My two cents....

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Science Fiction] >> Starships Unlimited v3 >> My two cents....

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My two cents.... - 2/28/2003 12:36:28 PM

Zaxsubaru

Posts: 10
Joined: 2/28/2003
From: USA
Status: offline

First of all, "hello" to everyone in the forum. It has been very informative reading the posts. I originally searched this site out because I have had problems with ships not responding to ANY commands at all (12 ships out of 13). They would acknowledge my instructions and then proceed to sit in the same spot for the rest of the game no matter how I tried to coax them with various missions. I hope this is the Attack/Capture bug that is on the list for V2.1. After reading many of the posts, I realized that many of you have experienced what I have suspected ( I'm only on my 3rd game, each increasing the difficulty to my current game which is "advanced")...mainly that the AI needs tweaking badly. I've had numerous wars declared on me and then waited in vain for years and years for any semblance of a threat. Opponents usually ask for peace before ever firing a shot. Well, I'm not going to repeat everything that has already been said. Just in case anyone cares, I'm having the same experience...namely endless pirate killing drudgery ( I swear I've killed 15 pirates for each alien ship I've ever fought), AI wasting all the artifacts on scout ships (once in a while is ok but I never see any artifact equipped ships larger than a gunboat), AI bluffing tactics (declaring war and then demanding money/techs when they are clearly way behind...again, less is more), Interface needs streamlining to be more intuitive (way too much mouse-clicking and the "hooking" system is confusing/can't see the purpose of it). Perhaps I should just start my own wish list instead of making this the worlds largest paragraph. Here goes...

Ships reach 100% combat too quickly. Granted, this game may have been designed to use many of your ships as fodder and simply replace them and retrain on pirates, but there is an opportunity here ( I think) to go farther. How about after a ship has learned all of the available combat manuevers, they could begin to learn fleet based attack manuevers that are coordinated with other ships, or (gasp) you could start to design your own manuevers. This would sure make fleet designation more compelling as ships that continued to work together could learn more complex and devastating moves. Or, they could just be "standard" fleet manuevers that ships retain as they are moved from fleet to fleet. I don't ever assign fleets because 1) It's a click-fest. 2)I've never been attacked by more than 1 ship at a time, even on advanced. 3)The only point in making a fleet (that I can discern) is so you can call the group up at once for world conquests, but I inevitably end up sending everyone their separate ways after each conquest anyway, which results in another click-fest to reassign. It seems to take about the same amount of clicking to simply give everyone individual tasks. Granted the keyboard shortcuts probably reduce the click-fests to click-getogethers, but I don't game enough to remember them...which brings me to my next item on the list. Wow, another huge paragraph for only one wish list item...(sigh)

The interface is great looking and I like the font (even though some of the caps letters look alike), but it just seems like I'm clicking all the time....here a click, there a click, everywhere a click, click...Old MacDonald had a starship...eeyi, eeyi, ZAAAP!! I'm not sure if it has something to do with the "hooking" utility, but I find myself clicking 4 or 5 times to select a star system or starship from the either the global or local screen. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on what the hook utility is for, because I don't understand its relevance. Although I don't have an alternative suggestion, it sure is annoying that the mission screen/unit list screen covers a major portion of the galactic map. Half the time the star systems that you need to select on are hidden underneath which = more clicking.

How about being able to tow disabled enemy ships to planets after they have been rendered immobile. Then they could be taken over. I realize that would mess up chances of being able to rescue your own ships that suffered such a fate, but it is just silly that you can tow your own stranded ships, but not the enemy's. Tractor beams are tractor beams. It worked against the Millenium Falcon, and she still had full power!!! If nothing else, it would give you impetus to launch a rescue mission before they got your ship back to a home world. I had a stranded scout sit just out of the range of an enemy's homeworld for years till I could muster a force big enough to take the world and THEN rescue the scout. The aliens should have had that ship immediately as they had starships flying by it the whole time (why didn't they just destroy it?). While we are on the subject, why is it that you have to get rid of all the threats in a star system before you can start towing? Towing doesn't seem to slow any of the ships down (even if it's a scout towing a cruiser) and it makes perfect sense to have snatch and run missions.

It surprised me that there are no orbital defense platforms/stations. Mines are great and all (actually I've never used them) but if you have a world to protect from aliens (providing you can get them to attack you), space station Mir would have been decked out, comrade!!!

Ammo based weapons seem to be continually sub-par when compared with the energy weapons. The "Double maximum weapon shots" artifact alleviates this a little, but really only for novelty's sake. Many of the weapons I have researched have only been to see how cool the different graphics are and have nothing to do with making them useful. Shields seem to be behind the curve as far as providing protection for similar tech level weapons. I almost exclusively use armor for this reason. They both take 2 slots to provide complete protection, and I've noticed that ships with armor simply last longer in battle even if it means replacing the armor after battles. What's the point of being able to regenerate/repair shields after/during a battle if the ship can't survive the attacks to get that far. Just my observation so far.

I think this one was mentioned in another post, but it doesn't make sense to me that you still have to research techs that are obsolete because of advanced techs you've been able to steal. At the same time, I could see the game getting very unbalanced if the undiscovered techs in between were automatically filled in. Hmmmm....not sure about this one.

When your starship explodes right next to the enemy, it should damage the other guy somehow. I've never seen a movie, story, etc. where people weren't concerned about being too close to the blast from the ship they just toasted. Blast area weapons (ie torpedoes, nukes, standoffs, etc.) should damage both parties. If it has been happening, I haven't noticed it.

Fighters are completely schitzo, flying everywhere except where the enemy is. and the 180 degree flip that they do in the middle of a fly by to get that second shot in is completely out of line with the HUGE arc they have to fly in order to do the next strafing run.

There is zero difference that I've been able to notice in AI difficulty levels.

Well, if you have continued to read this far, let me just say that this is the most fun I've had in space for a long time. Granted, I'm only in the middle of my 3rd game, so many of my "insights" may prove unfounded, but honestly in it's current form, the funnest part of the game is the race for the artifacts and finding/colonizing the best worlds that are within reach. After that, it's pirate genocide the rest of the game and waiting for the aliens to follow thru on their threats. It hasn't happened so far. I realize some of the items on this list (and future lists) are/will be more in line for an expansion or even full-fledged sequel. Despite all of my complaints, I'm still playing. Thanks for a good game that looks to become great with some tweaking.

Zax :D

Post #: 1

- 2/28/2003 3:33:00 PM

startrekdork

Posts: 41
Joined: 11/2/2002
Status: offline

first off some of your complaints not be answered in an expansion or sequal but in a patch. the designer of the game continually adds things into the game free of charge, for example i had an old version before they released the current 2.0 commercial version but with a patch my old version was brought back up to 2.0 version adding in the random events and other stuff.

i dont remember everything you mentioned in your post but i remember some of it. a lot of people complain about the ai but i dont seem to notice. my ships are smart enough when i give orders as for the waiting around the planet are you sure theyre not reloading or getting repairs or waiting in line for another ship to be repaired before its their turn?

as for your energy weapon vs ammo weapons, energy weapons are definatelly very powerful but ammom missile type weapons are definately more powerful than energy based weapons. the trade of is that energy weapons recharge while ammo you have to go to a base to reload.

i always usual shields over armor because i like the fact the shields can recharge so i dont have to pull my ship all the way back to my main planet. if my ships on the other side of the galaxy i cant afford to call it all the way back for repairs and then send it back out again.

I KEEP STRESSING THIS CONCEPT: if i research replicators why cant my ships replicate componenets that are damaged, or replicate ammo that they need???

or if my ship is stranded on the other side of the universe and months go by how can they survive without supplies shouldnt they all be dead?

your tractor beam is a good idea. do you mean you tractor a ship with its engines still working or damaged? i know i can rescue one of my own ships thats damaged by selecting rescue stranded ship but i dont think you can capture enemy ships with tractor beam even though that would be cool.

say you made tractor beam have a research level like tractor beam 1 then tractor beam 2 all the way up to five or something then whoever has the highest tractor beam can capture an enemy ship or repel missiles and stuff away or fighters.

everyone agrees fighters are lame and useless unlike what they are in sci fi movies. i said in another post fighters should be seperated into two categories, fighters and bombers. fighters attack bombers and other fighters and destroy missiles while bombers just attack ships and they have devestating payloads. so you have to have fighters to counteract bombers and bombers to counteract ships.

ships dont damage other ships when they explode. that would be a cool idea. or possiblie weapons that explode near a ship causing a shockwave that damages the enemy ship.

of course the only way any of this could get implemented is if andrew approves and they put it in a patch or expansion or sequal....or we all bag andrew to put some of it in a patch. :D

(in reply to Zaxsubaru)

Post #: 2

The Answer to your ship problem - 2/28/2003 10:33:10 PM

EricLarsen

Posts: 458
Joined: 7/9/2002
From: Salinas, CA Raider Nation
Status: offline

Originally posted by Zaxsubaru
[B] I originally searched this site out because I have had problems with ships not responding to ANY commands at all (12 ships out of 13). They would acknowledge my instructions and then proceed to sit in the same spot for the rest of the game no matter how I tried to coax them with various missions.
Zax :D [/B]

Zaxsubaru,
I think your problem here is the dreaded "Honoring Cartain's Update Request". If your ships are sitting after you've given them orders to attack something then chances are that your ship is awaiting refit and your captain will not budge until you've sent the ship to a spacedock. The other way out of that conundrum is to set the "Honoring Captain's Update Request" to "Ignoring Captain's Update Request" on the top line of possible orders you can give your ship as you give that ship orders. That way the ship ignores updating and just hauls off to where you've ordered it. ;)
Eric Larsen

(in reply to Zaxsubaru)

Post #: 3

- 3/2/2003 5:53:28 AM

SideshowBob

Posts: 24
Joined: 3/27/2002
Status: offline

The biggest problem I've had with ships not responding is that certain limited shot weapons (torpedo's, mass cannon) sometimes keep re-building themselves indefinitely on certain ships, so it sits there at spacedock with a hammer going, then any other ship in line at that world is stuck there too. This seems to be a bug in the game. I solved that problem by just never using these weapons - I like Beams, Waves, Bolts, Fighters, Standoffs in that order.

I find Fighters to be very useful late in the game as distractions. I have 3-cruiser fleets, 1 w/Bolts, 1 w/Waves, and 1 w/Fighters. The fighters distract the enemy while the bolt and wave ships move in for the kill. I can do the same with Standoffs but then I have to go back to a world after a battle to add ammo. This is a pain if I'm raiding enemy systems and they keep sending ships to defend it.

As for tractor beams, I have towed disabled enemy ships back to my worlds on many, many occasions, so I KNOW it works. Not sure what the problem you are having with it is. I do know if you tow through a wormhole, you have to re-issue the command at each end of the wormhole. When you get the enemy back to your world, you have to then put an assult pod on either a ship or a world. You also must be at war or a rival. I always wait till I have researched "Bomb Disposal Mechanism" so the chance of the enemy self-destructing when hit with the assult pod is lower.

Oh, an adjacent exploding ship WILL damage an adjacent ship IF the adjacent ship is damaged to the point of having no/little shields or armor, or if the adjacent ship has just rammed/been rammed and is floating dead and doesn't have armor, which is not affected by ramming. It is pretty rare, though, but I've seen it happen to both myself and the aliens.

(in reply to Zaxsubaru)

Post #: 4