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Eason the Fifth posted:I want to love this game but I suck at it and the UI is less than helpful in a lot of respects. I didn't see anything in the OP or on beforeiplay, anyone have some beginners pointers? Here's how to manage intelligence, both yours and the enemy's. You both has sensors of the following types: ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) - Detects radar (and jammer) returns at a range dependent on the detected radar, but at long range. - For you: Used to generate vectors and distances to enemy strike groups. Enemies with active radar (mostly just Strike Groups) are detected ELINT 1 at double their radar range (if this is within your ELINT range), and the distance indicator scales up to DANGER CLOSE at their radar range. So if you are DANGER CLOSE then you are on the enemy's radar. Typically I draw arrows with ELINT contacts and use it to triangulate the enemy positions, to indicate where I should fly and to calculate how to send in strikes - For them: Enemies will investigate ELINT contacts (your active radar/jammer) and will fire on them with missiles and planes. Radar - Detects blips/lines at medium range and marks fleets on the map at short range. A small radar signature can make a ship harder to detect, and much harder (but not impossible) if landed on the ground. - For you: Used to confirm things you've spotted elsewhere. For example your ELINT is reading DANGER CLOSE you might send out a single sweep to confirm the exact location of the pursing Strike Group to hit it with an air strike. Also can be used to find hidden cities. Leave it off 99% of the time. - For them: Enemies will investigate Radar contacts and will fire on them with missiles and planes. If they are close enough that radar marks you on the map, they send out a radio message about you which counts as a red flag spotting report. IRST (Infrared) - Detects engines as spikes, both ships and missiles, at short range. - For you: Used to identify trade fleets before they enter visual range, and to attempt to dodge missiles (usually futile). If you know the enemy is hunting and you pick up an infrared contact then either you dodge at 90 degrees or you launch T-7 planes with air-to-air missiles. If you know your enemy is not hunting then you need to deal with that trade fleet before it enters visual range, usually I slam it with an air strike, the other option is to retreat your fleet and wait for the trade fleet to land. - For them: Enemies will know something is coming and instantly report you when you enter visual range instead of generating a yellow timer bar. Visual - Marks fleets on the map at very short range. - For you: Used generally but a deliberate use would be sending out scout planes, which sets off the silent strike alarm but does not generate a contact report. Great for confirming the exact location of a target. Also if you zoom in you can see contrails within visual range even if the fleet you're chasing is beyond visual range, which is mostly useless but I have actually used it in pursuit scenarios, so the 1 in 100 time it's good to know. - For them: When entering visual range, if the alarm is not active, will send a contact report and red flag mark when the yellow bar timer ends, which is investigated by Strike Groups. If the alarm is active, instantly sends a contact report in visual range. Fleets in the air have almost zero yellow bar timer and more or less instantly send a report regardless of the alarm, happens most often with trade fleets stumbling into you. Radio - Picks up enemy transmissions and returns most of the message and a vector, range is very long. - For you: Used to generate vectors to estimate the location of enemy fleets, all types. Very handy when the right intel falls into your lap but random. If I get an interesting signal I usually draw an arrow on the map, and in the midgame I do look for radio rooms in looting. If you have trouble with radio replay the tutorial and pay attention to Ptoyr's instructions, or just use the Auto-Intercept button. - For them: Nothing. Intel City - Can spend points which mark Strike Groups, Tactical Groups, and Trade Fleets. Once for each fleet, on a very long cooldown until they can be reacquired. Tarkhans who specialize in Intelligence can also do this. So how does the enemy find you? - When you appear in visual range the enemy attempts to send a report which marks your location as a red flag on the map, revealing it to all enemies. The Yellow bar above them is the timer until that report goes out. If your speed is high enough (usually 400+ for ships attacking a city) you can engage them and if you destroy them the report never goes out. - Fleets on the ground have a much longer timer than ships in the air. Fleets that know you are coming through some other means also report very quickly. So roaming Trade Fleets or fleets with IRST will report you nearly instantly. - The Silent Strike timer (sometimes called the alarm) is triggered if you fail the yellow timer, if you are reported, if your planes are spotted, or if you strike an enemy with planes or missiles. This is *separate* to being reported though it often happens at the same time. - If the alarm is active, there are no more yellow bars, entering visual range is an instant report. Also, enemy fleets will tend to be in the air rather than on the ground, and they will try to dodge planes and missiles. - When you are detected on a sensor you don't trigger the alarm and you don't generate a report but the enemy will investigate and WILL launch strategic strikes like missiles at these mystery contacts. If they get close enough to mark you, say, with radar, then that's similar to a spotting report. - If you stay landed in a city for more than a certain number of hours (around 24 is typically safe), it goes to yellow Dangerous and then after more hours to red Dangerous. At each level there is a chance over time that someone will report you, which is just like getting visually spotted at that location and a report being marked on the map. If a report (red flag on the map) is generated: - One or more Strike Fleets are dispatched to the closest city, and they will use their other sensors to attempt to find you and pursue you. Typically Strike Fleets pursue the most recent report. - Nearby Tactical Groups will move in to attack. So you are playing a giant game of cat and mouse across a planet size map. Your job is to slip into cities undetected, wipe the garrison, loot, resupply. Your raiding fleets are followed by your strategic fleets (planes+missiles) and flagship, which are almost always running silent except when they activate to sucker-punch someone. Spend minimum time in cities and if you have to sit around waiting, do so in the desert. This preserves time in cities for important purposes like repairs, refits, and fueling. When you accidentally or deliberately trigger the alarm and want to go back to surprise striking, you wait a bit somewhere out of the way to run down the clock. Running down the clock lets you use attacking fleets without being reported. That said if you are continuing aggressive operations that will extend the alarm anyway, like plane strikes or slow ships, you can ignore the silent strike timer and just operate under alarm, accepting that you will draw in a beehive of hostile activity around you. If you get reported, you count that as intelligence that the nearest Strike Fleets are coming, even all the way across the map, and plan your operations to flow around them. Eventually you set up bait for Strike Fleets (or take advantage of opportunities generated by being reported) and wipe them out with a counter-fleet, like a lurking air group. I can't say much about combat itself except that learning to dodge is key. When the enemy tracers come out they will track the direction you are already moving. So dodging isn't zooming around, it is changing your momentum so that those tracers that were tracking you now are inaccurate. It's perfectly viable to sit still until the tracers appear then do a burn one way or the other. Similarly missiles are best dodged by a course change at last minute, but your own momentum works against you so it takes a bit more practice to figure out what kind of trajectories are still safe to dodge and when you need to pre-emptively control how you're moving to set up a dodge later.
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Oct 1, 2021 04:56
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Eason the Fifth posted:I want to love this game but I suck at it and the UI is less than helpful in a lot of respects. I didn't see anything in the OP or on beforeiplay, anyone have some beginners pointers? 100mm AP can't penetrate solid armor plating very well but can punch through a couple blocks of hull and detonate ammo, so use it against small ships like corvette/frigates. Higher caliber AP can oneshot some cruisers like the Archangel. Look at what ships the opposing side has before combat and pay attention to the target profile in the bottom right, where ammo and fuel are highlighted. Incendiary ammo forces the enemy to use all their limited charges of fire extinguishers and overheats/disables engines, so a little goes a long way if you only fire a couple of shots at a time and then swtich back to HE (you switch ammo types with [R], in case you missed the tutorial popup). Once the display shows they have FSS:0 you can toast them. Collision damage is a thing, and the fastest way to a gameover is for your people think to think you're sacrificing ships for ramming attacks because the officers will mutiny. Even if you just accidentally bump a ship and lose an engine every ship loses morale. The trick is to 'bail out' by pushing [T] before impact so the ship is no longer counted as being under your control but just treated as a physics object. Dunno if this is an exploit but it's hilarious. Airstrikes and cruise missiles don't leave wrecks to loot but somehow nukes do leave salvage. Nuclear rocket tag is fun and profitable but requires a purpose-built fleet because you need multiple small ships that go >1200km/h to bait and dodge incoming missiles and reach the loot before it all burns. silentsnack fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Oct 1, 2021 |
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Oct 1, 2021 12:03
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IRST will also let enemy missile groups detect you and shotgun you with cruise missiles at a few hundred KM.
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Oct 1, 2021 13:03
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e: waaaay wrong thread lmao
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Oct 1, 2021 13:10
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Got this a week ago and have been taking my time on baby mode. Taking so long that an enemy nuclear missile group got bored and wandered into a town that I had an upgunned Lightning parked in. Weird play by the AI but I'll take it, especially since I'm running low on resources and I'm still a ways away from Khiva and I don't know what all I still have to face there.
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Oct 2, 2021 05:43
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I assume this is a common problem, but I haven't read through the whole thread to find out, but I think I'm trapped in an unwinnable fight in the prologue, or maybe I'm just still bad at the fighting, but I'm just retrying endlessly. I'm attacking UR and it's my 2 Navarins vs. 2 Runners, a Scarab, a Jaguar, 2 Talos, and 2 Nimrods. Which just seems to be too much for me to get through with 2 tiny ships, though admittedly I'm pretty bad at dodging, but now that I'm in the fight screen there doesn't seem to be a way to back out and come back with more of my fleet or anything. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, though I feel like it probably boils down to, dodge all their attacks while making sure all of yours land.
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Oct 4, 2021 00:09
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Yeah I think that's the worst-designed bit of the game. I think I had to alt+tab out of the game to close it and restart and do something else for that fight. I haven't done this myself but I think you can click the intercom and Request Reinforcements? The tutorial makes a point of that but then it lets you... Not do that, and you can get caught in an endless loop if you don't.
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Oct 4, 2021 00:27
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If you fly both to the retreat arrow you can retreat them.
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Oct 4, 2021 00:58
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Abyssal Squid posted:Yeah I think that's the worst-designed bit of the game. I think I had to alt+tab out of the game to close it and restart and do something else for that fight. Yeah the tutorial tells you you're supposed to ask for reinforcements before reaching Ur, and also gives you a Nomad which can solo that fight easily... but when the game suggests dispatching a fast strikeforce to a city it only chooses fast ships. Or since you can request an arbitrary number of reinforcements and nothing that happens in the prologue matters anyway, just keep requesting until they give you a Vega or Triumphant and nuke the poo poo out of everything.
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Oct 4, 2021 01:12
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Fight is doable, I soloed both the "Strike Fleet" and the Ur garrison with a Navarin. Hilariously the game doesn't punish you for lying to Daud about the strike fleet. If you need to take the fight then focusing on economical dodging mostly, and shooting when your gunnery is stable / you are aimed at armor gaps is best. But you could also just fly both your Navarins to the Retreat marker then choose Retreat when it says you're defeated. Make sure you fly all your ships to the retreat marker, any you don't will die.
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Oct 5, 2021 03:29
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Iirc you can buy AP ammo at the first stop you have access to the fuel shop lol. If you're good at the flying it's doable with HE, but the AP makes it a piece of cake.
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Oct 5, 2021 20:11
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Loving the game, and just wrapped up a hard mode play though now that I really understand the ship building. 4 of these almost made it too easy: My biggest gripe is the lack of a (complete) repair all button. Having to check and click every tile after every battle is getting annoying.
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Oct 12, 2021 04:04
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There is - if you go into the shipyard, there is a repair button on the right. Hit that, then drag the blue slider full. It can be a little wonky though, since it also reloads/restocks consumables like missiles and bombs.
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Oct 12, 2021 12:29
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That only repairs parts that are below 80% durability for some reason.
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Oct 12, 2021 13:26
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Just stubmled upon a neat trick for splitting parts between fleets. When you order part of a fleet out of city while paused, they split into a second group, and take no parts with them. But if you select the new group, then go back into the city, only they show up in shipworks and you can buy things into their inventory. Since buying and selling is 100% even you can sell anything you want from your fleet staying put and rebuy it onto the ships leaving.
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Oct 14, 2021 02:36
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Xenoborg posted:Just stubmled upon a neat trick for splitting parts between fleets. When you order part of a fleet out of city while paused, they split into a second group, and take no parts with them. But if you select the new group, then go back into the city, only they show up in shipworks and you can buy things into their inventory. Since buying and selling is 100% even you can sell anything you want from your fleet staying put and rebuy it onto the ships leaving. Another weird UI quirk is when you've got a radio signal located, instead of hitting the 'print message' button you can the use the ruler to draw a line along the signal's heading and then switch to a different fleet (as long as you don't enter a city or combat, which resets the radio channel) and re-locate to get two vectors, which lets you triangulate the broadcaster's position with barely any extra effort. Also since the map markers are permanent and the only way to delete them is to edit your savefile, and the envelope icons are clickable and effectively rendered in front of other map objects so they get in the way when you try to click on a fleet or city (ugh why is this even a thing) it helps to only save the intercept from ships that are traveling between cities, or scouts parked out in West Bumblefuck. Especially when Alsahir won't quit bugging you, or when you get a tradefleet that glitches out and repeatedly sends "leaving going north at 200kph with a cargo of irrelevant bullshit" announcements which are immediately contradicted by "ETA less than an hour to reach the city I just left 0.1 seconds ago" and they just spam that nonsense constantly until you move all of your ships out of radio range, or shut them up with cruise missiles?
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Oct 14, 2021 03:28
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Yeah the radio minigame is cool but... It's way too much effort to dig through the messages I don't care about. And the glitches. And I can't be hosed doing ciphers.
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Oct 14, 2021 08:51
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I like it, it's very immersive. I understand ymmv tho. I do like it when I find 2 or 3 out of the 4 cipher pieces and I can puzzle out the other two numbers by fiddling with the dials
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Oct 14, 2021 08:57
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Once I did a cipher without any pieces and I was very proud of myself. Not really a good use of your time though
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Oct 14, 2021 22:53
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Is there a reason I keep intercepting trade fleets and they fight to the death instead of surrendering?
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Oct 15, 2021 00:26
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Psycho Society posted:Once I did a cipher without any pieces and I was very proud of myself. Not really a good use of your time though Once I've identified enough trade fleets in the area I just check on the # of characters in the name of the sending fleet (the last string in the message), then quickly roll through to see if it matches up to the names that I know of for whatever knob works on 2 of the characters. This also works on Strike Groups, I finally tracked down where Antey was since intel sites weren't giving me an update and Antey helpfully sent an encrypted message from a city near their last known position. I had a earlier SG just stop w/ 0 speed unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere, not in a hidden city, but in a big gap between clusters of cities. I found and triangulated it's position via ELINT and sent some LA29 scouts to find it so I could lob some KH-15P's at it, and when the first one attacked it the LA29 dropped a bomb and got killed by a sprint, after the screen cut back to the map a "target killed" sound played and the SG ceased to exist. It wasn't landed during. I wonder if it ran out of fuel?
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Oct 15, 2021 04:58
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Did something change about radar recently? I can't seem to see targets on radar on the main map anymore. Threw together a test. Here is a trade fleet that I just visually spotted, and should still be able to see via radar after moving away. They called out "Target on radar" and you can see it on the scope, but not on the main map anymore? 
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Oct 15, 2021 21:38
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Xenoborg posted:Did something change about radar recently? I can't seem to see targets on radar on the main map anymore. There are two kinds of radar Early Warning Radar (MR-700 and MR-500, the oldschool spinning dish antenna) only gives a blip in the radar display at the top left of the map UI. It adds to the "radar" stat listed in the shipbuilder. In the image that looks like a 700 since it also has the horizontal greebly bits at the base. Fire Control Radar (MR-12 and MR-2M, which are much more compact and blocky) is the one you want because it gives both 'tracking' and 'radar' stats and tracking is the one that shows you the exact location and velocity vector of a fleet on the map. Also the 'guiding' FCR gives the guiding stat which lets you use R-9 Sprint missiles to shoot down incoming aircraft and/or missiles. edit: also it's worth noting that even if an enemy fleet is inside your radar/tracking range, if its effective radar cross-section (largest 'RD sign' stat in the group... similar mechanics with IRST vs 'IR sign') is lower than its distance from your fleet, you still won't detect them. This is important for things like Missile Carrier Groups which are fast stealthy frigates that can detect you using passive infrared and then blind-fire A100s, so they give no ELINT warning and the only thing that shows up on your radar is a missile coming in at 4000km/h. silentsnack fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Oct 15, 2021 |
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Oct 15, 2021 21:46
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To see a fleet tracked on the map you need the tracking stat, not radar. If your target is on radar but not inside the tracking radius, they'll only show up on the scope.
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Oct 15, 2021 21:47
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Ah that makes sense. I was using FC radars before since they were cheaper and available. I think I'll stick with the FC for the tracking.
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Oct 15, 2021 22:06
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I'm too u-boat-game scarred/paranoid to use radar of any kind. Planes and IRST seem to do a good enough job.
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Oct 15, 2021 22:54
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Plane scouting is a cheat compared to everything else, yeah Radar is handy for locking down certain intel when you're already in a loud engagement, and is also decently useful to avoid trade fleets when you know no one is near enough to detect it with ELINT. I also really like it in the phase of the game after you reach Khiva, though at that point you are simply using every tool at your disposal
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Oct 16, 2021 05:35
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Just found a new bug, you can disappear a whole ship by doing the following: Have a ship landed Order it out of the city Before takeoff, land another ship Restart or cancel the landing of the second ship The first ship is now just gone.
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Oct 28, 2021 23:35
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Nov 5, 2021 05:54
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Hammerfight lineage showing
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Nov 5, 2021 06:41
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I knew it would take a few more patches to get the bugs out, but this is ridiculous! e: serious post Dev posted potential patch notes in the steam discussions: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1434950/discussions/0/3154202776539749436/ Changelog version 1.14 BETA posted:Hi everyone! Roumba fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Nov 5, 2021 |
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Nov 5, 2021 23:01
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"They're still on the ground. Descend so we can accurately engage." "Descending, sir." "I said 'descend', airman!" "Sir, we're descending as fast as gravity allows!" "Not fast enough!"   
Bootcha fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 16:52
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Does that actually work? I know static engines don't provide rotational thrust.
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Nov 12, 2021 02:15
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I love it.
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Nov 12, 2021 03:12
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Roumba posted:Does that actually work? I know static engines don't provide rotational thrust. It absolutely does... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24af3Tj95a8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjiC_mNJhec
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Nov 12, 2021 16:32
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Aggressive-dive bombing. I love it.
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Nov 12, 2021 23:57
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Roumba posted:Aggressive-dive bombing. I love it. its honestly the only way to make those bombs work, just full speech blacking out on approach
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Nov 13, 2021 00:04
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So, uh, has anyone else noticed that flight decks are essentially armor plates: Lighter, but harder to replace. Would it make sense for the backline ships (flagship, missile cart) to be covered in them (at the very least, the top part), and then replace with armor parts as they're chipped off? Edit: Wait, no I'm dumb. Armor is specifically tagged with special properties. Flight decks are essentially reinforced steel parts. Bootcha fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Nov 14, 2021 |
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Nov 14, 2021 19:24
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On another subject, has anyone figured out the best way to get their SG tankers some xp to nab that +30% cruising bonus?
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Nov 22, 2021 08:08
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Bootcha posted:On another subject, has anyone figured out the best way to get their SG tankers some xp to nab that +30% cruising bonus? Theorycrafting but mount missiles and send them in first during sudden strikes. Immediately burn for the retreat and spam out the missiles, just make sure to not retreat before they hit.
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Nov 22, 2021 08:56
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