Rebel Galaxy - Freelancer and Firefly had a baby

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

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Rebel Galaxy is an open-universe, space-trading and combat game by Double Damage Games (creators of the Torchlight series and featuring several designers from the original Diablo team).

From the developers:

quote:

Rebel Galaxy is a swashbuckling space adventure, with action-packed combat, exploration, discovery, trade, and �negotiation� with the outlandish denizens at the edge of the known universe.

Unlike most other games in this genre, where the player controls a small "space trucker" ship, in Rebel Galaxy you pilot a full-on capital ship, with broadside guns and turrets. There's a lot to do here: combat against ships and stations, trading within a dynamic economy, exploration, and a rich mission system with a full storyline-based campaign. Combat is real-time "naval" style -- it's more about tactics and positioning than twitchy shooting -- think Star Trek, not Star Wars.

The setting and style of the game is best described as "space western", sort of a mix of Firefly and Borderlands. The soundtrack is a mix of rockin' dive-bar blues. It fits the mood of the game perfectly. Don't care for that type of music? No problem. There's full support for custom soundtracks built in.

Rebel Galaxy is completely single-player, so don't expect it to be the next Elite: Dangerous or... uh... Star Citizen, but the universe Double Damage has created is very well fleshed-out.

Release Date: October 20, 2015
(Steam), TBD (PS4 and Xbone)

Platforms:
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/290300/
Playstation 4
Xbox One

Media:
Trailer
Giant Bomb (Quick Look video)
IGN (review - 8/10)

Twitch streams of Rebel Galaxy

Screenshots:

Data Sheets of All Flyable Ships: http://imgur.com/a/QaJho :siren:

Station Events: (stolen from Reddit)

quote:

ARCHEOLOGICAL FIND

- Prices Up: None
- Prices Down: Intellectual Property, Alien Artifacts, Religious Tracts
- Special: Spawns a Treasure Ship, which slowly travels to another station. When it arrives, a Tech Boom will begin. Destroying the Treasure Ship will prevent the Tech Boom.

ARMS RACE

- Prices Up: Ceramic Plating, Robots, Munitions, Nuts and Bolts
- Special: Spawns a Treaty Ship at another station, which slowly travels toward this one. When it arrives, it will end the Arms Race. Destroying the Treaty Ship will prolong the Arms Race.

CONVOY INCOMING

- Prices Up: None
- Prices Down: None
- Special: Spawns a convoy at another station, which slowly travels towards this one. When it arrives, a Market Glut event will begin. Destroying the convoy will prevent the Market Glut.

CRIME WAVE

- Prices Up: Space Slaves
- Prices Down: None
- Special: Spawns a blockade of Red Devil Cartel ships surrounding the station, which will fire on approaching Citizenry. Destroying the pirate ships will end the Crime Wave.
- Speculation: Other contraband goods may have their prices increased as well.

ECONOMIC BOOM

- Prices Up: Data Cubes, Robots, Ceramic Plating, Intellectual Property, Nano-Fibers
- Prices Down: Nuts and Bolts, Tachyon Salt
- Prices Change In Some Direction, But Not Very Much, So It's Hard To Tell Whic: Yikyak Meat, Pure Water, Greel Whiskey, Designer Clothes

FAMINE

- Prices Up: Soy Paste, Yikyak Meat, Tachyon Salt
- Prices Down: Space Slaves
- Special: Spawns a Relief Ship at another station, which slowly travels to this one. When the Relief Ship arrives, the Famine ends. Destroying the Relief Ship will prolong the Famine.

HUGE CELEBRATION

- Prices Up: Tachyon Salt, Narco-Cola, Designer Clothes, Meteoric Diamonds, Greel Whiskey
- Prices Down: None

KORIAN INVASION

- Prices Up: All! No, really, all of them!
- Prices Down: None
- Special: Spawns a fleet of Korian Outsiders moving towards this station, led by a flagship with a sizable bounty. When they arrive, they will begin a Korian Siege. Destroying the flagship will end the invasion and avert the siege.

KORIAN SIEGE

- Prices Up: N/A
- Prices Down: N/A
- Special: The fleet spawned by the preceding Korian Invasion lays siege to the station. The station will neither buy nor sell commodities until the siege ends. Destroying the flagship will break the siege.

MARKET GLUT

- Prices Up: None
- Prices Down: Munitions, Yikyak Meat, Tachyon Salt, Gold Ingots, Nuts and Bolts, Metallic Ores, Ceramic Plating, Data Cubes, Robots, Intellectual Property, Nano-Fibers, Obtainium, Designer Clothes, Meteoric Diamonds, Greel Whiskey, Pure Water

MILITIA EMBARGO

- Prices Up: All
- Prices Down: None
- Special: Spawns a fleet of Militia ships blockading the station, which was will fire on any approaching ships, regardless of your faction standings.

MINING RUSH

- Prices Up: Space Slaves
- Prices Down: Metallic Ores, Obtainium, Gold Ingots, Meteoric Diamonds

PIRATE LORD SIGHTED

- Prices Up: None
- Prices Down: None
- Special: Spawns a Pirate Lord near the station, heading towards another station. Pirate Lords command powerful ships, have very large bounties, and will drop cargo containers containing rare or unique weapons when destroyed.

TECH BOOM

- Prices Up: Intellectual Property
- Prices Down: Ceramic Plating, Data Cubes, Robots, Nano-Fibers

WAR

- Prices Up: Munitions, Nuts and Bolts, Robots, Bio-Waste
- Prices Down: Live Organs, Space Slaves
- Special: Spawns a Treaty Ship at another station, which slowly travels to this one. When the Treaty Ship arrives, the War ends. Destroying the Treaty Ship will prolong the War.
- Note: This event has no effect on surrounding space other than spawning the Treaty Ship. The war in question is occurring on the planet's surface, not in space.

WhiteHowler fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Nov 2, 2015

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 19:20

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 12:18

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Reason posted:

This game is only on a 2d plane though right? That feels really weird for a 3d game.

Yeah, although it's sort of "submarine style", where there is a shallow z-axis plane, allowing you to go over and under other ships. Turrets can be placed on the top or bottom of your ship, so z-positioning is still somewhat important in combat.

All of the systems and stations you can travel to are basically on a flat plane though.

After playing hundreds of hours of Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator, this doesn't bother me at all.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 20:13

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

This comes out in less than an hour on Steam.

The language in the developer's press releases makes it sound like the PS4 and Xbone versions launch today too, but I haven't seen anything on the respective stores yet. From what I've seen on Twitch, the game works just fine with a controller.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 16:23

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

OxMan posted:

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

The pre-release news press made it sound like there would be a simultaneous console release, but that ended up not happening. I've updated the OP.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 02:54

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

FrancoFish posted:

Nothing like FTL in the slightest, so get rid of that notion quick.

Yeah, I'd say the game is much more Freelancer in spirit, though it incorporates elements from a ton of other games. Other than the upgradeable ship, I can't think of any way this resembles FTL.

That said, FTL is possibly my all-time favorite game, and I love this, so...

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 05:44

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

The developers did a Reddit IAmA.

Highlights:

- Double Damage is literally two guys. They contracted a few jobs out, but the vast majority of the game was just them.

- Official mod support (Steam Workshop) is not planned, but they're not opposed to community mods, and they'll help where they can.

- Multiplayer expansion or DLC is unlikely.

- Improvements to the commodities screens (especially in/out of stock) are planned.

- Displaying the local map in-station is actually really difficult due to how they built the engine.

- The general rule when designing the Mk. X equipment upgrades was that each higher level is 1.5x as powerful and 3x as expensive.

- Game inspirations: * the Privateer/Freelancer series * Star Control 2 * Sid Meier's Pirates * Assassin's Creed Black Flag (for the naval combat)

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 03:51

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

I'm at 9 hours into the game and haven't left the first system yet. I keep meaning to finish the story missions, but then hey there's a distress signal and a war and a market glut and some pirates and...

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 21:32

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

I finally left the first system about 10 hours into the game. The mission payouts are much better now.

I upgraded from the Merchant Guild light hauler to a Barracuda, and it is SO much better. Slightly better firepower and so maneuverable that it's easy to swing around to expose different shield zones without letting up your assault for a second. With weapon and shield upgrades I think it'll last me for a while.

I also tried a bit of piracy for the first time. I saw a map marker called "Treasure Ship" and took it down, along with a few gunship escorts. It dropped a ton of Alien Artifacts, and the only penalty was a slight hit to my Merchant Guild faction. Score!

I love this game.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 16:21

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Patch 1.05 is out. Mostly minor bug-fixes.

quote:

1) Tactical options for all 16 turrets on Blackgate are available

2) Subsystem damage on turrets past 12 wasn't being stored, but now is

3) If you abandon a dead drop or retrieval mission then pick up the cargo AFTERWARD, it isn't marked for delivery, so you can eject or sell it. Also, retrieval mission cargo that gets jettisoned to a container due to other equipment on board the ship that was destroyed properly retains its tracking data

4) Can't bypass guild rank requirements in tradein situations

5) As a precautionary measure, if saves fail to compress at save time, don't write ANYTHING, to ensure that backups never get overrun. You will receive a message box in this circumstance, letting you know what happened.

6) If you have no missions, the on-station mission log won't erroneously show hidden mission data, and works the same as in-flight mission log now.

7) If you enter Charon, then immediately leave (or dock and undock), a gold diamond will be placed on the gate so that you don't have to go to the map to remember where it is.

8) Protect against an unbelievably rare chance that a mission could fail and complete at the same time

9) PC Steam Achievement stat resets fixed. I believe I've uncovered a Steam stats bug, which I've worked around now and it seems to work again. Very specific circumstances.

10) Mac Steam achievements should work again

11) Fix for scanning traders in a merchant protect mission after the mission is terminated causing a crash

12) Potential DX9 crash fixes for some users?

13) FIXED WEIRD SAVE PATH ISSUES!

14) Some new tweaks added to keep mission ships that are approaching you from following you ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE drat SOLAR SYSTEM if you decide to bug out.

15) Display of button on death screen was mapped to the 'A' control, not the 'Confirm' control which could lead to confusion if one was remapped. Also now always accepts ESC.

16) On dreadnaught ships w/ broadside beams there were cases where a near hit wouldn't register. Fixed.

17) Atmospheric damage scales w/ shield capacity, so that you don't become effectively invincible to atmo damage later.

18) Added camera zoom settings, just for you! (Located in the in-game settings submenu)

19) Can't run 2 simultaneous copies of the game. Sneaking suspicion this was how some folks got save corruption, by simultaneously trying to save on 2 copies at the same time (since both receive controller input)

(Note for users with 'leftover' delivery/dead drop components. These will 'clean up' upon loading a game, after there are no dead drop or delivery missions in your log, and no story missions that require any deliveries. After that they shouldn't recur)

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 04:23

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

HiroProtagonist posted:

I'm in loving with the Barracuda.

...

This ship is straight up money, and I think i'm going to hold on to it for a while.

The Barracuda is awesome, but try out the Sturville when you can. It's nearly as fast/maneuverable as the Barracuda, and it hits twice as hard.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 22:09

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Vire posted:

Oh ok weird guess you can get them some other way outside of pirate lords that lets them be 6?

I got one from a dreadnought drop during a mission, can't remember which race dropped it.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 15:59

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

After playing 40+ hours of this game, I have concluded that the "system average" is usually complete bullshit.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 06:29

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

What are you using for your secondary weapon? EMP Flak absolutely wrecks swarms of fighters, especially if you have a couple of pulse or flak turrets to wipe out the disabled ships.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 01:01

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Section Z posted:

I can understand how many people would get turned off from them in the early game though. Early game you only have 1 or 2 secondary ports, and you have to refill their ammo. Then you see Flak and think "Hey this is infinite ammo, cool!".

Later in the game once you got 3 or 4 secondary ports on nearly everything though, much, MUCH more impressive.

EMP Flak took me through basically the entire game. Fighters were never once an issue.

I did try out the dumbfire rockets, and they were fun, but killing capitals isn't difficult until everything's a dread right before the end of the game. And even then, it's more attrition than danger, and the fighter/gunship escorts are a lot more of a threat without EMP Flak.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 01:17

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Don't restart if you make a poor ship, weapon, or equipment purchase. You can sell anything back for the exact same price you bought it for (your ship value will be subtracted from the price of the next ship you buy, and you get a refund if you buy a cheaper ship).

# ¿ Dec 15, 2015 22:04

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Trading never really becomes a huge moneymaker. After the first couple of sectors, you can get far more cash in much less time by taking mission contracts.

Even the end-game goods don't bring in nearly as much money as running side missions.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 02:36

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

paranoid randroid posted:

dreadnoughts are basically "win harder" mode anyway. by the time you can afford one, everything dies to a couple broadsides.

Yeah, the game is beatable in basically any ship -- my well-equipped Sturville was having no trouble in the late-game systems. I'm sure people have finished the game in the starter ship.

I tried all of the dreadnoughts, but I kept going back to the Minotaur. It has the perfect balance of firepower and maneuverability.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 19:42

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Psion posted:

okay I just started this game and someone remind me, what's the best way to get into something fun? Get into sector 2 as fast as possible, join merc guild, get Sturville, party?

I want something fast and harder hitting than my Minotaur. I'm most of the way through the plot of sector 1 I think?

I don't think you're in a Minotaur. If you are and haven't left sector 1, uh, you've been in sector 1 WAY too long. Once you have the basics of the game down, get out of the first sector as quickly as possible.

My recommendation is to go Hammerhead (starter ship) -> Barracuda -> Sturville -> Minotaur.

Edit: Actually, you can't even buy the Minotaur sector 1, as it's a Mercenary faction ship.

Here's a ship list... http://rebelgalaxy.gamepedia.com/Ships

WhiteHowler fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 6, 2016

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 19:43

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Psion posted:

i'm in whatever costs 43,000 credits which I am probably naming wrong. Looks like it's a Mastadon?

hey it starts with M!

it's the cheapest Not The Starter Ship.

Yeah, the Mastodon.

Getting a bigger ship won't help much unless you can outfit it with new equipment. It's usually better to upgrade shields and broadsides/turrets first, then step up into a new hull.

Get into sector 2, run some missions -- smuggling/blockade missions are fast, easy, and pay well. Buy a few upgrades, and then get into a Scarab (which will make blockade running missions MUCH easer).

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 19:51

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Moochewmoo posted:

So I'm really struggling to make money via trading. I try and buy stuff below market average line, watch out for station having sales and such, but no one pays above average so I only make a fraction of what I could on goods.

Trading isn't a great way to make money. Run missions instead -- dead drops and blockade runs don't require you to have a particularly beefy ship (speed helps!) and you'll make money about ten times faster.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2016 16:25

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Agreed, the Minotaur is a spectacular ship, and it can easily last you through the end of the game.

It's definitely not as agile as the Sturville, but it can still move decently and is a beast in combat. I tried a couple of the Dreadnoughts, but I always went back to the Minotaur.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 17:24

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 12:18

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

Hmm... I added more trucker butt-rock.

Mojo Nixon, Reverend Horton Heat, Drive-By Truckers, and even some older Black Keys songs are perfect for this game.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2016 14:25

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