Hive/drone defences are completely broken

[Eliot the Cougar]

When I played the first time, I somehow managed to destroy the enemy colony by terraforming, flooding them... This time I couldn't do it because I didn't have the right resources to increase pressure and temperature quickly, and the enemy destroyed me eventually... I ran out of resources and couldn't rebuild all my buildings they destroyed...

The drones suck - they are just glorified turrets... What's the point of having a swarm of drones if all they do is hang around their hive?.. You can't even rearrange them between hives, they stay where they spawn... I built 10 hives, but only some of them got populated by drones because of the drone limit... Most of the time enemy attacks structures that are outside of hive range, and all you can do is watch while it gets destroyed...

I understand the idea that this AI is non-offensive, and it can't attack enemy base directly, but you should at least be able to tweak the arrangement of your defences... And maybe the drone limit should be a bit higher - maybe enough to populate 10 hives with 100 drones each, at least... Or make the range of hives larger so that drones may fly out a little bit... You simply cannot cover a base with 3 hives with 100 drones each in the beginning, and increasing it to 5 hives on level 2 doesn't help much...

[watcherseye]

I'm not sure what your problem is exactly. When I was attacked, I selected my drones and directed them towards the incoming drones and they engaged. I then sent about 400 drones up towards the other base and wiped it out.

[Eliot the Cougar]

Originally posted by watcherseye:

I'm not sure what your problem is exactly. When I was attacked, I selected my drones and directed them towards the incoming drones and they engaged. I then sent about 400 drones up towards the other base and wiped it out.

How do you select them?.. They are attached to the hive and completely non-interactable... And there is no button in the hive to "send" them anywhere...

[Spite Sprite]

Originally posted by Eliot the Cougar:

Originally posted by watcherseye:

I'm not sure what your problem is exactly. When I was attacked, I selected my drones and directed them towards the incoming drones and they engaged. I then sent about 400 drones up towards the other base and wiped it out.

How do you select them?.. They are attached to the hive and completely non-interactable... And there is no button in the hive to "send" them anywhere...

You can more easily select assault drones going to the combat lens and selecting the blue circle that displays their number. Then you can direct their movement via an arrow interface! You can see some of this in our earlier combat video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3sQl2I7_vw

[HappyTortoise]

Click the number above the drones ie the stack in the military view. Right click. Research shields and upgraded weapons. On normal I deleted that base almost instantly by sending about 3-4 stacks of 100 each. I had 1400 drones just built up passively cause I was afraid of the attack. most of my base was covered in hives with just one factory to support it and it somehow built itself up passively with almost no input from me.

One tip I would add for the devs is to make some sort of warning when enemy drones are getting close. Right now it's way too subtle. If your not paying attention they can wipe half your base. The only way to do it properly is to intercept them early.

[Spite Sprite]

Originally posted by HappyTortoise:

Click the number above the drones ie the stack in the military view. Right click. Research shields and upgraded weapons. On normal I deleted that base almost instantly by sending about 3-4 stacks of 100 each. I had 1400 drones just built up passively cause I was afraid of the attack. most of my base was covered in hives with just one factory to support it and it somehow built itself up passively with almost no input from me.

One tip I would add for the devs is to make some sort of warning when enemy drones are getting close. Right now it's way too subtle. If your not paying attention they can wipe half your base. The only way to do it properly is to intercept them early.

That's a great suggestion! We are working on implementing a notification for our newest hotfix. You can read more about it in the patch notes & known issues thread. We're hoping to get that hotfix implemented tomorrow!

[MickeyTJR]

Also the hive is a turret, so I tend to place them close together. Doesn't matter what my drone limit is if the enemy has to fly through turrets the whole way.

In areas with gaps in defense towers I put a small swarm and let it hang out around some building.

[Sparky]

I gave the drones a single shield upgrade and now I own the world with impunity. They're absurdly powerful.

[Eliot the Cougar]

Originally posted by Spite Sprite:

You can more easily select assault drones going to the combat lens and selecting the blue circle that displays their number. Then you can direct their movement via an arrow interface!

Ummm... Okay... I played 20 hours in total not realizing that you can control drones – that's not a great game design... It is not explained anywhere in the game...

Another problem in the design is that left-click is used both for selection and for the move/attack command... I think I did click the number a couple of times, but then I tried to move them with right-click which is the most intuitive, based on my gaming experience, and it didn't work...

I concluded that drones are not mobile units, and you cannot control them, and I didn't try to find a way to move them again...

Additional note: when you select drones by clicking on the number above them there is absolutely no indication that they've been actually selected... No border, no arrows, no markers, no color change, nothing...

[Mirvra]

Originally posted by Eliot the Cougar:

Originally posted by Spite Sprite:

You can more easily select assault drones going to the combat lens and selecting the blue circle that displays their number. Then you can direct their movement via an arrow interface!

Ummm... Okay... I played 20 hours in total not realizing that you can control drones – that's not a great game design... It is not explained anywhere in the game...

Another problem in the design is that left-click is used both for selection and for the move/attack command... I think I did click the number a couple of times, but then I tried to move them with right-click which is the most intuitive, based on my gaming experience, and it didn't work...

I concluded that drones are not mobile units, and you cannot control them, and I didn't try to find a way to move them again...

Additional note: when you select drones by clicking on the number above them there is absolutely no indication that they've been actually selected... No border, no arrows, no markers, no color change, nothing...

Two things,

1. Use the Combat lens, when you have drones selected and move your mouse it'll show a (depending on size of the stack) massive arrow pointing out the route they'll take to get where you're aiming.

2, Considering the enemy drones are IDENTICAL to yours... it should be pretty damn obvious that you can move your own around

I will say this though, having the move order be on left-click is indeed pretty weird for anyone that's played a strategy game, right-click to attack is basically in our spines by now..

[Eliot the Cougar]

Originally posted by .xL | Mirvra:

1. Use the Combat lens, when you have drones selected and move your mouse it'll show a (depending on size of the stack) massive arrow pointing out the route they'll take to get where you're aiming.

2, Considering the enemy drones are IDENTICAL to yours... it should be pretty damn obvious that you can move your own around

I will say this though, having the move order be on left-click is indeed pretty weird for anyone that's played a strategy game, right-click to attack is basically in our spines by now..

This is exactly the main problem with the game – inconsistent UI...
1. All the display modes up until you get to combat are basically information overlays and serve no special purpose... After using them as such, I treated them just like that - information overlays and nothing more... When I got the combat overlay I activated it, but didn't see any use for it, so I didn't activate it again when I was trying to select and move my drones when I got them built... Who knew that one of 5 overlays has special actions attached to it?.. It is never explained in-game...
2. After I failed at moving and attacking (with right mouse button of course) I concluded that my drones are NOT IDENTICAL to the enemy drones... I thought, maybe, I will get the other type of drones later in the game that can actually move and attack...

Using left-click for both select and move/attack should be considered as gemedesign crime...

[Quadrotonic]

It would not be that hard to fix this issue. Having to the click the number of drones with no real visual feedback is what kept me from being able to go on the offensive. I knew I could somehow direct my drones but after 5 hours of trying I seached and found this thread, clicked the number of drones and was able to launch an attack. Because the game has such a hidden inconsistent UI especially regarding millitary, a skippable tutorial that walks the user through thier first attack should appear once a drone hive is populated with drones for the first time.