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Inspired by this thread I reinstalled and started a new game on the lowest baby difficulty level I got intercepted by a military ship that was bigger, faster, and tougher than I was while taking the arbiter to her first world and blown apart (couldn't deal nearly as much damage as them, couldn't outrun them, etc) Technically it wasn't a gameover but I took one look at the state of the ship, my newly depleted bank account, and how I had basically no crew left after not even finishing one mission and remembered why I uninstalled the game a ways back and peace-out'd Thank you thread
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Dec 24, 2021 05:24
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:58 |
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NmareBfly posted:You couldn't run away? I run away from everything early game, and I can't think of a time it didn't work to that degree. Also it's okay to surrender if you're seriously outclassed; you take a morale hit and lose cargo but it's way better than taking a drubbing and if you don't have expensive poo poo in your hold the downside is pretty minimal. If it's a military ship I don't think they even take legal cargo. Nope! I considered surrendering but I figured, it's early game, easiest difficulty, the game claims my engine and agility are better than theirs, I can just retreat. And then I uselessly hammered retreat every round while firing my popgun starting torpedoes and getting blasted to scrap metal. So that's funny too. I've given this game a lot of tries in the past but never got beyond what y'all would probably call early game; I have vague memories of progressing the main plot to the point where everyone comes together or whatever and I enter a new... era? but I never really got any huge great ships or fully upgraded anything. It's just, this game is so brutal even on "I am a baby please do not hurt me" difficulty where I just want to chill out and have fun being a trader or doing occasional missions that trying to have fun with it feels like getting into a prize fight, and there's enough games that aren't this vicious that it's hard for me to want to keep banging my head on this one despite how much I adore the idea and the vibe.
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Dec 24, 2021 20:19
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I also think I wish there was either an autosave or the game would commit to being a full roguelike, because I hate just running into an unwinnable, can't-retreat-can't-surrender-can't-hit-them-can't-close encounted and having my game end and realizing the last time I made a save slot was over an hour ago. I tend to just delete the character when that happens because it's so dispiriting. I also looked up my old files and the furthest I've ever gotten is level 11 and just barely into the second era thingy. :joy: Even on the absolute minimum difficulty I just get absolutely shitwrecked by everything. I think I don't understand what I'm supposed to be upgrading to what on my ship and what is and isn't important, possibly because the game just throws screens of numbers at you with minimal guidance as to what a "smart" build is.
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Jan 1, 2022 02:59
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Nektu posted:Yea, same happened to me too just yesterday :/ Yeah- but even on low difficulties the slow ramp-up of enemy ship power feels like if you take one huge L, you're going to lose enough money/crew/etc that you can't really dig your way out of the hole if you were already struggling enough to lose a fight. Anyway after sleeping on it rather than just vague complaints I'm going to try to give people a better idea of what's going so wrong. Here's where I'm at in 217.45 (turn 4000-ish) on Normal difficulty, and pretty well about to just abandon the run. Maybe if I post enough people can tell me in more detail why things are going so horrifically wrong no matter what I do. First, my ship:  A few upgrades but not a whole bunch. I have a few hundred k now but I have no idea what best to even spend it on. I love the huge fuel tank but there's probably something better to put there (another cargo bay 2?) The weapons I put at the knee where they're as good as I can get them without having to spend >100k per weapon, and I've got them spread out in range so that I can theoretically always be shooting as I try to rumble into boarding range so I can start stabbing people. Defenses: Gosh, I dunno. I have a deflector array 2, a warhammer hyperwarp drive, one of my officer cabins are reinforced, and that's really it- you can see the armor and shield ratings. Speed and agility are both 19 which I guess is horrible because I basically struggle hard to either close range with ... anyone, and it generally takes me 4-5+ tries to escape even using twitch surge, so every time I get a fight I don't surrender/negotiate out of my ship is blasted half to scrap metal and I'm losing multiple crew either to just dying or fleeing when I limp to port from how badly I get wrecked, and I have to spend enough money fixing/healing that I don't really manage... much of any long term building so I end up behind the curve fairly fast. I do have a level 5 locker! It... rarely helps in ship combat because I can't usually get to boarding range- even boarding assault range- without my ship being a flaming wreck, if ever. Crew's no great shakes either:   The combat doctor is the only reason I had been able to cling onto crew fights with my fingernails; all but 1 level is in combat medic, and all she does is spam healing talents from the huge amount of damage I tend to limp into fights with while three others try to kill their way out of holes. (Hi Kober! You can see I'm trying to get that mission done. He's almost ready.) Now, behold the true form of the destroyer:  Lower leveled pirate, same speed, weaker hull, armor, and shield. The ship report- which I for some reason can't screenshot- tells me I'm better at everything but engine agility at close range. Should be cake, right? I win this fight *less than half* the time. If I can get to boarding, I am in good shape, because I can just bury him in swords and rifles and slowly chew through his crew before he blows my hull to pieces. Generally I just get shot apart though- despite the ship report, his weapons hit SIGNIFICANTLY harder than mine, and he's significantly more accurate than I am, every time. So I think the ship report is a lying liar that lies. The talents I can bring to bear:  (Not pictured: 1 use of devastating shot and 1 use of boarding assault)Twitch surge always puts me at 4 after the first turn, and then it's a gamble on whether or not I can drag myself to range 3 before he either just dances back to five and leisurely torpedoes me to hell or I just get shot up so badly I can't really effectively fly anymore. Which is more or less half the time. So I'm just kind of lost as to what I'm doing and the game doesn't really feel like it gives me enough feedback to know what it is I'm doing wrong, which is one of the two things that I hate hate hate in game design along with the feeling of having my time wasted. Despite how much I should love this game, it is slamming both of those irritating buttons at warp speed- if I forget to manually save every freaking time I touch a planet, I will be wasting LOTS of time because a majority of deep space encounters are I Lose buttons, and I have no way to figure out why without going hat in hand to a thread like this and begging from help. I like hard games just fine- I play Nethack, for godsakes, and both Spelunkies- but there's fun-hard and annoying-hard and this game has staked out a seat at table #2 so far.
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Jan 1, 2022 16:01
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Panzeh posted:Having a big tactics pool is really important in ship combat- to the point where it's worthwhile to find a way to get mil officer crew to get it. The most likely culprit for getting dunked on in ship combat is insufficient tactics. Tactics affects range changes and attacks, so if i were to think about it for the next run, getting a contact for recruiting them would be a priority if i'm doing ship combat. So this is good and helpful info! The basic mechanics (like having to keep 4 (or sometimes depending on engine 3) reactor points to change range, that I understand and get because the game tells me that pretty clearly and straight up. Things like this: okay! good! So is... is 31 [35] tactics GOOD for this level and part of the game? Hell if I know because there's no feedback other than "well, you suck, and it could be any of these dozen obfuscated behind the scenes mechanics".
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Jan 1, 2022 16:43
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WarpedLichen posted:The main complaint I have with this game is that dice pools are terrible for generating fun odds and you're almost always either in an unwinnable state or an autowin state past the very early game. OK I am going down the rabbit hole, and quote:Further Note: The Gunnery pool part of this formula can have some VERY counter intuitive ramifications. 
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Jan 1, 2022 17:39
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Fruits of the sea posted:Ahh nice, I was wondering how I was supposed to sell all the illegal crud I have stashed from exploring. Yeah. I still (and thank you to the goon who gave me a very long, helpful PM the last time I was moaning about how difficult this game is if you don't *really* get down into the fiddly mechanical weeds) struggle because I WANT to like this game about 100x more than I've ever been able to actually like it. Like I adore the idea, and enough parts of the game are fun that I keep giving it another try, and then it keeps on chasing me away with difficulty spikes and unexplained complex interacting systems and I just get more and more frustrated.
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Jun 8, 2022 12:33
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 23:58 |
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Does using Steam Achievement Manager or similar also give in-game unlocks? Because if so that'd be a game changer for me. And if you look at what proportion of people who play the game actually get those achievements, it's minuscule, so this isn't just an issue for a small number of casuals.
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Jun 8, 2022 15:01
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