Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

I'd like to start off by saying I am a loyal Malfador Machinations customer, I love SE II, III and IV, and own all three of them, and in fact continue to play both III and IV, time permitting. So it was considerable intrest that I was waiting for the demo of StarFury, and the final product.

Some other folks have complained about the graphics. I'd like to say that I don't care about graphics if the gameplay is solid, non-buggy, and intresting.

However, eaither the demo is ultra limited and is very stripped down in terms of AI and features, or StarFury really misses that mark.

The action is entirely 2D. Space is 3D.

Normally in a sim where the space is 2D, ships AI seemly goes "over" another ship, to prevent a collision. Not in SF; no, the AI on the enemy ships seems to be so bad, that they actually try to hit you. I had to have reloaded my game 20-30 times because of enemy cruisers/destoryers ramming me.

Balance is another issue; the low end missions that only pay 10K credits, expect you to take a low level destoryer up against high level cruisers and destoryers.

The "destory Clan X" missions, are typically 1 Cruiser/2 Destoryers per clan, and are almost impossible to defeat.

There's a littanty of other issues with it, but it seems to me like this is almost a tech demo, or some sort of alpha copy. Its not what I've come to expect from MM. I'm not sure if the MM devs read these forums, or what have you, but if one of them does, please, for the love of God, fix the ramming issue, and the balance issues. I can overlook just about everything else - and so can the other SE players, but getting rammed 30 times in 2 hours is just frustrating to the point I'm about to delete the thing off my hard drive and go play some Freespace 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Colonel Yoseph

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

hello, welcome to the forums. cheese?

yeah, braking cuts into your firing time.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

While Star Fury is in most senses a 2D game, I think that moving in 3D would be a lot more difficult to navigate and not really worth it. In games like Homeworld, it's easier because you're not directly controlling the ships, just kind of telling them where to go.

Collisions can be avoided most of the time, but it does take some practice though. However, I'll agree that it still occurs too often, but I'd rather not see them removed but handled better by the AI ships. This is an issue that has been discussed.

Remember, there are lots of ways to make money! You can always take on a few extra missions between orders, always be sure to pick up cargo you obtain by destroying ships to use on your ship or sell at spacedock.

The demo campaign is not entirely indicitive of the campaigns, as there are many other types of missions that occur.

Using the hotkeys can also improve your game experience very much as they make targetting, firing weapons, and changing speeds much quicker and less mouse intensive. I'd advise that you take a look at all the control options available...

[ September 24, 2003, 05:23: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

I like the ramming actually. Well, except the odd suicidal behavior of ships I'm not fighting. In combat I can understand, but when I'm zooming across the system at 8x, moving in a straight line, and some random frieghter streaks in from the side and rams me..bleh.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have to say I agree with you on those points. I can't seem to earn enough money to both upgrade my ship components, and to save enough money to buy a better ship hull (say a cruiser). If I had a better ship, the "destroy Clan X" missions would be possible for me. But all in all, I'm not going to complain about the game (although the ramming issue can be really annoying, especially when the freighter you're escorting decides to make a sharp turn right into you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ). I think that the problems addressed here are all solveable, perhaps with future patches. That's sort of the purpose of a demo isn't it, to get some feedback from potential consumers, and thus improve the product. Anyways, keep up the good work Malfador!!

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, he might expect some effort on your part to move out of way too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Collision avoidance is getting better, but it's experience playing the game and controlling your ship that help best.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

I have never seen any game of this genre before that has ramming implimented like this. BTW, I'm using the keyboard to control my ship, and the mouse to click the fire button. The ships move completely erraticly; a cruiser will suddendly stop on a dime and ram into my side, and the fighters are even worse. They seem to want to hit you. What is this, WWII in space, with Kamakazi pilots? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I realize its a demo, but if the AI problems aren't found in the full game, could someone post to that effect? At this point I can't see it being worth my 40-45 (including the shipping) bucks untill the ramming and balance issues are fixed.

And while mods are nice, I buy games because they work and are good now - not because someone else in effect makes a NEW GAME off of the engine.

Colonel Yoseph

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

If you can be a bit more specific with some of the other balance issues you've encountered, then I might be able to provide some more insight.

Perhaps a ships could employ the over/under collision avoidance unless some sort of 'ram order' was issued. This may be the best solution in my opinion.

Edit:

I've posted a comment with my suggestion to improve the current system in the beta forum. I'll let you know what becomes of it.

[ September 24, 2003, 06:18: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Well, the issue of the low level missions being to take your crappy, low level destoryer out, and go frag 3 pirates, 1 of which is a cruiser, 2 of which are destoryers, and they're outfitted with weapons that bLast your shield, armor, and the entire side they hit to dust.

Also, the issue of friendly ships turning on you for no apparently reasons. I jumped into a sector, into like 6 pirate ships; (Freeport), and lured them back to freeport station.

The station started shooting at them, as did I, then the station turned on me and fragged me.

I already figured ou the station frags you if you pick up cirtain items, but I hadn't picked up any when that happened.

Colonel Yoseph

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

I think the solution for that is don't take those missions yet. There -are- easier ones (like the solo hits, and planet scans)

As far as I can tell, you're offered the same selection if you're the newbie in a tin can, or death to whoever thinks about looking at you funny.

EDIT: The station issue is harder. Only thing I can think of is you hit it accidently, because I did the same thing and it didn't shoot me. Either that or a bug..

[ September 24, 2003, 06:30: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Ok, but a solo hit nets you 8K or so, while a 3 hit against uberbadass ships nets you....12-14K?
Maybe its just this demo or something.

Anyone who has the real game care to enlighten me on that?

Colonel Yoseph

(BTW: I tested that station thing again with a saved game, had the exact same thing happen, but I think I did accidently hit the station with a torpedo. Here's the thing though - one hit and the station turns on you? That's kinda nasty.)

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Like I mentioned earlier, before you set out it might be a good idea to earn some extra money doing other things to build up your ship a bit. The demo is limited in this regard, but the full game has a lot more planets and I think better balanced mission rewards. A good strategy is, if possible, get behind the larger ships and pound away and be sure to pick up their cargo once you destroy them. Remember to repair the damage cargo items before applying them to your ship or selling them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Since you didn't pick up any illegal cargo that you know of (most common friendly-fire reason), it might be that you've accidently struck the starbase or one of the surrounding satellites with a weapon hit. If it's just once, I think you can just move outside of their weapons range and then back and it should be ok, or quickly dock at the station - I think that works too but I don't often hit friendlies by mistake. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Another quick note before I depart for bed:

You can use 1-4 to fire weapons from the keyboard too. I usually use the mouse for left-right turning only.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Yeah, the mission rewards are kind of screwy. I was just hunting down random pirates for a while.

And the station is reasonable, IMO at least.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Odd, I never had any ramming problems at all. I think in all told, i've only collided with another ship twice(and it was my fault both times =). I'm playing on second hardest diff btw, and already have my cruiser and more money than I know what to do with - so it's been alot of playing time so far =)

My issues with the game are few really.. but I do agree with the opinion that it shouldn't be entirely 3D. However I do think it would be nice to assume I'm not trying to ram a planet or whatever when I go near it - something like an animation of the ship going under/over it would be just fine I think(with the exception of asteroids probably - as they are supposed to be (m0re?) difficult to navigate.

So far I'm really looking forward to having the full game - I'm quite anxious to see what can be done with modding it =)

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

One way to make money and get better equipment for your ship early on is to hang out around a terran fleet. Let them fight the pirates, slip in for a shot when you can, and pick up the goodies when ships die. Once all of the bad guys are dead, get a cargo mission to the next system and, after delivering your cargo, repeat the process. Early on, your ship can't stand up to the ships you will encounter, but that is almost logical, given that you are just starting out and they have been around a while. Use the friendlies that are around to help you build up.

One other thing that I have noticed on collisions, the AI is much worse at preventing collisions when time compression is on. Just recently, a Terran carrier, cruiser and destroyer all collided when I turned on time compression to get across the system quickly. This was in the early game when I was in a Mark I destroyer. I picked up so much stuff that I was able to upgrade to a cruiser. (Well, I didn't have to write the letters home to their families.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

After a couple of upgrades from crappy cargo runs(multiple runs to the same system) I just got all my cash by killing pirates and aliens. I did almost no missions after the first few cargo runs. I found I got alot of money quite quickly by merely privateering.

Re: Some comments on the demo and StarFury
 

Heck, since I'm using a landline for downloading, I'll probably get the game before I finish getting the demo. Sounds very interesting though. Can't wait to play it.