So what are the better drives now?

[chrisddickey]

So now that people have more experience with the "open / closed" system drives, which are best? All the drive guides I have seen predate that modification.
The Daedelus Torch used to be very highly thought of, but it now needs an absolutely huge radiator that makes it less appealing, especially for otherwise small ships.

What drives would people rate as particularly good or bad for different types of ships (small, medium, large)?

Has anybody written an updated drive guide with that system in place?

[Aegmar]

Its a pity the tech tree doesn't offer a little information what a drive is good/bad at..., so you can make easier decisions what drives to research for short range patrol ships that don't need that much kps and fuel efficieny, long range ships, interception ships or whatever you might want to have.

Dev's should definetly aks themselfes if the game NEEDS that many drives and if they think they need so many drives at least put some more information about the drives in the tech description.

Only thing i dislike about the game so far is how tedious it is comparing drives and trying to figure out what to use for what purpose...

[soulfreezer]

Daedalus Torch still works great, but you absolutely need the best reactor (Inertial Confinement Terrawatt Fusion Reactor III) for it, that gives you like 1k radiator mass for a titan with 20k total mass. If you use the previous reactor you end up with a radiator that is 10 times as heavy.

In lategame I usually use Zeta Helion and then switch to Daedalus Torch when I get access to that. Both of those work great with big ships and allow your ships to travel anywhere. Not sure about small ships, I rarely build those.

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Its a pity the tech tree doesn't offer a little information what a drive is good/bad at..., so you can make easier decisions what drives to research for short range patrol ships that don't need that much kps and fuel efficieny, long range ships, interception ships or whatever you might want to have.

but the game gives you pretty much all the information you need to make a good judgement call. it gives you fuel used, mass, needed reactors, heat generated, efficiency, etc. - looking through the tech-tree in game always gives more information than the community made graphs (to the point where i, personally, don't use the graphs because none of them convey sufficient information) - the thing the graphs does best is that they allow you to see limited information quickly, whereas the tech tree gives you all the information you need but slower than looking at the graphs.

if you want to access all information as quickly as possible, then yes, i agree the devs should implement something that lets the player directly compare two drives - but the problem is not that the player is not given the information, because... well, the information is RIGHT THERE, in the tech tree - the problem is more about the speed/accessibility of said information.

[olstar18]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Its a pity the tech tree doesn't offer a little information what a drive is good/bad at..., so you can make easier decisions what drives to research for short range patrol ships that don't need that much kps and fuel efficieny, long range ships, interception ships or whatever you might want to have.

but the game gives you pretty much all the information you need to make a good judgement call. it gives you fuel used, mass, needed reactors, heat generated, efficiency, etc. - looking through the tech-tree in game always gives more information than the community made graphs (to the point where i, personally, don't use the graphs because none of them convey sufficient information) - the thing the graphs does best is that they allow you to see limited information quickly, whereas the tech tree gives you all the information you need but slower than looking at the graphs.

if you want to access all information as quickly as possible, then yes, i agree the devs should implement something that lets the player directly compare two drives - but the problem is not that the player is not given the information, because... well, the information is RIGHT THERE, in the tech tree - the problem is more about the speed/accessibility of said information.

Yes it gives you a great deal of information but not in a way that is easy to understand. The ui needs a few usability passes.

[gimmethegepgun]

I still think that what really needs to be done is you need to be able to design ships with components that you don't yet have researched, so you can see what the statistical outputs of using those components will be once you do get them.

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by olstar18:

Yes it gives you a great deal of information but not in a way that is easy to understand. The ui needs a few usability passes.

...it just gives you the raw numbers? it doesn't hide any value from you - yes, its not exactly visualized like on a graph, but thats arguably a good thing because that means the game can present ALL relevant information instead of a LIMITED amount of information that a graph can portray

its not hard to understand at all, it just takes more time to understand - sounds the same, yes, but it is different

[Aegmar]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Its a pity the tech tree doesn't offer a little information what a drive is good/bad at..., so you can make easier decisions what drives to research for short range patrol ships that don't need that much kps and fuel efficieny, long range ships, interception ships or whatever you might want to have.

but the game gives you pretty much all the information you need to make a good judgement call. it gives you fuel used, mass, needed reactors, heat generated, efficiency, etc. - looking through the tech-tree in game always gives more information than the community made graphs (to the point where i, personally, don't use the graphs because none of them convey sufficient information) - the thing the graphs does best is that they allow you to see limited information quickly, whereas the tech tree gives you all the information you need but slower than looking at the graphs.

if you want to access all information as quickly as possible, then yes, i agree the devs should implement something that lets the player directly compare two drives - but the problem is not that the player is not given the information, because... well, the information is RIGHT THERE, in the tech tree - the problem is more about the speed/accessibility of said information.

Sure the information is there, but is it really good game design when you need to make a spreadsheet in excel to compare information ?

I was more thinking of a short text describing the general characteristics of drive, so you can get at a glance what the drive is good and bad at without having to extract (or even write down) data from other drives. Maybe also some sort of "Tech level".

Im only in my first game, but i find the amount of drives confusing.

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Sure the information is there, but is it really good game design when you need to make a spreadsheet in excel to compare information ?

I was more thinking of a short text describing the general characteristics of drive, so you can get at a glance what the drive is good and bad at without having to extract (or even write down) data from other drives. Maybe also some sort of "Tech level".

Im only in my first game, but i find the amount of drives confusing.

that is good game design, yes. complex games are a specific taste of games, and this game is certainly not one of the more simple games out there - also, what? you don't need a spreadsheet at all to compare stats, just look at different drive stats and their respective reactors, much less actually writing down stats...

and yeah, it will be a bit confusing on your first game - but most complex games are generally, so you kinda just gotta deal with it.

[Aegmar]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Sure the information is there, but is it really good game design when you need to make a spreadsheet in excel to compare information ?

I was more thinking of a short text describing the general characteristics of drive, so you can get at a glance what the drive is good and bad at without having to extract (or even write down) data from other drives. Maybe also some sort of "Tech level".

Im only in my first game, but i find the amount of drives confusing.

that is good game design, yes. complex games are a specific taste of games, and this game is certainly not one of the more simple games out there - also, what? you don't need a spreadsheet at all to compare stats, just look at different drive stats and their respective reactors, much less actually writing down stats...

and yeah, it will be a bit confusing on your first game - but most complex games are generally, so you kinda just gotta deal with it.

Not making it easier for the player to make decisions by providing information is good game design ? Ok...

How about making the game only available in latin or old greek ? Whoever can't read it simply didn't invest enough brain and it would be even more complex, probably that would be to your taste ?

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by Aegmar:

Not making it easier for the player to make decisions by providing information is good game design ? Ok...

How about making the game only available in latin or old greek ? Whoever can't read it simply didn't invest enough brain and it would be even more complex, probably that would be to your taste ?

no, because then i flat out couldn't read it... and what do you mean by "not making it easier for the player to make decisions by providing information"? the game gives you all the information you need in manners that are both easily readable and comparable to other drives...

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

the game gives you all the information you need in manners that are both easily readable and comparable to other drives...

It doesn't tell you how much open-cycle reduces radiator mass by, nor does it have a compare function to actually make it easier to compare drives.

[olstar18]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

Originally posted by olstar18:

Yes it gives you a great deal of information but not in a way that is easy to understand. The ui needs a few usability passes.

...it just gives you the raw numbers? it doesn't hide any value from you - yes, its not exactly visualized like on a graph, but thats arguably a good thing because that means the game can present ALL relevant information instead of a LIMITED amount of information that a graph can portray

its not hard to understand at all, it just takes more time to understand - sounds the same, yes, but it is different

You didn't really address the point I made could you try again.

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by olstar18:

You didn't really address the point I made could you try again.

...then what point are you making? you complained about the information being hard/not easy to understand, and i directly addressed that, saying that its not too hard to understand, it just takes a while to get the info because of how much there is, so i'm genuinely not sure what point you're trying to make is

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

the game gives you all the information you need in manners that are both easily readable and comparable to other drives...

It doesn't tell you how much open-cycle reduces radiator mass by, nor does it have a compare function to actually make it easier to compare drives.

yeah. i agree that the devs could add some sort of function to directly compare two drives, just so you don't have to flick back and forth in the tech tree to compare two drives you're looking at - though personally i don't mind doing this at all, i can see how other people would be pretty annoyed

[olstar18]

Originally posted by RipoffPingu:

Originally posted by olstar18:

You didn't really address the point I made could you try again.

...then what point are you making? you complained about the information being hard/not easy to understand, and i directly addressed that, saying that its not too hard to understand, it just takes a while to get the info because of how much there is, so i'm genuinely not sure what point you're trying to make is

No you didn't. I pointed out that there are a lot of issues with the ui and you had a rant that ignored the issues that you know full well it does have with how information is presented to you. Is there a way to look at two drives at once for example.