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

Takes a little luck, some time, and three agile flyers. Good fixing the xp abuse thing, because I would have went to town on them otherwise, lol.

 

Killed a Class III in tutorial and got statistics credit for it. Furthermore, I was given a Class VI kill.

-Yes, that is a known bug that will be fixed. -Vesuvius

Any combat that is not live vs opponents (AI or Human) on the galaxy map should not be tracked on your statistics page. The tutorial may be an exception since you do earn a tiny bit of XP ?

-The tutorial is encouraged by giving XP and stats. -Vesuvius

 

Slaughter 2 is not working properly, only giving +2 xp not +4.

Edit: slaughter 2 is correct with live people, thanks xeen, just not AI

 

Radar still not fixed. I'm probably going to ride the bench again.

Perfectly stalking a target only to have them see the past/what's behind them when they shouldn't and turn around to attack me is not very tactical.

Especially considering how powerful alpha strikes are, vision of the map when transitting, and other flaws that break skilled combat and decisions.

 

Also, trying to carefully battle 1 person and AI showing up, Class V at that, the game's balance of power/combat and economy (XP reward) is soooo out of whack right now.

It is impossible for anyone to attack and make any worthwhile progress against the mass of structures and AI defenders (Class V coming right away?). Throw in a player defender, and the odds get worse from there.

 

With marine pod skills working, ~100 xp from a pod use vs shooting a target for 2 xp and destroying it for 10, seems a little off, no?

Again, EVERYTHING in the game that doesn't scale is powerful at the low end of the spectrum and falls off at the top end. Marine pods for example are wayyyy strong at low lvl (their base power is huge compared to the values of starter ships), but there are no variants or upgrades to the pods on higher class ships. They become useless on larger ships that are unable to maneuver into close range, and even if range is closed, the effects of the same 10-20 crew damage are minimal at that point vs 500 to 1000 crew ships.

-Marine pods ARE supposed to be for lower tier ship combat, for early boosts in XP advantage to Genari. -Vesuvius

 

That is an old tactic, known in submarine warfare as checking your baffles. Real people play different from AI

 

Except you admitted to improperly retaining vision behind you from your previous turn while I came out from cover undetected in the previous round and stayed outside of your 4 hex detection range while you were also facing away from me. You then proceeded to turn and come directly at me in one motion because you knew exactly where I was even though you shouldn't have.

 

Either way, I have even less interest in grinding up to Class V, VII, and then IX/X all over again.

I'll be waiting for more patch notes.

 

No I didn't admit that at all, I thought you meant the lag on incoming transit cut scenes. I truly was just checking my baffles, since you weren't in front of me you had to behind, simple logic.

 

It probably is working vs AI, it's just that you are getting half of the XP as vs players when fighting AI, same applies to that skill/pods.

What needs fixing is the skill needs an info update stating that you get less reward vs AI or something along that line.

 

Not to beat a dead horse Xeen, but the whole idea that all species have different strengths, you know as well as I that the 10-30% xp bonus on Sol ships are across the board, marine pods are one and done and certain genari have none.

 

It's not just pods. I've been saying for the longest time that static modifiers are hugely beneficial on the low end, and powering up weapons beyond a single charge isn't nearly as beneficial as that first point, which enables all benefits. The only exception is if you are using the 1-off overload (hint hint, wink wink, a % scaling skill).

Other examples:
+repair points (bad, should be % of hull points/round)
+shield power charges (bad, should be % increase in shield strength per charge or % increased power bars)

% movement, great Very fast ships get huge amounts, very slow ships get an appropriate amount. The old movement bonus favored slow ships (+5 movement, like Genari Rally, another example)
% energy, great

Gen can have marine pods, but the effect should be based off of the class of the ship launching the pod. Currently, all pods operate exactly the same from Class I (if they have any) to Class X.


Another huge problem I see is the economic model. Owning and operating a quality ship is not sustainable with the above (especially Genari +2 flat damage) considerations. # of weapons benefits hugely from this type of flat damage boost.

The game as a whole is one big interconnected web of systems, and with so much out of alignment, it doesn't feel right and I find that it's certainly not worth grinding away for hours only to fight a "whoever finds the other person and shoots first wins" match.

Let's visit the whole +repair points thing again to see just how bad of a design it is:

The very best damage dealing ship for Sol is the Mendi III at 4x1 +1 range +1 officer = 12 dmg/round
The very best damage dealing ship for Gen is the AF II (I think) with 3x2 +2 +1 = 15 dmg/round

If a corvette vs another corvette each dealing around 10 dmg/round are locked in combat, each having repair +5 (total 12 points) and assuming they have sufficient hull to withstand damage for a round without dying, the battle goes on forever.

In this scenario, repair is way too powerful at the lower level, able to repair a ship to 100% every round.

At the upper levels, repair is insignificant, only able to repair ~5% of a hull per round at max (12 of 200+ on a Levi?).

 

Oh I know, that's part of my complaints. You are always extremely vulnerable to focused fire, no one is ever going to get anything strong. Everyone will gang up on the biggest target to cause significant losses while gaining the best possible XP from the high class hits.

 

I'm not so sure it will

And getting there is too much of a pain because even a Class V is quite vulnerable to just 2 corvettes.

Seems like the 'thing to do' will be to use your free ship to run in, do some damage, die, repeat, and keep banking what you can until you get enough for a Class VII, at which point, corvettes tend to not be so much of a problem, but still a threat in coordinated numbers.

A corvette fleet won't care about losses, is highly interested in your tasty XP (as a high class ship), and would be more than happy to cost you all of your time for none of theirs.

Just a thought: Is there a certain threshold of engine power loss at which a ship cannot warp out? For example, is at least 25% engine power require to make a jump, or can you initiate a warp, get your engines shot to hell/crew killed, and still go so long as the hull is intact?

 

I disagree Xeen. Though this discussion should be shifted to a thread in the shipyard, time and again the higher tier ships can prey on the weaker ones. And if you're playing an MMO, there's usually a balance of ships on both sides, so it might be 1 V, 2 IV, 4 III in a sector etc... Players tend to stick to fighting their own level. Even if your ship is 'free', you still would like to get some upgrades in, and it won't happen if you're losing it. If anything, players naturally gravitate to the higher tier ships, if anything, for boasting purposes.