Finished campaign, now what?

[MyUrp1]

I finished all the missions in the campaign, and I'm curious what I should try next. I know the game has been around for a looong time... should I start looking around for additions others have made for the game, or should I first experiment in the sandbox with designing my own challenges? What have people usually done once they've mastered the game mechanics of the campaign?

[cswiger]

I like building a ship or two and seeing how many stock ships they can take out in a quick encounter. I enjoyed the campaign missions, but I don't feel the need to keep doing orbital maneuvers-- KSP is deeper if you want that instead of combat.

You can build your own guns, missiles, and drones as well. Again, it's pretty neat to build a really good weapon compared to the stock version.

[MyUrp1]

I like the turn based management of COADE over Kerbal; manually controlling thrusts just boggles my mind. But I'm very disappointed in what I just ran into with the campaign / level editor. I tried to put together a scenario involving taking off from Luna orbit and travelling to Venus or Mars. The scenario starts you out in Luna orbit just fine. But as soon as you click to start a trajectory, you're instantly catapaulted out into Sol orbit, leaving Luna far behind. Where is the thrust coming from for instant escape velocity? Did I run into some sort of weird bug with satellites?

[pcw2727]

Are there any like community made campaigns out there?

[Echo]

Yes: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2459104665

[MthRed]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

I like the turn based management of COADE over Kerbal; manually controlling thrusts just boggles my mind. But I'm very disappointed in what I just ran into with the campaign / level editor. I tried to put together a scenario involving taking off from Luna orbit and travelling to Venus or Mars. The scenario starts you out in Luna orbit just fine. But as soon as you click to start a trajectory, you're instantly catapaulted out into Sol orbit, leaving Luna far behind. Where is the thrust coming from for instant escape velocity? Did I run into some sort of weird bug with satellites?

if you've solved this problem since this post times I want to hear how you solved this issue. Same problem with me.

[MyUrp1]

Wow, that goes back a ways! Unfortunately, I never did solve this, I lost interest and got addicted to They Are Billions instead.

Only thing I can add is that Terra Invicta is *not* the replacement you're looking for, there's not much orbital mechanics there and you have to slog through an endless espionage management game to get there.

Has anyone else found a strategic orbital mechanics war game out there?

[Greyanna]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

Has anyone else found a strategic orbital mechanics war game out there?

Nebulous: fleet command? I know, it's more tactical than strategic, but it have some similarities.

[MyUrp1]

Spaceships, yes, orbital mechanics, radiators, not that I can see, delta-V maybe?

Terra Invicta does have delta-v, a point in its favor.

[cswiger]

Terra Invicta ships have radiators which are auto-sized based on your available tech and which power plant + engine you install. They are vulnerable in combat, but you can fold them away for a while if you've installed heat sinks on your ships.

Ships and missiles do have delta-V, and even gun projectiles will have their damage influenced by relative velocity. Charging the enemy and then releasing missiles with high starting velocity works fairly well with the earlier ships, but all sides will acquire strong point defense tech over time so you end up moving to other weapons which ignore PD.

But yeah, TI is a slow burn, which is not too surprising coming from the Long War modders. Give them some time and they'll likely add scenarios where you can start with ship tech already unlocked and not have to research and build out your aerospace infrastructure from the ground up.

[MyUrp1]

Yeah, TI seems to have the right stuff in general, I just never managed to stick with the game long enough to experience it. I'm not sure how to get past the "OK, I've maxed out my control points, all my possessions are heavily fortified, I'm waiting for research, so now what do I do?" stage.

[MthRed]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Terra Invicta ships have radiators which are auto-sized based on your available tech and which power plant + engine you install. They are vulnerable in combat, but you can fold them away for a while if you've installed heat sinks on your ships.

Ships and missiles do have delta-V, and even gun projectiles will have their damage influenced by relative velocity. Charging the enemy and then releasing missiles with high starting velocity works fairly well with the earlier ships, but all sides will acquire strong point defense tech over time so you end up moving to other weapons which ignore PD.

But yeah, TI is a slow burn, which is not too surprising coming from the Long War modders. Give them some time and they'll likely add scenarios where you can start with ship tech already unlocked and not have to research and build out your aerospace infrastructure from the ground up.

TI have no realistic space battles. TI uses ships scaling which results in 1km ships on 1.000km battlefield, resulting everything is scaled down to dynamics and distances of WW2 naval combat.
I mean, you can see ships have length of 100-500m in stats, but on battlefield they are scaled, but everything else's speed is not scaled. Which, in terms of relative speeds and sizes, leads to what I described above.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by MathematiciansRed:

TI have no realistic space battles.

Sounds like the no true scotsman fallacy.

TI uses ships scaling which results in 1km ships on 1.000km battlefield, resulting everything is scaled down to dynamics and distances of WW2 naval combat.

Yes, combat in TI feels like WW2 naval combat just as Elite Dangerous, X series, and Star Wars: X-Wing etc emulate WW2 air combat.

Having single-pixel-sized ships exchange fire with each other which cannot be seen because the game implemented realistic scaling of sizes when viewing that 1000+ km battlefield would not be an improvement.

[MthRed]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Originally posted by MathematiciansRed:

TI have no realistic space battles.

Sounds like the no true scotsman fallacy.

TI uses ships scaling which results in 1km ships on 1.000km battlefield, resulting everything is scaled down to dynamics and distances of WW2 naval combat.

Yes, combat in TI feels like WW2 naval combat just as Elite Dangerous, X series, and Star Wars: X-Wing etc emulate WW2 air combat.

Having single-pixel-sized ships exchange fire with each other which cannot be seen because the game implemented realistic scaling of sizes when viewing that 1000+ km battlefield would not be an improvement.

CoaDE deals with realistic distances without any scaling just fine. CoaDE battles much easier to get in and much more fun to watch and play.
Problem with sizing is that when you scale 200m ship to 2km ship without changing speed of projectiles (railgun sabots for instance) you'll have much, much larger probability to hit. You'll also see situations when your PD laser with effective range of 1-5 kms cant cover your space station from one end to another which, in reality without scaling, is at most several hundreds of meters length. For me this breaks immersion totally.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by MathematiciansRed:

CoaDE deals with realistic distances without any scaling just fine. CoaDE battles much easier to get in and much more fun to watch and play.

I've created a 4-on-4 battle using stock ships, and waited for the ODC to close to the midrange between the fleets since CoaDE's camera is limited:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3125042255

Which of the other 7 ships can you identify from that screenshot?
And why are individual gun rounds displayed as kilometer long glowing streaks?

[MthRed]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Originally posted by MathematiciansRed:

CoaDE deals with realistic distances without any scaling just fine. CoaDE battles much easier to get in and much more fun to watch and play.

I've created a 4-on-4 battle using stock ships, and waited for the ODC to close to the midrange between the fleets since CoaDE's camera is limited:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3125042255

Which of the other 7 ships can you identify from that screenshot?
And why are individual gun rounds displayed as kilometer long glowing streaks?

In CoaDE you don't really need to see all ships to control battle. You can point your guns to enemy modules and then just look at tactical map on right side of screen.
The difference beteween these bright shots and TI sizing is that there shots do not affect on gameplay. This brightness is pure visual, while TI ship are scaled physically, not only visually. It would be ok if only _visual_ models were scaled while hitboxes and gun mounts positions were in real scale, but they aren't.