Is this any fun to play?

[STUNNING & BRAVE]

Sure there's a lot of content, but the meat and potatoes of the combat as I remember were really basic. Has AI improved enough to make it any more entertaining than point and click?

[0kaiowas0]

Depends when you last played really.

I came back after nearly a year, and I've noticed the AI in dogfights now sometimes decides to bolt when their shields are hit hard: they go balls-to-the-wall to get away from player & sporadically zig-zag, making them a much harder target. This also has the effect of dragging the player away from the general skirmish.

On foot, the AI have got a little more tanky when you progress up the levels, but not seen much behavioural improvement there, tbh, but could be wrong.

So, yes, there's been a few incremental changes over the year, some quite subtle. I've been generally enjoying the shooty-bang-bang aspect since returning.

[0kaiowas0]

^ I should add. regarding ground combat:

Just had a little blast in game to refresh my memory. It's definitely NOT boring now! In regards to AI behaviour in movement during combat - they are still subject to doing a lot of side-strafing. The "upload the link" missions feel the same - anticipate the drop pod and snipe, not much has changed there.

But the positive changes I can perceive: There is more gore - legs, arms, heads & torsos go flying in all directions. AI now like to throw grenades at you: not too much, not to little - nicely balanced. There are also injuries - NPC's can get incapacitated and drop prone but are not technically dead...yet. I have even seen them trying to crawl away when injured.

The sheer intensity of combat that can be experienced in clearing a smuggler hideout can be quite exhilarating now. The 'high-tech rectangular village' local is a case point for seeing this more challenging game-play in effect.

First-person, if adopted, is still way over the horizon but it still remains fun in third-person.

Moved up a notch or two from last year :)

[-shhfiftyfive]

the stargate system is quite time consuming.

i do wish there was an option to be rid of them and just make warp between systems fast.

you'll get on the game to play. make some plans/goals for what you want to do that day... then those plans fizzle out as you realize how long it takes to go anywhere. the stargates drastically slows down progress.

[-shhfiftyfive]

also note that every time your pilot level increases, you're also increasing the cost of ships. so a capital ship requires 5 crew to purchase. at pilot level 1, it starts at about $12mil but by the time you get far enough into the game to have the 5 crew required to buy it... that price will have skyrocketed based on your pilot level being 20+

so you try to get through the main story without going out and gaining any extra pilot exp. still the price will be quite high.

[-shhfiftyfive]

if you fight enemies of your level it is time consuming. if you fight any enemies even 1 level above you it is a complete waste of time or likely suicide. enemies below your level will be short work.

quests will be given to you based on your current level. with a slight range, so you pick the easy ones and don't be silly trying the harder ones.

this is also to say that as you level up (soldier or pilot) you gain ability to use higher level gear,, which is drastically better like every 5 levels. which is mandatory just about every 5 levels if you want to maintain that power over enemies of similar level.

[-shhfiftyfive]

you will gain a squad to accompany you. a 4 man team of soldiers on the ground, and a 4 ship team in space combat. these guys aren't great but its nice to have them with you to draw some attention away from yourself in some cases.

later you get into the conquer phase where you take over the galaxy with large fleet and army.

it kind of reminds me of Mount and Blade.
but the stargates are so time-consuming...

[Khalunka]

What is there in the game besides what the trailer showed about combat?
Is there base building? trading? what kind of goals are there?
Thanks...

[Veetus]

Originally posted by -shhfiftyfive:

the stargate system is quite time consuming.

i do wish there was an option to be rid of them and just make warp between systems fast.

you'll get on the game to play. make some plans/goals for what you want to do that day... then those plans fizzle out as you realize how long it takes to go anywhere. the stargates drastically slows down progress.

Can you elaborate more on this 'Stargate System'?

[Phantomas]

Originally posted by Khalunka:

What is there in the game besides what the trailer showed about combat?
Is there base building? trading? what kind of goals are there?
Thanks...

Once you've prgressed in the storyline you can start building stations, build a Headquarter, even build a special ship yourself.
Besides that, you can mine and you can trade.
Btw the combat comes in 2 versions, space battles and ground battles.
You can land on planets and explore, use a hovercraft to fly across mountains/lakes. Each planet has its own climate, you can explore desert worlds, snow covered worlds, woodlands.
You can join several different guilds.
The combat (fighting) is a big part of the game, one of the goals is to become a starlord that dominates multiple systems yourself.
While progressing in the storyline, you have to do all sorts of different things, breaking a friend out of jail, find different items, visit stations, visit plantes, flee for your life, take revenge, build your own fleet.
The beauty of it all is that you have alot of freedom to pursue your own interests, you can choose yourself how quickly you want to progress.

[Khalunka]

Originally posted by Phantomas:

Originally posted by Khalunka:

What is there in the game besides what the trailer showed about combat?
Is there base building? trading? what kind of goals are there?
Thanks...

Once you've prgressed in the storyline you can start building stations, build a Headquarter, even build a special ship yourself.
Besides that, you can mine and you can trade.
Btw the combat comes in 2 versions, space battles and ground battles.
You can land on planets and explore, use a hovercraft to fly across mountains/lakes. Each planet has its own climate, you can explore desert worlds, snow covered worlds, woodlands.
You can join several different guilds.
The combat (fighting) is a big part of the game, one of the goals is to become a starlord that dominates multiple systems yourself.
While progressing in the storyline, you have to do all sorts of different things, breaking a friend out of jail, find different items, visit stations, visit plantes, flee for your life, take revenge, build your own fleet.
The beauty of it all is that you have alot of freedom to pursue your own interests, you can choose yourself how quickly you want to progress.

Thanks for your reply. I liked it very much.

[-shhfiftyfive]

Originally posted by Veetus:

Originally posted by -shhfiftyfive:

the stargate system is quite time consuming.

i do wish there was an option to be rid of them and just make warp between systems fast.

you'll get on the game to play. make some plans/goals for what you want to do that day... then those plans fizzle out as you realize how long it takes to go anywhere. the stargates drastically slows down progress.

Can you elaborate more on this 'Stargate System'?

to warp between stars, stargates are set up in every single solar system. solar systems are divided into clusters, so there is a chosen solar system that acts as a hub for fast travel for about a dozen nearby solar systems. so you use stargate to travel to your cluster hub, as a waypoint to travel across the vast map to other clusters of stars. each cluster is designed to have leveled enemies. so level 1-60 total, but each cluster is about 10 levels 1-10, 5-15, 10-20, 15-25, etc up to 60.

[Phantomas]

<<Thanks for your reply. I liked it very much.>>

Yw

Btw, you are aware that this game is still in early-acces mode?
You will encounter bugs, most of the times there is a workaround, but some bugs are really annoying and infuriating. Some players encounter nasty bugs that makes them decide to wait till the game is more stable, other players (like myself) have a pretty stable game and find the game very enjoyable and worth your time playing it.
In its current state there is still much that needs improvement and some things are not implemented yet, but despite that there is also already lots to do, lots to explore and as I mentioned before you have alot of freedom to decide what, when, how you want to proceed.
Technically the game does not have a sandbox, but it's freeroaming.
eg, If you want to spend a week just mining, trading, exploring, you can do so, and decide yourself when you want to do more of the storyline missions.

This game is already a true gem amongst the available Space-sim games currently in existence.

[Lestrad]

Originally posted by Phantomas:

Once you've prgressed in the storyline you can start building stations, build a Headquarter, even build a special ship yourself.

Would this include capital ships? Starfield is killing me with the inability to build anything larger than a freight transport.

[Khalunka]

Originally posted by Phantomas:

<<Thanks for your reply. I liked it very much.>>

Yw

Btw, you are aware that this game is still in early-acces mode?
You will encounter bugs, most of the times there is a workaround, but some bugs are really annoying and infuriating. Some players encounter nasty bugs that makes them decide to wait till the game is more stable, other players (like myself) have a pretty stable game and find the game very enjoyable and worth your time playing it.
In its current state there is still much that needs improvement and some things are not implemented yet, but despite that there is also already lots to do, lots to explore and as I mentioned before you have alot of freedom to decide what, when, how you want to proceed.
Technically the game does not have a sandbox, but it's freeroaming.
eg, If you want to spend a week just mining, trading, exploring, you can do so, and decide yourself when you want to do more of the storyline missions.

This game is already a true gem amongst the available Space-sim games currently in existence.

could you tell me what kind of bugs some players of the playerbase finds it gamebreaking?

[Phantomas]

<<could you tell me what kind of bugs some players of the playerbase finds it gamebreaking?>>

Some players experience a crash when they use the warp engine jumping to a station, through the stargate, or landing (warping) on a planet, since you have to use the warp engine often to get from A to B, the game is pretty unplayable for them.

There's also a very annoying bug where in certain situations you lose ship equipment (weapons/components), when you're higher level weapons and components are around 1.5 million, losing your stuff is enough for some people to (rage) quit.

I don't have crashes when using the warp engine, but sometimes I get a crash when I give the order to merge crates (After a spacefight you can find multiple crates which were dropped by enemies, you can merge these crates to pick up everything at once, on avg this happens 1 in 50 times, it's annoying but not that often)

Most bugs you encounter can be solved by reloading an earlier save point and try again.
It's smart to make lots of saves, because you never know when you get a bug, if you do, often your only option is to quit/reload and try again.

To learn more about what kind of bugs people experience, read the posts in "Bugs reporting" forum.