Rebel Galaxy - Freelancer and Firefly had a baby

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Rebel Galaxy - Freelancer and Firefly had a baby

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Its Free-Black Flag-Lancer with a decent blues rock sound track.

Factions are basically what everyone thought factions in Freelancer were going to be and the story seems smart enough to stay out of your meticulous faction grinding, unlike Freelancer. Although I'm not very far so no promises.

The trading isn't as rail roaded as Freelancer, but it seems largely anchored on events and station "economy" categories with a little bit of rival AI traders throwing noise at the prices, so it isn't dynamic evolving poo poo like X or Patrician. A pretty normal space game economy that wouldn't be out of place in the me-toos that came after Freelancer.

Basically its exactly as advertised in the leadup. Black Flag ship combat in a Freelancer universe is going to be exactly as compelling as you think it is, so anyone on the fence should have an easy decision.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 20:30

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 16:11

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Wafflz posted:

They need to sell the soundtrack to this.

Its all licensed stuff, so I expect between itunes, Amazon, and BandCamp, its already all for sale (with contracts stopping the devs from putting a package together to sell themselves).

They've got the list on their website:

BabelFish posted:

Something that bears mention is the soundtrack, some great space twang going on here:
http://rebel-galaxy.com/the-rebel-galaxy-soundtrack/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFB3Lgn1fY

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 23:42

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Bernardo Orel posted:

How do you mine? I get the part where you shoot asteroid with mining laser until asteroid goes boom, but then what? Do I need to scan or switch view somehow or how do I see if I mined something or not?

Use a pulse to find asteroids that actually have something. Scan them and make sure its not just lovely ore that isn't worth your cargo space. Then either blow up with a mining laser, or get the special subsystem that gives you weakpoints to manually hit for extra drops.

Make sure you have a tractor beam too, if that wasn't obvious.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 23:48

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Doctor Schnabel posted:

Is it just me or is trading ridiculously profitable? I've made well over a quarter million space dollars in just a couple hours by buying low and selling high. You can make like 30k in the starting system just by going from point a to point b, which is a little nuts when a typical mission usually involves twice the work for a tenth of the pay

I don't know how the value proposition will extend to future systems, but you can get some crazy out of depth item drops from ships over the course of missions. Like I got a minelayer I didn't need that sold for 60k from a 8k reward bounty in the first system. And I just got a Mk3 Mining laser which I haven't even seen for sale yet in the first system.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Oct 21, 2015

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 00:18

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I keep getting distracted from the main story and now those missions are all specified as low difficulty because I have funneled all that side quest and trading into becoming a laser god. Mining lasers are uncharacteristically good, and I got laser broadsides from a drop from the main story that outclass anything that I could normally buy for that slot, even with its weakness against shields.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 02:36

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Brackhar posted:

So somehow super early on I angered the Miltia, and things kept getting worse withg my turrets automatically firing on their fighters. Now they're completely surrounding a station I need to get to to move the mainline quest along, making it not possible for me to progress. Are there any options available to me to make the militia simmer down early on, or do I need to restart?

Are you sure they are angry? You need to kind of deliberately do it by taking missions, taunting them over comms, getting repeatedly caught with contraband, or taking out capital ships. Fighters are like -1 out of a scale of several hundred. I ask because they sometimes blockade stations, which make them hostile toward everyone regardless of standing.

If its a blockade, wait it out, or dive in if you think you can.

If they are truly angry and you can't survive dives in to stations, you can salvage it by going to an outsider affiliated station (seems to be permanent neutral ground and unrelated to Korian Outsiders?) and pick up militia contracts for standing boosts.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Any suggestions for dealing with the little fighters? I'm still in the starter corvette and they're doing surprising amounts of damage. I tried the flak guns, but apparently they just fire to the sides without aiming. My turrets do a decent job I guess, but I'm starting to get hit with bunches at a time and it hurts.

Have you bought new shields yet? Its a pretty beefy upgrade to Mk1 for only a few grand.

In general, bait them away from capital ships and try to get them grouped up on a vector, and use that to serpentine to spread damage between your sides and back/front. Broadsides have pretty deft auto aiming when in range and charged up, so don't neglect those when the serpentine lines you up.

Specifically, missile fighters are murder against even the Mk1 shields. Torpedo fighters are murder against Mk2 shields. I stuck cluster missiles in the third slot of the next cheapest hull set to lock-on only and use scan mode as a tactical targetting mode to murder stuff like that. In the meantime, deflectors are pretty great as a oh god torpedo button. You can also take manual control of a turret if your balls are made of brass.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Oct 21, 2015

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 13:53

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Isn't there a super pricey subsystem for that?

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 14:54

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I am almost 100% sure used equipment trades for its original purchase price, so don't feel like you need to skip upgrades, and definitely feel free to experiment with alternate loadouts. Although in the first system I am pretty sure just upgrading all your base equipment to at least Mk1 stuff of any sort makes you feel pretty awesome, and Mk2 stuff makes you outclass everything but the larger capital ships around.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 15:06

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Valiant Pudding posted:

How does the Fault Detector work when mining? I've been using it to shoot asteroids with autolock on in the red spots after pulsing, but i've never gotten more resources than the ones listed in the asteroid when I scanned them?

I think it guarantees the full load that comes up when scanning. If you don't, usually only 1 of each content listed pops out instead of the multiples listed in the scan.

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Is there a reason to ever not just hold down the secondary button and fire constantly?

For missile turrets, how does ammo work? Do you have to buy more ordnance the same way you have to buy ordnance for your secondary heat seekers?

Yep, counts as ordnance, refilled at stations or ordnance drops. Higher marks seems to have higher ammo counts. They are a bit overzealous by default, but I really like them set to lock on only as a this-must-die-now option.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 15:24

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Pierson posted:

Does this space game fall into the same trap as Elite Dangerous where the mechanics are great but there's no reason to do anything except to get bigger numbers, or are there goals the game wants you to achieve?

There's a main storyline, but you probably need to come at the game with a healthy amount of just wanting to put bigger guns on your space barge.

Thinking about a jokey response to this made me realize the biggest omission is vanity upgrades. I really want to buy space rims for my space Caddy now

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 15:36

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

5er posted:

I switched out flak cannons for pulse cannons, and fighters just pop like zits around me while I focus on the larger ships for broadside activity.

I'm still early game though, haven't even left the cradle star system. Getting into fights is such a gamble, I have a hard time being sure when I start a battle who's going to wind up getting to bite the curb. I did learn that, without argument, a mission marked 'Hard' is well outside of my current loadout capability.

What are the best noncombat options for racking up money? I'd think that running traderoutes for a bit (like every other game this one's related to) would be how to do it, but with how systems are procedurally generated, there's probably no concept of 'universally good traderoutes'. The in-game economy information doesn't seem to be all that hot either, past looking at the news to see what is reported to be selling high / low at where.

Based on economy types I think you can suss out a fundamental traderoute, but you are fighting for table scraps at that point and can flood markets by sneezing in their direction. You really should play the events if you want some trading bucks, you can make some aha 200% returns by either taking overproduced event stuff anywhere, or taking the relevant needed good for shortages.

I just made it to the second system and it seems like trading is a bit of a fools errand in the first, because there are like 2 or 3 times the number of stations here so good events should be overlapping that much more.

e. and someone mentioned it earlier, but if you run into an ice belt and have a mining laser, its pretty great. There are less minable ice chunks, but the ones that are there usually give commodities worth 5-15k per.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 21, 2015

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 18:13

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Insert name here posted:

What's the biggest size ships you can captain? I saw a destroyer in the starter station but I assume there's bigger.

I think dreadnoughts are the biggest, they've got like double digit broadside and turret counts ad are just ridiculously huge looking.

TastyLemonDrops posted:

For you guys starting out who just want to get money early on, find the merchant's guild hub in the first area and just grind out missions for them. Getting higher merchant's guild ranks gives you better missions for more money. Their two purchasable ships are also pretty drat good. It's probably best to rush through to the next area since the starting one is basically a tutorial, but their first purchasable ship is loads cheaper than the Tennhauser and about as effective in combat. They've got great armor on sale, and also ion cannons to make up for laser's lovely shield penetration.

In addition I don't want to say rush the second sector, but if you have a lot of mission boards clocking in under normal difficulty don't waste time, because money making just accelerates when the game takes off the training wheels. Not just new magnitudes of pay for better equipped enemies, but you end up getting extra pay if a mission involves system jumps. And then you can funnel all that sweet cash into making trips into the next sector to grab the next level of gear, and its all just got such a nice momentum, even if I keep forgetting to do story missions until well after they turn into low difficulty.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 23:44

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

OxMan posted:

So the OP says the PS4 version was supposed to be out already, whats going on there?

Xbone and PS4 version are pre-cert in the hands of a cert contractor, so no date has been announced for the console version until they get back to the devs on where they stand in being able to pass.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 02:30

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Section Z posted:

I've only just started playing this so I'm not that far in. Silly questions.

Is there any better way to see commodities prices across the galaxy than watching it automatically cycle between the In Stock and Out Of Stock when moused over on the stellar map? Is there a way to get trader data for places you are not currently at, or is it all "Last time you came here, these were the prices" listings?

Usually I'm as law abiding as doesn't get me kill on sight because that's a hassle and pirating tends to be more "Well, you CAN I guess" in these sort of games. On the off chance I decide to go mad with power if I play this long enough to get a big ship it would be nice to pick out the one that has actual stations or practical value beyond "They are criminals and they like you too much to shoot at random".

How exactly do smuggler holds work, do they give you a set amount of scan proof space on top of your normal capacity? Or do they switch you to a very tiny cargo hold? In either case, do larger ships get access to larger smuggler holds?

Unless there's some late game trader item to buy that gets you up to date info, you've found the long and the short of it. The trading interface is probably the worst part, which is sad because I think it's deeper than its letting on. Or maybe that's the point of obfuscating it. As it is, its hard to recommend anything other than guild missions if you want to be a trader.

So far I've only seen Red Cartel stations, and thinking about it, I think those are the only faction I've seen offering missions at outsider stations. Thinking about it more, most law abiding stations are citizen affiliated, I wonder if there are enough Red Cartel missions against militia to grind to get neutral while keeping visitor privileges at civilian stations.

Who the hell sells smuggler holds. The way equipment shops work in this game are really cool and good at making you want to find what counts as different types to visit.

Doctor Schnabel posted:

I'm still annoyed that Sunless Sea wasn't more like this game.

Is it incredibly good in the first system, or the second as well? I've been wondering about that ship, but the thought of having to pay for seven individual turret upgrades was just way too spooky for me.

Well you can pretty easily do the personal math to see if you'll end up ahead in damage per second, I am pretty sure broadside stats are listed per shot, so you lose however many of those for several turrets. The guiding light for ship purchases should be feel and strategy though so if you find yourself neglecting broadsides or really digging turrets, it should be an easier decision.

Daily reminder for everyone that ships and ship equipment buy and sell for 1:1 so you can experiment without losing net worth.

zedprime fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Oct 22, 2015

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 13:32

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Best non-mission pay day: noticed a treasure convoy on my map coming from an archaelogical find. They transferred their cargo in comms without a fight, and I hawked the 7 alien artifacts for 270k to a trader at a distress signal. Totally worth the small merchant guild ranking hit for pirating.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 20:48

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Jimbot posted:

I hope they work on optimizing the escort mission's warp pair's pathing, it takes forever to get into pixel perfect formation then warp. They're well-paying contracts but that's one major snafu with taking them. You can go do your taxes then go out to eat after in the time it takes for your ship to get into position.

Edit: And if by some miracle you make it that far, a ship warps in and all you get is proximity alerts when you try to warp. Or an asteroid is there, or a moon, or something.

I think they just threw their hands up about that because they pay 2-3x what equivalent difficulty missions do to make up for it.

vandalism posted:

How do I turn in sourcing munitions for the trade guild? I had 12 in my hold and had a mission to get 12. Just bought them and nothing. Tried to go back to their station and nothing. Even abandoned the mission and got a similar one but for less payout had the 12 munitions in hold and then took a mission to source 9 and it still didn't complete the mission. Wtf.

The workflow should be you get the number of requested good, then go to the target station, and you get waylaid near the station however many times is appropriate for the difficulty, and it finishes when docking with the target. Its usually an independent target, so you don't need to go back to the trade guild or anything.

Klyith posted:

Use the scanner, not the pulse. It shows you info on the ships, their cargo, and bounty. You have to be within about 6 or 7 space meters to scan, but the game pauses in scan mode so it's no biggie. (Don't forget to lock the one with the bounty while in scan.)

Hey guess what everybody, the trade guild sells a module that puts cargo and bounty at-a-glance on the HUD targeting icons. You still need to scan to see how much or what items, but its saves so much time when you are deciding if the guys that pulled you out of warp are worth sticking around for.

Stevefin posted:

I am not sure if it used the current system average, or the average that it has gathered from your so out of date trade info. I am however likely to swing for the first one as I had the same thing eailer where the average was lying by each station, until I found one that was buying the item for three times its worth, probably making the average inflat from it.

Also onto ships. The Tennhaussen seems to be the last general purpose ship until dreadnaughts? I have looked at the others that don't cost one million and they seem to be trade offs where this frigate seems to still offer what they have for less, and not in one ungodly loopsided fashion (Looking at you 7 turret ship)

The Mercenaries guild has a straight upgrade to the Tennhaussen. A frigate with more slots, and its faster than everything but some of the specialty corvettes. Less cargo slots, but the trade guild cargo modules basically make cargo slots meaningless.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 01:16

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

In combat, every ship (including yours) has shield, hull plating, and hull. Shield and plating are per quadrant. You need to do enough damage to knock out the regenerating shield, then destroy the plating, and then all your damage applies to the hull which is the big health bar (just a percentage for your ship),

I don't remember leach mines, but if they are doing the thing that makes your ship all lightning-crackley, the merchants guild sell an add on that reduces the time that effect sicks. You can shoot mines and missiles if you are cool enough.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 14:58

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Magnus Venator posted:

I noticed that the price for one merc was higher than the one I originally hired. Do mercs have different stats? If so, how do I know which one is better?

I've been operating on the assumption that more money means more better.

I've started to find "pro" versions for 200k where its the same people but better and they all seem to have converged around that same price point.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 15:25

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Rabidredneck posted:

18) To reduce exploitability, traders will only offer to purchase between 1 and 5 of your cargo components ( no more guaranteed high-priced sale of 20 meteoric diamonds, sorry! )

This feels kind of like putting a bandaid on an arterial cut since mission payouts outclass anything you could do sandbox trading.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 01:03

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Section Z posted:

So uh... I took a delivery mission. It turned out to be the same destination as the next story mission to talk to researcher (still first sector).

A zillion loving capitol ships are around the loving place now. I was ducking in and out of the station for repairs while wittling them down until the largest one was basically camping where I'd spawn out of. Then it made me pick up nuts and bolt instead of dock, then it let me dock barely before I die. I repair, leave.... and I explode instantly.

Hell of a way to have your first death, yeeeesh. What the gently caress happened? I never got intercepted on the delivery trip itself, what the gently caress did it do spawn every single enemy capitol ship it forgot to send after me along the way in front of the place?

EDIT: The real hell of it was I was winning (if incurring multiple repair bills) despite being just in the second light ship vs at least 7 enemy ships plus fighters, until they resorted to spawn camping

Edit Two: Oh the merchant guild has a crime wave status and now trying to leave is basically suicide because I got a dozen fighters and a few missile corvettes 10 feet from where it spits you out without refilling your deflectors or boosters welp

Delivery missions spawn blockades as you may have noticed, culminating in surrounding the station with hostiles you aren't necessarily meant to deal with beyond blowing past on your way in and out. Like the whole appeal of corvettes and frigates is you can decide "nope, don't care" and just ignore stuff.

Xtanstic posted:

Is that an intended feature?

It sounds like the intended feature that spawns you further away from the station if you are touching or nearly touching a station. I was ready to recommend to everybody to just dock every time by autodocking by crashing right into a station, but that spawned my fighter buddy in a planet and instakilled him once.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 14:02

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Beat it, bought a dreadnaught in celebration. Looking at my played time, I spent more than half of it in the first system. The veneer of space gameplay sort of rubs off after that first system high, as you figure out missions pay out better than any sort of self driven gameplay like trading or bounty hunting. Which is still a pretty space gamey thing, come to think of it.

Also destroyers seem like a trap class because it doesn't get enough firepower to back up its slowness relative to frigates. Dreadnaught firepower is hilarious but not really compelling enough to want to grind out Mk6 everything.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 21:05

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

FaintlyQuaint posted:

I dunno, the Arcturus never felt like it was lacking in ability to kill things.

But yes dreadnaught ships are total hilarity, even fighting huge swarms of enemy capital ships because you're unkillable and two shot basically everything in the game that isn't at least as big as you with just mk6 broadsides and mostly mk4/5 everything else.

The extra firepower was noticeable against corvettes and frigates, but the lower speed and maneuverability and bigger hitbox meant paying that much more attention to other destroyers or dreadnaughts to avoid getting caught flat footed in view of their broadsides, where a frigate (especially the Sturville) can decide "nah, I'm over there now" mid broadside from a bigger enemy. Maybe more of a testament to the Sturville and the quick boost than a detriment to destroyers in general.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 22:42

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I knew there was something missing, more than any space game features or hull rebalancing, and I finally figured it out. Even through we're on the same game plane throughout, its really missing some dynamic tilting and bouncing like the ships are being controlled by some incorporeal 8 year old. I do a lot of silly jackknife maneuvers and I want my ship to look like its about to spin off into a just unseen blackhole at any moment, even if its gameplay tracked entity is still on the same track as it is now.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 00:43

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Mining lasers are pretty great bang for your buck when you are flying a a frigate or smaller and your strategy is to park in destroyer and dreadnaught tailpipes. It was a little sad to trade them in for ions to better support the standoff combat that flying a destroyer or dreadnaught prefers.

e. I can't remember ever getting engines impaired from a mine, is it a shield down sort of thing or is some combination of the game or my memory busted?

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 16:51

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Rabidredneck posted:

I'm not too far into the story (at the point where I have to find some Hexxite for a sensor boost) and a LOT of guild missions are drat frustrating. I'm in a Destroyer with full Mk 4 gear and even low rated delivery missions are drat near impossible. I'm on one with a 250k payout, almost made it to the target station when I'm dropped out of warp by fighters constantly launching engine impairing missles and several capital ships pounding away at me. I've got some mk 4 null-grav boosters and cannot get away from them, i've been killed three out of three attempts so far.

I've got neutron beam broadsides, homing missles, 4 pulse turrets, two mining beams and two ion turrets. I could switch from homing missles to flak to maybe deal with missles and fighters, but I don't know. Maybe replace some pulse turrets with flak? I have a merc guild turret accellerator also.

Merchants guild missions are all paydays for ships with a decent hold size, a fast speed, and a small hitbox. I never had trouble with blockades or warp knockouts with a Sturville, without even null-grav boosters that everybody seems to like for blockade running. But swapped it for a Minotaur and those missions became impossible. If you want to do merchant's guild missions, trade in for a corvette or frigate. That destroyer is made for killing things from the outskirts of battle, not surrounded and disabled in a ring of poo poo.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 01:17

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Gwaihir posted:

How fast you can kill NPC ships doesn't really tell anything about the hull in player hands.

(Also by the time you can afford it and mk5/6 gear it doesn't matter how slow the Blackgate turns because you just majestically cruise forward while your turrets murderfuck everything, casually tossing a 20 laser broadside here or there to one shot enemy ships if you feel like it)

And if that's too hands off, a Polaris with the turn rate add on and the instant boost can do jack knives that look terrifying and give you the choice of quadrant to attack or let you serpentine like a smaller ship. Its pretty silly to pull a 360, boost out ahead, and park in front of another dreadnaught like "nah, you don't get to use broadsides"

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 01:37

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I spent more time in the first system than the rest of the game combined.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 15:26

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Its probably less useful for people sticking to smaller ships, but Grell dreadnaughts are what taught me the alternative to straight up running up someone's tailpipe. Basically if you come at a large ship on their 150 or 210 degree headings, you can get them locked into an endless turn where you can target their juicy side flank with your broadsides while staying in their broadside blindspot.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 23:10

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

H13 posted:

So I just got bored of Elite Dangerous. Is this a good game?

Depends why you got turned away from Elite. Rebel Galaxy isn't meant to be your space game for the rest of all time, its a neat and somewhat tidy 20+ hour romp through a Freelancer inspired mini-universe with AssCreed 4 combat.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 05:11

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

BigRoman posted:

So I just got my Minotaur, and still have to upgrade my defenses, turrets and components to mk5, and I figured I do so running missions while I haul trade in Gilgamesh.

Holy poo poo! I tried an avg delivery mission from the trade guild and got my poo poo wrecked by a giant swarm that ambushed me, I tried like 3 or 4 times, but I have no answers. Any suggestions, or should I go back to the Oceanus kiddie pool.

I just stopped running merchant guild missions after getting a Minotaur. Its a ship for killing things from a controlled angle in combat missions, and surrounding it with blockade ambushes is a good way to die just cause you can't move to a preferable location fast enough.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 01:11

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Cathair posted:

You or someone else said this before and I still have no idea what you're talking about. First, a 'ship for killing things from a controlled angle in combat missions' describes literally every ship, your shield and armor values are independent of your chassis and nothing can survive fighting smack-dab in the middle of a swarm, unless your poo poo is so OP for that system that you can just laugh off anything.

Second, the Minotaur is quite fast, iirc the next fastest thing to the Sturville. Easily the speediest of the large ships. Are you sure you aren't getting it mixed up with the Manticore?

Its probably me. It might be more my proclivity for the short but slow boost over the null-grav which might be more important for the blockade running missions. But I went from no braining them in the Sturville to getting wrecked in the Minotaur. My description is meant to imply that the Sturville can get out of an ambush (or the middle of the pack in combat missions) that much faster (even if its only several percent) that it makes all the difference in blockade runs. The way shield and armor (and maybe hit boxes? a big ship puts you in range of that many extra ships) work, anything bigger than a frigate is very disincentivized from getting in the middle of things, to the effect that they even get intrinsic broadside range boosts.

Unless I just picked all the unlucky ones even after farming them with the Sturville slightly out of depth for a couple hours to pay for the Minotaur to begin with. I don''t pretend to understand how the difficulty math and mission generation works.

e. TLDR I kind of disliked my time in a Minotaur compared to the Sturville and Blackgate. "Fastest destroyer" is kind of a weird combination.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 02:20

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Fanzay posted:

Excuse me?!

I feel like you're missing the opportunity for a joke about poorly spoken Norwegian being right at home for Swedes.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 13:50

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Ravenfood posted:

Got this game in the steam sale and having a blast. The problem I generally have now, though, is that I'm missing out on some sweet broadside action. I just made it out of the starter system in the Hammerhead with MkII Mining Lasers, Tachyon broadsides, Null-G boosters, and ramming shields. So far, it feels like I'm playing more of a fighter game and the optimal play is to get my mining lasers into range of the target and let them core out the shields for me while I spam tachyon shots at them, but the mining lasers are still doing most of the work. While it works great for killing other capital ships quick, adv. gunship swarms are rough and taping down the flak button seems to do gently caress-all.

Switch ships to the Icarus or Tennhausen? Use HS secondaries? EMP flak? switch turrets? Switch broadsides? The mining lasers just put out so much damage (is it me, or should mining lasers be the hull-only damage beam?) that its hard to not just ram enemies and let them go to work while I watch.

Following the middleweight hulls through Tennhausen before a Minotaur and using their mobility to get mining lasers up near capital ship blind spots, Neutron broadsides quickly became fighter swatting machines for me. Decent range to snipe them and trim down the most dangerous missile ships before getting into the thick of it. Fighter and gunship swarms end up being harder than capital ships until your gear really takes off because you can always abuse capital ship blindspots, but a fighter or gunship is going to be constantly attacking you once it gets in range.

With turret hardpoints coming at a premium on something like the Tennhausen compared to other more turret loaded hulls at a similar cost, I found a generalist loadout of a couple mining lasers with balance pulse turrets to be a decent loadout, and at a certain point of upgrades your pulse turrets will autonomously swat fighters while you work on jockeying around up capital ship tail pipes. You can swap in particle lasers (or found viridian lasers if you are so lucky) in for as many pulse turrets as you feel comfortable with but going the specialist damage type route with so few turret hardpoints is more of a gamble, and usually based on something like a shieldbuster on manual control.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 00:49

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

mp5 posted:

Just picked this up on the Steam Sale.

I'm finding trade to be kind of a pain in the rear end, but it definitely seems like the best/most reliable way to make money. I think the most irritating thing about it is that stations often only have 1-2 items in stock of desirable commodities, so I have to do laps around a sector to fill up my hold. Even reliably having just 10-15 Tachyon Salt would be way better than hoping they even have 1.

I'm assuming the best way to do it is to run laps around stations, then go to another sector where prices are super high for the item you've stocked up on?

If you like space trucking, join the Merchant's Guild and do their space trucking missions. You have a choice of them supplying a large amount of material to you to just take somewhere, or else a request to source your own small amount of material by buying it yourself and take it somewhere. So you can take the second option if you don't want it to be totally brainless. It will also add blockades to the destination station so maybe be prepared for that.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 02:35

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Kesper North posted:

They have to be at least 2km away, though, and you can't be moving at full speed even in an Arcturus. The closer they are, the harder they are to hit, because transversal.

Even with the laser flavor broadsides? They seem to be perfectly tracking if you charge them up and I recall melting countless fighters in my grill while flying at flank toward a capital ship with neutron broadsides.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 02:09

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Kesper North posted:

Yes, I'm playing right now and I miss consistently with broadsides under 1.5km, and most of the time up to 2km.

I'm confused now because I just loaded up my old save and, after turning off all the turrets that didn't want me getting close to fighters, was consistently nailing them with neutron broadsides below 1km with the only issue being the broadside targeting getting creative about who it thought I was aiming at. They're instant travel and have perfect tracking when fully aimed so I'm not sure where the room for a miss is.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 02:44

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Spend all your equipment money all the time, there's no depreciation on anything so if you don't like it you can go trade in to what you had, or quickly move to better things.

But also make sure you have money left over to fill all the turret slots after an upgrade, or you will just end up with a worse ship overall. Also keep in mind that in general higher Mk. gear is more important than bigger hulls. Better gear is a straight numerical advantage, while different hulls are more akin to a strategy shift, hopefully to something you prefer over the last one.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2016 22:53

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

No matter what loadout, its always good to remember that you can ultimately define the engagement distance with smart booster use, honestly no matter your ship class. I found early on that it isn't really fighters tearing me apart as much as torpedo fighters and gun boats with missiles, so you can snipe them with a medium-long range broadside, then wade in to the fighter swarm and/or capital ships where your mining lasers can take things apart faster than any pulse cannon will. With a mining laser prioritized loadout, pulse still finds a use to keep pressure on downed shields when they leave the range of mining lasers.

As capital ship enemies get bigger, you can start doing things like parking lateral in their tail pipe while your broadsides and mining lasers carve them up and they can't bring 75% of their firepower to bear against you.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 21:14

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

I think the Minotaur is the popular next step for getting bigger, and the one I went with.

If you don't like the prospect of going bigger and slower, you can punch up to nearly anything in the storyline with a Sturville with some smart equipping and playing. Its got a good amount of hardpoints for being competitive in taking out shields with a balanced loadout, or gearing for hull damage with a manual shield buster missile if you want to get fiddly.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 17:13

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 16:11

zedprime: Jun 9, 2007; yospos

Haledjian posted:

I just got this game! I'm still in the starting ship. I really like the game so far.

I'm a little confused by some stuff. When I shoot bad guys with my beam turrets it seems like they get wiped out in a second, but when I hit them with pulse broadsides it seems like it doesn't do much damage by comparison (both are Mk2). I'm also not clear on the "health bar" of the enemy ships. Does that represent shields? Does the little icon with the 4 quadrants represent their shields? In most of my fights so far it's felt like my weapons have no effect right up until that bar suddenly drops very fast and they die. What should I be looking for when I am shooting aliems.

Blue quadrants are shields on that side. White quadrants are armor plating on that side. Hull only goes down when both of those are depleted on the side you are striking.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 23:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Rebel Galaxy - Freelancer and Firefly had a baby

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