What makes this game interesting is the random events. Let's take one of events that you can get early in the game, finding a planet with an unknown intelligent life.
You can either:
Try to communicate.
Take some of them onto your ship.
What an interesting choice! Could you get a crewmember if you take one onto your ship? Learn something? Maybe just make some scrap? Trying to communicate leads to a couple cool things, however...
If you've read spoilers, you'd know that there is never a reason to pick the latter choice. At best, you take no damage, at worst, you take crew loss. There's not actually a *choice* here, it's entirely a "Have you had your hand burned by this before?", which... discourages experimenting. It discourages you from exploring the one interesting thing this game has going for it. There's pretty much a correct option and an incorrect option for each one, and it comes down to playing the game a bunch to just remember them, or referencing a spoiler. It feels like I could very, very easily code a bot in python to win the game fairly often, just by picking the correct outcome, if combat wasn't real-time.
I think a good change would be to give *every* action a positive outcome, even if it comes with a negative. Even if the negative way outweighs the positive. (I'd consider a ship to ship fight a positive outcome, given the reward for winning). Something like, for the above, or for the giant arachnids, the surviving crew gets some combat experience. For the event that loses you a crew member to disease, if you get that event later, you get a blue option where your crew's immune system is stronger, etc. It would encourage experimentation (even if you take a net loss, you at least aren't just burned for it.). Combine this with choosing what crew members you lose, as I've seen suggested elsewhere, and even losing a crew member could be a small net gain in some odd situations.
(I also think that blue options always being the best is a bit... eeeeh, but those you at least have to somewhat earn)
Another example: There is never a reason to destroy a ship as opposed to boarding it. It's the correct play to get a teleporter as soon as you can, as it'll more than pay for itself. It's the correct play to board every ship and win via boarding action in every situation. You get more scrap, you get more misc stuff, you sometimes even get items or crew. It's even easier than just straight ship to ship combat. An indicator of a good run is going to be an early teleporter. How... lame, really. Now, this I don't have quite as much of a suggested fix for that works with balance, but more scrap and less misc items from destroying a ship and then more misc items and less scrap from boarded ships seems sensible.
I feel like this game has too much correct play.
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
I aggree that escape pod or what ever that almost always pops out and auto kills again lmao or the crazy dude on the planet x.x. Some options just aren't worth trying
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
I agree about options that only have negative or negative / neutral outcomes. You can't even gamble on them!
However the teleporter is a specific way to play. Playing heavy investment in weapons early means far less damage taken, so you save some scrap there.
Moreoever, sometimes you don't get enough crew or access to a teleporter early. If you have built up a decent alpha-strike weapons array, then that's probably better for that run. You can't beat the boss with a small boarding crew and nothing else. You can't do boarding against medbays if you have no way to bypass shields.
So if I find burst lasers and a bunch of enigs and zoltans, or an early pre-igniter and pegasus, I'm sure as heck not going boarding on that playthrough no matter how good the scrap is.
However the teleporter is a specific way to play. Playing heavy investment in weapons early means far less damage taken, so you save some scrap there.
Moreoever, sometimes you don't get enough crew or access to a teleporter early. If you have built up a decent alpha-strike weapons array, then that's probably better for that run. You can't beat the boss with a small boarding crew and nothing else. You can't do boarding against medbays if you have no way to bypass shields.
So if I find burst lasers and a bunch of enigs and zoltans, or an early pre-igniter and pegasus, I'm sure as heck not going boarding on that playthrough no matter how good the scrap is.
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
mastercats wrote:I aggree that escape pod or what ever that almost always pops out and auto kills again lmao or the crazy dude on the planet x.x. Some options just aren't worth trying
The mantis escape pod can give you a mantis crew member. how is that not worth trying?
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
I acknowledge that it's just my luck, and that the gambler's fallacy may apply here, but every time I've opened the pod, I've lost a crew member. I've had that event at least a dozen times now, and tried opening the pod about 50% of the time. (Again, my luck just sucks. ) If I happen to get that event early on, it's generally not so bad. However, when I have less than six crew, and each of them have mastery of at least one skill, I don't feel so optimistic about that particular risk.
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
Spazticus wrote:I acknowledge that it's just my luck, and that the gambler's fallacy may apply here, but every time I've opened the pod, I've lost a crew member. I've had that event at least a dozen times now, and tried opening the pod about 50% of the time. (Again, my luck just sucks. ) If I happen to get that event early on, it's generally not so bad. However, when I have less than six crew, and each of them have mastery of at least one skill, I don't feel so optimistic about that particular risk.
There is a blue option if you have a slug i think. No idea if that does anything but eject the pod though.
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
Mantis escape pod can give you either mantis or human crew member!
But yes unfortunately some game events have bad and good choices, which means that you always know what to chosoe after you did it once. For example, its always the blue wire. Also, its always better to communicate to the unknown species. I'm not against risking (like, 50% get crew 50% lose crew) but when option is only-negative, you ask yourself why is it there.
Btw, blue choice isnt always good. With cloak you get a lot of "stay hidden" blue choices which mean you will skip a battle, which means less loot!
But yes unfortunately some game events have bad and good choices, which means that you always know what to chosoe after you did it once. For example, its always the blue wire. Also, its always better to communicate to the unknown species. I'm not against risking (like, 50% get crew 50% lose crew) but when option is only-negative, you ask yourself why is it there.
Btw, blue choice isnt always good. With cloak you get a lot of "stay hidden" blue choices which mean you will skip a battle, which means less loot!
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
If i'm flying around early with a boarding ship i'm never opening that pod, picking up that crazy guy, or sending my crew to go fight a giant spider. Heck m crew not gonna go search the station, they dont even see the color red when it comes to wires. That's me though beucase i play the boarding ships and if i lose a member early its GG
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
rekenner wrote:Another example: There is never a reason to destroy a ship as opposed to boarding it. It's the correct play to get a teleporter as soon as you can, as it'll more than pay for itself. It's the correct play to board every ship and win via boarding action in every situation. You get more scrap, you get more misc stuff, you sometimes even get items or crew. It's even easier than just straight ship to ship combat. An indicator of a good run is going to be an early teleporter. How... lame, really. Now, this I don't have quite as much of a suggested fix for that works with balance, but more scrap and less misc items from destroying a ship and then more misc items and less scrap from boarded ships seems sensible.
Not really. If you're killing the crew, the enemy never gives up. You can't unlock the Slug Cruiser, you can't get free crew member from slave ship (well, you can. If you kill all crew you get a CHANCE, and if you force them to surrender you get 100%)
When I'm invading I'm always wondering "what have I lost?"
CIA maps of Portugal Please God, don't let Portugal to go to war with USA!
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Re: I feel like this game has too much correct play.
Agent_L wrote:Not really. If you're killing the crew, the enemy never gives up. You can't unlock the Slug Cruiser, you can't get free crew member from slave ship (well, you can. If you kill all crew you get a CHANCE, and if you force them to surrender you get 100%)
When I'm invading I'm always wondering "what have I lost?"
Actualy if you invade a slave ship you get a crew get a crew guy pretty often (the slavers the come up to you demanding you give up a member have a chance of just not having any slaves). Additionaly if you board a slav e ship you get the option to pick what crew you want. On top of picking you get you also have the option of using advanced teleporters to get an additional free slave before the battle even starts .