Is this game brutally hard, or is it just me?

[Flashfires]

Anyone else struggling with this one?

I clobbered FTL on my first play though, but STTE ... not so much.
In particular, combat ... I'm getting paddled by the rat people straight off.
I'd pay their extortion fees, but it's so expensive it'd just lead to a slower death.

In fairness, I've only played a few games, maybe I need to learn the combat tactics.

[Greep]

Yeah it takes some getting used to. It doesn't help that there aren't that many ship battles so you don't get much practice.

The other thing, though, is that the nuke runner is not a really good ship. It'd be nice if that was not the ship you see when starting out. Or maybe if they made it the newb ship (30% evasion)

Some tips after playing a few hours: Anything getting hit on your ship is a dire emergency. If it's something big like your main weapons, or reactor fire a capital weapon off. Also, focus on ships that can actually hurt you. If you get ganged up on by 3 rats and only one has shield piercing attacks, hit that guy first with everything you've got.

[Meru]

Combat is notably different in STTE in comparison to FTL for sure, no doors, person-to-person combat could stand to be more clear, and the shields are much more commonly pierced, making ship to ship combat a mch different dynamic, along with weapon inaccuracy meaning you can't guarantee subsystem hits like in FTL.

That being said, I think STTE is a great iteration on the FTL-type game, with some polishing, it'll be amazing

[Rogue Ambassador]

Hey, than you for feedback! The current Early Access is more difficult than the final version will be, and the game will get easier as its being developed. The final version will also have more useful content (and possibly features), probably also an easier difficulty mode.

[jmaxj]

I find it a bit easier than FTL, actually! I hope there are also harder difficulty modes...

[Osprey]

The nuke runner is a good ship if you know how to use it
But you also start with the tiger fish

[Addzz]

It's not just hard it's impossible, it's got FAR TOO MANY resources to try manage and only like 2-3 stops in each system.
I often find myself fighting 2 ships who knock out weapons in less than 45 seconds, then it takes a minute to repair, by then they're hailing with shots and everything is offline, holes in the ship, fires. THIS IS TERRIBLE, you haven't tested this at all. Refunded.
I went in an entire set of system and couldn't find food so ran out too....what a mess.

[stash]

It helps to put your crew in the cyro stasis chambers or to disable energy modules if they are not in use. This will help reduce your fuel/organics spent per movement point. These mechanics are not in FTL so they took a little to figure out.

Also, consider disabling shields in sectors where enemies only use missle based weapons. Getting the Rat Cook in Sector 1 helps avoid fights.

[Flashfires]

Originally posted by Addzz:

It's not just hard it's impossible, it's got FAR TOO MANY resources to try manage and only like 2-3 stops in each system.
I often find myself fighting 2 ships who knock out weapons in less than 45 seconds, then it takes a minute to repair, by then they're hailing with shots and everything is offline, holes in the ship, fires. THIS IS TERRIBLE, you haven't tested this at all. Refunded.
I went in an entire set of system and couldn't find food so ran out too....what a mess.

In fairness, this game is alpha. Helping them find the correct balance in things is kind of what we signed up for. Hopefully the devs will find your feedback helpful, and use it to make the game more playable. Based on your frustration, a refund was probably a good call. Alpha testing isn't for everyone, and you can always pick it back up if/when you feel it's more balanced.

Personally, I don't find resource management too bad. But to your point, combat is plain nasty at the moment. I'm getting though by choosing my battles. Sometimes a bribe will cost less resources than trying to repair your ship after combat. When I'm forced to fight, I'm quite liberal with the nukes. Lastly, I'm finding the first ship you unlock is quite decent, so making a B-Line for sector 2 can be helpful.

[Osprey]

After a while you get use to it
It's a little harder then the demo but it is beatable
I have all the ships atm

[spoto]

I've played FTL a lot, so I picked this up hoping it was like FTL, but with more options & depth. I like what I've seen so far, but the difficulty is staggering. I cannot get past the boss in the second area. I have tried several times and usually manage to destroy the smaller ship, but the large ship is just too powerful to kill. Even in games where I got upgraded weapons along the way and had an extra missile, the larger ship just can't be killed before your ship is.

[Osprey]

I just completed all 5 current sectors
It is beatable

[Rogue Ambassador]

Originally posted by spoto:

I've played FTL a lot, so I picked this up hoping it was like FTL, but with more options & depth. I like what I've seen so far, but the difficulty is staggering. I cannot get past the boss in the second area. I have tried several times and usually manage to destroy the smaller ship, but the large ship is just too powerful to kill. Even in games where I got upgraded weapons along the way and had an extra missile, the larger ship just can't be killed before your ship is.

Hey Spoto & Everyone!
We'll be rolling an "easier balance" update with this week! Enemies have less nukes, player ships are better armed and cryosleep will heal crew wounds over time, among other updates & fixes :)
We will be balancing and adding content to the game for months to come (new content for possibly years, if people keep enjoying the game), so it will improve much further.
Difficulty balance won't be final before all the levels are complete and all features implemented.

[Joeyh92989]

Looking forward to the update Sounds like a breath of fresh air! i can now keep using cryo as opposed to swapping around the medbay

[mastermind1377]

I think the main problem here is a reverse difficulty curve with ship unlocks. Nuke Runner and Tigerfish are the hard mode ships due to limited slots and weapons. Bluestar and Sekvoia are the easy mode ships that can breeze through first 2 sectors and end up very powerful, and the rat ship is the medium difficulty.

[Joeyh92989]

Originally posted by mastermind1377:

I think the main problem here is a reverse difficulty curve with ship unlocks. Nuke Runner and Tigerfish are the hard mode ships

This is true as well. I think they just need a scaling difficulty independent of ship. We'll see after the newest update.