Highfleet - Grognard Dieselpunk Lego FTL has been released!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Highfleet - Grognard Dieselpunk Lego FTL has been released!

TheGreatEvilKing: Mar 28, 2016

Way ahead of you there.

Jesus I am terribad at piloting in this game, I think I've blasted my own navarins with the missiles they just launched twice.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 23:29

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 10:09

cock hero flux: Apr 17, 2011

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Way ahead of you there.

Jesus I am terribad at piloting in this game, I think I've blasted my own navarins with the missiles they just launched twice.

i might get flak for saying this but there's really only 3 weapons worth using in actual fights.

these are the good guns:
37mm chainguns are excellent for shooting down incoming enemy missiles and shredding unarmoured targets. If you have several of them they can also shoot down incoming artillery, and with incendiary ammo even a quick burst can instantly ruin small ships. They're cheap in both cost and ammo/power requirements and you can mount loads of them. These are the best defensive tool and a decent offensive one.
130mm guns are great for small Lightning style fighters. They hit hard without having bad ammo or power requirements, and they rotate fast enough to keep up with a nimble ship's movements.
Double 180mm guns hit extremely hard and are excellent for tearing apart large targets. With proxy shells or careful aim they'll ruin small targets as well, and their AP shells can instakill enemy cruisers if they hit the right spot. They rotate pretty slowly and have fairly steep ammo and power requirements so you can't put them on speedy ships, but these are the ideal primary armament for a Brick.

everything else:
57mm guns are the cheapest for a reason: they shoot too slowly to act as point defence but aren't big enough to actually hurt anything.
100mm guns aren't terrible but have the same ammo requirements as 130mm guns and aren't as good, so you might as well just use 130mms.
Single 180mm guns take up the same space as Doubles and almost as much power, so you might as well use Doubles.
Hextuple 180mm guns are extremely impressive but impractical. They're ridiculously expensive and need to be mounted on Large Hull segments, which are far heavier than just mounting the equivalent amount of regular hull parts for some reason. For less space, weight, and price you can easily mount 3 Doubles and the requisite amount of ammo and power modules.
Rocket launchers aren't very good, they're expensive and their rockets can easily be shot down or avoided by enemies. And unlike artillery, the AI actually does try to shoot these down.

Zenith missiles are terrible on large ships, since they require gaps in the armour to fire out of, are expensive and single use, can easily be shot off and aren't that much more impressive than a salvo from a 180mm gun. Large ships also struggle to actually reach a good firing position for them. Zenith missiles could be of some use on small ships, but your smaller ships really shouldn't be fighting anything that would require them too often, and the money you spend on them would be better spent on AP ammo(which can't get shot off in combat and rendered useless, and which can be devastatingly powerful). Nadir missiles I haven't played around with too much because you can't use them in the shipworks editor.

Sprint AA missiles are kind of useless in combat. They, again, require gaps in the armour of large ships, which is never good, and small ships can just avoid missiles anyway. You're far better served by just mounting chainguns for missile and plane defence. They are very good for defending against cruise missiles and long range aircraft attacks, though, since your small ships are grounded and can't just avoid them. Having a few of these on a backline ship for missile defence purposes is probably good, but you shouldn't use them in an actual fight.

Bombs have to be on small ships, since big ones aren't nearly agile enough to use them. Bombs also have to be mounted on the outside to be used, and explode like ammo magazines if they get hit. This is bad. Taking a hit to the bomb bay is immediate death, and I don't find them nearly impressive enough to be worth the risk.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 00:10

Roumba: Jun 29, 2005; Buglord

Apart from the R-9 Sprint + FCR requirements discussed earlier, is there a benefit to mounting multiple detectors of any type?
The Sevastapol is festooned with seemingly redundant spinny bits that look really cool, but money is tight and ~~guzzoline~~ CH₄ is life.

e: To answer my own question: Sensors with obstructed "cones of fire" are interpreted by the game as sensors with reduced range. You can add more sensors to reach the advertised range.

Roumba fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Aug 21, 2021

# ? Aug 21, 2021 00:40

RestRoomLiterature-: Jun 3, 2008; staying regular

can someone post a link to the sharedrive with all the awesome designs, I can not seem to locate it and it's not present in the OP

# ? Aug 21, 2021 01:24

Twigand Berries: Sep 7, 2008

RestRoomLiterature- posted:

can someone post a link to the sharedrive with all the awesome designs, I can not seem to locate it and it's not present in the OP

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15aJC186FB5JM08b-mJH7rPZ9XugdU_cJMh84P9Y4g0E/edit#gid=0

# ? Aug 21, 2021 01:35

Vizuyos: Jun 17, 2020; Thank U for reading

If you hated it...
FUCK U and never come back

cock hero flux posted:

57mm guns are the cheapest for a reason: they shoot too slowly to act as point defence but aren't big enough to actually hurt anything.

Rocket launchers aren't very good, they're expensive and their rockets can easily be shot down or avoided by enemies. And unlike artillery, the AI actually does try to shoot these down.

Zenith missiles are terrible on large ships, since they require gaps in the armour to fire out of, are expensive and single use, can easily be shot off and aren't that much more impressive than a salvo from a 180mm gun. Large ships also struggle to actually reach a good firing position for them. Zenith missiles could be of some use on small ships, but your smaller ships really shouldn't be fighting anything that would require them too often, and the money you spend on them would be better spent on AP ammo(which can't get shot off in combat and rendered useless, and which can be devastatingly powerful). Nadir missiles I haven't played around with too much because you can't use them in the shipworks editor.

Sprint AA missiles are kind of useless in combat. They, again, require gaps in the armour of large ships, which is never good, and small ships can just avoid missiles anyway. You're far better served by just mounting chainguns for missile and plane defence. They are very good for defending against cruise missiles and long range aircraft attacks, though, since your small ships are grounded and can't just avoid them. Having a few of these on a backline ship for missile defence purposes is probably good, but you shouldn't use them in an actual fight.

Bombs have to be on small ships, since big ones aren't nearly agile enough to use them. Bombs also have to be mounted on the outside to be used, and explode like ammo magazines if they get hit. This is bad. Taking a hit to the bomb bay is immediate death, and I don't find them nearly impressive enough to be worth the risk.

Unlike the 37mms, the 57mms are actually pretty impressive in large numbers. A single one won't do jack, but line up a few of them and they can actually do a lot of damage. If you get an opportunity to focus fire on one area, they can chew through a large ship's armor and mangle the insides in a single clip.

You can't put armor on top of missiles, but you can put it under missiles, so they're not as much of a liability as they look. They still need a gap somewhere to be able to connect to the rest of the ship, since crew and power connections can't pass through armor or large fuel tanks, but it only has to be a one-tile-wide gap. Still doesn't stop the missiles themselves from getting shot off, but it means they aren't a gaping hole in your defenses. Take a look at the Nomad in the ship builder for an example of what I mean - a lot of its parts are mounted outside the armor, with tiny gaps here and there to allow them to be controlled.

I'm not gonna defend rocket launchers or bombs, though, as far as I can tell they're just plain terrible.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 01:44

Top Gun Reference: Oct 9, 2012; Pillbug

Friction posted:

Took me way too long to figure out that this is possible in the shipyard. Hello space savings.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 02:32

cock hero flux: Apr 17, 2011

Vizuyos posted:

Unlike the 37mms, the 57mms are actually pretty impressive in large numbers. A single one won't do jack, but line up a few of them and they can actually do a lot of damage. If you get an opportunity to focus fire on one area, they can chew through a large ship's armor and mangle the insides in a single clip.

You can't put armor on top of missiles, but you can put it under missiles, so they're not as much of a liability as they look. They still need a gap somewhere to be able to connect to the rest of the ship, since crew and power connections can't pass through armor or large fuel tanks, but it only has to be a one-tile-wide gap. Still doesn't stop the missiles themselves from getting shot off, but it means they aren't a gaping hole in your defenses. Take a look at the Nomad in the ship builder for an example of what I mean - a lot of its parts are mounted outside the armor, with tiny gaps here and there to allow them to be controlled.

I'm not gonna defend rocket launchers or bombs, though, as far as I can tell they're just plain terrible.

The thing is that 37mms ARE impressive in large numbers. They have a hard time with armour, but anything else they will tear apart. And, more importantly, they are the most effective defensive tool in the game by far.

And yeah, while you can put armour under missiles, the missiles themselves will get shot off and need replacing. That costs money. Having missiles on a large ship will cost you in the long run, and there aren't really any situations where a large ship would rather have missiles than just some AP ammo.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 03:29

Agnostalgia: Dec 22, 2009

cock hero flux posted:

The thing is that 37mms ARE impressive in large numbers. They have a hard time with armour, but anything else they will tear apart. And, more importantly, they are the most effective defensive tool in the game by far.

To test this, I just created the Gunball, a brick with 20 of the 37mm and no other guns. Pretty easily able to beat the level 10 test fleet even though I suck at this game, the fact that nobody can shoot you through your wall of bullets makes all other issues moot.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 05:45

Roumba: Jun 29, 2005; Buglord

I was thinking, since you can use 'G' to manually toggle landing gear, has anyone successfully used that to make a jury-rigged missile silo hatch/bombbay doors?

I'm going to sleep in a minute, I'll try it out tomorrow, but I figured I would ask anyway. I wish you could toggle the gear IN the shipbuilder so I could see how they close up.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 06:37

BrotherJayne: Nov 28, 2019

Does search not work anymore?

Looking for the updated advanced building guide, with z level and space saving tips, thought it was on the steam guides

# ? Aug 21, 2021 11:09

Agnostalgia: Dec 22, 2009

Well the aftermath of taking Khiva is certainly overwhelming. Not really sure what I'm supposed to do here. Send out dozens of sacrificial ships to eat enemy nukes?

# ? Aug 21, 2021 21:51

cock hero flux: Apr 17, 2011

Agnostalgia posted:

Well the aftermath of taking Khiva is certainly overwhelming. Not really sure what I'm supposed to do here. Send out dozens of sacrificial ships to eat enemy nukes?

fan out semi-effective task forces to every launch site while keeping a main battle group in reserve. When one of them encounters a strike group, send the battle group over and kill it. When one of them starts getting nailed by a missile cruiser, send the two nearest task forces over to kill it. Missile cruisers aren't that tough, the main issue is that they'll nuke you 5 times before you get into combat with them. Even a modest group of combat capable ships can take one down.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 22:06

Top Gun Reference: Oct 9, 2012; Pillbug

Don�t be shy about using nukes of your own at that stage, either. You should have quite a few stocked up by now. As soon as you get a fix on an enemy SG or carrier group start sending missiles down the bearing � warcrimes be damned.

Also, if you can manage to park some A-100Ns in Khiva you can use them to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles if you detect them in time.

# ? Aug 21, 2021 23:55

cock hero flux: Apr 17, 2011

Oh yeah, go absolutely apeshit with nuclear weapons. If you have even a vague idea of where an enemy group is then make it rain.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 00:05

Agnostalgia: Dec 22, 2009

I might have sold all my nukes for cash.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 00:23

Top Gun Reference: Oct 9, 2012; Pillbug

Agnostalgia posted:

I might have sold all my nukes for cash.

---

Thing is, it takes time to load those missiles into their silos and position them to where you need them. Scrambling around trying to find nukes at the last second is a bad plan when you could just bring some to begin with.

vvv

Top Gun Reference fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Aug 22, 2021

# ? Aug 22, 2021 00:49

cock hero flux: Apr 17, 2011

Agnostalgia posted:

I might have sold all my nukes for cash.

that's fine, it's pretty standard practice to sell your nuclear weapons to the local villagers whenever you need quick cash. Fortunately, now that you have ascended beyond the need for currency you can just shake down every village your missile carriers pass through to see if they have any nukes lying around.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 01:23

Ceebees: Nov 2, 2011; I'm intentionally being as verbose as possible in negotiations for my own amusement.

Also, every city you take will give you free fuel and 3-4 free ships. Ammo becomes weird, though.

Those nukes should still be in the city where you left them, and subject to the... usual discount for the endgame. If you strip everything but the engines and a dozen fuel tanks off a Navarin or Lightning, you can make a 1200kph courier to go fetch them - put your missile carriers at a shipyard city to speed up reloads.

If you clear out a city before you take Khiva, you get the free ship reinforcements there next time you visit. On the run where i won, it was honestly more difficult to get tankers in position to move my newfound swarms of Feneks around than it was to take out the enemy nuke groups

How much use did everyone else get out of mid-campaign ship reconfiguration at shipyard cities? I do feel it's only really worth doing if you have a +400-500% city, but i was still going pretty hard turning Tarkhan ships i didn't like into tankers and scouts ~~cough to replace losses cough~~. Since the sell price is exactly equal to the price of all modules on the ship, i even turned a tidy profit by selling off the bits i removed.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 02:33

Roumba: Jun 29, 2005; Buglord

BrotherJayne posted:

Does search not work anymore?

Looking for the updated advanced building guide, with z level and space saving tips, thought it was on the steam guides

This one? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567187029

# ? Aug 22, 2021 05:47

BrotherJayne: Nov 28, 2019

Roumba posted:

This one? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567187029

you're my hero

# ? Aug 22, 2021 06:48

redpleb: Feb 1, 2013

am I the only one that oddly enough likes the rocket launcher? other than its cool, it hits like a truck and will demolish most things. I butchered a lightning and reconfigured it to have two rocket launchers and it's chewed through a cruiser before. I'm also never one to really min-max on games and make choices purely on what I think is fun so maybe that's just me.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 08:13

Agnostalgia: Dec 22, 2009

Ceebees posted:

Also, every city you take will give you free fuel and 3-4 free ships. Ammo becomes weird, though.

Yeah, I had taken every town around Khiva before going in so once I realized how many free ships I had at my disposal to throw into harm's way it was pretty trivial, it just seemed overwhelming initially. Are there any hidden flagships to unlock other than the Varyag that the governor had? I lucked into that one by playing max Faith.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 08:38

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

cock hero flux posted:

i might get flak for saying this but there's really only 3 weapons worth using in actual fights.

these are the good guns:
37mm chainguns are excellent for shooting down incoming enemy missiles and shredding unarmoured targets. If you have several of them they can also shoot down incoming artillery, and with incendiary ammo even a quick burst can instantly ruin small ships. They're cheap in both cost and ammo/power requirements and you can mount loads of them. These are the best defensive tool and a decent offensive one.
130mm guns are great for small Lightning style fighters. They hit hard without having bad ammo or power requirements, and they rotate fast enough to keep up with a nimble ship's movements.
Double 180mm guns hit extremely hard and are excellent for tearing apart large targets. With proxy shells or careful aim they'll ruin small targets as well, and their AP shells can instakill enemy cruisers if they hit the right spot. They rotate pretty slowly and have fairly steep ammo and power requirements so you can't put them on speedy ships, but these are the ideal primary armament for a Brick.

everything else:
57mm guns are the cheapest for a reason: they shoot too slowly to act as point defence but aren't big enough to actually hurt anything.
100mm guns aren't terrible but have the same ammo requirements as 130mm guns and aren't as good, so you might as well just use 130mms.
Single 180mm guns take up the same space as Doubles and almost as much power, so you might as well use Doubles.
Hextuple 180mm guns are extremely impressive but impractical. They're ridiculously expensive and need to be mounted on Large Hull segments, which are far heavier than just mounting the equivalent amount of regular hull parts for some reason. For less space, weight, and price you can easily mount 3 Doubles and the requisite amount of ammo and power modules.
Rocket launchers aren't very good, they're expensive and their rockets can easily be shot down or avoided by enemies. And unlike artillery, the AI actually does try to shoot these down.

Zenith missiles are terrible on large ships, since they require gaps in the armour to fire out of, are expensive and single use, can easily be shot off and aren't that much more impressive than a salvo from a 180mm gun. Large ships also struggle to actually reach a good firing position for them. Zenith missiles could be of some use on small ships, but your smaller ships really shouldn't be fighting anything that would require them too often, and the money you spend on them would be better spent on AP ammo(which can't get shot off in combat and rendered useless, and which can be devastatingly powerful). Nadir missiles I haven't played around with too much because you can't use them in the shipworks editor.

Sprint AA missiles are kind of useless in combat. They, again, require gaps in the armour of large ships, which is never good, and small ships can just avoid missiles anyway. You're far better served by just mounting chainguns for missile and plane defence. They are very good for defending against cruise missiles and long range aircraft attacks, though, since your small ships are grounded and can't just avoid them. Having a few of these on a backline ship for missile defence purposes is probably good, but you shouldn't use them in an actual fight.

Bombs have to be on small ships, since big ones aren't nearly agile enough to use them. Bombs also have to be mounted on the outside to be used, and explode like ammo magazines if they get hit. This is bad. Taking a hit to the bomb bay is immediate death, and I don't find them nearly impressive enough to be worth the risk.

You can armor missiles, by using elevation, any full brick 2x2 can be elevated by having structure cover the 4 cardinal directions. a set of a 2x2 brick with 4 2x1 segments on the sides will pop up, then you can place armor on the outside and the missiles will fire over the armor, this goes for guns, engines, anything that can be blocked really.

57mm is actually pretty good but you want a lot of it. it is also cheap. Yes 20 37mm's will shred anything overtime but.... thats 60k a 20 57mm will kill much faster and still output enough fire to knock back anything incoming.

behold

Now this is a bit of extra stuff hanging around but. better damage, more speed, more range, cheaper

# ? Aug 22, 2021 12:20

HookedOnChthonics: Dec 5, 2015; Profoundly dull

just a psa for anyone who has flight sim gear, this game is next-level with a yoke

it feels like how it was meant to be played; like the Highfleet arcade cabinet definitely would give you a big ol ship's wheel

# ? Aug 22, 2021 18:03

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Will an AA ship in your flagship's fleet fire sprints even if you're not controlling it?

# ? Aug 22, 2021 20:32

ThisIsJohnWayne: Feb 23, 2007; Ooo! Look at me! NO DON'T LOOK AT ME!

Yes.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 20:34

Jamsque: May 31, 2009

One more tip for Once You Reach Khiva: turn your radar back on! Hiding from the enemy is no longer a priority, after all they pretty much know where you are by that point.

# ? Aug 22, 2021 22:57

Dalaram: Jun 6, 2002; Marshall/Kirtaner 8/24 nevar forget! (omg pedo)

I took the opportunity to listen to some feedback, learn some new techniques, and then try again. Thank to everyone who engaged, and I've definitely got some observations.