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 House of the Dying Sun is developed by Marauder Interactive, which is (as far as I know) a one man band: Mike Tipul, former Bungie developer and goon under the name of Kairo. It was first announced in 2012 under the name Enemy Starfighter, originally looking like Rainbow Six levels of planning crossed with Homeworld and a healthy dose of TIE Fighter, but with Roguelike style permadeath.  Fast forward to PAX 2013, and Kairo is showing off builds of the game featuring VR support. The game at that stage was a story of a dominant Empire on a penitent crusade wiping out all life in its way. April 2014 sees press outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and Scott Manley getting hands on with the game, and they enjoy a very different version than the one we got: A kind of node-based FTL style game, where you pick your targets and build up your forces by taking on bounties. After that, a period of radio silence on gaming news websites. On Twitter, his streams and the Enemy Starfighter thread we are still kept up to date as to the state of the game. Kairo doubles down on the overworld, dynamic roguelike aspects, introduces hostile fleet patrols, stealth, a dynamic soundtrack by Olivier Zuccaro whose credits include Space Hulk Deathwing and Diaspora: Shattered Armistice (the Battlestar Galactica total conversion for Freespace 2). Notably, it has lost the Rainbow Six style pre-mission planning, but instead it now has in-battle RTS control of your forces. Enemy Starfighter looks to become a classic. Then, radio silence again for a period of time. Kairo removes the overworld features, removes the roguelike aspects and the dynamic missions, a strictly scripted campaign is introduced that clocks in at most at a 4 hour playtime along with a wave-clear mode. Just as Enemy Starfighter was going to be a breathtaking game. House of the Dying Sun however, is simply good. Almost to match the change in scope, the narrative was also changed. Instead of a dominant empire's show of supremacy, this game is now about a vengeful remnant, here to drag the enemy into the ground with it. There will be at least 3 playthroughs of the game: One on Normal, one on Harbinger (Hard mode) and one on Dragon (Fighters only). Dragon mode gameplay will be done in VR via the HTC Vive to show off the game's VR implementation. Table of Contents: Equipment Part 0 Warlord - Part 1 (Video) Warlord - Part 2 (Video) Warlord - Part 3 (Video) Warlord - Part 3 (Video) Warlord - Part 4 (Video) Warlord - Finale (Video) Harbinger - Part 1 (Video) Harbinger - Part 2 (Video) Harbinger - Part 3 (Video) Harbinger - Part 4 (Video) Harbinger - Finale (Video) Dragon (VR) - Part 1 (Commentary) (No-Commentary) Dragon Mode (VR) - Finale (Commentary) (No-Commentary) HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 20:04 on May 3, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 18:37
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 INTERCEPTORS: "...the personification of the Harbinger fleet, our Executors danced through the battlefield like angels of death, felling heretic fighters and capitals alike." PRIMARY WEAPONS:  - AC-1437 AUTOCANNON: Fires fast moving kinetic slugs that possess average range and damage characteristics.SECONDARY WEAPONS:  - DG-FLC BLUNDERBUSS: Flechette cannons are imprecise, savage weapons. Magnetically accelerating shrapnel using the vessel's drive engines is both simple and extremely dangerous. - 6B-VII FURY MISSILES: Also known as the Yellowjacket, the 6B-Fury launcher delivers variable salvos of anti-fighter warheads to the intended target, chopping through shields but struggling against hull. Because of their renowned tracking ability, FURY MISSILES excel at dismantling enemy drones. - 4985J ECM-PULSE: Imperial bounty hunters often equip their vessels with ECM Pulse cannons that disable their targets, preparing them for boarding operations.HEAVY WEAPONS: - DKE-SCARAB TORPEDO: Scarab torpedoes are designed to provide our fighters with situational heavy strike capabilities. They are old technology and easily countered by point defense systems. - F4-PURIFIER BOMB: Purifier Bombs were the Empire's answer to the dense flak screens prevalent during the last insurrection. They are engineered to withstand heavy point defense fire, but are slow and possess no internal guidance systems. DESTROYERS: "...the wall of obstinate destroyers protected the Dominus while its engines were being brought back online." PRIMARY WEAPONS: - AR-GRE HEAVY AUTOCANNON: It is the larger, capital-sized version of the cannons equipped on our fighters. - AF-2 TORPEDO: It allows the bearer to pummel shields from long range. They are ineffective against hull and extremely vulnerable to point defense.SECONDARY WEAPONS: - PR.MK4 POINT DEFENSE CANNON: A super heated element is suspended in plasma in the center of the round. Upon hitting light armor, the element ignites and severely burns the outer hull from the inside out. - OMNIFLAK: Omniflak has been used for nearly two centuries to deter both pirates and missile-class weaponry. FRIGATES: "...the lances carved through even the hardest armor plating, like the Emperor's sword through the flesh of his enemies during the First Culling. PRIMARY WEAPONS: - DF-EMBER LANCE: A hundred stars. Their births, their lives, their deaths brought to bear at a target. Extremely effective against both shield and hull, provided the frigate can get within firing range. - 00A-T HEAVY ARTILLERY: This allows our frigates to stay at range and deliver exceptional destruction to enemy hulls.SECONDARY WEAPONS: - PR.MK4 POINT DEFENSE CANNON: A super heated element is suspended in plasma in the center of the round. Upon hitting light armor, the element ignites and severely burns the outer hull from the inside out. - OMNIFLAK: Omniflak has been used for nearly two centuries to deter both pirates and missile-class weaponry.
HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Apr 2, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 18:38
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Warlord - Part 1 Reveille: The numbness in your mind is flushed away by a combination of stimulants and familiarity. Have you been here before? The Miser: TRAITOR LORD THUL has been given charge of the frontier territories and is running inspections on the rich ore cluster he inherited. Purge him. Raid at Su'Meer's Cloud: A new waystation is in the early stages of construction at SU'MEER'S CLOUD. Destroy the caches, purge the workers. The Cartographer: INV LANCER has captured the TRAITOR LORD JOR, but it has been disabled in hostile territory. INV HANGMAN is being sent to recover the prisoner. Defend it. 10 TRAITOR LORDS REMAIN Codex: I: "The Dragon arises only for war. It lives in a killing trance old as the Emperor Himself. When the Emperor is troubled, the Dragon awakes. When the Emperor is satisfied, the Dragon sleeps. -Errika of Rydirr, Imperial Skald # "NNI-8860 Imperial-grade transmission halo with soul shunt. Superconductor carapace flushed with condensed superfluid helium. Quantum stasis system. One occupant. Permanent seal." -Specifications of the Dragon's Cask. II: Rhaal'tum Prime is the Emperor's throneworld. From the Thousand Palaces the Imperial elite controls all trade. Whoever controls Rhaal'tum controls the Empire." -Errika of Rydirr, Imperial Skald # "The Indifferent Stroke: strike, succeed, withdraw, the enemy quivers to know that she was wholly ignored, might never have existed at all. Supersensibility. How can it be? The Dragon proceeds exactly where it must, as if it has practiced the fight a hundred times before this first. The Bone Road. One executor bears the Dragon, now another, now the first again: death from many points, turning like a pulsar, and you cannot find one body to kill." HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 20:36
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Bloody Pom posted:Speaking of Diaspora, any plans on doing that one some day? Probably only if I do Freespace 2, which would mostly be a blind playthrough. It's a bloody good game but I've just never gotten around to playing past 'Slaying Ravana'.
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Mar 26, 2017 20:41
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Warlord - Part 2 The Cleric: The CLERIC's firey sermons were left unchecked and now the traitor cannot help but gloat. Silence him and his defenses so we may loot his outpost later. The Builder: DUCHESS MORVO didn't build the traitor flagships, she built the hidden factories that did. Spies report she is setting up a new factory in Koth. Bring her back alive, but do not spare the crew. The Masters At Arms: COUNT AND COUNTESS URSUUL are taking possession of their bribes. Find out what they were owed, then eliminate them both. 6 TRAITOR LORDS REMAIN ENEMY STARFIGHTER - GUNSIGHTS The original website for the game is gone. Everything before August 2013 was wiped. However, I distinctly recall a blog post in March 2013 discussing different types of aiming. The first is the standard "Point here to hit" lead indicator, which we've seen in a variety of games before including Freespace 2. But in the post, Kairo mentioned a superior alternative: a tracking sight.  This is not the original comparison gif, that was lost to time. However the sight is visible in this early gif. The way it works is that you aim by placing that sight over the target. It was said to be superior to the alternative lead indicator because it leads to players looking at the target vessel rather than an indeterminate space ahead of the target. The same concept applies to modern day radar assisted gunsights. Sadly, this appears to have been removed in favor of the Sidewinder style growl when on target, which leads to random aiming in a general direction until you hear the growl, similar to searching for the green "on target" light in TIE Fighter. A shame. Also, you can use your own names in-game: Navigate to the Dying Sun folder, dyingSun_Data > StreamingAssets > callsigns. As such, I'll take submitted callsigns for the following classes of vessel: Interceptors, Destroyers and Frigates. Include your class and callsign, and be aware that Frigates are rarer than Destroyers which are rarer than Interceptors. HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 18:17
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thetruegentleman posted:Thanks to both of you; I hope we get to see some get whacked! They'll all be taken down on the Harbinger run, which we'll do upon completion of the Warlord run. nweismuller posted:Yeah, the fate of becoming the Dragon is... deeply creepy. The Empire is not a nice institution. At this point I doubted the existence of the Dragon, and thought it was a creation of future myth, similar to a certain other story from a certain other jet fighting game. ModeWondershot posted:I will say that this game's art style and presentation had me sold (I'm hoping for an OST release), and the gameplay is quite solid, but you do want to go in expecting a fairly short runtime. Wait no longer. Veloxyll posted:This does look pretty great. May have to pick it up. Unless you're into horde mode or have VR, wait for a sale. The game's great, but I would not recommend it without VR due to how limited the playtime is. We're two updates in and at a rate of 3 missions per video we're already down to 6 Traitor Lords left. It's been about 50 minutes, and would be faster if I weren't cocking up or talking over it. My first run was 2 hours and ten minutes long, and going back and doing everything on Harbinger added on just an hour and a half more.
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Mar 30, 2017 21:45
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Warlord, Part 3 The Broodmother: PRIESTESS HARA has been spotted training prototype drones in the Firelands. Purge her. The Quartermaster: The insurrectionists offered LORD VOL the contents of the Julheim Vault for looking the other way, and he became obscenely rich. Instruct him on just how poor his choice was. The Templar: The TEMPLAR from Koth is running repairs at OUTPOST GHOL. We have a limited amount of time before her carrier's systems are brought back online. INV ZEALOT has been dispatched to assist you in eliminating the heretic. 3 TRAITOR LORDS REMAIN Codex: III "Most faithful friend, most dangerous foe. My Dragon. Do you remember when we were not ourselves? Who else remembers that I was ever not the Emperor? I remember when you were not yet my Dragon. I am the only one. Do you ever wish that you could die? Or do you wish, my Dragon, do you pray instead that the war will never end?" V "In the beginning, all things were equal. One thing, ylem, and one force, unity. Because all things were the same, nothing could want anything. So ylem became matter, and unity divided into four parts. Our Emperor is the culmination of the universal tendency towards inequity. It is proper and good that He should rule." — First Axiom of Praise # "O Dragon, once you called me a slaver. But would you fight so well if you left your hosts any will of their own? You possess my warriors and fly them to victory. I possess my citizens and guide them to the future."
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Mar 31, 2017 22:10
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Samovar posted:What's the exact mechanics of the warp out ability? You cannot warp out if members of your fleet have disabled engines, and you cannot warp out if your path is obstructed. E: Update on the previous page.
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Mar 31, 2017 23:13
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ManxomeBromide posted:Do engines self-repair over time, or are you expected to go mercy-kill them on the way out? They do repair, but I think it's something daft like 30 seconds, which is a lot in this game.
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Apr 1, 2017 10:30
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Warlord, Part 4 Slaughter at Tannhauser Gate: Transport ships that may be carrying families of high-ranking traitor officers are moving through TANNHAUSER GATE. Send a message. Send a few. Blockade Run at Bastille Gate: Our last dreadnought, INV VINDICTUS has been outfitted with scourge warheads and is the only way to the throneworld is through BASTILLE GATE. Thankfully, you've caught them by surprise. See to it that the VINDICTUS makes the crossing. Last Stand at Ol's Shelter: Compete against other Dragons in a randomly-generated daily challenge. How long can you survive? Each TRAITOR LORD kill adds time to your host uplink terminination timer. Destroying secondary BOUNTY TARGETS will reward you with fleet-wide bonuses. Codex: VI: "The star trade is the blood of my Empire and the nobles are the blood of their house. I decree a union of blood. All the great nobility shall be Interfaced, so that they may live as one with their ships. Thou shall keep only one copy of thy soul. Thou shall keep it in one fixed place. Thou shalt not possess the unwilling body, unless thou art my Dragon." # "Whensoever one of My Worlds joins a rebellion, I shall take as penitence a thousand years of their memory. Whensoever one of My Worlds sparks a rebellion, my Royal Guard shall rain devastation until no life remains." ENEMY STARFIGHTER - Wave Clear There's a lot I can say about the Wave Clear mode, and its daily challenge mentality. Originally, the campaign mode itself was to have a daily challenge setup with procedurally generated systems. In mid 2014, Scott Manley was given access to the game's wave clear mode. You can really see the similarities to the current implementation but most strikingly its differences, which I believe amount to a superior product. I recommend you view this for yourself and come to your own decisions, but I find that the system within the video rights all of the wrongs with this implementation of "Challenge Mode".
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Apr 2, 2017 14:11
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Warlord, Finale The Physician: The Emperor is dead, so the court physician should be as well. Slay LORD MONTRIENN and his CENSORS while he visits a waystataion in KOTH. He likely knows you're coming, and is an excellent marksman. The Prince: HIGH PRINCE OL is overseeing a transfer of hidden treasury reserves at OUTPOST KARAHDOR. He is also field testing a prototype interceptor, but this may be the only chance we have to catch him. Kill him and his carrier of fanatics, the FNV VENDETTA. Inferno at Rhal'tuum Prime: They know you're coming, and there's nothing they can do now. Extinguish the light of the throneworld. Codex - Entries IV and VII 0 TRAITOR LORDS REMAIN
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Apr 3, 2017 21:39
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Crazy Achmed posted:I thought the implication was not that the Dragon started the rebellion as part of a master plan, but rather that the Dragon wouldn't have fought so hard or ruthlessly if it didn't also end up in Rhal'tuum getting blown up. More a target of opportunity thing than a root cause. Yeah, I've just got a minor cold, so don't expect any updates for another few days. Still planning on Harbinger difficulty. One thing I'd like to comment on, I love the fact that there are so many different interpretations that one can draw from the Codex entries plus the ending options. Personally, I prefer the last one since that honestly encapsulates the reason why I think everyone should play the game at some point. It's 40% off at the moment and I could not recommend it more at that price point. nweismuller posted:Are more codex entries unlocked at higher difficulty? This Empire officially gives me the creeps, given what the Emperor's power appears to be built on. The Codex is complete now. We know the full backstory. All that is left is the last remaining interpretations, the last two ending options.
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Apr 8, 2017 14:18
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Harbinger, Part 1 Commodore Freyv: Traitor flagship that launches support corvettes which carry repair drones. Commodore Asgauth: Shielded flagship. Commodore Elduette: Appeared to be a vanilla flagship. Didn't notice anything special about it. Enemy Starfighter - Podding  dyingsun.com - February 13th, 2014 posted:One thing missing from the game was a satisfying currency reward loop for killing fighters. The tumble alone felt good and you earned points for it, but a new layer has been added: the escape pod. As mentioned before, shooting escape pods was the form of currency generation back when the game featured a different main currency: Dread. Dread was a representation of the fear you generated within the enemy forces as you cleared a path through enemy space. You would then spend the acquired dread at certain rips in space, called Warrens. This was used for things such as new ships, including interceptors, destroyers, frigates and dreadnoughts.  Escape pods would be automatically taken out by the interceptor's now removed point defense system. In the game's current form, escape pods are only used by the traitor flagships, and you must take them out with manual fire or the AI will kill them. This is a very minor change, but I personally feel that the loss of the escape pods detracts greatly from the feeling of being the bad guy, which even in this version of the game you clearly are. Here's a video of a build featuring the escape pod mechanics circa 2014. Unfortunately, the VoDs that were not marked as videos have since been lost due to Twitch wiping a lot of their older content, and only some of the 2014 streams remain. It's a damned shame too, as the 2015 builds of the game were the most promising of the original vision. More on that later. HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 18:38
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Harbinger, Part 2 Lord Commodore Seigfast: Shield and torpedoes, with Ember Lance equipped destroyers as escort. Lord Commodore Ganuun: Standard Traitor Flagship with a carrier escort. Traitor Admiral Anruns: Railguns and torpedoes, shielded with Ember Lance equipped destroyer escort. Enemy Starfighter - Campaign The campaign was the greatest betrayal from the original idea of Enemy Starfighter, and it really was a betrayal atop betrayal. In its original form, it was very much Rainbow Six crossed with Homeworld. Your initial job would be that of the Flight Officer in TIE Fighter, carefully assigning a meticulously planned strike package to complete missions. Missions would be randomly generated, and losses would be permanent. This initial hook in 2012 would take a radical turn in February 2014, which is when Kairo switched his plan from Rainbow Six in space to, as he described it, 'Grand Theft Starfighter'. He can describe it better than I: Grand Theft Starfighter - Feb 13, 2014 posted:Battle-planning has been replaced with hunting and hiding. Before, each battle was fed to you via a simple mission generator and menu. It wasn't dynamic, lacked tangible persistence, and it certainly didn't fulfill the fantasy of being a starfighter harassing the enemy deep in their territory. I can go into this in detail if people want, but I won't bore you with that here. There were also separate factions, including on the enemy side (System patrol craft defending certain targets, Lane Marshalls which would defend jump gates and investigate disturbances and the Nobles that would fortify themselves at the jump gate, and IIRC some would proactively hunt you). It's a drat shame the stream VoDs are gone now, but I'll try my best to describe the starmap gameplay from memory: You would strike supply locations and the such, undefended and weak depots, and you'd have a time limit to take out enemy ships in the area. Go beyond that time limit, and enemies can call for reinforcements and alert the main enemy fleet. As you were fighting, the music ramped up and either calmed down or went full you've hosed up the entire fleet is after you run like hell. You'd then go back to the Warren, use the dread you accumulated by smashing enemy outposts to build up a fleet strong enough to take out the enemies guarding the jump gate, and your goal was to eliminate the High Kings, or High Lords of the region. During that time, Kairo likened it to MGS' alert system. You'd also pick a noble house within the Empire, which would determine starting gear. You'd find and purchase upgrades. You would feel an increase of power throughout the game, tangibly, through the process of the game. It was around September 2015 that things began to change. Kairo states that he received "consistent feedback" as to the "campaign mode framework". In November, he said: "Kairo - November 29th, 2015 posted:Early in September, the game was the equivalent of a film studio getting a 4 hour first edit of a film. There were a lot of good ideas mixed in with a lot bad ones, and mostly it wasn't cohesive and it lost a lot of my playtesters. So I'm trying to edit that meandering 4 hour cut into 80 minutes of focused awesome which is really tricky. In February, it was: "Kairo - February 27th, 2016 posted:The campaign has received considerable iteration and simplification based on the feedback I received. It's where I've been spending 90% of my time, and I'm hitting a milestone with it very soon. Over the course of four years, a whole game was shelved, made, scrapped, and then made from the patchwork resulting from all of that a linear campaign was made. 14 missions. Upgrades purchasable before missions. The results of each mission are totally negligible. Now, Kairo cites TIE Fighter, a game that was 22 years old at that point, and still delivered a game with less content than its smallest expansion pack, Defenders of the Empire, which was released in 1995. Furthermore, unlike these two old games, there is no way to make your own missions in House of the Dying Sun. Originally, Enemy Starfighter would have infinite content with a narrow scope. Kairo decided to widen that scope, still with infinite content. That widening required the game to be narrowed further (no variety in strike craft loadouts for example, no bombers etc.) to be a streamlined experience for its new nature. Then, the game was re-narrowed to generate "memorable encounters" a la TIE Fighter and Dark Souls. Kairo posted:Some kinds of combat are great with the volatility of randomness, like Diablo. But compare that with something like Dark Souls, which is superficially similar, but utterly dependent on level design. But IMO, it has WAY better combat. Bloodborne was interesting because they tried to RNG with the the chalice dungeons and it fell kinda flat. TIE and Freespace have similar combat sandboxes, which is why they require someone to actually do the work and design fun combat. Now, I've LP'd TIE Fighter and I've played Dark Souls. I can tell you for a fact that I can only recall three missions: One because it was loving bullshit, and the other two because they have memorable dialogue. Dark Souls is not remembered for its "memorable encounters" outside of certain bosses or bullshit enemy placement (especially 3, gently caress the gold guys on the bridge). It's remembered for the world and writing. I remember Anor Londo because that place was cool, I don't remember Blighttown because of where they put a zombie. I only remember four of 14 levels in Dying Sun and I'm playing through it presently. Those are the first one (because of the rocks), The Cleric (because of that massive rock), The Masters at Arms (because of the rocks), and the last one (because of the genocide). This is a minor detail, but Kairo wanted to change the colours from Red vs Blue (and the player being Red) because of confusion in focus testing. There was minor outrage when it was changed to be more generic, but then Kairo settled on Orange vs Blue. The changes to the campaign map happened because: Kairo posted:This. You were essentially be spending a minute or two doing the equivalent of sneaking around a box in Metal Gear while a guard checks out a noise. In MGS, that takes 4-5 seconds. It's one of those things that sounds great on paper, and even when you're first working on it. It could still be neat, but I also think a lot of these mechanics are just way better in something that's not an action space game. Kairo posted:Also, the warping around is a nice fantasy, but it utterly failed all sorts of playtesting. People had a hard time mastering it, and even then they thought it was boring. One of my testers literally turned around and asked if they could go back and play the PAX demo level. Ouch. Kairo posted:Friends, family, colleagues. And so Kairo cut out the old Campaign to appease his testers. The same ones who couldn't tell themselves apart from the enemy because the colours deviated slightly from the norm. I'm never going to argue that QA isn't an important aspect of game design, it is, but we lost a fantastic game because of it.
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Apr 13, 2017 17:22
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RBA Starblade posted:To be honest, I don't think we did. I didn't follow it particularly closely but I'd rather have 14 set levels than infinite "maybe this one's fun" ones or having to do some tactical space stealth action before combat. My main issue isn't that the procedural campaign was lost, is that something that had that level of effort put into it didn't replace it. I would be fine with a TIE Fighter style campaign game, but this game totally lacks all that made TIE Fighter compelling. All this game has is great space combat. The encounters are not great and memorable, nor are they lengthy. Challenge mode is great but it isn't compelling as there are many faults with it, such as the inability to reinforce your capital ships. The 14 set levels are all verging on "okay" and are extremely samey and are beatable in just under two hours on normal. Meanwhile, TIE Fighter's base game is 36 levels, beatable in 11 hours. I'd rather have infinite "maybe this one's fun" than less than two hours worth of "eh that was alright", and tactical space stealth action is loving dope.
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Apr 13, 2017 19:05
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RBA Starblade posted:I beat the game in three, I think. So let's say another 3 one difficulty up. Then one again. That seems to be how it's expected to be played, it's a pretty arcadey set up, like Star Fox or Afterburner. Great, but you can do the same with TIE Fighter. E: Oh, and TIE Fighter even adds new objectives to shake the missions up. This game does not. Also, Star Fox (not sure about Afterburner) had branching paths. This doesn't: it's just a bloody mission select screen with a nonsensical unlock order. RBA Starblade posted:That's all I really wanted. Same, so the game should've adopted the format that would've allowed that to shine better: Procedural mission generation like the original pitch. The missions themselves are all just "alright" with that last one in the video being the height of bloody tedium unless you're going after Traitor Flagships, and a certain other one coming up being a pain in the arse without the gap drive, again especially if you're going after Traitor Flagships. HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Apr 13, 2017 |
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Apr 13, 2017 19:25
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PurpleXVI posted:Of course, it's hard to tell how close they actually were to the original pitch. Could've been they eventually found they just weren't able to pull it off well and then used "uhhhhh, QA told us to change it!" as an excuse to swap to something they were more confident of actually being able to execute. Because the original pitch did sound pretty ambitious for a small group. Kairo had made the campaign, the second pitch. It was playable. He streamed it on multiple occasions. The original pitch wasn't actually that ambitious, it's pretty much what we got now. RBA Starblade posted:Isn't this a level right now minus that extra time mechanic? Yes, but the mission doesn't matter. You just complete it, and that has no bearing on the rest of the game, plus the missions are far too easy so long as you aren't going for those later stage targets like the Traitor Flagships. RBA Starblade posted:Cool, I never played it actually but I don't think it's a problem two of that kind of game exists now. The game's made by one guy over years, I think not having the output of Lucasarts is forgivable. That's not the problem. The problem is a game that is now old enough to drink in America has more content than a brand new game, a game which has had plenty of time to build said content but because Kairo scrapped what he had worked on for two years after re-working what he had built for the two years before that and then came to Early Access half a year after gutting the core of the game, we got a product lacking in quantity. My argument isn't that I wish we got the procedural content. My argument is that the current content is not the equal to the effort put into that procedural content. This is the best loving space (fighter) combat out there, and we only get two hours of it. That's a damned shame regardless of what you think.
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Apr 13, 2017 21:00
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Harbinger, Part 3 Traitor Admiral Bergautur - Eh. Traitor Admiral Alfmundur - Ah. Princess Admiral Du Moch - gently caress it, they were all pretty damned similar. House of the Dying Sun - Upgrades  We've seen this screen a lot, but I've never spent much time on it. This is the upgrade system within House of the Dying Sun, from left to right: TOP ROW: Energy Shields: Developed millenia ago, energy shields function by disrupting quantum fields around the vessel. Energy shields are extremely effective against high-velocity ballistic weapons, making them popular defensive measures against pirates. Juggernaut Armor: Highly effective armor. (+50% max hull vitality, -70% afterburner power (fighters), -30% max speed (capitals), -10% incoming AOE damage) Armor Piercing Rounds: Rounds ignite a nanosecond after impact, which allow them to burrow into heavy armor before exploding. The effect is minimal when striking small, lightly armored craft. +75% bonus damage to structures, capital ships, containers. Shield Piercing Rounds: Our priests have discovered that coating our rounds with plasma from a dying star will further their effectiveness against enemy shield systems. )+250% shield damage.) Bomber Chassis: (Fighters Only) The fighter's outer hull is modified to house additional heavy rounds. (+1 heavy ammo) SECOND ROW: Shield Extender: Requires Shield System Upgrade - Expands the target vessel's shield battery capacity but makes the shield slower to recharge. Stun time is the interval between taking damage and when the shield will begin recharging. (+100% max energy, -20% recharge rate, +100% recharge stun time) Carapace Armor: Only one of Rhal'tuum IV's apex predators has ever been brought back for study, and only then because it was already dead. Advances in light impact armor can be attributed to this magnificent creature. (+20% max hull vitality, +10% afterburner power (fighters), -40% max speed (capitals), -95% incoming AOE damage) Modified Cooling intake: Engine housing has been modified to expose more surface area to the frigid black without sacrificing defense. (+30% fighter engine thrust, +75% capital engine thrust) Betrayer Module: This upgrade allows our interceptors to capture enemy sentry guns by flying within a short distance. (Campaign Only) Eventually, the sentry's AI defense systems recover and destroy the compromised cannon. Autocannon Drone: Autocannon drones excel versus light targets but they are highly susceptible to hostile flak. (+1 Autocannon drone) BOTTOM ROW: Flak Drone: Flak Drones are engineered to provide point defense coverage versus small targets such as missiles or enemy drones. As a secondary function, they are used to shoot down escape pods. (+1 Flak drone) Repair Drone: Repair drones seal breaches by melting pre-applied compounds on the outer hull. Drone AI will prioritise its owner's target before switching over to repair-at-will mode. (+1 Repair drone) Kamikaze Chassis: A fighter may be modified to house impact gel below its armor plating. When the chassis crumples, the gel activates and ignites the payload. (+2,500 fighter collision damage, +3,000 damage per heavy round, -80% max hull vitality) Gap Drive: Fighters with Gap Drives may blink to a target. Engines are modified to expend bursts of energy which project gravity fields around the vessel, causing exploitable instability in space-time. USAGE: Face your intended target and double-tap the warp/movement ability button. Gap Drive Reset: Gap Drive instabilities may be reignited by focusing dispersion arrays toward a nearby engine meltdown. (Gap drive resets when fighter scores kill) Every ship class can carry two upgrades, but only two upgrades. And you cannot specify which ships get what upgrades, its the same for the whole class. So you can't have a pair of support destroyers and an attacker, or a kamikaze bomber interceptor and a pair of escorts. It's all or nothing. An over simplification in the name of streamlining, a conscious decision, or a development oversight? I'd like to know what you all think it is. E: also youtube randomly cut out the first 5 seconds of the video which is always fun, thanks youtube HerpicleOmnicron5 fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 15, 2017 23:39
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Harbinger, Part 4 Traitors Prince Aum and KINGSCLONE B1: Nothing here of note other than Aum having a jammer frigate and us fighting a clone of the "King." House of the Dying Sun - Writing This one is phoned in considering I'm really running out of material to discuss the differences between HotDS and Enemy Starfighter/its evolution. I just rediscovered through trawling through the old thread that General Battuta (Who has worked on Blue Planet War in Heaven, a Freespace 2 mod,considered to be one of the best FS2 campaigns) is credited for writing the Codex and stuff. If so, then he's pretty drat good at what he does. Regarding the poll last time, it's interesting that a majority of people blame streamlining for the limits on the upgrade system. I'm actually of the opinion that it is a conscious decision rather than simplification. In Kairo's devblogs he often mentioned communicating information to the player as vital, and I personally believe that he found it difficult to communicate the different loadouts of each ship without a considerable amount of work going into the decision, which is why I think it was a conscious limitation of the scope of the game. Also it would make the game far too easy to exploit through cheesy strategies, like hanging back in a tank-like command interceptor with kamikazes killing assassination targets in a single pass, which makes an already easy game easier. Ignore the many defeats in this video and the ones before, incompetence does not make the game harder, only longer.
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Apr 19, 2017 22:12
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Harbinger, Finale Lord Commodore Naybard, Kingsclone A1, The Traitor King: Did I ever tell you the meaning of insanity? Doing the same fight over and over again expecting it to be more interesting. Still, that's us done with fighting traitor flagships, and that's us done with the tutorial of the game. Time for it to get real. Enemy Starfighter: Lineage You may recall from the previous episode, we had a glimpse of "House Vykarr" being the origin of the dreadnought. Unfortunately, this is an old mechanic I know very little of, and Kairo has dumped all of the old blog posts from his website for the game, making searching take a little longer than before. A shame, because his old blog posts were really insightful and interesting and now they're harder to access.  It's hard to make out what is said on that screen, harder still to figure out how it relates to the campaign, but I recall that one noble house started with shields and the other presumably did not at one stage. This would be an initial choice to determine starting loadouts, and would provide even more character to your empire. In terms of writing, its a good thing that was changed to "the Dragon", but its a shame that degree of character via lineage does not extend to at least the capital ships outside of that one dreadnought. Next up will be the Dragon difficulty playthrough, recorded in VR, commentated in post. After that, I'll be tackling the challenge mode a few times with several different equipment loadouts. Any two upgrades can be chosen for each class of ship. Priorities given to loadouts that you name.
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Apr 21, 2017 15:21
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Samovar posted:I await with baited breath to see what the last choice is on the hardest difficulty. Well, bad news because the VR version does not display many elements such as mission names, the loadout screen, the ending text, so it will take some time and editing to make things look right. It'll be next week that I put up the Dragon VR run.
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Apr 23, 2017 13:43
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Dragon Mode (VR): (Commentary) (No-Commentary) This time joined by JamieTheD in co-commentary. House of the Dying Sun - Windows 10 Creators Update: This game has had a major issue highlighted to me by the Windows 10 Creators update forcing me to reinstall Windows to run DirectX 11. You enter challenge mode with your fleet you amass through the campaign, with upgrades you unlock through the campaign. It isn't a separate mode, it's latched on to the main show. With my saves lost by the reinstall, I've lost all my upgrades and all the ships. I've played through the game 8 times now, I won't be playing through it again. Because of that, there will be no silly builds Challenge mode videos. Apologies.
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Apr 30, 2017 00:15
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Dragon Mode (VR) Finale: (Commentary) (No-Commentary) Once again joined by JamieTheD in co-commentary. House of the Dying Sun - The End: Kairo posted:A neat idea, but I really really really really want to close the game out nicely and work on something else. Something not space. Signing up for this much more space might break me. Kairo posted:Yeah, it's really annoying, and a lot of it is joysticks. Never again. Kairo posted:Gah. I upgraded my middleware to solve some of these throttle problems on the nutso CH/Thrustmaster sticks. It doesn't seem like it worked anyways, and it might have caused other issues. House of the Dying Sun came out and was highly regarded. It was a good game. Best in VR, but great on desktop as well. But it was a more casual affair than the X-Wings and Freespaces before it, not built for the joystick oriented crowd, but since it was a space game of course it needed joystick support or else people would go nuts. This has put off a great space developer from making more space games, from potentially reaching the wider scope before the linear campaign or putting out expansions to make use of those wonderful assets. But hang on: Kairo - Twitter, April 6th posted:Today marks 2 months working on the current prototype. Amazing how much faster it all goes when you've built these systems before. He's still doing a similar game that he can build from the skeleton of HotDS and Enemy Starfighter. I for one am greatly excited. Thanks for joining me in taking a look at this flawed gem of a game and its many quirks and developmental issues, and celebrating the successes of the game's feel and aesthetics. I'll be following the development of his new game with just as much attention, and hope that when it comes time to LP that there'll be more to gush over and less to criticise.
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May 1, 2017 20:23
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