Blueprints

[blarg]

Good game, like it a lot, but the blueprint system is so terrible that it almost ruins the whole thing. If you're going to have a pre-ordained distribution of the items across the islands, then you should at least tell us what's on a given island so we can create some sort of plan of attack. Currently you're just flailing in the dark, a small munitions island might give the incredibly useful in any scenario 20mm ammo, or it might give you smoke ammo when you have no smoke launchers (and the blueprint for them is on the opposite end of the map). When most islands could either contain something incredibly useful or something totally useless (or nothing at all) then there is no longer any meaningful decision to be made about which to attack, it's just blind luck.

And even if you don't want to tell the player what an island has, there are so many ways you could resolve the problem, shuffle in duplicate blueprints, offer the player a choice of blueprints when they conquer an island, allow the player to purchase blueprints using credits, associate blueprints with each other so you're more likely to find related blueprints together (eg: in the distribution of the blueprints, increase the likelihood that the 40mm ammo will end up close to the 40mm cannons). The system desperately needs to be changed.

[ebe-a51]

I kind of like the idea of randomised blueprints because it forces you to adapt your strategy...

but give how many islands they are and blueprints and how you cant get them all, i think having a pool of THREE blueprints per island, and a randomiser removes one of the three options and you can choose one of the remaining two COULD be a good option in forcing you do adapt your strategy, but at least having some flexibility in choosing HOW you adapt your strategy to the scarcity of a resource.

[mflacy]

No. There's NO strategy. You might not get any blueprints at all when you conquer an island. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2QKKtHJ-48) You won't even have the blueprints to build more of the stuff that nonetheless was magically part of your carrier's initial load, which is really messed up.

It's broken. Fundamentally broken.

In terms of manufacturing, the Carrier Command 2 devs managed to take the worse aspects of the original Carrier Command and the Gaia Mission version. I haven't played that much of Carrier Command 2 since the ocean currents don't allow my carrier to approach certain islands near my start point (unlike my machine counterpart, who spawns with no interfering currents that I can tell from the map) and since it's an absolute crapshoot about what I may or may not be able to build after I conquer any given island, I have no idea what I'll gain from the resources I'll expend (ammo of various types and fuel, if nothing else) to take that island over.

The plus side of Gaia mission was that it had beautiful islands, the ability to launch multiple aircraft and ground vehicles at the same time, and a production system that looked at production capacity and resource availability after you found all the blueprints. The minus side of Gaia mission were that the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blueprints existed at all outside of the asinine "campaign game" and the fact that if your carrier wasn't parked by an island, said island didn't really exist.

Drop the blueprints. Add resource and production capacity to the islands.

[SpiritFire]

i wouldnt mind blueprints if they got rid of credits. but with both its.. a bit harsh.

[Space Chaplain]

Blue print should be available from starts. While the island can be used for faster manufacturing for eg: 1 shield island the slowest, 4 shields island the fastest in term of manufacturing items.

imho this RNG blueprints doesnt fit well with the whole naval military sim.

[odin]

Or at least add more options to customize the game session on how BP and credits works..

[DarkBlueAgent]

From what I've seen, the player can end up having a ridiculous amount of money pretty early on by destroying ships and other vehicles.

Why not make it so the blueprints can be purchased?

The more powerful the blueprint the more expensive.

What is the player supposed to do with 250k-500k credits?

[blarg]

Originally posted by ebe-a51:

I kind of like the idea of randomised blueprints because it forces you to adapt your strategy...

I get that but you still get that benefit from randomly distributing the items and then telling the player where they are. The player still is stuck with trying to deal with the items that they can feasibly acquire rather than instantly gunning for their ideal perfect build, but you aren't forced to attack every island with useless blueprints on the off chance one of them will be something incredibly useful that turns the whole game around.

Getting the 100mm blueprint when you don't have bears or cannons isn't an opportunity to adapt, it's just cause for aggravation, especially since you can't go FIND bears and cannons, you just have to get lucky.

[ebe-a51]

Originally posted by DarkBlueAgent:

F
Why not make it so the blueprints can be purchased?

The more powerful the blueprint the more expensive.

What is the player supposed to do with 250k-500k credits?

I like this idea.
Capturing islands gives you blueprints and access to that branch of blueprints... but if you have lots of credits you can buy blueprints from that branch after (if they havent/didnt drop)

So...
Capture and island with large munitions.

Capturing a large munitions give you access to ALL large munitions blueprints.

You randomly are rewarded the torpedo blueprint.

You WANT the 160mm blueprint, you can buy it with credits because youve captured a large munitions island and have access to all large munition blueprints - it costs... i dunno $25000 credits.

[immodium]

You could also just allow the player to choose a blueprint from a selection depending on what island you've conquered.

[Umbert]

Originally posted by immodium:

You could also just allow the player to choose a blueprint from a selection depending on what island you've conquered.

This seems like a good idea. Offer the player 5 blueprints and let him select 2. Maybe a 3rd if you pay a price (fixed or depending on the blueprint).

[Majickthyse]

I think the random blueprints is a good thing. It gives you the chance to explore new tactics and guarantees replayability.

[Redpossum]

At the very least, you should begin with the ability to produce a few types of very basic gear such as-
20mm ammo
30mm ammo
small bombs
-and maybe a little more depending on difficulty level

[ebe-a51]

Originally posted by Redpossum:

At the very least, you should begin with the ability to produce a few types of very basic gear such as-
20mm ammo
30mm ammo
small bombs
-and maybe a little more depending on difficulty level

Dunno... theres a aweful lot of stuff left in the warehouse at spawn.
Sitting there and stocking up completely from the warehouse at the start makes a SIGNIFICANT improvement to you capability in the start of the game.

There is HEAPS of 30mm, 20mm and Missile(IR) available that it just not loaded onto the carrier.
Even Carrier Cruise Missiles.

I honestly dunno why we dont start with EVERYTHING on the carrier... why leave stuff in the warehouse at launch at all?

[Umbert]

Originally posted by ebe-a51:

Originally posted by Redpossum:

I honestly dunno why we dont start with EVERYTHING on the carrier... why leave stuff in the warehouse at launch at all?

Maybe it's a semi-tutorial? How logistics work?

[ebe-a51]

Originally posted by Umbert:

Originally posted by ebe-a51:

Maybe it's a semi-tutorial? How logistics work?

Its not, but that would be a good idea to expand the current (and insufficient) logistics tutorial.