*** CLOSED BETA UPDATES & DISCUSSION/BUG REPORTS III ***

Attacking enemy stations does not default to correct sector, had to manually select Ghazah I (default is II), causes yellow marker on map even though ships are present in alternate sector.

Support ship behavior is ugh...

Unable to repair damaged scanner with 2 points.

The time lag between phases and movements of support ships makes using them very difficult without basically wasting a turn sitting still.

Supports always do a buggy move before doing what they should, including hold position.

A shot just ignored 2 full surfaces of shielding and directly damaged my hull.

Need confirmation of orders to support ship such as button stays lit blue instead of blinks for a moment and no apparent change.

Support orders mid-combat phase appear to do nothing.

Support ships ordered to RTB take ~30 seconds to warp out once their time comes.

 

Just took a hit and went from 50+ hull after many repairs down to 11?!

It was as if all the previous repairs were ignored and I was at the ~20 hp from when I started repairing after the last hit I took.

-If this somehow can be reproduced... it sounds like a nasty bug -Vesuvius

 

So I brought a station sector to its knees single-handedly... but then I had to go to work. So much for all of that 130 control points >< Got a pile of XP though. XP is quite plentiful enough now. The limiting factor is by far the 22 hour per ship cooldown for an officer upgrade.

-Did you destroy the station or nearly destroy it? -Vesuvius

 

Just watched control tick over towards Genari while I'm sitting in the sector in active combat.

May have had something to do with being disconnected? My iPad hotspot has been flaky today.

 

Well since I don't like much in between I didn't get or test anything else.

I have a confession to make. I've been cheating on Space Wars with another game

The other game is kinda hard to play at work with limited hardware and connection and is a full loot full world pvp game, so I was taking a break today and decided to do some SW testing, which is MUCH more forgiving with the previously mentioned limitations.

I'll have to come back to my random chatter and notes and do some deep dives into the issues I think I can figure out.

The bypassing shields and repair issues that I can't RATE 'Rapid Action Trial and Error' (my own little thing, maybe someone else uses the term, I dunno) test/reproduce are going to be tricky if not impossible. I've seen each of them happen only once.

Other stuff like initiative should be easy for me to check out once I have some time. I have a pile of XP now after battling in Ghazah for over an hour non-stop taking out many Class V-VIII with my favorite M3.

 

Absolutely do not make it the 'enter' key. You don't want someone trying to engage or send/close chat and accidentally ending their turn in a catastrophic position.

We already have WASD + a few others, and I'm not sure what Q and E do, though I have seen some 'orbit' functions in the bindings list.

I think a key that is away from other keys and accidental press would be best.

P for Pass makes sense, perhaps U for end turn, away from other keys, with 'end' and 'pass' not adjacent to each other either.

 

Nope, Had to call it quits before going after the station Genari holds the sector for now.

Station's aren't all that important as sources of large chunks of XP anymore with the Director now sending up to Class VIII with an appropriate attacker on the field.

 

I wouldnt do E for the simple fact of it being close to the common WASD movement keys.

Which key isn't that important so long as the game function can be opted to a key, users can then pick.

 

So I think I like the new update that shows more enemy info. In one way it is helpful, but in another way I enjoyed not knowing. On the other hand I don't like not having my shot percentage displayed, is that an error?

 

I still see my hit chance %, I don't see additional information though.. ? Or am I not looking in the right place?

Edit: Not anymore.

 

Was this new build just released? I couldn't see hull and could see hit% while on my laptop at work earlier today

Must have been. The Support Ship controls were updated and now show which selection is made.

-Yup, a new build with the ship stats was made, but they forgot to put the hit% back in. -Vesuvius

Was confusing me how it got slipped in half way during the day in the middle of the week.

 

Seeing only +5 Initiative on the Mendi now from both captain ranks. Working as expected I believe. May have had something to do with relogging/first purchase.

Seeing exact hull values makes things so much easier with managing reactor explosions and last hits. I had just gotten used to identifying the damage states (visually) and counting hits/dmg on key ships too

"Need confirmation of orders to support ship such as button stays lit blue instead of blinks for a moment and no apparent change."

Was the above planned already (and just not implemented before I said something) or added in because I asked for it? Let's go with you thought it was a good feature and wanted to put in something the testers/players wanted.

-Mlocke requested it first -Vesuvius

Glad to see order confirmation.

 

Sol Leadership Rank 1 (and likely all ranks) is not working. Should be +10% xp gain x1, 2, or 3 ranks.

Before applying, hits gave 12 xp and a kill gave 152 xp on a particular ship.
After applying, same yield vs. same target. Expected to gain ~13 and ~167 respectively.

-Reported on Jira

 

Suggestion 'Bonus for Capturing Territory':

Objective: To promote sustained combat, encouraging continuous field presence to an end point of territory capture and reward all participants based on their efforts/proportional contributions to the fight.

Provide an XP/other Bonus (Officer upgrade time credits?) for capturing territory weighted by size of territory, total number of ships destroyed on both sides regardless of who killed what (shift focus away from 'last hit', include stations but not light defense structures/mines), number of turns spent in the battle continuously up until the point of capture (if you leave and return, you forfeit your streak and start over), damage dealt since last arrival, damage sustained since last arrival, and anything else of value you might want to throw in (scouting/first contact of enemy unit, repairs, etc.).

Example: a 130 x 130 sector is worth a base 13 hours of Officer Time Credit or 13,000 XP Bonus, which gains a multiplier of 1% x the number of ships Class Levels destroyed in combat. So if 250 total ship class points (and maybe a station worth a modified amount of credits depending on class x2, x3, x4?) were destroyed, it becomes 13 hours or 13000xp x 2.5 = 32.5 or 32500. That territory bounty is then split to all participants according to the other criteria, how long they remained on the field from last arrival to capture, damage dealt (not kills scored), damage sustained, etc.

10 participants may have 1 or 2 Ace players that get around 15% of the bounty each (slightly greater than the expected even split of 10% per player, yielding 4-5 hours off of their upgrade timer or 4-5000 bonus xp) with the rest of the participants on the attacking side gaining remaining shares proportional to their contributions.

Death is penalized by the loss of your ship and crew as well as restarting your field-presence streak or perhaps all of your contributions such as being present for class-kill bonuses, repairs, damage sustained, etc. (unless you are using Fleet command and have another ship remaining on the field, but you cannot refill your ranks without leaving and losing the streak).

Caution: This is all assuming people play as intended. Measures would have to be taken to ensure that players do not show up for a fight and sit idle for free rewards. This will be a problem in the game either way. People will show up and do nothing, dragging out a turn timer simply to hinder or grief other players/opposing faction. There will always be trolls.

-At this point need to keep it simple once its implemented, which will likely be XP bonus on capture modified by capture points of map, with bonuses to maps with stations. -Vesuvius

Definitely a future plan. Wasn't expecting this one soon.

 

Suggestion:

Have scanners tie in to accuracy rating of weapons.

If a target is in visible range, +5% chance to hit, if a target is in scan range outside of 4 hex, +2.5% chance to hit, if detected but no longer in scan range/scanners powered down or being scanned by an ally or behind an obstacle, no bonus.