Is this game always this absurdly repetitive?

[Phileosophos]

I went on my fourth mission today, delivering supplies to another station. It was supposed to be easy and safe. My navigator said the safest way to the asteroid belt Ceres location was to go to the Earth/moon, then Venus, then finally to that location. I figured I'm not very good at the combat yet, so why not go the safest route?

I jump to Earth/moon and fight 6 - 9 enemy ships. I'm honestly not sure of the numbers. I remember two initial groups of three, then maybe another group of three. It wasn't the end of the world, but I figured that surely had to be it for this mission. Then I jumped to Venus and had the very same thing happen. This is the safest route?!

Apparently, I had accidentally selected the Earth/moon jump gate again in combat, because that's where I accidentally found myself going. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Jumped back to Venus. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Jumped to the asteroid belt Ceres location. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Delivered the supplies, yay!

I thought maybe my beat up nearly destroyed ship was going to be repaired at a friendly station! Nope. No option to do so. Or maybe I could at least refill my supplies. Nope. No option to do so. Well, that's ok, because surely I'm going to have an easier time going back. So I undock with visions of promotion dancing in my mind.

As soon as I'm getting near the first gate, again the same enemy ships and battle. I jump to Venus--again the "safest" suggested route!--and again the same enemy ships and battle. Jump to Earth/moon and again the same enemy ships and battle. The only fracking section where I wasn't immediately jumped by the same enemy ships was when I got back to Athena station.

This isn't a complaint about difficulty, though I barely made it through with the ship intact and everyone alive after the constant fighting. No, this is a question about the nature of the game. To wit, is it always this absurdly repetitive?! It's seriously boring and downright frustrating to run into the very same cloud of enemies every single time I jump or undock anywhere but home.

I'm approaching the refund limit, having played 1.6 hours, and as much as I want to like this game, it feels like it's a repetitive snooze-fest beyond the first couple hours. Can anyone who's played longer offer some advice? Thanks in advance.

[Eveoholic]

Yea, both ways you'll have enemies, if you backtrack accidentally you get repeated spawns.

The safe route is less enemies, so you're not as likely to have shields fail as much, while the faster route generally has more enemies, including more of a stronger power

[Phileosophos]

Originally posted by Eveoholic:

Yea, both ways you'll have enemies, if you backtrack accidentally you get repeated spawns.

The safe route is less enemies, so you're not as likely to have shields fail as much, while the faster route generally has more enemies, including more of a stronger power

Yikes. In light of that, do you (or anyone else for that matter) actually find this game entertaining? I quickly found the repetitive battles pointlessly boring.

[Davesoft]

On one mission I took the fastest route, then after clearing the objective I saw another gate, the onusamra or whatever, the space turd. So I took that route instead of the way home, and found a research pickup :D

Not the world changing easter egg I was after, but it does imply that missions will have an optional pickup somewhere

[Doctor Lag]

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

do you (or anyone else for that matter) actually find this game entertaining? I quickly found the repetitive battles pointlessly boring.

Yeah agreed, this is one of those games where the pacing is so bad I wonder if they used dev mode to skip to the good stuff during testing. The only reason I didn't refund it is that I think I got at least 2x the value out of Bomber Crew. I figure we're even now.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

I went on my fourth mission today, delivering supplies to another station. It was supposed to be easy and safe. My navigator said the safest way to the asteroid belt Ceres location was to go to the Earth/moon, then Venus, then finally to that location. I figured I'm not very good at the combat yet, so why not go the safest route?

I jump to Earth/moon and fight 6 - 9 enemy ships. I'm honestly not sure of the numbers. I remember two initial groups of three, then maybe another group of three. It wasn't the end of the world, but I figured that surely had to be it for this mission. Then I jumped to Venus and had the very same thing happen. This is the safest route?!

Apparently, I had accidentally selected the Earth/moon jump gate again in combat, because that's where I accidentally found myself going. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Jumped back to Venus. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Jumped to the asteroid belt Ceres location. Again the same enemy ships and battle. Delivered the supplies, yay!

I thought maybe my beat up nearly destroyed ship was going to be repaired at a friendly station! Nope. No option to do so. Or maybe I could at least refill my supplies. Nope. No option to do so. Well, that's ok, because surely I'm going to have an easier time going back. So I undock with visions of promotion dancing in my mind.

As soon as I'm getting near the first gate, again the same enemy ships and battle. I jump to Venus--again the "safest" suggested route!--and again the same enemy ships and battle. Jump to Earth/moon and again the same enemy ships and battle. The only fracking section where I wasn't immediately jumped by the same enemy ships was when I got back to Athena station.

This isn't a complaint about difficulty, though I barely made it through with the ship intact and everyone alive after the constant fighting. No, this is a question about the nature of the game. To wit, is it always this absurdly repetitive?! It's seriously boring and downright frustrating to run into the very same cloud of enemies every single time I jump or undock anywhere but home.

I'm approaching the refund limit, having played 1.6 hours, and as much as I want to like this game, it feels like it's a repetitive snooze-fest beyond the first couple hours. Can anyone who's played longer offer some advice? Thanks in advance.

Maybe this isn't the game for you then, because there is a lot of that in the game. I think the biggest issue is that you probably haven't had a chance to experiment with other equipment and your power settings. Depending on your level and power settings even the fastest route can be a cake walk. But in regards to your question that is pretty much the games formula, on some occassions you don't get attacked but mostly you do.

[Phileosophos]

Originally posted by Morpheus:

Maybe this isn't the game for you then, because there is a lot of that in the game. I think the biggest issue is that you probably haven't had a chance to experiment with other equipment and your power settings. Depending on your level and power settings even the fastest route can be a cake walk. But in regards to your question that is pretty much the games formula, on some occassions you don't get attacked but mostly you do.

Thanks, that's exactly the conclusion I reached and refunded it yesterday. I wish it weren't so formulaic. Maybe the devs will improve it with time.

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

Originally posted by Morpheus:

Maybe this isn't the game for you then, because there is a lot of that in the game. I think the biggest issue is that you probably haven't had a chance to experiment with other equipment and your power settings. Depending on your level and power settings even the fastest route can be a cake walk. But in regards to your question that is pretty much the games formula, on some occassions you don't get attacked but mostly you do.

Thanks, that's exactly the conclusion I reached and refunded it yesterday. I wish it weren't so formulaic. Maybe the devs will improve it with time.

Check out Bomber Crew.

More or less the same "formula," but without the constant spawning because you took the wrong warp gate (there are no warp gates, it's all one large map of Western Europe), it's far more balanced, and the time to kill isn't a massive slog. The game has good pacing and I can't recommend it enough.

[oh no]

It would be nice if the devs added a chance not to encounter enemies on certain jumps.

Also i would be interested in non-combat activities during your flight to the mission zone.

[Asphe]

They really nerfed the difficulty though. You can just orbit a nav point, enable Auto-Tag and come back awhile later with level 12 XP across the board?

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Originally posted by LoR Team Triss:

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

Thanks, that's exactly the conclusion I reached and refunded it yesterday. I wish it weren't so formulaic. Maybe the devs will improve it with time.

Check out Bomber Crew.

More or less the same "formula," but without the constant spawning because you took the wrong warp gate (there are no warp gates, it's all one large map of Western Europe), it's far more balanced, and the time to kill isn't a massive slog. The game has good pacing and I can't recommend it enough.

Agreed, but OP refunded after 4 missions of Space Crew though. Not sure if Bomber Crew will tickle his fancy.

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

Yikes. In light of that, do you (or anyone else for that matter) actually find this game entertaining? I quickly found the repetitive battles pointlessly boring.

I view Space Crew as a bit of a simplified, easier, more accessible Bomber Crew but the mechanics of both games are similar. I don't find either as repetitive as say, Lichdom (pool, prime, boom) which I also liked. But if you can't find the fun in the gameplay loop as is... I don't think it's your cup of tea.

It's a lot easier to get into trouble in BC plus you can actually self-navigate around the map instead of just bouncing between 2 nav points in SC. You have more crew to manage, more positions/etc... just a lot more stuff to keep track of. If you didn't like that in SC, you'll dislike it even more in BC.

That said, I enjoyed SC. I just enjoyed BC more ^_^.

[Phileosophos]

First, thanks to the poster who suggested Bomber Crew. I'll look for that and give it a spin. I also agree with the poster who simply wished they didn't get jumped after every gate and wanted other things to do along the way. It amazes me they obviously wanted to capture the Star Trek vibe but then threw so much combat at us. Why not puzzles to solve along the way? Anomalies to scan? 20th century Earth satellites to collect and convince not to merge with their creator? Even the occasional green lady in a steel brassiere would be better than the tedious combat.

And to the poster who mentioned Lichdom: Battlemage, that's a perfect example of a redundant game with a fun core loop. The core combat loop of Space Crew is boring at best by comparison, at least from what I saw. I did ultimately do more than 4 missions, but not a lot. And of all the 6 or maybe 7 missions I did, I can't think of a single one that distinguished itself in any meaningful way, beyond I suppose the tutorials. They were all the same: jump, fight N waves of the same enemies, jump, fight N waves of the same enemies, jump... then eventually do the one thing you were actually sent to do before doing all the jumps back and all the combat in reverse order. That's just boring.

[Team Triss]

At least Bomber Crew, while it has the "I'm on my way in/out and there are enemy fighters" mechanic that this game has, they will a) eventually turn back because fuel is a thing, b) time to kill is way better, but you also have more secondary objectives you can go for AND bombing runs are semi-interactive and break up the monotony of crew manglement/tagging.

[_jay]

I find Space Crew quite repetitive compared to Bomber Crew. A big problem lies with the jump gate and wave of enemies mechanic. It becomes a huge chore to clear out each wave just so you can make a jump.

If you're down crew members you may as well just restart, in Bomber Crew you still had a chance, you just had to be able to try limp your way to the channel or sneak around the outskirts if you had to. In Space Crew your options are limited having to fight your to and from every warp gate.

[Asphe]

Originally posted by {O|G}Phileosophos:

First, thanks to the poster who suggested Bomber Crew. I'll look for that and give it a spin. I also agree with the poster who simply wished they didn't get jumped after every gate and wanted other things to do along the way. It amazes me they obviously wanted to capture the Star Trek vibe but then threw so much combat at us. Why not puzzles to solve along the way? Anomalies to scan? 20th century Earth satellites to collect and convince not to merge with their creator? Even the occasional green lady in a steel brassiere would be better than the tedious combat.

And to the poster who mentioned Lichdom: Battlemage, that's a perfect example of a redundant game with a fun core loop. The core combat loop of Space Crew is boring at best by comparison, at least from what I saw. I did ultimately do more than 4 missions, but not a lot. And of all the 6 or maybe 7 missions I did, I can't think of a single one that distinguished itself in any meaningful way, beyond I suppose the tutorials. They were all the same: jump, fight N waves of the same enemies, jump, fight N waves of the same enemies, jump... then eventually do the one thing you were actually sent to do before doing all the jumps back and all the combat in reverse order. That's just boring.

Try looking for "Star Trek: Bridge Commander". If you're looking for a 'Star Trek' vibe, that would get my vote. Full 3D movement and combat, more 'realistic' than the movies. Plus 'Fire' is not the answer to everything. Else, if it's more of an arcade thing... TIE Fighter (on sale currently).

Or if you just kinda want to wander around in a realistic universe... Elite 2 (and 3) Frontiers. Imagine coming into a planet's atmosphere at Mach 25, then launching a nuke at a city as you zip past. Outside of VBS, ARMA 3 or CS2... pretty realistic. Combat is 6DOF with ranges over 1000km and you can take YEARS to travel from one planet to another (the game allows you to fast forward time). Or take part in a 100s LY yacht race.

Currently, Elite 4 is on Steam but it's a sequel to Elite 1 (non-Newtonian physics, more like Star Wars... kinda hard to do realistic physics for a MMO). You know how folks describe EVE as 'Spreadsheets in Space'? Elite 4 is Space Truckers.... 99% hauling cargo, mining asteroids, chatting up NPCs and 1% of the most engrossing non-Newtonian space combat.

If you still like Lichdom's combat mechanics... go to Epic Games Store and look for Spellbreak. It's basically if Fornite and Lichdom had a one-night stand... except you don't need to grind for shields and whatnot... just wear a pair of rings. It's free too but it's all PvP though.

If you end up liking BC, look for Armored Battle Crew but I like BC better.

[Phileosophos]

Originally posted by Asphe:

Try looking for "Star Trek: Bridge Commander". If you're looking for a 'Star Trek' vibe, that would get my vote. Full 3D movement and combat, more 'realistic' than the movies. Plus 'Fire' is not the answer to everything. Else, if it's more of an arcade thing... TIE Fighter (on sale currently).

Or if you just kinda want to wander around in a realistic universe... Elite 2 (and 3) Frontiers. Imagine coming into a planet's atmosphere at Mach 25, then launching a nuke at a city as you zip past. Outside of VBS, ARMA 3 or CS2... pretty realistic. Combat is 6DOF with ranges over 1000km and you can take YEARS to travel from one planet to another (the game allows you to fast forward time). Or take part in a 100s LY yacht race.

Currently, Elite 4 is on Steam but it's a sequel to Elite 1 (non-Newtonian physics, more like Star Wars... kinda hard to do realistic physics for a MMO). You know how folks describe EVE as 'Spreadsheets in Space'? Elite 4 is Space Truckers.... 99% hauling cargo, mining asteroids, chatting up NPCs and 1% of the most engrossing non-Newtonian space combat.

If you still like Lichdom's combat mechanics... go to Epic Games Store and look for Spellbreak. It's basically if Fornite and Lichdom had a one-night stand... except you don't need to grind for shields and whatnot... just wear a pair of rings. It's free too but it's all PvP though.

If you end up liking BC, look for Armored Battle Crew but I like BC better.

Since you took the time to provide such nice suggestions, I'll take the time to reply. I loved Star Trek: Bridge Commander! I still have my original DVD and play it from time to time. Big fun that. I only wish it would get some kind of remaster love or somebody would take the concept and run with it. But then I was enough of a Star Trek nerd to love Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy as well, completing both multiple times.

I backed Elite: Dangerous in the original campaign and have logged thousands of hours with it. I haven't played in a while, but I'm probably due for another exploratory trip to the black. Suffice it to say, I know what you mean about how 99% of your time ends up being hauling cargo. I haven't heard of Spellbreak, so I'll go look at that. I don't do business with Epic Games and won't as long as they keep pulling their exclusives garbage, but I appreciate the recommend.

Since you offered some great suggestions, let me off you one in return. One of the best Newtonian physics (with the option to turn them off for sake of sanity) I've ever played was Evochron: Mercenary and the other games in the series. It's an astonishing game built by one man and pretty cheap on Steam these days. Cheers!

[Asphe]

Yep, played Evochron myself. Over the years, I've gone from 'must have stick' to 'looks cute' as acceptable criteria ^_^.

Now I'm just happy if it's something like X: BTF or X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. I save the realism fix for War Thunder or DCS.

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Elite 4 (why did Frontier prefer 'ED' to Elite 4... beats me ^_^). They HAD a semi-Newtonian system in earliest alphas? Did you see those as a KS? Or was it just the 'speed has a high cap' "newtonian" system? Ah well. Still... it's hard to do 'real' physics in a MMO. I played an indie space MMO with such a system (it capped max velocity only, everything else was newtonian)... too few players. Brazilian indie dev to boot.

Same with Bridge Commander. Imagine a 4 player co-op version... which then got the 3D part cut down to 2.5D (this version, everything is displayed in 3D but you move on a 2D plane, non-newtonian - you can probably guess which Star Trek game this is).

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I'd keep an eye on Space Crew. BC changed a lot with their DLCs. I'm hoping for a larger ship / smaller ship and different space 'terrain' with manual navigation (something that ABC has). SC does a few new things like boarding actions.

Another one you might try, GOIO. It's actually a co-op airship vs airship PvP game with a PvE mode. Since it has such a low population, it's basically PvE (you - captain/pilot + 3 engineer/gunners). You can unlock various ships / weapons. Airship vs airship with multiple positions.