Subset Games Forum

EdenNov wrote:

fylth wrote:To be fair, you could justify the recharge the same way that the Zoltan shield charge is explained, the massive amount of energy produced by activating the FTL drive supercharges all your systems, resetting them for the start of your next encounter.

Makes sense to me at least

No, just no.
1.The Zoltan shield is explained... With text... That is written inside the game.
2.The Zoltan shield charges AFTER you jump, the other stuff (teleport etc.) charge BEFORE.
3.The ENGINES charge immediately (are you telling me the FTL drive is charging the FTL drive?)
4.Assuming you are correct, why doesn't the cloak charge? That's the whole point of the topic!

Take it easy there, no need to jump down my throat.

I was suggesting a way to justify the main systems charging, as UltraMantis said there would be no way to do so. I know what already happens in the game.

Yeah, sorry about that. It ended so many of my good runs and it's just so damn annoying and useless, that I get emotional about it.

EdenNov wrote: 3.The ENGINES charge immediately (are you telling me the FTL drive is charging the FTL drive?)

You've magically stumbled upon the secret to the whole thing. Your statement is only partially true.

Engines charge up immediately when there is no danger present and don't (instant-charge) when there is (danger). You have to sit in the middle of a solar corona or asteroid field, hoping your engine outraces the next wave of damage. The latter is more important, since it can kill you by itself with the right damage supplemental.

If Cloak had an immediate recharge, hazardous locations would be much less debilitating for the stealth ship. The cool-down is to punish people who take risks with the stealth. It imposes a penalty on people who don't resolve their outstanding issues before jumping.

On that point: if you were to have cloak go off cooldown, how would you time it so that it didn't conflict with fleeing? If it had the same timing as Zoltan shields (after jump), pacifism run would become easy to the point of not being an accomplishment. You'd just go into every battle, cloak the first volley, jump away from the second, and repeat until the end. If you did it pre-jump, asteroids would become meaningless. When you look at it from that perspective, there's no viable option. Neither choice maintains game balance. When no alternative is viable,that means the current way is the correct way.

I don't see how having cloak recharge in the same way as engines and the teleporter (as in, once there are no ships, asteroids, sun flares or other hazards they charge up to max) effects the balance really, it just slightly speeds up game play. Everything else is exactly the same except that you don't have to wait for your cloak to charge and you dont risk jumping straight into an asteroid field if you forget to wait.

hybridfive wrote: Engines charge up immediately when there is no danger present and don't (instant-charge) when there is (danger). You have to sit in the middle of a solar corona or asteroid field, hoping your engine outraces the next wave of damage. The latter is more important, since it can kill you by itself with the right damage supplemental.

If Cloak had an immediate recharge, hazardous locations would be much less debilitating for the stealth ship. The cool-down is to punish people who take risks with the stealth. It imposes a penalty on people who don't resolve their outstanding issues before jumping.

Are you being deliberately annoying, or do you not understand English very well? I never meant for the cloak to recharge while in danger, how in hell did you get that? All I said is that the cloaking system cooldown should work in the same way the engines and teleporter do.

And let me assure you, if people WANTED to take risks with the stealth ship, they wouldn't complain about it. We only complain because it breaks the natural game flow to wait for 5-20 seconds after every battle (and if you god-forbid forget to wait, you are instantly punished by having your current run annihilated)

EDIT: Sorry if I offended you, it was not my intention.

I think the disagreement is missing the main point.

The game is designed so that everything happens in 'real' time. So the entire point about the engines instacharging is off course: the only reason that engines instacharge is because it would suck to have to wait for them to charge every single time! Theoretically, you should be required to charge the engines every time you hit a node, but that would be boring!

So they made the engines the SOLE exception to the rule. Everything else you have to manage. Yes, it's irritating when you have to micromanage the shields and repairs when there is no danger present, but the game play advantage is clear when you are forced to hop around without defeating enemies.

Obviously, the devs could change it so certain things also automatically happened when there was no danger, such as auto repairing (but you get xp for repairs so..) and stealth/shield charging. In the end, it's not really worth that much of a dev's time to manage this, when there are more pressing issues, since you'd have to go through the list and decide which things can be autoloaded ect.

I'm actually surprised the teleporter cools instantly, especially when there can be fires and hull breaches on an enemy ship. So maybe you WILL see this coming up in a patch sometime...

UltraMantis wrote:It would be less boring if time wasn't paused when looking at the map or checking ship systems. You take stock of your current situation while the cloak recycles. And i'f you're me you still probably jump too soon and into asteroids

Oh no, it would be very bad if you are in battle and want to jump away, and no point in safe because it could be simply reseted just like the engine.

thegreedyturtle wrote:I'm actually surprised the teleporter cools instantly, especially when there can be fires and hull breaches on an enemy ship. So maybe you WILL see this coming up in a patch sometime...

I think that's intentional. Probably because the game is hazardous enough and you'd lose a lot of crew if the teleporter didn't reset immediatley. Call it a freebie

ZiMMy wrote:

UltraMantis wrote:It would be less boring if time wasn't paused when looking at the map or checking ship systems. You take stock of your current situation while the cloak recycles. And i'f you're me you still probably jump too soon and into asteroids

Oh no, it would be very bad if you are in battle and want to jump away, and no point in safe because it could be simply reseted just like the engine.

You can allways pause the game but you can't access the ship menu. I meant safe situations only and it would be better then it is now.

There would be no change to the balance of the game if cloak reset when there are no hazards on the node.
Literally the only change would be in the real world, in that we wouldn't have to waste time. The game wouldn't become easier, or harder, it'd just take up less of our valuable free time.
If there is no enemy ship, no boarders, no asteroids, no danger, how does it change the game's balance?
Its like having cutscenes that can't be skipped that occur every 5 minutes. They don't have any impact on the gameplay, they just waste your time and annoy you (Since these cutscenes are always identical).
The only thing it adds is the chance to accidentally ruin your playthrough, which isn't really much of a feature (You failed to waste enough time, gg).

Lol... Some people are seriously advocating leaving this as is, so that the optimal play is to alt tab and do something else while waiting for O2 and stealth to recharge? That just makes no sense at all.