Insanely Complex

[Cerebralacking]

I can see a lot of fun in this game, if I can devote the time required to learn this crazy complex system. I'm sorry, but this is not user friendly at all. I'm not criticizing the game because I didn't bother to play enough to judge that.

What I will criticize is the reasons I will never find out if the game is good.

Every fleet needs their own tutorial. Why did I train for over an hour with those 2 ships not have have those 2 ships as my starting fleet in some minor post training campaign?

The part that drove me crazy though was having 2 different ways to navigate directionally in this game.

either z axis is ctrl then move mouse up and down or it isn't. The one click directional guidance is a nightmare to use. I don't care if people have figure out a way to use it. I figured out how to use it also, but why is it being forced on me when the other methods is exact, simple, and functions perfectly with the combat view.

why can't I double click my unit to auto zoom focus them. This is a standard on multi unit games for a reason. It is extremely well known and usually expected. This one isn't a deal breaker but another example of how your fighting against what is expected.

Keep my money. My honest advice. military interfaces are not good. The reason they work is because military trains their people how to use it over and over. You are making a game. You don't want people fighting the controls. You want people fighting the strategy and tactics. This is why so many actions are universal across genres. ei. the double click to focus units.

Good luck. I'll probably check back in a year and see if it is comfortable to play or if I'm still fighting the controls after hours of practice.

[CaptainYellowfin]

RTS/tactical games often miss how actual military command and control works.

In this game here you do everything from fleet commander to weapon / sensor system officer, including damage control. In other words you interact with the battle simulation along the entire hierarchy from admiral down to the guy bringing the right wrench to a repair job. That's ridiculous. In reality a fleet commander and a ship captain have subordinates / deputies who deal with individual aspects of the battle. An entire command room full of specialists deal with offensive EW alone and another room full of specialists deals with defensive EW. Yet another room deals with painting the tactical picture. These rooms have their own commanders who talk to the ship commander and the ship commander - alone! - talks to the admiral. This helps immensely to reduce the stress for each commander along the hierarchy.

NFC isn't the worst offender though. The Combat Mission franchise is IME the worst. You literally have to give orders to squads and individual vehicles.

In reality a commander says I want to use this asset to do that and I will keep these assets in reserve or for another tactical task. They don't have to decide which weapon system targets which enemy asset or which sensor does what kind of activity. That's why real commanders - most of the time - are not overwhelmed with their units. Certainly an admiral doesn't have to assign targets on individual weapon systems on different ships.

I would suggest that some more options for automation / heuristics are given to those players who want more help.

[MOK]

I basically agree with the OP. However, I think it's not entirely a matter of controls. Rather, it's a compounding combination of fincky controls, the consequences of loadouts, the ability to understand how to properly use a loadout, and how to recontextualize each of those in the different kinds of situations or opponents it all gets applied to. It's a really tough synergy. Understanding all of that together takes, frankly, a bit too much time and focus to gain. It's been a major hurdle for me, even though I really want to get into this game. It's cool when there's a high bar for mastery, but this one has a high bar for basic competence.

[MOK]

Originally posted by Ghojo:

The awful 3D space navigation (Homeworld did it so much better)

Now, this I think is unfair. I think you're discounting the reason a lot of the movement system complexity exists. Part of it is to model sensor and armor facing. In a title like Homeworld, and a bunch of others, this wasn't a factor at all, and was only a matter of subtracting HP from a pool. Your positioning didn't matter except insofar as you're in range for weapons or not.

If you want to make a simulation where your actual positioning and armor facing and stealth matter, you get a massive jump in complexity. This game reflects that. The UI could be better, and there's some valid conversation to be had around how much impact comes from a particular bit of complexity. But comparing it to Homeworld? Come on now.

[MOK]

I'm noticing your post history now. Thinkin I'll just leave you be.

[budo17]

This is really unfortunate. I held off on getting the game, despite it looking extremely interesting, exactly because of this fear, and it seems like folks agree that it's real. The store pitch "play to whatever depth you want" or whatever seemed really suspect to me when one of the main selling points is the ability to control literally every aspect and action of every ship. I don't want to micromanage every breath of every crewmember on every ship in my fleet. I want to lead a fleet. I guess still holding out for a game that lets you do that

[Sadist_cain]

Originally posted by budo17:

This is really unfortunate. I held off on getting the game, despite it looking extremely interesting, exactly because of this fear, and it seems like folks agree that it's real. The store pitch "play to whatever depth you want" or whatever seemed really suspect to me when one of the main selling points is the ability to control literally every aspect and action of every ship. I don't want to micromanage every breath of every crewmember on every ship in my fleet. I want to lead a fleet. I guess still holding out for a game that lets you do that

My friend you need Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6420/Nexus__The_Jupiter_Incident/

RTFM and look up guides to get the nuances and differences between weapons, the campaign is really a tutorial.

You can just order the behaviours of your ships to be aggressive, defensive or stealthy, order them to waypoints and keep it simple.

Or you can set up your own nav points in 3d space, target specific weapons to specific systems on specific ships, adjust power delivery to certain systems.
ECM, ECCM, boarding enemy ships with combat marines, fighters it's all there.

100% highly recommend for any fans of nebulous

Also definitely grab Nebulous, it's got a bright albeit slow paced future ahead and is worth it as is.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

i agree that homeworld pathing controls would be better, and the notion you couldn't do them in this game lacks credibility. the only concession you need to make to Nebulous gameplay is a means of locking direction facing, which you already need to do as a separate order anyway!

however formations are not hard to use in this game and the precise nature of how you are formed up can actually matter a lot. Band select is not necessary. If you got a ship in formation 'stuck' its because you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. pathing is not 'bad', pathing is nonexistent. the ship did what you told it to do and what you told it to do was smash into a wall.

At most what could be added here is preset formations with slots you can put ships into. Would be useful both in fleet setup and ingame.

you absolutely do not need to micro damage control, except when it comes to the specific incidence of using repair charges, which no you don't want the AI doing and occupies seconds in 30 minute-long matches.

[Morvana]

It's a strategy game, no strategy game with even a bit of complexity is ever easy to learn.


The complexity of the game depend of your background as a person and as a player.

If you have no interest in real military equipments and play only AAA game as a casual player 2 hours/week you will be in a world of pain with Nebulous, yes.

If you have an idea of what jamming, SEAD or missile seekers are, you won't have much new things to discover and if you ever tried to play a strategy game at a level above casual you will be able to realy enjoy the game after a few hours of learning and training the basics.


The start is the hard part. In complexity I would say it's on par with something like Wargame Red Dragon (but beginner level compared to something like CMO or Aurora 4x).

[budo17]

Originally posted by Sadist_cain:

My friend you need Nexus: The Jupiter Incident

Hey, thanks for the tip! I'll check it out. I'll keep following Nebulous in case I decide to go for it, but as it's pitched so far, the level of micro is just too unappealing for me. Thanks again!

I guess to add to the conversation: I have no idea where the devs will take the game, but what would seal the deal for me would be an option to create "AI" priorities or macros for ships, rather than directly micromanaging them. If I could create priorities for each ship like, "prioritize EW or counter-EW," "avoid decisive engagement," or, "prioritize this kind of target," etc, I could spend a lot of time in a game more like that, with fleet customization options. I guess time will tell what this game shapes into.

[LanceteKk]

I do find many repsonses here unreasonable. The game simply cannot be easier to control. The idea of angling one ship to reduce the RCS for a specific vector takes one left-click and one right click. Telling the ship to "minimize RCS against this specific target" takes the same amount of clicks. The difference appears only once the second enemy ship appears: you cannot have the same optimal angle against both enemies. If you understand the concept of angling, it makes no difference. But if a player uses the "shortcut" (and i dont mean any insult here), the fire from the second ship will produce VERY unsatisfying results because it does *something* that the user cannot translate into his brain-model of the situation because the idea itself is missing.

Same goes for selecting Ammotypes, turning Jammers off an on, and so on. Same goes for repairing: as there are multiple radar panels, just "focus on sensors" does not work, as it makes a significant difference WHICH one is getting repaired. Probably the one that is facing the enemy so your PD fires again? Or not, since you are still under fire? The challenge here is, that there are many mechanics that are woven together and you kind of need to deal with all of them at the same time. Forcing the enemy commander taking a loat of decisions quickly is a crucial part of the games PVP. In fact, i would even claim that the game has a VERY minimalistic UI that enables the user to find the buttons quickly.

[Legiondorf]

I saw this game on my feed this morning and am like oh wow Derek Smart is back lol.

[SundiataWTF]

Originally posted by CaptainYellowfin:

RTS/tactical games often miss how actual military command and control works.

In this game here you do everything from fleet commander to weapon / sensor system officer, including damage control. In other words you interact with the battle simulation along the entire hierarchy from admiral down to the guy bringing the right wrench to a repair job. That's ridiculous. In reality a fleet commander and a ship captain have subordinates / deputies who deal with individual aspects of the battle. An entire command room full of specialists deal with offensive EW alone and another room full of specialists deals with defensive EW. Yet another room deals with painting the tactical picture. These rooms have their own commanders who talk to the ship commander and the ship commander - alone! - talks to the admiral. This helps immensely to reduce the stress for each commander along the hierarchy.

NFC isn't the worst offender though. The Combat Mission franchise is IME the worst. You literally have to give orders to squads and individual vehicles.

In reality a commander says I want to use this asset to do that and I will keep these assets in reserve or for another tactical task. They don't have to decide which weapon system targets which enemy asset or which sensor does what kind of activity. That's why real commanders - most of the time - are not overwhelmed with their units. Certainly an admiral doesn't have to assign targets on individual weapon systems on different ships.

I would suggest that some more options for automation / heuristics are given to those players who want more help.

For this reason I have not yet bought the game. I would love to play ship or fleet commander, but I don't enjoy playing as my own staff. Hopefully automation options will be introduced. Do that, and I'm in!

[Brother Pedro]

I think the game does a decent enough job letting the player set their own difficulty. Can't deal with micro? Make a fleet with fewer ship. Still too much? Make your ship simpler to operate by having less complex weapon and loadout. Also MP is basically 100% team games, so with some communication and teamwork you can let your teammate handle things you don't want to deal with.

[startrekmike]

Originally posted by LordFlamis:

I saw this game on my feed this morning and am like oh wow Derek Smart is back lol.

Except this game actually works and the developer doesn't harass others to get attention from his echo chamber.

[CheapSushi]

I have no idea what people are complaining about. Is this your first PC game? I never even bothered to do the tutorial. I right away tried a skirmish game against the AI. It wasn't hard at all to figure out. I don't even think I'm smart, I always thought I was a dummy. Yet nothing about this was insanely difficult. The only hard part is the actual gameplay against real people (which is also the fun part).

To the person who said it was like a Derek Smart game....man, what an exaggeration. I guess you can't solve this issue if your attention span isn't longer than a TikTok video. I mean, I think if you played it and tried it and realized how straight forward it actually is, you'd realize you're just wrong and maybe feel a bit ashamed.

To the other person talking about being your own staff, I don't know what you even mean. There's already some automation. You can also literally just play one ship even in Multiplayer. I only played the Battleship because I don't enjoy micro and there's nothing wrong about that, still figured it out and had fun. Or do you mean you literally want the game to do everything for you and you sit there and watch it like a spectator? You can do that too. In Skirmish you can make your fleet an AI fleet and watch it fight other AI.