been frozen by a stasis module, but you'll be a sitting duck while you use it. Its overall DPS is low, but it can deal a massive alpha strike; this makes it particularly useful for finishing off targets with low HP (don't be too picky about stealing kills; mechanically, that's not really how your score is calculated anyway, and players generally don't really care for that reason - in fact, finishing off an enemy is better than holding back and waiting for someone else to do it, since there's no guarantee they'll be able to finish the job). Artillery is also useful against tactical cruisers that stray out of cover while they heal their teammates. Your third module is an anti-missile laser that will attempt to destroy incoming missiles, whether they're aimed at you or your allies. Rounding out the module selection is your stationary cloak. It turns you almost invisible - anyone looking directly at you will see a shimmery outline, and if you fire, they'll be able to see where it's coming from - and it also makes enemies unable to target you directly with missiles or other targeted offensive modules. Moving or using a module will disrupt the cloaking effect, however. It's great for staying hidden while you snipe enemies who are unaware of your exact position. THE SIMARGL. Your first dreadnought. This baby has a whopping 42000 HP, easily out-tanking any other tier 1 ship. Its shields don't absorb as much damage as the Agosta at 65% efficiency, but your HP will soak up the rest without much trouble (as long as your enemy isn't concentrating their firepower). Dreadnoughts are designed to be shot at. They're HP sponges, and they deal enough damage that they can't just be ignored. Your main weapon is at maximum effectiveness within 3600m, with falloff out to 7000m, but the projectile isn't the fastest, so get used to leading your targets. Your secondary weapon is a set of repeater guns, which fire a bit faster and dish out greater DPS, albeit at a closer range (max damage out to 1200m, max range of 3600m). While your guns will chew up other dreadnoughts and any slow-moving ships, you shouldn't waste your fire on targets too fast for you to hit; if corvettes come in too close, scare them off with your vulture missiles. Even if the missiles don't hit them, the corvette won't want to stick around to shoot at you with a bunch of missiles incoming. You have a powerful plasma broadside, which is a targeted module with a range of 2400m. It's okay to get right up in the enemy's face in a dreadnought - as long as you have a willing tac pilot to patch you up in case of concentrated fire. You also have an anti-missile laser for survivability, and a fun warp jump module. It takes 6 seconds to spin up, but once it goes off, it will instantly jump you forward by 5000m. It makes for fun ambushes (and later versions of this module allow you to target enemy ships so that you come out of warp right next to them - but at tier 1, it's just a forward directional jump). Okay, I've got the hang of this, I think, but I want to be THE BEST Then get your rear end onto the Dreadnought Discord server, and be a cute newbie. Seriously, if you want to develop more tactics and get a head start on which ships are best for which roles so you can start planning what to level up, the Discord server is currently the place to do it. So far the wiki for the game, such as it is, is neither very well written or up to date. I'll probably stick some basic poo poo on there as I go (I'm currently trying to get more community members involved in broadening the public knowledge base), but for now, the best place to ask questions is in the Discord. Older, more experienced pilots are usually quite glad to help out. If nobody is in the General voice lobby, sit in there until someone joins. That way, folks on the Discord will see somebody eager to chat, and even if they're way past Recruit tier, they might just be down for squadding with you for a few rounds if you are  enough. Be active in in-game chat, ask people if they want to form squads, and send friend requests to everyone who is not a bot. The sooner you can build up a friends list and form squads, the better you'll become at this game.Voice comms are infinitely better than the default team or squad chat, but at Recruit tier play, you will probably have to nudge other players into getting on Discord. Now, if you are planning on playing with your fellow goons, you should have ready-made squadmates, but otherwise, you do have to do a bit of work to get people into voice. Once you do get a squad into voice chat, the possibilities for all sorts of advanced tactics open up: you can warn squadmates if there's an incoming corvette, or whenever you see an enemy launching a nuke; you can concentrate fire more easily by just shouting who you're shooting at; you can suggest which direction to fly, or tell people to follow you around the terrain to set up ambushes, or to sneak up on the enemy. These things are possible in team chat, but like, it's not like you're going to be taking much time to read the little text box in the lower left corner while you're scanning the horizon for targets and keeping an eye on your energy systems and module cooldowns - and even less time to type out long, convoluted tactical commands. Seriously, unless the Discord server is down, Always Be Chatting. As for making in-game squads, you will first need to make some friends (like, in the friend list under the Social menu). After each match, you'll be treated to a final score screen. Names of actual players will have a little plus next to their name, indicating that you can send them a friend request (note: a quick way to tell who is a real player and who is a bot is that bots have a set list of names, and also that they don't have the add friend button next to their names). If you know the name of a certain player, you can search for it on the Social screen; press the FIND NEW FRIENDS button, and add them - they'll get a friend request that they have to accept. Once a player is in your friends list, you will be able to see when they are online, send them an invitation to join your squad, and send them private messages. The chat system in-game is... not very robust, however; your best bet is honestly just to send a squad invite rather than a private message. Anything else I should know from this long-rear end post Once you are through the tutorial, and you've managed a few rounds with the default controls, here's what you're going to do: yeet the default control scheme out the loving window, because there are better control schemes you can go with. Note that even if you plan to remap right from the get go, you need to finish the tutorial first (there's some weird hard-coded stuff with the tutorial controls, so you have to finish it with the default controls; the game gets pissy if you try to change them before you do the tutorial). Take this keymapping advice with a grain of salt; if the default works for you, keep it. You might want to play a few rounds first before deciding to remap, or you might just jump right in and try my advice. Whichever you choose, you should always at least remain open to experimenting with the controls. This isn't the most twitchy multiplayer game on the market, but after a while, you might find yourself wishing certain keys were closer together for those split-second decisions. By default, your modules are assigned to the number keys 1 through 4. Here's the problem with that: you will need your fingers as close to WASD, LShift, and Space as possible, all the time. This is a game played on the Z axis as well, so climbing and diving are not optional skills. However, it can be super annoying to stretch your fingers to the number keys to activate your modules. In my case, I just invested in a gaming mouse with 12 side buttons, so my left hand never has to leave WASD, but that's not everyone's cup of tea; however, you are going to want to rebind your modules to more accessible keys. For a time, I had module 1 bound to E, module 2 to F, module 3 to Q, and module 4 to C - but you should go with whatever feels natural and comfortable to you. Rebinding the controls isn't some necessity, but I find that the default control set teaches you some bad piloting habits, like bringing your ship to a full stop as you take your middle finger off W to mash one of your module buttons because it's your longest finger. Even if you're experienced and used to using the number keys, consider trying some remapping to see if it works for you. It will be weird at first, since the UI still labels My next piece of keymapping advice is to forgo the pop-up energy wheel and bind shortcuts for the energy allocation functions: Increase Thrust, Raise Shields, Amplify Weapons, and Energy Off. If you have a mouse with side buttons, my persona l recommendation is to bind Increase Thrust to the forward side button, and Raise Shields to the back side button - that worked for me, just intuitively (forward means "go go go", backward means "poo poo, I'm taking damage, time to back off"). Everyone's fingers are different, so use whatever spare key you want for Amplify Weapons (you will, I guarantee, be using that button far less than thrusters or shields). I used Left Control for Energy Off for a while (then I got my 12 side-button mouse, and never looked back). As always, your mileage may vary. Some players swear by the energy wheel. I've never personally liked it; it obscures your view while it's up, you have to move your mouse to activate it (and keep it still to turn off energy), and it's just not as quick as having individual energy functions mapped somewhere you can mash them in a hurry. Another quick remap (which, for me, was a sort of "why didn't I think of this before, this is so loving obvious" moment) is to set Toggle Weapon to the middle mouse button. By default I think it's Q or some poo poo, but like... the way weapon switching works in this game is that you can't fire while switching, and you also can't fire the weapon you've just switched to for a half a second or so after you switch, so there's no need to keep your index finger on the fire button while switching weapons. It's just a quality of life thing. Finally, make sure that you have Short Commands mapped. This one is more useful than a lot of new players realize; this is going to be your primary in-game communication and status tool. When you hit Short Commands, you'll see a set of command and communication options, which will be a different set based on whether you're aiming at an enemy, an ally, or at nothing (well, the ally and nothing commands are the same commands, it's just that aiming at an ally sends that to a specific ally). You should get used to using Short Commands to ask for repairs and to request fire at a target. Human players will hear your broadcast (via an NPC voice), and if they can currently see your ship, the UI will indicate that you have broadcast for help; similarly, if they're looking at the target you've painted for fire, the UI will draw a nice little red target around them to show your team who to focus fire on. The best part is that if you have bots on your team, they will also listen to your commands (tactical cruisers will try to heal you if you ask for repairs, bots will be more likely to follow you if you command them to, and they'll be more likely to switch targets if you designate one). It may seem like a small thing, but it's better to get in the habit sooner rather than later. Whatever extra key you have handy will do (I used Z for a little while). HappyKitty fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Dec 10, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 06:09
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How's the grind these days? Heard it was bad.
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Dec 6, 2019 10:15
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Freakazoid_ posted:How's the grind these days? Heard it was bad. The grind to tier 4 is not as bad as it was; the grind to tier 5 (and for the tier 5 modules) sucks a big one, but usually by that point you've got enough of an idea of which ships you like to fly that you can prioritize how you grind em up. I've currently got two tier 5 ships in my Legendary fleet, though I've probably got about a dozen tier 4 ships. I'd recommend casting a broad net and collecting a stable of tier 4 ships, deciding which line you want permanently in your Legendary fleet, and then prioritize which ones you like to fly the most. For reference, my tier 5 ships are the Monarch (the fattest, slowest, potentially tankiest dreadnought) and the Brutus (fastest by far of the destroyers, excels at ramming, has the most fun main weapons of any destroyer, in my opinion). Short version: getting tier 4 ships is relatively painless; getting tier 5 ships is a commitment, so plan ahead I'll talk more about the tech trees and modules in the reserved strategy post, which I hope to fill out tonight. Edit: one thing to keep in mind is that the tier 4 ships are more or less the same as tier 5 in terms of their configuration and basic weaponry - or, if you like, think of tier 5 as souped-up versions of tier 4. However, skill alone can often make up that gap. I've been taken down in my tier 5 ships by good pilots in tier 4 ships. All things being equal, tier 5 is still superior, but all things are very rarely equal. HappyKitty fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 19:18
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Are people still playing this? Will it take a long time to queue for up a game? I seem to remember having that issue when I played it 2 years ago
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Dec 6, 2019 19:24
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DarkAvenger211 posted:Are people still playing this? Will it take a long time to queue for up a game? I seem to remember having that issue when I played it 2 years ago Short answer: the player base is still small, but it's seen an uptick, and they've made some changes to ensure that the queues, especially at Recruit and Veteran, will pop off quite predictably. Legendary matches pop off regularly, and there are enough high-level players that once you get into a rhythm, you barely have to wait at all for a new match once the old match ends. In terms of waiting to play, the difference between Dreadnought of two years back and Dreadnought today is like night and day. It's a big improvement, and more and more returning players are getting back into it. Could use more new players, which is the whole reason for this thread! If you're new, this is a good time to join, and if you drop me a line in game or on the Discord server (at the top of the OP), I'll show you the ropes so you can fast-track to higher tiers (which, in my opinion, is where the real fun begins). Long answer, mostly for returning players: so it used to be that matches just... wouldn't queue if a majority of the players weren't bots. Then the Steam transition caused something of an exodus, so often there'd just be no games running at certain times of day. Afterwards, the loss of that critical mass itself led to a runaway negative feedback situation; because it took so long for games to pop off due to the dwindling player base, more people left, making it even less likely that games would pop off, and so on. Happily, Grey Box recognized that this was a piss-poor state of affairs, so they just went "gently caress it, if someone is sitting in the queue long enough, drop em into a match even if it's two players and a team of bots" - and it worked. It was a good move for Recruit especially, because as players moved into Veteran tier and up, they'd inevitably graduate from Recruit and never look back; the knock-on effect in the old days was that new players would launch the game, sit for upwards of 15 minutes, not be able to play, and promptly uninstall. Nowadays, you don't really wait more than about 3 minutes for Recruit (I don't know if that's a hard-coded time limit, but I can test it out later), and 5 or so for Veteran (because at that point, players tend to be okay with a little bit of waiting for the chance to play with more real people). Again, I haven't tested whether those limits are built-in, and your mileage may vary based on time zone, but it's a drat sight better than it was. Legendary still requires more players before a match pops off, and those queues can take a while if you have the misfortune to queue up just as a match goes live (though I've rarely had to wait longer than 10 minutes, and more often it's around 3-6 the first time I queue up that session); however, since Legendary players are more dedicated in general and tend to have a more active community presence (more on community involvement later), you don't really have to abandon the queue to jump into a lower tier. Anyway, by the time you're in Legendary, you won't be so eager to play against mostly bots, so the wait time is worth it - and typically what happens is that everyone who wants to play Legendary will just queue up again immediately, so even if you have an initial ten-minute wait, you can chain up virtually instant matches for as long as you care to play, as long as you or your squad mashes the Play button immediately after the match ends. Gone forever are the days of queuing for Legendary, waiting 15 or 20 minutes, realizing that it's not gonna happen, and logging off in dismay (in North American and European prime time, anyway; I can't speak for ANZAC or Russian prime time). They've also made the match tier system much more sensible. Some of you might remember that the tiers of play used to work like this: Recruit tier allowed you to fly tier 1 or 2 ships (my memory is hazy, but I also vaguely remember a time where even tier 3 ships could play in Recruit, but the timeline is fuzzy in my head; that might have been just during the beta); Veteran fleets had from tier 2 to tier 4 ships; and Legendary was tier 4 and 5 (for new players, yes, there are both ship tiers and match tiers, and yes, it's counterintuitive as gently caress, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly). Back in those days, tier 5 ships were cruelly overpowered compared to tier 4, and Legendary matches were, as a result, so one-sided in favour of more experienced players that tons of players with tier 4 ships just never left the Veteran kiddie pool; however, because you could potentially end up in a Veteran game after a couple of hours of leveling up a couple of tier 1 ships into their tier 2 variants, a lot of newbies would get stomped by a squad of older, better players in fully tricked-out tier 4 ships - which were leaps and bounds more durable, flexible, and deadly, moreso even than tier 5s compared to tier 4s - and then get frustrated and leave the game. Meanwhile, players who ground up to tier 5 ships would just watch them collecting virtual space dust, because so many players with tier 4 ships just never left Veteran, preferring to club the bright-eyed baby seals in their shiny new tier 2 ships. Long story short: the mechanics of the game encouraged predatory, alienating gameplay, and a lot of people got fed up for that reason. Not gonna sugarcoat it: Dreadnought used to kinda suck. It was fun as hell when it worked, and when the teams were evenly matched, but as initially designed, the tier system was not well thought out at all. Now, however, the match tiers make total sense. You start in Recruit with a fleet of each tier 1 ship (there are no tier 1 corvettes just due to the fact that they have a steeper learning curve just to fly without crashing into things); you can level each of those in a day or two of solid gaming; even if you're just putting in an hour or so a day, you could probably get a tier 2 on your second day. The stat bonus for tier 2 is reasonable but not overpowered, and there are usually more bots at that level, so you can learn the basics of how to fly, how to fire and switch your weapons, how to use your ship's energy systems, how to use modules and such without getting too badly stomped by human players. To build a Veteran fleet you need to have leveled up at least two ships to tier 3, so you can't just hop right into Veteran without at least knowing the controls. Yes, you'll still have trouble the first time your unleveled stock tier 3 goes toe to toe with a fully-upgraded tier 3 ship, but like, not in a way that's utterly unsurvivable, like it used to be when you would get stomped in your tier 2 by a tier 4 ship. Also, some players have more time on their hands than skill, so even a maxed out tier 3 in the hands of a mediocre player can be a trivial challenge even if you have some tier 2s in your Veteran fleet. At Legendary, you need at least two tier 4 ships, but you can still queue up with the rest of your fleet slots empty (my personal recommendation is that you get at least one tier 4 of every class just for flexibility, but if you know that you like just one or two classes, there's no hard requirement to build a varied fleet). By that point, especially if you take my advice and start playing in a squad with fellow goons, you should be able to hold your own, and if you do get creamed in a match, you should have enough of an idea how the game works to learn from your mistakes. Legendary is kinda the end game, where Dreadnought really shines. Players develop their situational awareness, figure out new tactics and loadouts, and aren't afraid to try silly things. There's a stats page for people who are all about MY K/D RATIO but nobody in the community cares if you gently caress up too badly, and unless you're a misanthrope who refuses to talk to anyone, you can literally just ask if anyone wants to squad up and you'll probably get a few takers. The social scene is more about encouraging a fun experience than indulging toxic dick-swinging superiority complexes, and the game is better for it. Legendary is still a bit of a crucible when you first get into it, but the satisfaction of getting good at it is all the sweeter as a result, without the hosed up power dynamic it used to have. I personally think that it would make a fantastic e-sport if the devs could get on board to support scheduled tournaments, but the player base needs to be a touch bigger for that to happen - which, again, is the whole point of this thread! I'd love to see Dreadnought get goonrushed like what happened in Eve Online, but even if a dozen goons get into it, I'd be happy. While I'm in a clan right now, I would be open to branching off and making one just for goons - there's no formal clan system anyway, and players from different clans squad up together all the time. tl;dr: if you tried Dreadnought already and gave it up because it was frustrating, well, you weren't wrong, but a lot of those sources of frustration are gone, so give it another shot. If you've ever had a match that made you think "wow, this game is fun, I wish I didn't always have to wait 15 minutes just to play it", then come back, because that is now essentially a fixed problem, and as more people join, fewer low-level matches will be padded out with bots. HappyKitty fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Dec 7, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 22:52
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neat, I'll install it when I can get on an unmetered connection and try it out is there a discord or outfit or some manner of organizing folks?
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Dec 6, 2019 23:47
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But Not Tonight posted:neat, I'll install it when I can get on an unmetered connection and try it out I just put the Discord link in the OP. Some clans use their own servers for voice chat, but UNYU tends to use the public channels because we typically like playing with whoever wants to play in a squad at the time. Generally, if you see someone in the voice lobby, come on in and get hooked up! If no one is there, just join anyway - usually other players will see someone in the lobby and hop in.
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Dec 6, 2019 23:51
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I played this in beta and shortly after release, and premades of all corvettes could basically roll anything. Has that changed in any way?
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Dec 7, 2019 00:43
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AGGGGH BEES posted:I played this in beta and shortly after release, and premades of all corvettes could basically roll anything. Has that changed in any way? Corvettes are still really good, but they're no longer a death sentence to go up against, unless your situational awareness is really bad. They are still good for picking off stragglers, but once you get in the habit of looking around you and not just focusing the camera on whatever you're shooting all the time, you can usually see them coming quickly enough to do something about them. They die pretty quickly if you get them in your sights as they're coming in for their attack run. As with all things Dreadnought related, player skill makes all the difference, however. Some corvette players are really good at staying out of sight until the last possible second, at which it is too late; but human error is also an ever-present factor - and solo corvette pilots will often have to abandon their strategy if the other team is good at spotting and signalling to attack, even if they pull off the kill first. I'll put something about squad tactics in the strategy post, but it boils down to "always be squadding, despite the fact that the official game lore is all edgelord lone-wolf mercenary bullshit". The game is much better when played with a cohesive team that communicates with each other. The current player base has a lot of die-hard solo players who hate the notion of social play, and I kinda hope to change that attitude, so that more players will think to log on and squad up instead of just doing their own thing.
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Dec 7, 2019 01:35
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| # ? May 5, 2024 11:04 |
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Updated with some community and strategy stuff.
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Dec 10, 2019 22:34
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