fleet and rest of game / reinforce feel disjointed

[Cedarium]

To preface this: I like the fleet system. However...

Prior to fleet being added, the endgame loop was "reinforce to become stronger" -> "use extra benefits to push further" -> reinforce to become stronger", and so on

With fleet, the intention seems to be "reinforce to get fleet benefits" -> "use fleet benefits to push further" -> "reinforce to get fleet resources" -> "use fleet resources to get fleet benefits" -> "reinforce to get fleet benefits", and so on.

For my first reinforce post-update (at 103 to finish galaxy 3), I felt this way, as I had become walled and did not have enough fleet resources to finish the galaxy. My second reinforce (at 107 to finish galaxy 4) felt a lot worse however: I was already able to accumulate the needed artifacts, just not finish the galaxy, so this reinforce was really just for the battle completion rewards and a bit of a speedup

But then I had to do my third reinforce to get the remaining benefits from galaxy 4, and realized that all my progress on that current reinforce was for nothing. Since I finished galaxy 4, fleet resources were useless again, so I could have just as easily just afked for a few days to gain resources.

Essentially, in the later part of the fleet system, progression feels more like "idle for a while to gain fleet resources" -> "complete fleet battles" -> "idle for more fleet resources", and this seems a bit unfortunate to me. I'd love for a solution to this to make the main game feel like it hasn't been sidelined, but all my immediate thoughts feel like they'd be more punitive than fun (such as tying fleet resources, or fleet charge speed, to the furthest sector reached in a run as well).

I'd like to know if others feel this way, or if I've just been improperly playing with fleets.

[Sheakiru]

unstable transit literally has a disclaimer at the top stating
(This is a work in progress)

[SolidDoc]

Yeah, i get the same feeling. Prior reinforces seemed like a milestone. Now i had to reinforce multiple times per galaxy to get different things. Yeah, maxing some system gonna make them permanent so it will be easier to get back to where i was, but it's not making it much more fun doing it over and over. Game used to have much slower pace between reinforces, which i preferred to be honest

[adeyke]

That's also something I've been thinking about. Reinforce does two things: it turns on artifact upgrades, and it increases fleet resources. But the way it's set up, any given reinforce will only significantly do one of those two things.

Basically, this means that there are reinforces where you're doing fleet (in which case it really doesn't matter what main progress you're making, as long as you can reinforce again once you have the artifact upgrades) and reinforces where you're doing main game (in which case you're better off just letting fuel accumulate until you reinforce with sufficient fleet resources for the next galaxy).

From a progression perspective, these systems would make more sense if they ran in series rather than in parallel, though that would bring its own problems: if you're currently on a fleet run, even a relatively pointless main game while waiting for fuel feels better than doing absolutely nothing.

Maybe fully maxing out a galaxy should turn on the artifact upgrades without needing a reinforce?

[phenir]

Originally posted by Cedarium:

With fleet, the intention seems to be "reinforce to get fleet benefits" -> "use fleet benefits to push further" -> "reinforce to get fleet resources" -> "use fleet resources to get fleet benefits" -> "reinforce to get fleet benefits", and so on.

You can combine two of those steps, getting fleet resources and the upgrades in the same reinforce.

Originally posted by SolidDoc:

Yeah, i get the same feeling. Prior reinforces seemed like a milestone. Now i had to reinforce multiple times per galaxy to get different things. Yeah, maxing some system gonna make them permanent so it will be easier to get back to where i was, but it's not making it much more fun doing it over and over. Game used to have much slower pace between reinforces, which i preferred to be honest

Maybe you feel like you need to reinforce more often because of the small increases afforded by artifacts? I only reinforced 3 times since the update and there's 4 galaxies worth of upgrades to get, seems pretty well paced to me.

I think this comes down to how you are playing fleet. Maybe you are doing something wrong there so you feel like you need more resources than you actually do. Do you go back over early battles to clear them with fewer resources thanks to hp and damage upgrades? Are you investing in the the resources and upgrades nodes? You can apparently clear galaxy 4 at sector 105 with enough investment in those. Maybe your compositions and layouts for battles aren't ideal so you end up losing more resources than you should.

[Sylv]

I am seeing this sentiment a bit but it seems fairly rare. I understand where its coming from but am not sure if a solution is needed or even realistic.

The "intended" way for this to play out is:
Reinforce at 100 to start it off
Progress fleet an main game until you feel like its too hard to go further
Reinforce and get the artifact upgrades online to help main game, and FR to help fleet
Progress again until it feels real slow etc
Reinforce and get the artifact upgrades online to help main game, and FR to help fleet
Repeat forever

Which is what your first thoughts were. I think this is generally waht happens, with some exceptions. I would like to avoid scenarios where people reinforce for ONLY one of the two benefits, but I can't do that unless I make the reinforce more stringent, IE require new high or something. Did you reinforce for 0 extra FR or near 0 extra artifact upgrade changes at all?

Originally posted by Cedarium:

But then I had to do my third reinforce to get the remaining benefits from galaxy 4, and realized that all my progress on that current reinforce was for nothing. Since I finished galaxy 4, fleet resources were useless again, so I could have just as easily just afked for a few days to gain resources.

This part is just an effect of the current end of content. Once there's more galaxies, you would still have a use for fleet resources. Of course, this will semi-occur for every EoC but is unavoidable.

[SolidDoc]

I suppose it falls on us players to delay certain boost to wait for another to catch up. I would assume people advance at different rates in both of those, thus the feeling of disjointment. When i had all artifacts unlocked it was hard to delay that instant boost just to slog out extra fleet resources for next galaxy. I had reinforced two times per galaxy, excluding the first one, which might not have been the best way to approach it

[LordQ]

I enjoyed the strategic choice and the opportunity to minmax as much as I could :)

I did do a 0 FR jump at 100 to get artifacts as my second jump, but after that I found that you could do each galaxy with several stages less FR than the recommended, so each jump I did after that was 2-3 stages AND a pleasing amount of new artifacts. Sometimes I idled to get more artifacts and worked on achievements, finishing void shards, or alien synth, which are permanent boosts.

I did see the disconnect the OP is talking about but it worked out fine in the end for me.

I tell you what I'm saddest about, having cleared the galaxies: I miss the steady supply of free retrofits :P (Yes I know I can spend an hour's gas to get one and I will if I need to). At least prestiging to get more also unlocks base6 spaces, I think the timing there is very good.

[Cedarium]

Originally posted by Sylv:

I am seeing this sentiment a bit but it seems fairly rare. I understand where its coming from but am not sure if a solution is needed or even realistic.

The "intended" way for this to play out is:
Reinforce at 100 to start it off
Progress fleet an main game until you feel like its too hard to go further
Reinforce and get the artifact upgrades online to help main game, and FR to help fleet
Progress again until it feels real slow etc
Reinforce and get the artifact upgrades online to help main game, and FR to help fleet
Repeat forever

Which is what your first thoughts were. I think this is generally waht happens, with some exceptions. I would like to avoid scenarios where people reinforce for ONLY one of the two benefits, but I can't do that unless I make the reinforce more stringent, IE require new high or something. Did you reinforce for 0 extra FR or near 0 extra artifact upgrade changes at all?

Originally posted by Cedarium:

But then I had to do my third reinforce to get the remaining benefits from galaxy 4, and realized that all my progress on that current reinforce was for nothing. Since I finished galaxy 4, fleet resources were useless again, so I could have just as easily just afked for a few days to gain resources.

This part is just an effect of the current end of content. Once there's more galaxies, you would still have a use for fleet resources. Of course, this will semi-occur for every EoC but is unavoidable.

I reinforced at:
-sector 100 (release of the update, to start fleets)
-sector 103 (galaxy 1 + 2 completed, galaxy 3 partially done, as I needed more FR to do galaxy 3)
-sector 107 (galaxy 3 done, galaxy 4 partially done, as I needed more FR)
-sector 104? (finished galaxy 4, realized that I may as well reinforce at that point since more fleet resources are useless at this point)

as you say, it is just an effect of the current content- but it's a really lame feeling to play out a reinforce for a few days only to realize you're wasting your time, and could've just completely ignored the game for the few days needed to acquire your fleet resources.

My concern / disappointment is that, if this is just how the fleet system is going to work, then every time I reach this similar place (i.e. need to reinforce to get enough FR to finish the last available galaxy), the optimal way for me to play will be to reinforce, close the game and wait a few days until I have enough fuel to finish the galaxy, finish the galaxy, and then reinforce again to get the galaxy upgrades, without even bothering to play the non-fleet portion of the game.

[RaptorSolutions]

Personally I've never reinforced where I only get 1 of the 2 benefits, every reinforce I did I get a little more FR at the very least while getting a substantial artifact upgrade.
I'm lazy, and reinforces are frankly boring with all the things you need to redo, so I maximize each one to make the next reinforce easier. Having completed galaxy 4 now, I think I reinforced 4-5 times total? Is there a place I can check?
I see no reason to idle away a reinforce doing nothing else, because the last time I reinforced I always make sure I get enough bonuses that I can at the very least push an extra sector. And since bonuses compound and all that, it makes the next runs through the galaxies easier even with just 1 sector extra.

[Dex]

This is anecdotal, but it adds another data point.
I'm casually enjoying the content, so that might be allowing me to care less about what I get when, but I've only reinforced once* in the new content. I'm nearing a second one though. I have yet to only focus on just pushing sectors or fleet alone, or to feel like I would be better off doing that.

*I did reinforce #5 at sector 100 when the new content was released. I didn't even try to push farther. I think that might have been required to unlock fleet even, so I don't count that one. I didn't pay attention at the time.

I then played that reinforce for a couple of weeks(?), getting up to sector 106 and halfway through galaxy 3. I figured I could push to 107 before I needed the reinforce bonus from galaxies 1, 2 and the half of 3 I finished, but decided I didn't care to push it, and so I reinforced then (at sector 106 after 2-3 weeks). I am now half way through sector 109 and have finished all of galaxy 3 and 4, but have not yet reinforced that second time to activate anything. I spent the last couple of days finalizing bases 1-4. Now I'll be idling tomorrow while I'm at work, picking up salvage/capital resources. After that I intend to make a push for at least sector 110, if not 111, before I do my second reinforce to unlock all of the galaxy 3 and 4 stuff.

I've felt like that was a good balance. Push (nearly) as far as I could, completing fleet on the way, then reinforce. Fly through the earlier content (which is getting tedious at this point) until I get back to where I was. Then see how far I could increment on some number of cycles of focusing each system, completing fleet along the way, and then reinforce again. Though this time I won't have fleet as an avenue for boosts to rely on when I near my limit on this next reinforce.

[Sylv]

Originally posted by Cedarium:

My concern / disappointment is that, if this is just how the fleet system is going to work, then every time I reach this similar place (i.e. need to reinforce to get enough FR to finish the last available galaxy), the optimal way for me to play will be to reinforce, close the game and wait a few days until I have enough fuel to finish the galaxy, finish the galaxy, and then reinforce again to get the galaxy upgrades, without even bothering to play the non-fleet portion of the game.

Actually, what you hit on here is the one real issue I see. There is currently an "optimal" play, even when there are more galaxies that is:
Once you feel like you need to reinforce for better galaxy progress, you wait 4 days for full fuel (and maaaaybe you get 1 more sector too) -> reinforce -> spam out your fuel -> hit 100 -> reinforce for any new bonuses you got

Its a bit of work to just go to 100 only to start again, but if that turns out to be a popular approach I think I will do something about it as thats just a sucky play pattern, just not sure what

[Hunu]

Originally posted by Sylv:

Originally posted by Cedarium:

My concern / disappointment is that, if this is just how the fleet system is going to work, then every time I reach this similar place (i.e. need to reinforce to get enough FR to finish the last available galaxy), the optimal way for me to play will be to reinforce, close the game and wait a few days until I have enough fuel to finish the galaxy, finish the galaxy, and then reinforce again to get the galaxy upgrades, without even bothering to play the non-fleet portion of the game.

Actually, what you hit on here is the one real issue I see. There is currently an "optimal" play, even when there are more galaxies that is:
Once you feel like you need to reinforce for better galaxy progress, you wait 4 days for full fuel (and maaaaybe you get 1 more sector too) -> reinforce -> spam out your fuel -> hit 100 -> reinforce for any new bonuses you got

Its a bit of work to just go to 100 only to start again, but if that turns out to be a popular approach I think I will do something about it as thats just a sucky play pattern, just not sure what

FR, your description of what people could be doing has just explained how I could waste less time. I play so inefficiently and this very minor change to my approach could give me huge gains. IMO, you have to do something about it because i'm about to start doing it after reading this, lol.

[TheLandscaper]

Originally posted by RaptorSolutions:

I'm lazy, and reinforces are frankly boring with all the things you need to redo, so I maximize each one to make the next reinforce easier. Having completed galaxy 4 now, I think I reinforced 4-5 times total? Is there a place I can check?

Click on the "Backup" button, save file's name will show how many reinforcements you have done so far.

[Meneldal]

I know I could bank fuel and just use it all at once optimally but it didn't feel fun and I also hate repeating the early game part (though it got a lot less tedious with the extra mastery on crew and the buy all qol stuff). Finished the last galaxy with a 105 reinforce, will do 110 once I max out crew (should be 2 more days) then no more until next update.

[RaptorSolutions]

Originally posted by Sylv:

Originally posted by Cedarium:

My concern / disappointment is that, if this is just how the fleet system is going to work, then every time I reach this similar place (i.e. need to reinforce to get enough FR to finish the last available galaxy), the optimal way for me to play will be to reinforce, close the game and wait a few days until I have enough fuel to finish the galaxy, finish the galaxy, and then reinforce again to get the galaxy upgrades, without even bothering to play the non-fleet portion of the game.

Actually, what you hit on here is the one real issue I see. There is currently an "optimal" play, even when there are more galaxies that is:
Once you feel like you need to reinforce for better galaxy progress, you wait 4 days for full fuel (and maaaaybe you get 1 more sector too) -> reinforce -> spam out your fuel -> hit 100 -> reinforce for any new bonuses you got

Its a bit of work to just go to 100 only to start again, but if that turns out to be a popular approach I think I will do something about it as thats just a sucky play pattern, just not sure what

What about temp bonuses depending on what sector you reinforce at? Currently there is no difference between reinforcing at 100 or what sector you previously reached, which is what leads to this degenerate gameplay. But if you add some artifact or combat bonuses or something depending on which sector you hit, then it incentivizes pushing actively to make the next run easier. Artifact one is the one I prefer, like you get a bonus to artifact gain. It'll even incentivize you to reinforce a bit at current EoC at the end to boost your unstable transit... Well, I'll rather not but you get the idea.

But personally though, as you note hitting just 100 again is a bit of a pain, so frankly when I was playing I was maximizing each reinforce to at least hit 1 new sector for a FR boost and also to bring back as much Fleet bonuses as I can.
Maybe it'll help if you make progression there easier too. A pain point for me is that warp sync only goes up to 95. Maybe as you complete each fleet galaxy, or at a mid point as an artifact upgrade we can boost warp sync. Or have it scale dynamically. Like warp sync goes up to lowest non-capped -5 or something.
Actually, in the future I don't see why we can't just eliminate the small ship portion entirely and jump to capital stage. After completing all 4 galaxies and reinforcing, I noticed that entire section is just a formality at that point, a formality that still takes an hour or so. Or might have been less tbf, but you get the point. Just checklist it if we've unlocked base 6 and cleared the first 4 galaxies, and maybe crew supremacy if you really must, then we can just eliminate that entire portion. You can still fly back if you want, but you otherwise basically start at a state where it assumes you've completed the first time you get the capital checklist. So like all previous synth infinite and all that.