Space Pirates and Zombies

[deanco]

Didn't find another topic about this game:

http://www.spazgame.com/

Forget about the name, this game looks great. It's kind of an action version of Escape Velocity, where everything is based around combat. Eve for dummies. I've also heard it described as what the Cell stage of Spore should have been. Graphically I'm getting a Space Rangers/Gratuitous Space Battles vibe, the pewpew splody stuff looks great.

On the homepage are 2 videos by Total Biscuit where he plays through the first hour of the game, and watching that completely sold me on the game.

Will be on Impulse, Gamers Gate, and possibly Steam.

[Robert Sharp]

Could this finally satisfy my urges for a new Armada game? I mean Armada for the Dreamcast, which only Brian and I ever loved, but we loved it SOOOO much!

I like Escape Velocity too. I thought it did well (Nova, I mean), and I'm surprised they didn't make any more.

[deanco]

OK, there is a 'pre-alpha' demo of this available for the next 72 hours. Right now it's only available via FTP:

(ftp info removed)

I've been through about half the demo so far, I think it's really cool. Escape Velocity without the boring parts. They have opted for the modified physics model, if you let off the gas you will coast for quite a while and gradually slow down to zero. Of course you have front thrusters, there is even a halt button for docking.

It says pre-alpha but the 2 systems available in the demo seem pretty polished, and there is a ton of gameplay if you want to do the optional missions. I really think this is worth a try.

[Teiman]

But this looks like a very good game on this genre!.

How this has ben under my radar all this time? :D

[Thasero]

As I recall, Escape Velocity stopped at Nova because the one-man-band programmer who wrote much of the underlying engine got tired of it and swore to never write another Escape Velocity ever again. Nova was the one most people know about, but there were 2 Escape Velocity games made prior (Escape Velocity and Escape Velocity: Override) that were only for the Macintosh and never got ported to PC. The software company that published Escape Velocity has now switched to making iPhone and iPad games, like almost every other game company that used to publish "Macintosh shareware" back when that was a thing.

If another company has finally picked up the torch, I'm all in favor of it!

[Lizard_King]

Interesting. I played a lot of the original EVs thanks to being stranded in Macland, especially with all of the nifty mods that star warsed them up and did other good things. Thanks for the heads up.

[Therlun]

Escape Velocity Nova has mods that let you play the first two EVs.

[Gendal]

OK, there is a 'pre-alpha' demo of this available for the next 72 hours. Right now it's only available via FTP:

Watched the demo videos, was completely sold after 13 minutes.
BTW you can encode an ftp url to grab the file directly from just about any browser:

(ftp info removed)

Taking awhile for me but it's working.

[Lizard_King]

I played it for a while. The combat was a little more arcadey than I would have liked, but other than that it seems very polished with a hefty amount of mechanical depth to the first few layers of upgrades and the like.

It usually only takes one hook in these games to get me (Smugglers 4, for instance, with its turn based combat and boarding parties), but I'm not sure I found it in this. I look forward to the full demo down the road to see if it has legs past the first few levels. Maybe it's like SC2 in that you have to carefully choose each ship for each encounter, but the first major battle destroyed all of my ships, repeatedly.

[deanco]

I played it for a while. The combat was a little more arcadey than I would have liked, but other than that it seems very polished with a hefty amount of mechanical depth to the first few layers of upgrades and the like.

It usually only takes one hook in these games to get me (Smugglers 4, for instance, with its turn based combat and boarding parties), but I'm not sure I found it in this. I look forward to the full demo down the road to see if it has legs past the first few levels. Maybe it's like SC2 in that you have to carefully choose each ship for each encounter, but the first major battle destroyed all of my ships, repeatedly.

Spacebar is your friend, it pauses the action, takes you to the tactical map where you can give orders, adjust AI behavior, etc.

Doing optional missions scored me a bigger ship, I think the player should fly that slow ship as it will keep your ships bunched up and ready to concentrate fire. Once the shit hits the fan, you can switch ships with the number keys if you prefer dogfighting with the smaller ships.

If a ship gets destroyed, hitting the number key will rebuild it, assuming you have the cash.

If you're really in over your head, there is the 'Mass Retreat' button in the tac map.

[tempus67]

Thanks for the heads up on this. I loved the Escape Velocity games back in the day and this feels like a nice riff on that game style. Now I'm looking forward to this being released.

[Murbella]

Ironically norton thinks this file is a virus. Lists it as "ws.reputation.1" which from what i can tell means a lot of norton users reported it as a virus.

Guess i really need to get rid of norton...

[Pogo]

I've enjoyed this so far, but I don't see any way to get one of my ships to just go back to hangar and stay there. Any mission that requires blowing up barrels inevitably gets those ships killed, or they fly off and try to attack something much larger without backup just because I have it targeted from several screens away.

[Andon]

open up the previous mentioned tactics screen, select the ship, right click near the beacon. He'll just stay around there and idle until you tell him otherwise. That's how I do anything requiring solo flying.

[Pogo]

Hrm, I didn't realize the tactics screen was also sort of a map of the area. Seems so fucking obvious now, hah!

[Tman]

I used some research points to upgrade my lasers and pulse cannons, but when I go to the hanger, I'm not seeing any new weapons. Am I missing something?

[MrCoffee]

They are already upgraded, if you want better versions you need to buy the tech first at a station.

[Pogo]

Yeah the research points give those things a type of bonus, and also unlock the ability to upgrade them, but you have to buy the blueprints at civilian or UTA stations in order to equip craft with them. You can also buy the blueprints first, and you'll see a greyed out button for the part that tells you you have to upgrade your research to a certain level to be able to use it.

[deanco]

Yeah, in the game that's presented poorly. You're best off buying the tech first, then putting research points into that tech. Although the mere fact of having the research done will boost your stats a little even without the upgrade part.

[Pogo]

You also need two copies of some blueprints once you start getting into the level 2 and level 3 items, though the demo quickly ends at about that point.

[Lizard_King]

Yeah the research points give those things a type of bonus, and also unlock the ability to upgrade them, but you have to buy the blueprints at civilian or UTA stations in order to equip craft with them. You can also buy the blueprints first, and you'll see a greyed out button for the part that tells you you have to upgrade your research to a certain level to be able to use it.

Huh. The progression was definitely unclear in the game. Presumably it will only offer you purchased upgrades if they will improve your existing weapons? I wonder if there will be branching paths of specialized upgrades for each type of equipment (what I presumed the color coding military/civilian/experimental/etc was for).

I just got the upgrades and then did repair in space like I thought it suggested, which clearly got me nowhere.

[MrCoffee]

Im guessing the new modules will be available at random depending on the system level on the full game.

Also repair works i guess, it will just add that "20% damage to lasers" to any module you have in that ship but it wont give you a new module, for that you have to refit.

[Pogo]

I actually forgot about "repair," I thought its sole purpose was to take a ship out of battle so that it didn't blow up and require you to respend the Rez to build it again.

[Lizard_King]

Well, like I said. I found the demo exciting, wish it included save so I could go back to it and keep messing around now that I know this stuff. Definitely looking forward to updates.

[MrCoffee]

Oh i think there is another button that will do that for you, because i remember using it when my other ships kept getting blown up when they shot those explosive barrels.

[Pogo]

For the barrels part, I selected two ships in the Tactics screen and right-clicked by the "base" module so they just sat there. If I got attacked, I would just head back to the module and then it'd be a 3v1 or 3v2 firefight.

Lizard, I think you can hit Continue. But in the demo you can't go past the second star system anyways, so it's not like you'll find much else to do/upgrade.

[MrCoffee]

Also if you dont have good relations with the faction that owns the station and you want to buy a blueprint, you can just blow it up :D

[KiloOhm]

Well, like I said. I found the demo exciting, wish it included save so I could go back to it and keep messing around now that I know this stuff. Definitely looking forward to updates.

It lets you save after you finish the tutorial missions, at least it did for me.

[Tman]

How can you tell if your ship needs repairs? Right now, I just periodically send ships to get repaired, which seems to be OK, but I can't help but wonder if I'm wasting it or not.

The beams have a "low energy" so they won't fire, is it good to let them build up a charge? I don't know because when I do fire, they keep on firing (no need to hold down the mouse button) until the charge is depleted. However, I'm unsure of the cannon recharge mechanism. Little stars of light shoot out occasionally. I noticed on the advanced tactics screen, I can assign these to different mouse buttons. I'll have to try experimenting with those advanced tactics - so many things, unsure of what difference they make.

I was in a system with friends and enemies, one of my "friends" got into my path of fire and blew up their ship, now all of them are attacking me, I lost all my ships, I thought OK, time for mass retreat, but the wording on mass retreat "are you sure you want to leave and lose all progress?" sounded bad, but after losing my ships a 2nd time (at the warp gate no less), I qq out of the game. Damn, should have at least tried the mass retreat - I wonder if I could do a mass-retreat with no ships?

I feel like the choices I get to make are at the system/star map, (I notice some of the quests have "expiry #" on them) and even those don't give me a lot of freedom, since they are nicely numbered - one system has a 6 expiry, another a 5, one has a 2 and another has a 3...jeez, which one should I go after first?

Then you get into a system, the red arrows directing me every which way - again very little choice. I wonder if this is part of the tutorial or the game is like this the entire time?

As I select my research points, I can't help but wonder if there will be a re-spec opportunity at some point? Eg, I haven't invested any in missiles because the hulls are so small at this point, but I'm sure once I get a decent hull, I'll want some bad-ass missles along with my lasers and cannons.

Overall, I have to applaud the devs - this is a very stable "pre-alpha" release. Not a single crash or weird thing happened to me at all. The writing could be spiffed up a bit - it's awkward in many occasions. The gladios voice from the computer reminds me too much of portal - that's all I think of whenever it comes up.

I'll be watching this as time goes on. Intriguing.

[MrCoffee]

Don't worry about letting missions expire, new ones go up after a while.

Also mass retreat just fails the mission, but anything you collected (rez/crew/data) during the mission gets saved but be careful you can still get killed since the retreat isnt instantenous.

[Pogo]

How can you tell if your ship needs repairs? Right now, I just periodically send ships to get repaired, which seems to be OK, but I can't help but wonder if I'm wasting it or not.

Armor gets repaired by crew members, shields recharge.


The beams have a "low energy" so they won't fire, is it good to let them build up a charge? I don't know because when I do fire, they keep on firing (no need to hold down the mouse button) until the charge is depleted. However, I'm unsure of the cannon recharge mechanism. Little stars of light shoot out occasionally. I noticed on the advanced tactics screen, I can assign these to different mouse buttons. I'll have to try experimenting with those advanced tactics - so many things, unsure of what difference they make.

Not sure where your confusion lays here. The mouse cursor has your energy level, it goes down when firing cannons or beams. Beams you just click a button and they fire for about 3 seconds before recharging. This has SEPARATE from the amount of charge you have left. It's just how lasers fire.


I want the full game like... now. I think I'll install Space Rangers 2 in the meantime.

[Lizard_King]

It lets you save after you finish the tutorial missions, at least it did for me.

Damn it. I shouldn't have quit in mid space clobbering.

[deanco]

Actually, you can save anywhere you want. You have to fly back to the mothership, once there the save button will no longer be greyed out.

[MrCoffee]

Wonder if the Mothership gets more use later in the game other than just a place to save :p

[Lizard_King]

Wonder if the Mothership gets more use later in the game other than just a place to save :p

Even as is, it's amazing with the benefit of hindsight that no one has done this before. I like having a base development component, and it'd be nice if as you say it starts taking on other dimensions as you upgrade.

[@Colin]

Gendal is cool :P

[Gendal]

Thanks Daffy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Z2MP8vMWU), that was good for a laugh.

Back to the game, looking forward to more. The possibility of upgrading your mothership along with multiple ships controlled by the AI immediately caught my attention.

[Tom Chick]

Hey Colin,

I don't think anyone meant any malice by posting those links, but I've removed them just to be safe. Thanks for the heads-up.

-Tom

[@Colin]

Thanks Tom.

Feel free to hit the official Spaz forums to have your say on the game, what you'd like to see and anything you dont want to see.

[ZekeDMS]

If this is the community, I think my interest in the game is waning. How DARE people try to encourage others to try in a non-officially sanctioned location! How DARE they! They should engage in sycophantic behavior and attempt to control other peoples' speech instead!

[@Colin]

If this is the community, I think my interest in the game is waning. How DARE people try to encourage others to try in a non-officially sanctioned location! How DARE they! They should engage in sycophantic behavior and attempt to control other peoples' speech instead!

Well I do apologise for what I said but my timezone leaves me up all night and I wished to make the point clear, unfortunately it makes others think that its okay and stems off to piracy.

Problem was hotlinking and distributing download links without allowing people to participate in the greater community for feedback, which the demo was designed for, is all.

I assure you the community isnt as quick-triggered or hot headed when it comes to things like this. :P

[Pogo]

Just like to intervene here and say things that should've been stated by DeanCo who started this thread.

I assume he didn't read the disclaimer on the installer or terms of this pre-alpha on the forums. I'll leave that for the two developers to deal with, not my place.

The Launch is here: spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18

And the forums are: spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/index.php

Do not post on threads on other websites, your views and opinions will be wasted just to boost someones ego or activity which is not due to the site - instead register on Spaz Forums and use the pre-alpha demo for what it is intended for.

I am really quite disgusted that some people can not grasp the kindness of the developers and will be so petty to try and direct some attention to themselves on another site.

I am a supporter of the game, merely a fan, so what I say has no affiliation with the staff at MinMax Games LTD and my opinion is that of my own, before anyone starts assuming.


ADDITIONAL: This is why companies have to go to such great length to keep possesion of what is theirs, ignorant people like deanco who hadnt even credited the creators or assisted them in their venture this was launched for.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, other than that deanco probably shouldn't have posted an FTP link to a game demo that specifically said that it wasn't meant for distribution. He didn't stroke his epeen in here, and nobody on Qt3 suddenly thinks he's the greatest guy in the world for posting the links.

Some foul, but no harm in this case, considering how solid the demo is and it's painting a great impression of the product.

I'll repost those official links for this thread for you:

The Launch is here: www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18

And the forums are: www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/index.php

[Tman]

Hey Colin, I think you came in here on a high horse. You might want to step out of the saddle a bit. The developers should be very proud for what they have built so far and generating buzz is not a bad thing.

I actually found the official forums, but the "hey look at my feedback" thread titles tell me it's a complete waste. If you all believe so much in this game, you should be a little more creative and more focused on the threads so single ideas can be discussed. As it is, I really have no interest in the official forums because it's so disorganized. Oh, like i'm going to read through 30 threads all with a variant of "look at me, I have feedback" for the thread title?

Great game, has a lot of promise. Incredible state for a pre-alpha.

[@Colin]

Back to the game: How many hours have people gotten out of this demo? I've easily squeezed 6-7 hours from it, haha.

[Adree]

I'm sure the designers are just miserable at being linked on one of the most popular gaming forums on the interwebs.

I don't see anything at that link that says you cannot discuss the game elsewhere. Maybe you should let the developers do the policing and go back to writing internet traffic tickets.
(http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18)

[@Colin]

Sorry if I caused offense or misrepresented the Spaz community to any of you. A bit ratty after a long day and I'd hope you could forgive me.

I realise I was wrong in my approach to the topic.

I'd like to possibly stop this hijacking of the thread, if thats alright?

I hope you enjoy the game as much as me and once again sorry for any offense :S just a fan of the team's work!

[Lizard_King]

Actually, you can save anywhere you want. You have to fly back to the mothership, once there the save button will no longer be greyed out.

Ah, thanks. I knew I'd seen it at some point I just couldn't figure out what triggered it. Guess that's one good reason to try it again.

[Blorfy]

Hi everyone. I am one of the two developers of Space Pirates and Zombies. We are glad that you are enjoying the game and look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

It is unfortunate if you got the wrong impression, and although we did not originally want the pre-alpha demo to have a wide distribution, you are all definitely interested in SPAZ and that is great. We will be monitoring this forum in the future to gather together any ideas you may have. I hope your opinions of Space Pirates and Zombies have not been soured in any way. Colin is an active user on the SPAZ forums, but is not affiliated with MinMax games in any way. We regret any offense that was caused.

In the coming weeks, we plan to release a paid alpha at a substantial discount where people can play the game as we develop it. This will provide us with much needed income (Which we have been without for 18 months) and provide the participants with an ever evolving game from week to week.

[Pogo]

If the price is right, and if it means more systems are unlocked so I can shoot more powerful missiles at enemies that are kilometers away, I'm totally in.

Good luck with development and feedback.

[Lizard_King]

I look forward to that, and barring an unusual price point will be happy to invest in your venture.

[Blorfy]

Price wise, we will definitely be very competitive with other indie titles. We cannot say exactly because we don't have any solid distribution contacts signed, but we are not doing AAA pricing for sure.

[Lizard_King]

Well, it's not the end of the world one way or another, I'm sure you'll find a viable price point. I hope you find a distributor that's worth a damn as I know for me at least I always have to think twice before going outside of the steam cocoon.

[Blorfy]

I want to reiterate that we at MinMax really do want you at Qt3 to feel part of the SPAZ game community. We have decided to re-post the ftp info here and leave the pre-alpha compatibility demo up for an extra 24 hours. So, we were going to take it down in 16 hours from now, but instead it will be up for the next 40 hours.

FTP Login:
Host: 50.22.194.60
User: anonymous(At)spacepiratesandzombies.com (cant post emails either)
Pass: anything

Here is more info on how to connect if you have problems: (can't post full links yet hehe)
spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18

We will be watching the forums, and if you have any bugs or worse yet difficulties starting up the game, please let us know. This compatibility demo is meant to get us trying SPAZ on a few hundred computers in an attempt to find any showstoppers before we release the paid alpha development stage.

Thanks,
Andrew Hume
MinMax Games Ltd.

p.s. I am restricted from posting email addresses or links, but if someone with 50+ posts wishes to amend this email with easier to use info, feel free.

[Therlun]

FTP Login:
Host: 50.22.194.60
User: [email protected]
Pass: anything

Here is more info on how to connect if you have problems: (can't post full links yet hehe)
http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18


--------

[Tman]

Hey Blorfy, welcome to QT3. I love having developers come and discuss their game. You've got a nice gem on your hands and I applaud the effort you've made to make this so damn stable at this point. It has been a pleasure to play so far and I'd definitely ante up for an alpha subscription price point to play & follow your progress.

[MrCoffee]

If the price is right, and if it means more systems are unlocked so I can shoot more powerful missiles at enemies that are kilometers away, I'm totally in.

Good luck with development and feedback.

I hope you tried that ship that shoots the huge ass bomb/nuke then!

[deanco]

I'm sure the designers are just miserable at being linked on one of the most popular gaming forums on the interwebs.



Filled with writers, reviewers, and other game industry people, who all seem to be impressed with the game.

Honestly, I was happy to turn on a bunch of people here to what I think is gonna be a great game, as they have done for me many times in the past. I played through the demo before posting, and I was pretty sure it would create positive buzz here. I circumvented no copy protection, I signed no NDA that I know of, although I always click 'I agree' really fast.

At any rate, more people having fun, and positive buzz generated for a relatively unknown title.

DeanCo-- , lurking since 2002

[Zak Gordon]

Just wanted to say you got another fan of your game, but please look at non-steam options too when you come to release, aim for all the DD sites if you can.

[Blorfy]

@deanco We (MinMax Games) appreciate you helping to promote SPAZ. It has been largely ignored by the gaming press, and except for the great Total Biscuit WTF is? video, it is largely unknown.

@Zak Gordon Well Steam will not be a problem, as we got the "we are not a good fit for distribution" form letter. We do not know the exact reason though as it is not their policy to disclose it. Not knowing why something you have slaved over for 18 months was rejected really sucks. Anyhow I am sure they get hundreds of indie submissions a week, and reading about the problems star ruler had getting onto steam, it leads me to believe that Space games are difficult to get accepted until proven externally.

We are looking at other distribution methods as well, so there will definitely be a variety of ways to get Space Pirates and Zombies.

[Saxman_72]

Wow. I am seriously impressed with what I've seen so far. You've made a supporter out of me. With the degree of polish that I've seen, it's hard to believe that it's all been developed by a 2-man team.

I am truly excited about what's to come.

[Firgof]

Just wanted to chime in and applaud you two for sticking to it. Making games is tough with just two staff members! (We're up to three now at BMS!) I may have some suggestions for you guys when it comes to marketing on a broader scale and I wouldn't mind sharing some of what we've learned with you all. PM/e-mail me! :D

[Saxman_72]

Looks like the little distribution snag they ran into has smoothed over. (http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=247) My excitement - it cannot be contained!!!

[Brian Rubin]

Could this finally satisfy my urges for a new Armada game? I mean Armada for the Dreamcast, which only Brian and I ever loved, but we loved it SOOOO much!

I like Escape Velocity too. I thought it did well (Nova, I mean), and I'm surprised they didn't make any more.
Oh god, Armada. I still play that now and then. LOVE it. This looks awesome too. When can we buy it?!

[MakuMaku]

Oh god, Armada. I still play that now and then. LOVE it. This looks awesome too. When can we buy it?!

Sooner than you think. According to the site, it will be available on Impulse on Monday 9the of May!

[Brian Rubin]

It will be mine. Oh yes...it will be...

[Brian Rubin]

This comes out tomorrow! YAY! Anyone else gonna get it besides me? ;)

[Pogo]

I am going to be giving these guys my money. I thought that short beta they had released was extremely fun.

[Lizard_King]

Thanks for the heads up. It's fifteen dollars if you preorder, apparently. Now which is the least crappy vendor of the three available now...

nm I can't seem to find a copy available for preorder now.

[Brian Rubin]

It's gonna be $15 on Impulse tomorrow, apparently.

[deanco]

Yeah, only Impulse for now, GamersGate and BMT Micro later.

There will also be an updated demo released at the same time as Impulse.

Seriously looking forward to it.

[Harkonis]

Anyone know what time Impulse goes live with it? Hoping to use SPAZ to kill time until Brink ;)

[Blorfy]

Hi everyone,

I am one of the Devs on SPAZ. It is great to see the interest here :)

We should be ready to release within the next 5 or so hours. We have a blog entry tracking today's progress. I wish I could post some links, but my post count is too low :(

Today should be a really exciting day!

[Brian Rubin]

Hi everyone,

I am one of the Devs on SPAZ. It is great to see the interest here :)

We should be ready to release within the next 5 or so hours. We have a blog entry tracking today's progress. I wish I could post some links, but my post count is too low :(

Today should be a really exciting day!
Welcome, Blorfy! Can't wait for the game's release. Question for ya though, might you be able to tell me what the specs for the game are? I can't find 'em anywhere.

Edit: NM, Found it on the Impulse page (http://www.impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-IMP-W5018).

[Blorfy]

Hehe, Yeah. I was going to link to that page, but ran into the link restriction again :)

[Brian Rubin]

Hehe, Yeah. I was going to link to that page, but ran into the link restriction again :)
Get your link count up by pimping the game. ;) As someone who will play just about anything with a spaceship in it, I am VERY excited about your game. :)

[Harkonis]

Glad to see you popping in here. I'll be buying it as soon as it's up. :)

edit: Is this the link you wanted? http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=284

[Blorfy]

Actually, there is a blog entry called "Release Day" That is the one I am updating. Thanks for the link though.

[Harkonis]

updated link, hopefully right this time

[Benhur]

Welcome, Blorfy! Can't wait for the game's release. Question for ya though, might you be able to tell me what the specs for the game are? I can't find 'em anywhere.

Edit: NM, Found it on the Impulse page (http://www.impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-IMP-W5018).

Yeah, so how can I preorder it? There's no link to add to cart, and the game won't shopw up in a search on my Impulse page. I want to order this now for 15 rather than 20 when it comes out in a few hours. Help!

[Blorfy]

Oh, it is $15 in a few hours. The pre-release Beta starts today. We will be adding features for a couple months, and then the price goes up when we release the final.

[Teiman]

Humm...Impulse sould add videos. These screenshots don't do the game justice.

[Blorfy]

Yeah, we were hoping to get some videos up on there. We do have a new trailer you can find on you tube. It is called Trailer 2. (I wish I could link it)

[Phydeaux]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpW1PGLVdnE&hd=1

Also incredibly excited for this game. Like Brian, I too will buy just about anything with a spaceship in it. Between Spaz, Starfarer, Minecraft, Terraria, Dungeon Defenders (coming out very soon, I hear), I feel like this is the new golden age of PC gaming... and it's Indie Powered. :D

[Blorfy]

Thanks for posting the link Phydeaux :)

[Brian Rubin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpW1PGLVdnE&hd=1

Also incredibly excited for this game. Like Brian, I too will buy just about anything with a spaceship in it. Between Spaz, Starfarer, Minecraft, Terraria, Dungeon Defenders (coming out very soon, I hear), I feel like this is the new golden age of PC gaming... and it's Indie Powered. :D
Right?!?! I've not had such a deluge of great space gaming in ages, but with this, Starfarer, Naev and others, it's looking to be a good time to be a PC gamer. ;)

[Saxman_72]

I came into work an hour early today so that I'd have that extra bit of time to play tonight. I can't wait to dive into this! =)

[Phydeaux]

It's now for sale!

http://www.impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-IMP-W5018

[Blorfy]

Woohoo! Thanks for posting the link :)

[Marcin]

Right?!?! I've not had such a deluge of great space gaming in ages, but with this, Starfarer, Naev and others, it's looking to be a good time to be a PC gamer. ;)

Same here, I'm loving this space game renaissance. Plus, the top-down format means I don't have to remember how to play with a joystick again :P

Any idea when this will be available on other services? I'm partial to GamersGate/Direct2Drive since they don't use a client.

[Blorfy]

Probably within a couple weeks. Actually Impulse only requires the client to initially download SPAZ. After that, SPAZ is activated and does not need to use Impulse again.

However, patches are currently tracked/distributed through Impulse as well, so it would be handy to keep around and check from time to time.

We will be patching and adding features regularly over the next couple months.

[Janster]

Secured a copy, this will be interesting :)

[Harkonis]

as an aside regarding top-down, it might just be me, but I miss the original 2 GTA's as well. I liked them the most. You get bored Blorfy, make SPAZ version like GTA with the same engine. lol

downloading now, cant' wait.

This might make me too tired for midnight Brink though!

[Brian Rubin]

Just played for an hour and was able to leave Sol. The tutorial is well done and really helps you get a handle on the interface, which I love so far. I gotta replay it though, lost too many ships breaking the blockade and really drained my Rez reserves.

[Teiman]

So, this is a beta.

How much of the game is in this beta? Everything that we see in the videos?

[Brian Rubin]

So, this is a beta.

How much of the game is in this beta? Everything that we see in the videos?
I wouldn't even know how to answer this.

[deanco]

You should be able to get all the way to the galactic core, in other words, finish the game.

[Phydeaux]

So far, it's got lots of potential, but the playbalance feels nuts. Some missions are cakewalks, others are so horrid (beacon destruction mission, I'm looking at you) that they may as well be impossible for all the guys who spawn in.

[Blorfy]

It is the full game, with about 25 or so hours of gameplay. The gameplay time varies on how nasty the galaxy generates itself. But if you finished SPAZ in under 15 hours I would be really surprised.

Once you finish, you can start again, get a new galaxy and levelup differently. Diablo style.

[Pogo]

I have given you my money and eagerly await the sun to go down.

[Brian Rubin]

Just played for another hour (really? an hour? dang, mark of a good game there) and this time I did some mining and changed all of my ships so they had a little more hull and tractor beam capability, and did much better. Now I'm in the second system and enjoying the hell out of myself. It really does feel kinda Armada-ish, but much larger in scope obviously. I just got the Turtlehead and damn do I love that ship hard core. :)

[Harkonis]

If you're finding the beacon mission hard, you're probably not high enough level. It tells you the expected level you should be to complete it. I went there, ignored that, got wiped, went and levelled to 5 like it said and came back and wiped them.

So far I'm loving everything except the long load times at start up, and the fact that it won't recover after alt-tab or minimize.

[Harkonis]

Just played for another hour (really? an hour? dang, mark of a good game there) and this time I did some mining and changed all of my ships so they had a little more hull and tractor beam capability, and did much better. Now I'm in the second system and enjoying the hell out of myself. It really does feel kinda Armada-ish, but much larger in scope obviously. I just got the Turtlehead and damn do I love that ship hard core. :)


Brian loves hardcore Turtleheading.

[Brian Rubin]

Brian loves hardcore Turtleheading.
You know it baby. Bow chicka bow wow.

[Marcin]

Probably within a couple weeks. Actually Impulse only requires the client to initially download SPAZ. After that, SPAZ is activated and does not need to use Impulse again.

However, patches are currently tracked/distributed through Impulse as well, so it would be handy to keep around and check from time to time.

We will be patching and adding features regularly over the next couple months.

Oh. Well then, there's no way I'll last that long :P Impulse it is, can't wait to play it tonight!

[aganazer]

Has anyone spotted a link to download the demo? Its been mentioned that there is a new demo, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

[Dan_Theman]

Has anyone spotted a link to download the demo? Its been mentioned that there is a new demo, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
If you go to the website (www.spacepiratesandzombies.com (http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com)), there's a button to push to download the demo on the left hand side.

[Harkonis]

Not sure if the demo is today or when the other distribution outlets get the game.

[aganazer]

If you go to the website (www.spacepiratesandzombies.com (http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com)), there's a button to push to download the demo on the left hand side.

Thanks!

[Pogo]

So far I'm loving everything except the long load times at start up, and the fact that it won't recover after alt-tab or minimize.

It recovered on alt+tab for me, but it kinda acted like a broken windowed mode (I could click the taskbar but the windows wouldn't show up).

Also, yeah the load times are strangely long.

[Blorfy]

We actually do all the game loading upfront. There is a thread on our forums about it now. So once you get into the game, no more loading between instances (so in the long term you save a LOT of time) but initially there is a time investment.

[Brian Rubin]

I actually don't mind that up-front loading, honestly. :) I like how it minimizes load times later. Maybe add something explaining that to the initial loading screen so folks have the right expectations?

[Blorfy]

Yeah that is the plan. The loading takes people by surprise; SPAZ is actually front loading 700 megs of resources.

[Teiman]

First playtrought: The game is everything I trough, and more. You chose what to do, there's all types of progression and choices. You are free to experiment anything... and get your ass handed to you. The campaign seems huge and interesting. Bravo!.

[Phydeaux]

Second thing I notice... and this may just mean I suck, is that crew is nearly impossible to hold on to. I don't lose ships often enough that res is a problem, but I do lose it enough that crew is an issue. I'm lucky to have 5 crew in reserve.

I also notice that you can't see a ship's faction in tactical mode. This becomes tricky when both factions are yellowish and you're trying to befriend one particular side. You can target them and then switch off of tactical to see who you've targeted, but that's a stopgap solution.

[Brian Rubin]

Speaking of crew, one thing I've noticed is that if there are escape pods, ships with tractor beams won't tractor them in. They'll tractor in everything else, just not escape pods, which could be helpful with the crew issue. Any reason for this, Blorfy?

[Andon]

Just purchased from Impulse. FYI Coupon Code Survey2010 got me a $1.50 off purchase price in case that's enough to sway someone off the fence..

[Harkonis]

Second thing I notice... and this may just mean I suck, is that crew is nearly impossible to hold on to. I don't lose ships often enough that res is a problem, but I do lose it enough that crew is an issue. I'm lucky to have 5 crew in reserve.

I also notice that you can't see a ship's faction in tactical mode. This becomes tricky when both factions are yellowish and you're trying to befriend one particular side. You can target them and then switch off of tactical to see who you've targeted, but that's a stopgap solution.

I haven't had a problem with crew yet, I pick them up all the time.

I've had a problem where I can't tell my friends to help me vs one faction and leave the other alone. This would be useful when trying to change which faction likes me.

[Harkonis]

Speaking of crew, one thing I've noticed is that if there are escape pods, ships with tractor beams won't tractor them in. They'll tractor in everything else, just not escape pods, which could be helpful with the crew issue. Any reason for this, Blorfy?

my medium ship tractors them in, my small does not. Oddly I could swear that sometimes when I'm controlling the small, it does tractor them. Something odd is happening with the tractors and crew pods definitely.

How exactly do the sensors work? I have them equipped, but cloaked ships and things still don't seem to appear, it just keeps saying cloak nearby.

[Eric Majkut]

This looks awfully similar to Starfarer. Flying around and zapping stuff in space is always fun though right? ;)

[Pogo]

This is really a mouse-aiming 2D shooter, in space with customization and some tactics. It's not like Space Rangers... doesn't have the economy side of things other than some resource management, and it's skill-based combat instead of stat-based.

[Blorfy]

Ok I know what the tractor issue is. Been scratching my head for a while on that. Those tractors you have are miningTractors and not real strong arm beefy normal tractors. They just pick up rocks. We need to call that out somewhere. Thanks for the heads up.

[Brian Rubin]

my medium ship tractors them in, my small does not. Oddly I could swear that sometimes when I'm controlling the small, it does tractor them. Something odd is happening with the tractors and crew pods definitely.
Ah, yeah, I got a tug and noticed it does that. Maybe small beams can't snag escape pods for some reason?


This is really a mouse-aiming 2D shooter, in space with customization and some tactics. It's not like Space Rangers... doesn't have the economy side of things other than some resource management, and it's skill-based combat instead of stat-based.
It's not like SR, but that isn't a bad thing. I am totally loving it.

[Quitch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpW1PGLVdnE&hd=1

Also incredibly excited for this game. Like Brian, I too will buy just about anything with a spaceship in it. Between Spaz, Starfarer, Minecraft, Terraria, Dungeon Defenders (coming out very soon, I hear), I feel like this is the new golden age of PC gaming... and it's Indie Powered. :D

That's... actually a surprisingly good trailer. Love the mix of music and VO over the events.

[flyinj]

Does anyone know where this game puts it's saves? Looked in it's folder and the documents folder, and I don't see anything.

[Pogo]

It's not like SR, but that isn't a bad thing. I am totally loving it.

It's a good thing, actually. I loved Space Rangers and was happy to have bought it, but several hours into any game and I'm slightly overwhelmed with the choices available. I wanted a more arcade-focused real time game like this.

[Phydeaux]

I was unlucky enough to have standard engines only show up by the time I hit level 14. Once I got these, a lot of strategy opened up for me. I'm not losing my ships nearly as often and I may actually be starting to collect crew, though more slowly than I'd like (the small ships in my fleet keep popping). Big difference, there.

[KevinC]

I'm having a ton of fun with this!

[Dan_Theman]

Does anyone know where this game puts it's saves? Looked in it's folder and the documents folder, and I don't see anything.
Looks like User -> Appdata -> Roaming -> MinMaxGames -> SpacePiratesAndZombies -> b_save ("b" for "beta," I presume)

[Blorfy]

Yup that's the place. If you pass saves around remember to copy both the si_savename and sg_savename files.

On windows XP the dir is:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\MinMaxGames\SpacePiratesAndZombies\b_save

[deanco]

Speaking of crew, one thing I've noticed is that if there are escape pods, ships with tractor beams won't tractor them in. They'll tractor in everything else, just not escape pods, which could be helpful with the crew issue. Any reason for this, Blorfy?

I'm probably talking out my ass here, but I seem to remember something about crew members that belong to the faction that don't like you will sometimes not join up with you because they don't like you. When this happens you'll see the little guy ejected into space without a spacesuit, he twitches around a bit and finally explodes in a spray of blood. Don't know if this is the same issue, but it's cool nonetheless.

Ther devs have got to be the nicest people in the universe. Canadians, ey. Some guy had a problem with his order, the devs were ready to refund his money out of their own pocket. When I read that, I said, 'humanity is back, bigtime'.

Even more amazing, they listen to good ideas, and implement them. During the alpha, I threw out a suggestion that the total cargo carried (in number form) should be at the upper left of the screen in the wireframe representation of your ship. The next patch, it was there. I also complained that it was too hard to know when your missiles had regenerated and were ready to fire, as the missiles were a part of the 3D ship and were hard to see when they regenerated. The game now has little icons on the aiming reticule when the missiles are ready. It's like I'm helping fricking design the game, a nerdgasm if i ever saw one.

Finally, my favorite feature: The spacebar. The spacebar is your one stop shopping spot.There's just one big button to memorize that does everything. Shit's hitting the fan? spacebar will sort it out.

It's so good, even after completing a mision i stick around and blow up asteroids, signs, and space debris just to see what happens when they blow up, pick up a bit of extra rez that way. Then I cruise around to try to find more.

OH yeah, the escort mission ship is you have to protect is equipped with a great stonking giant torpedo That does massive damage in a wide circle. PRO TIP, stay out of it's way. I found that out the hard way.

[Pogo]

You foud th what?! FINISH THE STORY

[Blips]

You foud th what?! FINISH THE STORY

I think the stonking giant torpedo got him :P

[Pogo]

Bah, he filled it in, and it was very anticlimactic. I'm disappointed.

[flyinj]

Is there friendly fire in this? Or can I just lance my beam weapons through my other ships?

Also, is there a way to not have a ship in the sector with you? I want to build a big freighter, but only have it warp in after I've cleaned up all the bad guys.

[Brian Rubin]

I totally forgot to mention the little dudes that get ejected into space. LOVE THAT!

[Phydeaux]

Is there friendly fire in this? Or can I just lance my beam weapons through my other ships?

Also, is there a way to not have a ship in the sector with you? I want to build a big freighter, but only have it warp in after I've cleaned up all the bad guys.

Seems like you can shoot through your own ships, but not friendlies you don't control.

[sharaleo]

Appeared on Impulse today at pre-order price. I snapped it up.

My new favorite line is in the new trailer:

"The hull has been breached and the science is leaking out!"

Not even sure what that means, but I lol'd.

[Pogo]

The comments that you hear via radio chatter in the game are pretty awesome, and they also allude to some unknown biological threat (gonna go ahead and guess that's the "Zombies" part of the title name).


Does anyone know what Mining Lasers are useful for? I can tell immediately that they break up rock quicker than the offensive lasers, but other than that they don't seem to affect the frequency or quality of the Rez that comes out of that broken rock.

[Mark L]

If I were a dev, I would wonder what the exact reason was that someone chose to purchase my product. In this case, it was a combination of great word of mouth and the second trailer.

[Lizard_King]

So, is version 1.0 coming out soon or what? We're running out of May 9th.

[Marcin]

Oh man, the Torque logo upfront gives me shivers. Glad to see you guys did something this awesome with it!

/wave from an ex-GG employee.

[Harkonis]

Now if only we could have an internet friend fly one of our wingmen ;)

[Jarrodhk]

Failed an escort mission, but picked up blueprint plans from the ship I was escorting. I am conflicted.

Also on reflection I'm pretty sure my allies blew up the ship we were escorting while trying to kill the enemy on the other side.

[krayzkrok]

Full game won't launch for me. It brings up the logo on the desktop (with "Loading" in the corner) after after a few seconds disappears. That's all it does.

The demo, however, works just fine. So there's something going on with the full game.

Actually, it seems I'm having exactly the same problem as this guy (http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=300) in the spaz forums - the wrapper / copy protection on the full game is preventing it from launching.

[instant0]

Bought it earlier tonight... grinding my experience now, so I can get better beam weapons. Having a hard time killing T1 Stations, as I only have 1 medium and 2 light fighters... but, with time I'll have enough skill points to be able!

[Lizard_King]

It's still on the beta, right?

[Brian Rubin]

Now if only we could have an internet friend fly one of our wingmen ;)
You shut your whore mouth. Not every game needs multiplayer. ;)

[rezaf]

It's still on the beta, right?


Oh, it is $15 in a few hours. The pre-release Beta starts today. We will be adding features for a couple months, and then the price goes up when we release the final.

So, yeah, you'd better stop holding your breath (or posting about this) for the time being...
_____
rezaf

[Brian Rubin]

So, is version 1.0 coming out soon or what? We're running out of May 9th.

It's still on the beta, right?
For the love of baby Jesus yes, is that a problem for you?

[Lizard_King]

I was under the impression the full version was releasing on May 9th since that's what "release date" usually means, which is why I was asking. But yeah, fuck both of you right in the sperg node.

[Brian Rubin]

But yeah, fuck both of you right in the sperg node.
Harder, baby, harder!

[Teiman]

A small nerd touch would be to let you name your ships.
I love the science-fiction serie "The Culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture)", and I would love to use ironical names for my ships.

Like... "Don't look at laser with remaining eye", "Lets be friends here" ,"All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff", "Attitude Adjuster", "Frank Exchange Of Views", "The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival",
"Just Testing"....

[Harkonis]

You shut your whore mouth. Not every game needs multiplayer. ;)

but some games scream for it, and I don't know that you can tell me that any game that has automated AI wingmen couldn't have a human in there as well ;P

[RepoMan]

Every open world game needs co-op. Period. So sperg you, Brian Fuckbin.

[Blorfy]

Hi Everyone,

Wow it has been a crazy 24 hours since the beta was released, but we actually did get a few hours sleep. I am about to start writing some PR emails so the online magazines know that SPAZ exists. Anyhow to answer some of the questions we saw:

@Brian Rubin:
All the small and tiny ships (aside from the Hatchet) use small tractor beams, which are really just mining tractor beams. We thought it was a neat idea to make the small ones less useful, but we now realize that it was dumb... SO next patch they will pick up crew pods :)

@Deanco
Thanks so much for the positive review and good ideas :) I am glad you are having fun.

@Marcin
That is great to hear. We have been largely ignored by the GarageGames staff. I suppose it must have to do with the ownership transition and they are busy. We thought that they would be super excited to see what we did with the 2D engine.

@Krayzkrok
Sorry that you are having issues running the game. Our troubleshooting database is growing on the forums. Please join us and we will respond as quickly as possible. A quick diagnosis is to try the Demo and then the Beta. If the Demo works and the Beta does not, it has so far almost always been a virus scanner flagging SPAZ. If you disable or create and exception for the executable, it should resolve itself. Anyhow please join us on the forums for quickest response. We also have an irc channel where some of our European friends are helping people while we are asleep.

To everyone else, thanks for your support. I will be checking back here regularly to try to answer questions. We at MinMax are so glad you guys are talking about us :)

[Dreamshadow]

*comes up for a breath of air* Loving it! Annoyed that I keep running out of money because of auto rebuild..but otherwise yay! This one is going up with GSB as spaceship porn so far.

[Brian Rubin]

Every open world game needs co-op. Period. So sperg you, Brian Fuckbin.
It must be cloudy in your world of lies.

[Brian Rubin]

@Brian Rubin:
All the small and tiny ships (aside from the Hatchet) use small tractor beams, which are really just mining tractor beams. We thought it was a neat idea to make the small ones less useful, but we now realize that it was dumb... SO next patch they will pick up crew pods :)
Ah yes, it was the Hatchet in which I first noticed this. Yay!

[Blips]

Blorfy,

Just one small comment based on the videos I've seen: are the missiles going to be re-worked, or are there no plans to change them? I found them to be easily the least impressive aspect of the combat. They're too large and they turn on a dime which makes them looks a bit awkward.

[Sepiche]

Sounds interesting, but any plans for a non-Impulse release?

[Lizard_King]

Sounds interesting, but any plans for a non-Impulse release?

Only plans (http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/faq.html), at the moment, it seems. I just sucked it up and bought on impulse even though I am a Steam man in my heart.

[Blorfy]

@Blips
This is the first complaint about the missiles that I have seen, but they are a bit cartoony. Can you describe what you would like to see? Their current size is mainly due to the fact that we want them to be visible and somewhat avoidable.

@Sepiche
We will be releasing on GamersGate and BMTMicro in the coming weeks. We are just waiting for some contract details to get ironed out. We would also like to release on Steam, but in the past we were rejected (not given a reason) and we want to have some solid sales before we re-approach them.

[Marcin]

Sounds interesting, but any plans for a non-Impulse release?

Also note earlier in the thread that the game runs as standalone, once installed via Impulse. That tipped me over.

[Harkonis]

yep, impulse is just a delivery method, after install it's stand alone and unobtrusive.

[Dan_Theman]

Can someone please help me understand the "extra crew" bit with the ships? It defaults to 50%, but I'm not quite sure what that means and what tradeoffs I'm making when I shift the slider either which way.

[Dreamshadow]

Well, I'm beating my problems of running out of cash due to autobuild by spending some time in the Sol system with three hatchets, just picking up the leftovers by the big mining station.

Just saw the Huge ship category... it has a carrier! Does this mean I get to have a swarm of drones/fighters doing my bidding in combat?!?!

A side note, on Windows Vista, the game locks and crashes with no error when the screen loses focus (whether I lock my computer, alt-tab, click outside the window in windowed mode)

[Blorfy]

Early on, the crew is mostly a useful resource for trading with stations. Pick them up from popped ships or colonys and trade them for fun and profit. Since early hulls are so weak, the crew's repair usefulness is limited.

When you lose a ship, most of the crew inside will escape (the blue escape pods). They will always rejoin you. Other escape pods will join you if your relation is neutral or better. Otherwise there is a conversation and if they don't join, well out the airlock they go.

What I suggest early on is to set your desired crew slider to 10% (enough to repair ship, but not enough to deplete pool too much if you die a lot) Any extra crew you pick up beyond that max is deposited in your mothership whenever you return to it. BUT, later on in the game, you better keep lots and lots of crew on your ship as they serve the other purpose of defending it. I don't want to spoil, but that becomes pretty important.

[Blorfy]

@Dreamshadow
Oh hell yes. If you prefer to sit back and have a malicious hive or fighters deal with your enemies... we got ya covered.

[Brian Rubin]

@Dreamshadow
Oh hell yes. If you prefer to sit back and have a malicious hive or fighters deal with your enemies... we got ya covered.
*rubs hands together in excitement* Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent. :)

[Brian Rubin]

but some games scream for it, and I don't know that you can tell me that any game that has automated AI wingmen couldn't have a human in there as well ;P
Whatevs, some folks don't give two whits about multiplayer and I happen to be among them.


Every open world game needs co-op. Period. So sperg you, Brian Fuckbin.
No it doesn't, RepOHCUMONMYFACEMan.

[Marcin]

Whatevs, some folks don't give two whits about multiplayer and I happen to be among them.


No it doesn't, RepOHCUMONMYFACEMan.

I'm with Brian on this one. Eff other people (in the sperg node?) and their other people STUFF.

[Dan_Theman]

Thanks, Blorfy - I appreciate it!

[Blips]

@Blips
This is the first complaint about the missiles that I have seen, but they are a bit cartoony. Can you describe what you would like to see? Their current size is mainly due to the fact that we want them to be visible and somewhat avoidable.


I think the easiest and most profound fix would be to give them a maximum turn rate. Right now they just feel a bit mass-less.

[Brian Rubin]

A game with space zombies and you're concerned about mass? ;)

[Pogo]

Torpedos feel kind of weak. Maybe it's because I'm level 1, but bombarding a space station feels faster with just missiles, lasers and cannons, even after the shields are down.

Also, I wish I could see crew numbers on ships that aren't in my control, so I know who to switch to, because sometimes ships don't seem to want to pick up crew for some reason.

[flyinj]

Is there a way to quickly tell all my ships to get as close as possible to my ship right now, without hitting space and giving them all waypoints?

When dealing with large torpedoes and mines, this would be extremely useful.

[Brian Rubin]

Wow, I never even thought of attacking a station. Nice!

So I'm kind of an asshole. I play nice with one faction to get their blueprints, then once they're all used up, I make nice with the other faction. ;-) It's not the speediest way to play, but it's fun. ;-)

[Pogo]

So far I'm seeing that the more powerful blueprints are only sold by one faction. But I'm also seeing that it might not be possible, due to lack of missions, to even gain the respect of one of those factions.

This is still real early game though.

[Harkonis]

I think the easiest and most profound fix would be to give them a maximum turn rate. Right now they just feel a bit mass-less.

pretty sure they have a max turn rate, otherwise the upgrade that gives +10 turn rate is kind of silly, no? ;)

[flyinj]

How do you deal with missiles, anyhow? Are you supposed to shoot them down before they hit you?

[Blips]

pretty sure they have a max turn rate, otherwise the upgrade that gives +10 turn rate is kind of silly, no? ;)

Odd. I'm just going by Total Biscuit's video of the game. It looked like missiles could turn instantly at will. Perhaps they were changed :/

[Foxstab]

Graphics give me a feeling of Moonpod's Starscape.

[Phydeaux]

So far I'm seeing that the more powerful blueprints are only sold by one faction. But I'm also seeing that it might not be possible, due to lack of missions, to even gain the respect of one of those factions.

This is still real early game though.

The (bizarre) work-around is to just keep jumping to random planets in the solar system. Old missions time out and new ones replace them. I jumped around about 20 times to get enough faction approval to buy my way into the black market.

[Pogo]

Bah, I'm not sure I care. After all, blowing up the UTA at the gate is a great way to get those blueprints for the bigger ships, like the Tug, that have a lot more firepower and cargo space for Rez and crew.

[Thasero]

Well, I'm jumping on this space bandwagon!

My immediate impressions:

Missiles really do seem to turn instantly. At least, the first missiles you can get do so. They don't give any feeling of weight or inertia, and I certainly did not feel like I could dodge them - by the time a missile was visible it was already hitting my ship.

Beam weapons are fun. You click and there's an immediate graphical reward - you, firing beamlasers at spacedudes! Plus, even if you miss with a laser at first it still lets you sweep the beam over a target and get in at least a little hit. Missiles don't feel satisfying that way. I think I would like missiles better if they fired less often, but did so in salvos with a louder sound effect. I would hear that noise from enemy ships and think "Oh shit, missiles!" I would hear that noise from friendly ships and think "Fuck yeah, missiles!" Right now, missiles just kind of happen, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

I want a hotkey that immediately targets the closest hostile ship.

When I open the tactics screen and right-click on a friendly station, I expect this to make my ship autopilot over to the station and dock, but actually nothing happens.

The 'Surplus Scanner' has the same description as the 'Standard Scanner'. Neither of them says what scanners are good for.

There's a slider on the hangar screen that lets me choose how much surplus crew I want. I don't know what to do with this slider. Surplus is a word that means "extra" so why is the default 50%? 50% of what? How many extra is it? If they're surplus, why do I need them? The tutorials explain that more crew helps you repair, but I still don't know why they're surplus, and the whole thing seems like fiddly micromanagement. Why can't I just launch ships with however many crew they need?

I only have 3 ships, but I already wish that I could have a dedicated 'civilian' or 'utility' slot ship that just goes around with a tractor beam and hoovers up resources and crew. I don't want to trade my pew-pew ships for a civilian ship, though.

There also doesn't seem to be an easy way to collect crew - you can drop off spare resources by going back to the beacon, but once you're out of passenger room that's it, even if you only want the crew just to deliver them back to the mothership.

There's a bar in the upper-left hand corner of the screen that says "goons". I don't know what goons are. Is this the word for money in the 46th century? I can exchange them for rez at the mining station, so that seems likely. But for some reason, I can only exchange one at a time, and the buttons for exchanging more are greyed out. After a while playing the game, I figured out that "goons" means "crew" and the station only has enough rez to trade for one dude per visit. Calling your crew "goons" sometimes (but not other times, like in the tutorial where they're called "crew" or the research screen where they're called "crew" or the hangar screen where they're called "crew" or the mission dialog where they're called "crew") does not seem funny enough to justify the confusion. Also, when trading resources at a station, the screen should display what resources each party has so it's clearer what the trade limits are.

[Brian Rubin]

The (bizarre) work-around is to just keep jumping to random planets in the solar system. Old missions time out and new ones replace them. I jumped around about 20 times to get enough faction approval to buy my way into the black market.
Yeah, this is what I do. I don't think it's bizarre given the timed nature of missions and the ticking clock.

[Brian Rubin]

Graphics give me a feeling of Moonpod's Starscape.
Yup, but honestly I think this is a much better game than Stascape, which honestly bored me quickly.

[Robert Sharp]

So, will it satisfy my Armada itch, Brian? I'll probably pick it up either way. I wanted Starscape to be much more than it was. So if it's a better version of that, I'm good, too.

[Brian Rubin]

So, will it satisfy my Armada itch, Brian? I'll probably pick it up either way. I wanted Starscape to be much more than it was. So if it's a better version of that, I'm good, too.
It's not quite AS visceral as Armada but it's daaaaaamned close in the combat department. The universe feels a lot bigger too. Sadly you can't go down on planets like you could in Armada, but the random universe and missions make up for it. For me, it definitely scratches that itch, though talking about Armada makes me wanna play both Spaz AND Armada. ;-)

[Pogo]

I want a hotkey that immediately targets the closest hostile ship.

I want one that doesn't target any ship, so that I can more easily keep my buddies from flying across the map to the lone space station that is mad at me.


When I open the tactics screen and right-click on a friendly station, I expect this to make my ship autopilot over to the station and dock, but actually nothing happens.

You can't autopilot the ship that you're controlling... though I suppose it wouldn't be a bad feature. I'd probably rather prefer a "maximum thrust" setting so I didn't keep having to hold a button in order to cross the current map.

Or you can send your fast buddy there instead and switch over to him when he gets there.


I only have 3 ships, but I already wish that I could have a dedicated 'civilian' or 'utility' slot ship that just goes around with a tractor beam and hoovers up resources and crew. I don't want to trade my pew-pew ships for a civilian ship, though.

That's a trade off. Either you spend more time collecting Rez but have better combat ability, or you pick a ship (try the Tug, by the way, it's a UTA ship) that has lots of cargo and beams to do this but isn't maneuverable enough for extended combat.


There also doesn't seem to be an easy way to collect crew - you can drop off spare resources by going back to the beacon, but once you're out of passenger room that's it, even if you only want the crew just to deliver them back to the mothership.

I assume due to the short lifespan of escape pods that you can't just send those pods through a teleporter back to your home base.

[Brian Rubin]

That's a trade off. Either you spend more time collecting Rez but have better combat ability, or you pick a ship (try the Tug, by the way, it's a UTA ship) that has lots of cargo and beams to do this but isn't maneuverable enough for extended combat.
Like hell, the utility and toughness of the Tug (my favorite so far) and the Turtlehead have made them invaluable to me in combat. In maybe 2 dozen or so combat missions I've lost one ship. :-)

[Pogo]

Well... admittedly, I still only have Level 1 shields and it tends to drop faster than I thought it would. Then again I just sorta start shit with everyone in the sector.

[Brian Rubin]

Well... admittedly, I still only have Level 1 shields and it tends to drop faster than I thought it would. Then again I just sorta start shit with everyone in the sector.
Hah, yeah, me too eventually. ;-)

[krayzkrok]

@Krayzkrok
Sorry that you are having issues running the game. Our troubleshooting database is growing on the forums. Please join us and we will respond as quickly as possible. A quick diagnosis is to try the Demo and then the Beta. If the Demo works and the Beta does not, it has so far almost always been a virus scanner flagging SPAZ. If you disable or create and exception for the executable, it should resolve itself. Anyhow please join us on the forums for quickest response.

I've posted on the forum where a couple of others are having what appears to be the same problem, I'll post the relevant useful files when I get back home later today. But I'm not running any kind of antivirus software on the machine, the thing is kept pretty clear of such processes. It reminds me of the old problems I used to have (on another PC entirely) where SecuROM was incompatible with my CD-ROM drive and a bunch of games would never get past the launch / splash screens before SecuROM intercepted them. Obviously this isn't a CD-ROM issue but it feels similar.

[Phydeaux]

I've found a particularly potent ship/component combination that almost feels abusive/broken at this stage of the game. 'The Grinder' is a large hull with a large turret mount, one huge gun mount, 4 missile mounts, and a medium utility mount. You're meant to put some major weapon in the huge gun mount. Instead, I put a reactor booster there (which makes it a HUGE reactor booster). Give the turrets a twin turret mount, and your choice of weapon. The utility mount gets point defense, a tractor beam, another reactor booster, or (if you're focusing on reactor tech and can spare the regen rate), a weapon booster.

Instead of a ship that needs controlled bursts, you get a ship where you can hold down both mouse buttons almost indefinitely. I've been using this ship for the last 15 levels. I'm level 35 and can lay waste to blockades 10 levels above me with this thing. Is that imba, or about where I should be?

[MrCoffee]

What is this armada game you keep talking about?

[Brian Rubin]

What is this armada game you keep talking about?
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dreamcast/armada

AMAZING game for the Dreamcast, my favorite for the whole system. It's an amazing mix of space shooter and RPG.

[Brian Rubin]

I've found a particularly potent ship/component combination that almost feels abusive/broken at this stage of the game. 'The Grinder' is a large hull with a large turret mount, one huge gun mount, 4 missile mounts, and a medium utility mount. You're meant to put some major weapon in the huge gun mount. Instead, I put a reactor booster there (which makes it a HUGE reactor booster). Give the turrets a twin turret mount, and your choice of weapon. The utility mount gets point defense, a tractor beam, another reactor booster, or (if you're focusing on reactor tech and can spare the regen rate), a weapon booster.

Instead of a ship that needs controlled bursts, you get a ship where you can hold down both mouse buttons almost indefinitely. I've been using this ship for the last 15 levels. I'm level 35 and can lay waste to blockades 10 levels above me with this thing. Is that imba, or about where I should be?
Awesome! :-) Great tips!

[Jarrodhk]

I wouldn't mind some kind of distance readout under the ship icons on the edges of the screen.

[instant0]

Having more control on my copilots would be nice. Such as "guard" a sector, meaning they'll engage enemies in it, but not fly off to their deaths. It works somewhat when I tell them to move to a location that is far away from a station (avoiding them accidently attacking it and dying... ) but it's not perfect.

Being able to clear targets would be nice.

And I think the random quests you get in each system could use a hand. I have 2 systems with one of the factions hostile to me, but I need to dock at the station to buy a recipe. I tried blowing up the station, but no recipe dropped, so I'm stuck warping in an out of the system hoping for a quest to make them happy again. I suppose they should become happy each time I kill one of their enemies, but that does not happen either. I would at least hoped that, by killing a UTA(?) station, CIV would be happy, or the other way. Spending long enough time and I'll get the faction I need, but, I wish my efforts (to destroying their enemies) would give me reputation with the other.

And one last thing, seriously, putting the real values (to train) as plain-text in the middle of various strings, and then converting them to int or float for the display... sneaky! Took me a while to figure that one out.

Awesome game btw. Think I'm level 29 now. Are you stuck with only 1 large and 2 medium ships, or will you get a 4th and 5th etc slot eventually?

[Blorfy]

Hi Everyone,

I have been pretty busy, as I am sure you can imagine.

As for the missile issue, I think that what we are seeing is the green micro missiles. They are lightweight little things that do very little damage but are great for destabilizing shields. I am going to make a note to mass em up a bit though. Once you get into the blue missiles, they are much slower (and pack a bigger punch)

On the topic of torpedoes, the orange surplus ones are pretty weak (about as strong as a blue missile) However in a little while if you get the more advanced torpedo tech, they become quite devastating. Once you get to level 25ish, you should definitely have them. Please let me know your thoughts on them.

There seems to be some troubles with the understanding of goons and crew/surplus crew. I think we will add a more advanced tutorial for that feature.

There was a topic on targeting. If you have not hit R or F for a while, the first press will result in targeting the nearest hostile. After that it will cycle until you don’t tap for a couple seconds. We are also going to add a target under cursor button. It was suggested on the forums and seems like a really good idea.

I noticed that someone killed a station and it didn’t drop the blueprint inside. If so that is a bug. Stations should always drop their contents upon destruction. If you don't pick up the blueprint, the new outpost (weakling) that replaces it in the future will have it. Just kick it over and take.

I am glad you are all having fun. Please tell your friends. :)

There is also a new Total Biscuit video out just today about SPAZ. If anyone can link to it, that would be great. I don't have the post count to do it myself yet.

We also have an IRC channel you can access from the front page of the website if you feel like talking strategy.

[instant0]

TotalBiscuits SPAZ Video: (May 10th)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbikOfUFcxI

Ah, I see he has 4 ships at the end of the video! Woho! :)

I think somewhere in the game/tutorial its explained what extra people on the ship does, basically it lets you repair quicker. You get a module to increase the capacity of your ship, and it says in the description for this item that this helps on repairs. Would not have known otherwise.

Really love it when a station jetisons all the people into space before it blows :).

Thanks for the info on the station, I guess I'm going back to blow them up ;)

[Harkonis]

I'm a bit disappointed how many fights devolve into the AI flying backwards in a straight line away from you. It's easy to manuever them into wingmates, but it's still a bit disappointing.

Having a blast overall. I have one system though where it only ever has 1 mission up and it's always for the faction I don't need a blueprint from. No way I can take the station either.

[instant0]

I'm a bit disappointed how many fights devolve into the AI flying backwards in a straight line away from you. It's easy to manuever them into wingmates, but it's still a bit disappointing.

Having a blast overall. I have one system though where it only ever has 1 mission up and it's always for the faction I don't need a blueprint from. No way I can take the station either.

I went to other systems and farmed enemy ships until I had enough blueprints to buy a Tug (think it was a tug), then I flew back and blew the hell out of a pesky station that had eluded me when I was only level n-9. Now I'm going to farm Blueprints the most cost effective way.

I wondered if neighbouring systems would 'inherit' faction increases I got in my current system, but so far this theory has proven false. I guess with my newfound love for destroying stations it wont matter anyway.

Think I have around 170 more systems in this galaxy to conquer.

[Harkonis]

What weapons do you use to take out a station? The fighters tear my ass up.

[Harkonis]

oh, can we PLEASE have the AI pilots not fire on floating people in space. I know it's kind of cute, but they often hit targets that I don't want them to. (such as people still in capsules, explosive barrels, escort targets, etc)

[Pogo]

I attempted to take out one of those stations that has fighters but uhh... yeah I'm level 11 and it's quite obvious at this point that it's not possible until later.

I hate jumping into a system and getting immediately attacked by Civilians, having to kill them (can't Mass Retreat out of your home base) and losing faction rep only to see that they have something on sale at their station. It's probably random but that was pretty annoying.


I think worrying about blueprints in this game isn't going to make much sense. Just move on to the next star system, gain some levels and new ships, then come back to blow up whatever station doesn't want to sell you their blueprints for old tech (if you even need it by then, which you might).

[Harkonis]

So difficult to do that when they are selling Point Defense though ;) chicken egg temptation!

[Pogo]

Heh. Well, feel free to spend the rez to keep shipping in station destroyers.

I like that the stations kind of spawn in opposition. If you can't deal with the opposition or kill the space station before you get wiped out, you probably have no right attacking it.

Of course, if all 3 of your ships are outfitted with lasers and still only doing 5 DPS to a 900+ shield station, you should also probably GTFO.

[Brian Rubin]

I attempted to take out one of those stations that has fighters but uhh... yeah I'm level 11 and it's quite obvious at this point that it's not possible until later.

I hate jumping into a system and getting immediately attacked by Civilians, having to kill them (can't Mass Retreat out of your home base) and losing faction rep only to see that they have something on sale at their station. It's probably random but that was pretty annoying.


I think worrying about blueprints in this game isn't going to make much sense. Just move on to the next star system, gain some levels and new ships, then come back to blow up whatever station doesn't want to sell you their blueprints for old tech (if you even need it by then, which you might).
I basically do the missions that, in this instance, make the civ's like you, then buy the blueprints. Then once you have them all, do all the missions to get the UTA to like you, then buy their blueprints. ;)

[Phydeaux]

I suspect that later in the game, you may seriously regret blowing up space stations for blueprints.

[Pogo]

SPOILARS

edit: Well, sorta joking. You are definitely a lot farther in the game than I am!


I mean, god damn I could REALLY use a Shield 2 blueprint right about now.

[Jarrodhk]

I regret nothing!

[Harkonis]

I basically do the missions that, in this instance, make the civ's like you, then buy the blueprints. Then once you have them all, do all the missions to get the UTA to like you, then buy their blueprints. ;)

that's what I'm trying to do, but every mission for hours has been for the wrong faction. Small system too. UTA planet, Civ planet, 2 other planets. Only 1 ever has a mission at a time, and so far it's always been the UTA mission. In addition when I go to the others (hoping to kill enough UTA ships to sway favor) there are always both side's ships and they both attack me. Further, there are mines ALL over every planet in the system. It's a nightmare.

[Marcin]

Put another hour into this and got out of Sol system. Unlocked more hangar space, a larger hull and a couple of components and am eyeballing more components. This is a fantastic game so far.

[Teiman]

The science screen with all the upgrades is a powergamer paradise.
I am already in love with this game. I am even getting somewhat decent at it (read: I suck, a lot, but less now )

[Thasero]

Yeah, actually trying to change your faction status from negative to positive is an impossible ordeal. If your reputation is even a little below neutral, all ships shoot on sight and there's nothing you can do to bargain or beg for mercy. You can buy improved relations on a station, but the station ALSO shoots on sight. Even in missions where you blow up one faction to get favor with another, the faction you're doing the mission for will often have ships on the field, which will shoot you on sight, even though you're doing the mission. And the faction doesn't care that you've been killing enemies - if you blow up 400 UTA ships for the civilians but accidentally wing a civvy fighter while doing so, you're in bad with the civilians. For that matter, if you blow up 400 UTA ships and there wasn't specifically a mission to do so, you're still in bad with the civilians.

My own further notes:

With a lucky map roll, I managed to get to the 'zombies' portion of the game relatively quickly. Far from making crew numbers more important, I've found that the zombie enemies make crew entirely irrelevant - I just set all my ships to have 1 crew so there's somebody to space when I need to vent the decks. A single zombie boarding party can eat an entire ship, no matter how high your crew rating or how radically the zombies are outnumbered, so there's no point even trying to fight.

Drones are neat, but compare poorly to other weapons. Points in the drone research tree let you build drones faster, but you don't get higher damage or more drones at a time, so they quickly fall behind in usefulness.

I don't know why I would ever want to use cloaking drones. Only enemies with point defense can shoot down drones anyway, so it doesn't matter if the drones are cloaked while moving from my ship to the target. Launching fewer drones means I have less firepower, so it's a cost with no benefit.

For quite a while, I couldn't find a ship that had a space for loading a cloaking module. Then, through sheer dumb luck, I accidentally discovered that cloaking modules are an alternative to shields, which they replace. Nothing anywhere in the game suggests that cloaking replaces your shield.

I still can't find a way to equip mines.

Torpedos are listed as having longer range than missiles, but actually have drastically shorter range. "Short-range" missiles can shoot farther than a torpedo.

Speaking of which, SRMs, after launch, freak out and target random crap rather than locking on to the ship you are actually targeting. This seems to include drones, airlock-executioned crew, and other missiles. When hostile ships fire SRMs at each other, it's a merry circus of shooting missiles at other missiles.

Putting points in the "Subsystems" research tree gives you a bonus to "Booster Override". I have no idea what that is, since that tooltip is the only place in the entire game where the word "Override" is used.

Moving from small ships to large ships is a very satisfying progression, but the smaller ship types are rapidly left behind. I never use 'tiny' ships unless I strictly have to; quite apart from the economics, it's a bother to equip and deploy a ship that will die almost instantly anyway. I would like it if I had a specialized 'tiny' hangar that increased the number of ships deployed rather than the size as the mothership upgraded, or maybe the ability to deploy a pair of N-1 ships from a size-N hangar like you can do with putting 2 medium turrets on a large turret mount.

[Harkonis]

I knew cloaking was a shield replacement when I looked at keybinds and saw a button for cloak/shield about 30 seconds after getting to the menu ;)

[Teiman]

I am stuck on my second system. My level is 13 or 14.

I have not problem changing the allegiances, but I have find that is better to be enemy of everyone than friend of everyone. If you friend everyone, then you have almost nothing to kill :D

I am stuck because I can't destroy a enormeous station to let me pass to the next system. And if I friendly the owners of the station (UTA), ask me for something like 18 or 24 goons, and the most I can get is 9 goons.

So I am here, on this system, killing everything, and dinging new levels, until I am powerfull enough to destroy that enormeous station,or maybe I can somehow pick more goons.

There are two quests here that are easy farming:
- Survive 200 seconds. Because my ships can tank and have a lot of missiles.
- Destroy a patrol.

I have found areas on the systems where something invisible, like dots, want to eat my ships. I don't know what is that thing, cloacked, but maybe are precursors of the zombies.

I love this game :D
I think soon I will have SPAZ themed dreams :D

[instant0]

The cloaked things are minefields I believe. So far I have run into laser-minefields and homing-explosive minefields. Generally, on the outskirts of one, if you blow one of them up, and keep firing at that location, you will see a new mine move to that location from a direction. If you fly towards where the mine came from, you'll find the center node, and if you destroy it, you've gotten rid of the minefield. There are no rewards for doing this though.

[Brian Rubin]

that's what I'm trying to do, but every mission for hours has been for the wrong faction. Small system too. UTA planet, Civ planet, 2 other planets. Only 1 ever has a mission at a time, and so far it's always been the UTA mission. In addition when I go to the others (hoping to kill enough UTA ships to sway favor) there are always both side's ships and they both attack me. Further, there are mines ALL over every planet in the system. It's a nightmare.
Yeah, I had that happen once, I basically backtracked to another system, played in there for a while, and returned to fresh missions.

[Dan_Theman]

Teiman -

If you go to an area that has a conflict marker (these are random, it seems), you can farm a lot of goons without killing anyone unless a side is hostile toward you.

[Teiman]

Teiman -

If you go to an area that has a conflict marker (these are random, it seems), you can farm a lot of goons without killing anyone unless a side is hostile toward you.

With only 2 systems, I don't have the luck to have that.

But is not a problem whatsoever. I am playing this game like a Mount & Blade in space game. I can farm here, level, and wen I become strong enough, break the blockade into the big wide galaxy.

[lordkosc]

So I watched the video for this, is Impulse the only place to buy it?

[Mysterio]

So I watched the video for this, is Impulse the only place to buy it?

The Force senses weakness growing...!

[Marcin]

So I watched the video for this, is Impulse the only place to buy it?

At the moment, but as mentioned it is an independent game. Once downloaded (via Impulse), it runs without Impulse just fine.

[lordkosc]

The Force senses weakness growing...!

Yeah I know, like I need another game, but I am not currently playing anything like SPAZ, so its tempting, I am gonna try the 90 minute demo this weekend. If its good , I foresee a purchase. :)

[Marcin]

Yeah I know, like I need another game, but I am not currently playing anything like SPAZ, so its tempting, I am gonna try the 90 minute demo this weekend. If its good , I foresee a purchase. :)

Hint: the space bus can mine fast compared to the first few fighters you get. Once done with the initial fights, go beef up on your rez and buy the available blueprints. Then upgrade your weapons (and possibly reactor if you can) right away; that first starting mission with 3 (or is it 4?) waves of baddies *can* be a little tricky if you don't do this.

That's if the demo follows the game, which I would suspect by the time limit that it does ...

[Sepiche]

I was going to wait for it on Gamergate or Steam, but I gave in and bought it last night. Seems pretty cool so far. Only unlocked 3 or 4 systems so far and only just got a medium ship a bit ago, but I like the combat. Getting my first medium with a nice turret and missiles on it was a big help in combat.

[Brian Rubin]

I was going to wait for it on Gamergate or Steam, but I gave in and bought it last night. Seems pretty cool so far. Only unlocked 3 or 4 systems so far and only just got a medium ship a bit ago, but I like the combat. Getting my first medium with a nice turret and missiles on it was a big help in combat.
Is that the Tug? Yeah, I love that ship long time, my favorite so far.

[Sepiche]

Is that the Tug? Yeah, I love that ship long time, my favorite so far.
Yeah the tug. That turret really helped me a lot in being able to hit stuff and those missiles are great to just spam at longer range to weaken smaller ships.

[Marcin]

Haha, I didn't realize the turret tracked ANYTHING you targeted, and uhm, accidentally tested it out on a friendly. But yeah, the tug is a nice upgrade although so was the Hatchet. In fact I'd say they come a little too fast in the intro - I think I was wowed by the awesomeness of the Hatchet (huge cargo space, too!) for all of two fights.

[Brian Rubin]

Yeah, the Hatchet was great for a spell, but since I've got a Tug and 2 Turtleheads I've not looked back.

[Pogo]

Turtleheads are soooooo slooooow. I would use two of them if they could ever actually prevent themselves from just getting kited by the AI.

By the way, don't forget that heavier armor = more mass = slower ships, though the difference between light armor and medium armor on two Boomerangs that I tested was pretty low (though definitely a noticeable difference as they raced to a finish line).

[Brian Rubin]

They're speedier with better engines, and they can take and deal out so much damage it's silly.

[Janster]

I find the laser to be way to strong for its own good, it makes the rest of the weapons pretty sad in comparison. Plus its easy to hit with ..

Some of the ships also spout weird configs not making them very good combat ships...
For example the Tug is just superior to any other ship in that same category imho, I tried using the other ships ,but there was just no comparison.

Also, its really hard to turn relations, are you hostile to both, then its almost impossible.

[Teiman]

My army:
2 Turtleheads + 1 Tug.

I have progressed science into things that make my ships "tank" well. Since the turtles launch missiles, and the thug launch missiles, the synergia is awesome. The autoaim of the turret of the thug is also awesome. Is more than a autoaim, seems to read my mind.

[lordkosc]

Ok , list some negatives , so I don't buy this tonight!

I was planning on playing BRINK... >.<

[Brian Rubin]

My army:
2 Turtleheads + 1 Tug.

I have progressed science into things that make my ships "tank" well. Since the turtles launch missiles, and the thug launch missiles, the synergia is awesome. The autoaim of the turret of the thug is also awesome. Is more than a autoaim, seems to read my mind.
That's mine as well! I love my little fleet, only thing we've not been able to take down so far is an outpost, bloody thing.

[Brian Rubin]

Ok , list some negatives , so I don't buy this tonight!
Well...um...it's in beta so there are some technical and balance issues still to be worked out?

(Though the (really nice Canadian) developers are working hard to tackle them!)

[Dan_Theman]

Ok , list some negatives , so I don't buy this tonight!

I was planning on playing BRINK... >.<
It gets really boring if you don't like battles in space ;)

[Brian Rubin]

It gets really boring if you don't like battles in space ;)
There are such people who don't like battles in space?

[Pogo]

That's mine as well! I love my little fleet, only thing we've not been able to take down so far is an outpost, bloody thing.

Try replacing missiles with torpedos when going against outposts, though it takes more skill to aim those torpedos to take out the reinforcements that inevitably come in.

My suggestion is to kill the reinforcements as quick as possible so that you can go back to focusing on the outpost. If you can't get those shields back down before the next reinforcements, you might want to consider gaining a couple levels and other blueprints before going back.

[Brian Rubin]

Duh, torps, didn't even THINK of that. Thanks for the suggestion, Pogo!

[Marcin]

You know what I really like? The approach where the fail state is kinda built-into the game. You are EXPECTED to blow up a lot, your ship experiments are EXPECTED to suck at first, and you're encouraged to experiment with equipment and fleet mix.

At the absolute worst (if you neglected mining up a bit to save for emergencies) you'll have to regress to a space bus and spend 3-4 minutes rebuilding your stocks, since it's kinda geometric progression (10 cargo to 50 cargo to ... I don't even know how much the Tug can carry) on cargo space.

I can't count the times where (in EV Nova) I would jump somewhere new and be obliterated on arrival with no chance of escape. I don't have time for gameplay like that anymore.

[Brian Rubin]

Very well put, Marcin, and very true, that is really nice. Oh, and true enough about ENV, sometimes I wanted to throw that game through a window.

[Harkonis]

mines piss me off and my scanner never spots generators

[Dan_Theman]

There are such people who don't like battles in space?
None that I've met ... and that have survived my lasers to talk about it.

[krayzkrok]

Still can't get this game to run :( I played the demo (which works fine) and that just made things worse!

[Gus_Smedstad]

There are such people who don't like battles in space?
The president of a game development company I once worked for did not. He found them too confusing. "He shot me with a purple thing. I don't know what it was, but I guess it's better than my blue things."