Difficulty scaling

[Mel]

Does the enemy difficulty scaling still make this game unplayable? I stopped playing Rebel Galaxy some 6-7 months ago when I got stuck and went bankrupt when I couldn't no longer take on the gargantuan enemy fleets nuking me in less than 10 seconds after getting the Arcturus.

[Zidders 'Rockin' Bard' Roofurry]

I've only had that issue once and it was when I bought a big ship but hadn't upgraded my weapons and defenses enough. Stick to small ships and don't hop into big ones until you have the best turrets available and a decent merc to back you up.

[Partycrasher]

Doesn't upgrading weapons/defences also cause enemies to scale up?

[Zidders 'Rockin' Bard' Roofurry]

Originally posted by Partycrasher:

Doesn't upgrading weapons/defences also cause enemies to scale up?

AFAIK enemy difficulty is based on your total worth.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Zidders Roofurry -{EAC}-:

Originally posted by Partycrasher:

Doesn't upgrading weapons/defences also cause enemies to scale up?

AFAIK enemy difficulty is based on your total worth.

Technically enemy difficulty is based on total worth

But, the reality of gameplay is that upgrading your ships is a massive investment of your total worth that does not pay off unless you have the equipment to back it up

This is why your original advice (to upgrade weapons and defenses) is so absolutly valid.

As your total worth grows your money invested has a much better rate of effectiveness when put into weapons and defenses.

Only after those have been upgraded should you consider bigger ships, faster engines, etc. These things do not give as much combat effectiveness per dollar as weapons/defenses but since they increaese your total worth they are slowly stacking the enemy against you.

Nice thing about the game being designed this way though is the ability to trade in ships with no loss of total worth. You can completely revamp any mistakes you make without losing overall total worth.

[Segovax]

I got frustrated and quit playing because I thought I just sucked, did not realize enemies scaled that way.

[Prosthetic_Mind]

Huh, that might explain why I keep losing bodyguard missions when the little cargo ship I'm supposed to be protecting decides to hover right next to the broadside of a huge cruiser for the remaining seconds of its life.
I hate it when games scale with your level (or money in this case) instead of having a curve based on plot/area progression.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Prosthetic_Mind:

Huh, that might explain why I keep losing bodyguard missions when the little cargo ship I'm supposed to be protecting decides to hover right next to the broadside of a huge cruiser for the remaining seconds of its life.
I hate it when games scale with your level (or money in this case) instead of having a curve based on plot/area progression.

I prefer it that way too so that you can out level an area. But this game is focused on the combat and their idea was to keep it challenging at all times. Whether it actually works or not *shrug*; matter of opinion.

[Darphnix]

There might be a misconception of what scaling means in this game. You outlevel enemies, just not the amount of enemies. When you hit max “level” with MK6 only and a dreadnaught (yeah Blackgate is the “highest” but the values don’t differ much between them) you will slice through enemies like they are nothing. But here is the funny thing, only a hand full enemies have different variations as a means to simulate levels. Any enemy with a specific name will always be one and the same strength. No upgrade in shields, armor, weapons, anything.

I’m not 100% certain about the calculation they use, but right now it seems that it’s the sum of all items you actively fly around with. And nope money has no meaning. Pretty easy to test: Hack the amount you have to over a few millions/billions. Nothing will happen to you. Now test the other thing: switch your active gear to a lower MK than you currently have: Mission available/active will ramp up in their rating from harmless to suicide.

The last thing I will touch on: Mission enemies =/= random encounters on the map. Both can vary quite a bit and they have a different base for the spawn. Missions have their difficulty while systems have their own range. In the starter system you should never see certain high level events as well as enemies.


PS: I’m not 100% certain as I haven’t seen the actual code for it, but as far as I tested around for modding these are the basic rules.

[Prosthetic_Mind]

Yeah, I'm pretty early in the game and after exploring different sectors there definitely is significant difference in difficulty between the sectors. I'm just having a hard time with bodyguard missions.

[Darphnix]

I get that, as NPC don't fly or shoot smart. They will fire at their own buddies without a second even though he’s between them and the enemy. There are few things you can try, but they will never guarantee victory during escort missions.

• Kill/Shoot enemies attacking your escort target
  
• Literally body-block enemies broadside/turrets with your ship to defend your buddy
  
• Force-stop your turrets shooting through the buddy with deflectors
  
• Focus turrets to “target only” or “locked target only” to prevent friendly fire from your side altogether (given smart targeting)
  
• In rare cases: Entice enemies focused on you away. Still very Dangerous, as you’re one of potentially 3 targets for the enemy => everyone else will either target the escort target or your mercenary.

[Prosthetic_Mind]

Yeah, I'm just at the point in the second system where I'm running into the super huge ships that I can't or can only just barely crack the shields on despite having 4 mk 3 particle laser turrets and the mk3 laser broadside. I've just given up on bodyguard missions for now, the other missions pay almost as well and to be fair there aren't many games that do escort missions well, so you can't blame the devs for falling into the same traps.

[Renesco]

So do missions availabe scale with your worth too? Could I go back to the starter sector and get missions for 50,000 creds or would they be the 1.5 mil cred missions I'm currently getting?

[ploppo]

Available and current missions dynamically scale. They dynamically scale based on both your ship and your installed weapons/equipment.


Go to a spaceport:
Look at your mission list/available missions
Take note of the difficulty (Very low, Low, Average, etc)

Trade your ship for a cheaper/more expensive one
Re-look at yoiur mission list/available missions
You'll visually see that the mission difficulty scales.

Uninstalling weapons, etc will dynamically scale a mission.


I had a Barracuda - I had two High and 2 Average missions in my active list.

I cheated my money and bought a Polaris - all of my missions are now Low - the Polaris is basically using the original weapons the Barracuda had - and is not fully kitted out.

I started uninstalling weapons and the mission difficulty started to go up to Very high - ie, I still have my Polaris.

[Ominous187]

or dont go into high lvl gear sectors when you're using 2 or lower and dont know how to use your ships setup.. i use all beams and 2 special missle launchers that dont use ammo with flak cannons and so far i do just fine. i just rock back and forth holding shift and space when needed.

[Ancient]

Originally posted by ploppo:

Available and current missions dynamically scale. They dynamically scale based on both your ship and your installed weapons/equipment.


Go to a spaceport:
Look at your mission list/available missions
Take note of the difficulty (Very low, Low, Average, etc)

Trade your ship for a cheaper/more expensive one
Re-look at yoiur mission list/available missions
You'll visually see that the mission difficulty scales.

Uninstalling weapons, etc will dynamically scale a mission.


I had a Barracuda - I had two High and 2 Average missions in my active list.

I cheated my money and bought a Polaris - all of my missions are now Low - the Polaris is basically using the original weapons the Barracuda had - and is not fully kitted out.

I started uninstalling weapons and the mission difficulty started to go up to Very high - ie, I still have my Polaris.

The missions aren't changing. The listed difficulty is a comparison of your ship's worth to the "worth" of the enemies present in the mission. Make your ship better, the average mission becomes low/very low difficulty by comparison. Make it weak, and the average mission become high/very high.

If you test by backing up your save, you can take and then do a fresh mission with poor kit to see what's there and restore your save and kit back up and do it again. You'll see the mobs have not changed at all. Same exact number of everything. The only thing that changed is your ship's value and the difficulty listed is based on comparing that to what is in the mission.