Camera moving all around when you select ships to see their stats is very annoying. It would be better to have an option to disable auto camera movement completely
UI elements should stay expanded as there is too much clicking around just to see your ships configuration
The web version starts lagging late in the fight (when there are less things flying around). Hopefully this will not be a problem in the desktop version
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback! The camera and especially the closing UI elements are probably mainly because it's still the same build as for the mobile version: Not enough space on the small screen for different elements to be open. I'm currently separating the pc and mobile version and shift focus more to pc. So it should get a more pc-like interface and controls in general as the current one is made primarily for mobile. Not sure how far that will go but it should make the overall ux on pc much better.
Performance is indeed a bit of an issue later in the web version but should be better on pc and mobile. The web version still helps to give a nice and quick insight as many only want to play a few rounds to get a feeling. But I'm always trying to improve performance. I'm sure there is still much to optimize.
I know the very first fighter death lags for some reason on android but other than that I'm not aware of general performance issues at this stage. Never seen or heard of that glitch and can't even say what that is. I'll gladly run some tests and try to find out more.
Thanks! Glad to hear you like it. French is definitely one of the first localisations I'm thinking of but I still have to rework some parts to prepare the game for multi language support. That'll take a bit and then I'll probably start with German, then French. Atleast that's what data shows currently.
After playing again I can safely say the enemy fighters main problem is they have to much health, they take multiple shots from any effective weapon , PD is pointless to even equip due to the health which seems to scale in response to the level
A mac version is not planned. Saving progress in browser should be possible though. I think it depends on the browser and browser settings/permissions. I need to check that in detail.
The enemy fighters need significant nerfs, they deal way to much damage for the amount that spawn in and shred starting vessels to 25% health or less in a instant, they are way to overpowered and a real killer to keep playing
Thanks for the bug report. For bug 1: Is it just the graphic but the speed resets? Because based on feedback I did make the new wave start at speed 3, if you had it there last wave. That's deliberate. Bug 2 has been worked on; it will be fixed in the next patch. Bug 3 is still being investigated. I have troubles reproducing it.
It’s quite OP that when you have any support module and run a wave, then remove it, the bonus from the module stays. It looks like a bug because every wave i can add and remove shields and it’ll cause me to have an unkillable ship with too many shields.
Just a lot of UI bugs, and shuffling what's in the shop does not actually change what is in there the vast majority of the time. That's not even touching on the significant balance problems. As a demo it doesn't entice me to buy. I'm not even confident it's ready for public sale.
Thanks for the feedback. The demo is more of a playtest and not a sales measure atm. I'm aware that we are not ready for a release yet but I'm sure we'll get there within a few more updates. The shop issue should be fixed with the latest update. The UI and especially the balancing will take a bit more time but I'm sure we'll reach a fun balance eventually. Keep an eye on updates!
Fun game, I really like the pixel art and core gameplay loop. Slowly building a fleet is satisfying and appropriately difficult on the first run, but the meta-progression trivializes the challenge a little too much. Has a lot of issues in its current state, hoping the dev can iron those out.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it. The balancing is a bit tricky and will take some more time but thanks to a lot of valuable feedback, I'm sure we'll find a good balance soon. Keep an eye on updates!
so im having problems with the basic laser gun or whatever because it will shoot at the smaller enemys but after it kills off the tiny ones its goes back to neutral and does not shoot at the enemy with the laser turet so he just sits there taking damage even though he is in range of my attack
Game bug-out really fast. -M-laser beam sound is often stuck the entire game. -Shop list is 90% lock at the same set of items, and it rarely change. So, re-roll does not help anything since item pool is very lock in the same set of items. Even after unlocked the better version of weapon or mod, it still offered you the worst version of those things. -New ship as free item is pretty OP. Even if it not useful, you still can salvage it later for ~300 currency, that is x3 more than skip the reward -Fighter wing of ship that destroyed last round is still active even if you do not recover the destroyed ship. -Enemy loadout is unpredictable strong at sometimes, but sometimes, it really weak. Maybe they got a random mod too? and is some of them have certain upgraded in weapon? Sometimes it spawns a very powerful cannon that vaporize your T2 ship in 10 second. -L weapon can buy and offer in reward even if you can't upgrade your ship to tier 3. This thing shouldn't even in there if you can't use it atm. ---------- Also, I do saw a decent potential in this game. Please do keep develop it, I'll keep looking for another update! ---------- I do try to play and analyze the shop random system. It seem to trying to help you get the item you currently use the most... That's look cool, But the problem is it really rob away player's freedom to build they ship. If you using armor, shop will almost lock-in the armor-plate in their stock, So you can't use another item, it get worsen while game is progressing, until the point that you don't have any choice anymore. For mod. It really bad idea in some situation that you need 2-3 mod for your ship, For weapon, it even worse. If you pick M only weapon, It will be very rare to find other weapon in shop, you will feel the frustration in the late stage, when you have a ship contain one of weapon, and enemy is surprise you with full of defensive mode that seem to anti your weapon. Also, your Tier3+ ship won't gonna have L weapon to fill the slot later since the shop is 90% lock in M weapon that you use the most. Maybe, you should free up one or two slot for completely random
Thanks for the detailed feedback. The shop problem should be fixed with the latest patch; you'll get more variety in the options and no items that you can't use atm (L weapons or Hangars if you don't have the fitting ships). I'll gladly look into the other points for a next update.
for some reason after the first few waves the shop becomes flooded with only one or two items, the items seem to be random but in my last round after wave ten the only stuff in the shop was point defences and armor plating, and nearly nothing else. Whatever system it uses to choose has GOT to go
Exactly the comment I was going to go for, I suspect DEV is attempting to stall progressing for the player or increase the difficultly, but in fact this simply makes fitting a space ship frustrating.
I would rather the waves of enemies be of greater quantity or quality and I need a little fortune within my build to progress.
A couple of other issues I am currently finding are that my ships are only going within ANY weapons range, if told to close all the way in, medium and hold position will sit on the map not contributing in any manner.
The other issue is the hover pop up box on ships in the setup screen can be a bit of a pest, I quite often need to right click or drag scroll the screen to remove it, allowing me to select objects that would be hidden by it. I would suggest making it a little more reactive and rapid in its appearance/disappearance, or relocating the bounding box for this, off to the side of the screen.
Edit:- Of course the game is still fun, I am glad to see active development, I had seen many iterations previous to my initial foray in December then it went quiet for a while. So Bravo!
Hi, thanks for your comments and inputs. The shop behaviour is not meant to add difficulty or influence progress. The idea is to give players more useful options instead of stuff that is not fitting the current build at all, which is very frustrating and was one of the most brought up issues in earlier versions. The feature should help the player and make the fitting of the ships more satisfying. It's simply buggy at this point and makes the process even more frustrating instead. I'm aware of that and I'm working on it to fix it.
I'll put out an update fixing this and the weird ship behaviour you are mentioning asap. That's another new bug, making the experience a bit frustrating in this version.
The behaviour of the popup box can be influenced by tapping the health bar. It makes the box disappear and decides if the box pops up on selecting a ship or not. I'll change the default setting to it not popping up and add a tutorial step for it, so players are aware of this feature.
I guess as development progresses, deeper insight into the statistics may become more relevant, for now 'muting' the pop up would be good.
As to the shop, I wonder if, as we are offered three options, would it be possible that you can match one option per tier (Grey, Green & Blue), putting quite a substantial mark up on higher tiers, you could perhaps offer goods that are not yet unlock from the full item list, presuming that the shop engineer has sufficient expertise in the offset, to fit an item the player is not yet qualified. this would also allow you to open new items to the player at a more steady pace if you desire, as the item on rare occasion still becomes available.
With the cruiser you should also get more higher tier item choices. They are partly tied to your fleet: more advanced ships brings you more advanced item choices, which again, should make the equipping more satisfying over time. I think I'd rather avoid forcing different tiers to show up every time and rather make the system smarter in general, offering you fitting modules in fitting tiers to make you feel the progress.
This game is very cool. Love the atmosphere and graphics. Here are a few comment and suggested changes based on a few hours of playtime:
- Make it easier to find the list of potential upgrades (to find it, click on your username in the bottom left, then click "Archive", and you'll see how to get different upgrades)
- Add more tooltips throughout to help players understand how things work. Examples: What is the difference between armor and hull? What do the various hull/armor/shield efficiencies do? How do different weapon types work?
- Add some way to target enemies -- either by clicking or by setting a "priority" for each ship under the fleet menu
- Somehow inform users if they can use equipment before buying it (e.g. Hangar or L-weapons). Still haven't found a ship taht can use L-weapons.
- It seems like Reroll in the Shop doesn't always cycle through items. Sometimes I will Reroll 5-10x and never see a weapon, or never see a Hangar.
- Autocannon seems very weak compared to the other items.
- Success really seems to depend on getting an extra ship as a Prize (free, but $750 value) early on.
- It seems like L2 weapons don't appear as Prize/Shop items unless you max out the L1 weapon again *within a single game*
- I have probably played 20-30x games and cannot beat the Tier 1 difficulty. Luck and buying the right upgrades seems like the only thing I can do. But even when I have a "perfect" build I suddenly get demolished around Wave 27 or Wave 28, whereas all the earlier Waves were easy.
I liked it. one of my ships stopped shooting and just died and my 4 other ships did not move into range to shoot the last ship so it just shot and killed 2 of them before the timer ran out. couldnt recover from that. solid base game though, had fun with it.
I don't get it. There's no game here. It's impossible to get past the third wave, you don't seem to get anything after each run, and there's no way to see the controls in the menu.
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback. Please note that this is not a finished game, it's still very much in development and in demo stage. The latest update brought a lot of major changes in systems and mechanics and with it major changes in balance. I'm aware of the problems in the current version and the point of this playtest is to gather feedback to find all those bugs and problems in balance. I appreciate the feedback and hope you'll give it a try again in a coming, more stable and balanced version.
The game has a pretty solid base and lots of potential, but a lot of jankiness as well. The most irritating part is the bug where ships just stop shooting. They are in range, fully loaded, but just stop shooting until the end of the wave. The rewards and shop are pretty annoying, i keep getting the same rewards over and over, when i'd like more variety. I also get weapons for large slots when i have no ships that can use them. The AI could get significant improvements, ships just stand there until they're destroyed. Imo it would be nice to have more options for it, as well as having options for guns. For example being able to select so that beams focus on larger ships while point defence goes for fighters first. It would also be nice to have more information, like progress towards unlocking crew.
Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate it. I just added a tag system for the rewards and shop items to allow for more personalized options fitting your previous choices and playstyle. This is in its first iteration and first testing round and still needs to be balanced and optimized. I'll gladly take your feedback into account for that. As well as your other points. Thanks for that and keep an eye on updates!
Ohh i see. While i can see how it'd be useful, i find it annoying more than anything. For example i noticed that damage to hull, armor, and shields depends on the kind of damage, such as armor taking significantly less damage from kinetic weapons, so i want to go for a more varied loadout where i have armor, shields, energy, and kinetic, but if i take a couple of pieces of equipment related to one of them i quickly stop getting equipment for the other. same thing for equipment for accuracy, hull repair, reload and firing rate. I personally would prefer it to stay more random, with the only exception being to not have the same equipment twice in a row when refreshing the shop
The Beam preset says it has 20% energy damage bonus and 20% kinetic damage malus, but where is it applied? To the flagship, or the entire fleet? In fact, I would say all stats in the game would benefit from having a summary of relevant modifiers instead of just showing a number.
The crew effects apply for all the ships in your fleet while the module and weapon effects apply only to the ship they are equipped on. You can tap the health bar to get an overview of all values with their modifiers for the selected ship.
on the first reward you have to pick one even if they are of no use to you. like if you know that you are not qualified yet to even have a ship that can load a L weapon and you have only those to choose from. you can’t skip for 100 and you can’t sell those either.
That's deliberately for different reasons. I think the real problem here is the options you get. If you can't use anything in the first wave, the options must be real bad. I'll gladly look into that, thanks.
totally lost the inspiration. accidentally clicked on salvage because the button is exactly at the same spot where i clicked on the ship. and the weapons and everything got destroyed as well with that. the shop system still feels broken because you just don’t get a chance to get the items you need. in the begin you care to upgrade a weapon to get to next level, but in another run you would not get the weapon anyhow until wave 10 or so. and since you can’t sell any unused weapons you are stuck in a stupid reroll grind. i am fine with rogue like, but for me there is a point where it just doesn’t make fun anymore.
maybe you could have the option to buy the higher tier weapon once it is unlocked. so the shop could still be random but you can choose how much money to spend. and it would be great to have the option to upgrade a weapon in the inventory to next tier. individual upgrades can still be reset when doing that. i have the feeling that would vastly improve the experience.
Thanks. I just introduced a tag system to allow for less random options in the shop but rather offer more options that fit your previous choices and playstyle. I agree that it still needs a lot of adjustments and maybe a bit more rng again. Gladly look into that.
when you have weapons of the same kind but some are upgrade and some are not, you have not really a way to choose the version you want, or at least the most powerful. instead you have to resort to randomness.
and i have just realized that i don’t have the budget to revive, so i thought i will save and then do next wave. but after next wave the ship is gone for good. well.
and the prices for reviving a ship are too random. a few waves earlier it was 1900, now one ship is 1050 and the other 1100.
Thanks for your feedback, it's really valuable. The save and continue feature is brand new and still needs a lot of testing and optimization. And apparently exploit safety. That's the point of these playtests. Thanks a lot!
When re-rolling for items in the shop, please make SURE that the same 3 items does NOT come up over & over & over & over again, just in different configurations. I have been re-rolling about 5 times after 3 separate matches & all I get is just: repair & field-repair systems & Pulse Laser, I want an AI-targeter & Launch Bay, but I CAN'T get one, I have WASTED SO MUCH MONEY on ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, that sucks.
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback. I just introduced a tag system to allow you to get items fitting your previous choices and playstyle but it seems to be a bit too restrictive. I'll weaken its effects and increase the RNG again in the next update.
The tutorial broke on me. It told me to upgrade the weapon, I upgraded damage. It didn't acknowledge that I had upgraded it. Then when I clicked the system slot, it just gave me the tutorial for equipping one. But then it gave it again, when I clicked the other system slot. And it gave other tutorials again as well, until I had beaten two waves, then they finally just stopped coming up at all.
I think the shop broke at some point. It started only ever giving me Hull Reinforcement, Pulse Laser, and I think Reactive Hull. This happened after (somehow) unlocking a bunch of things, which I never ended up seeing.
The first run was a little too long for me, especially because I didn't realise I was working towards unlocking new things with my actions. I think I would have been more interested if that had been communicated to me. I did eventually unlock things but I had no idea what I had done to unlock them.
Lots of things are just a bit unclear, including the UI itself, but you probably know that already.
Only thing I would ask fixed is I had a bug that caused my ships to stop firing entirely. The enemy was definitely in range, so idk. Other than that, great game, and keep making more. 👍
Anyway, I'm up to almost 100 runs now. Still having fun with the demo, and need more content! Please let me know if you need any further music tracks to add to the ambience.
I did come across a possible bug, involving the speed of the game. If i set the fastest speed after starting a round, i notice my autocannon seems to miss fighters a lot more consistently than if I were to set it at the the 2x speed. During matches, I will change the speed and instantly see the difference from having the 3x setting to dropping to 2x setting, where my autocannons will now hit fighters instead of harmlessly passing through.
EDIT: To clarify a bit on this, the autocannon still does hit the fighter eventually, but I've seen strings of 7, 8 shots pass harmlessly through, like the frames of the shot aren't there at the fastest speed. I tried slowing down on 3x to 2x when it happened, and instantly my shots were registering a lot better.
Even subatomic particles have mass (see Solar Sail), given that they have to bombard a spaceship of armoured mass (x)tonnes to destruction, I would suggest there would be recoil.
Edit: I guess it may be easier to counter the recoil force using the thrusters in a consistent protracted coherent beam than an explosion to propel munitions. Rail guns?! likely with a good on board computer easier to counter.
Anyhow, it is more likely to be effected by the condition and quality of the barrels/lenses/track and quality of counter thrusters and fuel combusted.
Yes I investigated myself to find that photons are considered without mass, I do not dispute this but would hypothesise some recoil with a vast amount directed in parallel solely upon one vector.
One proposed theory I have read regarding matter within the universe would be that all atoms at their most basic level are in fact waves trapped within a localised area, which if waves had absolutely zero mass, then multiples of these waves forming a structure would be zero as well.
Minor graphical glitch where if you go to your profile and then exit and go to the ship select screen the fleet from the menu will show instead of the ship of the class
Itch io is being dumb so I have to make this as a new comment instead of an edit
On this account: 15 runs played ~7k points level 4 109 ships destroyed unlocked all shield upgrades and a handful of other upgrades but trying not to clutter the shop up until I unlock beams
Unable to change username (on Mobile at least) I found this out attempting to enter a dev menu as the laser beam seems impossible to unlock for some reason. Have unlocked it on pc before but I've beat this like three times on mobile and haven't unlocked it, I reset my save by clearing cookies and now I can't even unlock missiles/railgun, what are the specific unlock conditions for these items?
I like it. I also felt like Widmo206, so I am not going to repeat what he already wrote about shop dilution. I did change my playstyle from hunting for item in store to just not buy anything and only take the free upgrades unless you want to unlock a higher tier weapon.
While it was still about hunting for the desired parts I missed that I can't check what I already have so that I don't double buy.
Sometimes I wished I could switch between ships in the top left menu while having the weapons or modules panel open.
Thanks for your message. I'll gladly look into your points. Your last 2 sentences are not connected but they gave me a great idea for the shop problem; i'm struggling so far displaying all these information about current ships and weapons and storage alongside the shop so that you know what you have. But we can simply make the shop closable. So you can close/minimize the reward/shop screen, switch to your fleet screen and explore your fleet just as usual before reopening the shop and making your decision.
The game is pretty fun, but there are some glaring issues
Weapon upgrades seem downright detrimental; they’re very expensive while giving marginal bonuses. I only see them being useful once, to unlock the higher tier of a weapon
Ships keep dying due to bad positioning. I know there’s an option to give standing orders to each ship, but it’s too restrictive. Setting it to “lowest range weapon” on a ship with PDCs will have that ship pull out of the fleet, get focused, and die. Setting it to hold position leads to ships being outranged or firing with only one gun. Setting it to “highest range weapon” leads leads to ships bunching up in an arc, with one ship getting ahead of the others, getting focused, and dying. More granular control, or the ability to order ships to retreat (or to change their orders mid-fight) would improve survivability by a lot
As more weapons and modules are unlocked, the shop is more and more filled with items that are undesirable or unusable at the current stage (like railguns, missiles, etc. in the first shop of the game). On a few occasions, I’ve ran out of money rerolling before seeing a single weapon
Laser beams randomly freeze up and stop firing despite having enemies in range
Laser beams randomly loose track of a target or get interrupted by other enemies passing in front of them
Laser beams seem unable to target enemies taht are too close or directly behind, despite showing a full circle firing arc
Major mechanics are not mentioned anywhere in the game (I had no idea about the rock-paper-scissors between damage and armor types until I saw one of your comments here)
As far as I can tell, there’s no way to see weapon stats (fire rate, range, damage per shot, reload time, etc.) in-game, except for a DPS value, with no indication whether it includes reloading or not
There’s also other issues that, while not game-breaking, can be pretty annoying
Switching between ships in the upgrade phase doesn’t always get detected
Fleet menu is too close to the wave counter; you can easily missclick and start a wave when trying to reposition ships or change orders
All menus should stay open until manually closed or a wave is started; having to constantly reopen menus while comparing equipment or moving the ships around is a little tedious
Thanks for your feedback. I agree with all of your points. Most are already in work. Some are due to the fact, that this is a mobile-focused version; I need to close the menus because there is no space for multiple menus beside each other on the small and narrow mobile screen. The plan is to finalize and release the more casual mobile version before adapting a proper PC version with the same gameplay but more fitting game modes, a dedicated UI and more space for all the details, numbers like ship and weapon stats, and statistics.
I don’t know what engine you’re using to make the game but, in Godot at least, you get some information on what the user’s machine is, so you can for example hide some menu options if the game is running on a mobile device. If the engine you use supports it, you could do something like that for the menus (auto-close them on mobile but leave them open on browser/desktop)
Also, I tried the mobile version and I found some buttons (start, reroll, close shop, …) pretty difficult to click reliably, it takes a few tries usually
Yes, I'm using Godot. And I use the features to detect OS/device, as well as screen size and inputs for some things already, especially controls and ui. It's less about technical limitations and more about priority. I just did not invest the time to optimize and polish in that direction yet. It will come soon is what I'm trying to say, I guess. I'll gladly use your inputs for that. For now, I'm just focussed on solving those problems in the mobile version and make a proper and shippable game out of it.
I like spaceship games, so I gave it a shot. Some bugs/issues:
- The achievement unlock system definitely provides progression, but there's a huge gap between maybe getting a 100 credit item every round and maybe getting a 600 credit item every round. Also, the achievements and what they unlock should be visible with a button placed somewhere prominent on the main menu.
- Energy weapons, even with the buff from their dedicated ship, seem useless. You want PD, autocannons on the mediums, railguns on the larges. That seems like the only worthwhile fit.
- Related, missiles seem useless too. They appear to explode before hitting the target, doing very little damage. Enemy missiles are lethal, though.
- If you lose a ship while still getting started, it's usually just game over. Getting to keep the weapons/equipment of a dead ship, and maybe sharing its EXP with your other ships at a positive-sum ratio, might make that less the case.
- In general, you've got one ship taking all the damage unless enemies arbitrarily decide to focus down something else. Difficulty is low enough that you can afford to stick an armor+repair on everything else, but putting all defense on your middle ship and clustering everything else just slightly back from it is meta. Positioning should be a more major part of the game - maybe enemies should attack the weakest target in range rather than the first one they see.
- Related, friendly ship AI is all over the place. I've had a single ship shooting at three different full-health enemies at the same time.
- Am I missing something, or are crit buffs useless? 5% critical damage on a 5% critical chance is a 1.0025 multiplier to your total damage, if that 5% is applied to base damage. Still lackluster if it's applied to crit damage directly and it's 400% base. A 10% fire rate boost, assuming you spend a quarter of the time reloading, is a 1.075 multiplier to your total damage, which is thirty times better. Likewise, 10% faster reloads are three times worse than that fire rate buff.
- One try, I started up the game, beat wave 1, and then wave 2 was a big ship that kited me to death with no opportunity to shoot back. No opportunity to get a weapon with longer range, nor any warning to upgrade range beforehand.
Beyond that, some more ambitious stuff:
- Autobattlers need cool battle effects, so dedicating some effort to tuning the VFX and crunch of each weapon so that they feel different could be worthwhile.
- Variety is a major gap, both in player ships and enemies. Having different ship classes that do different things could help. As it is, you're just building a better stat brick.
- Enemy wave variation in particular could use a look, for replayability's sake. Maybe have a map or something, and enemies in different 'areas' have different doctrines. One round, the player chooses between fighting the enemies with lots of fighters and the enemies with long-ranged guns, and then, a few rounds later, has to choose between a subdivision of the fighter enemies where fighters drop close-ranged bombs, or one where they upgrade into fewer but stronger gunships with rocket pods.
- Likewise, interplay. Right now, you have three ships that all work kind of the same. Upgrades are all mostly independent from each other, and amount to making some number higher. The core gameplay of this genre is planning out complex builds, since there's no direct player control or anything like that, so having upgrade X have some major impact on upgrades Y and Z that the player plans around is vital.
As an example of variety, strategy, and interplay, suppose the first upgrade branch let you choose between "destroyer" and "command ship". Command ships have one less medium turret, but allow the player to set 'orders', like telling friendly ships with low health to retreat behind the nearest friendly (if unobstructed) until they recover, or to always target the lowest health/fastest/slowest/deadliest enemy with XYZ weapon type.
Thanks for playing and the detailed review. Appreciate it! I'd like to clarify a few things and also explain what is planned or still in development.
Every module has three tiers, and higher tiers unlock by using that module. Once a tier is unlocked it can appear in wave rewards or the shop. Higher tiers appear less often and cost more because they are stronger. Although the drop chances and prices/values are subject to change (especially the Tier 3 modules are way overpriced currently). There is a screen that shows all unlocked modules (player stats available by tapping the player name in the main menu), but it does not currently explain the unlock triggers. I may improve the clarity there.
About weapon balance: The game uses a damage type system where kinetic, energy and explosive damage interact in a rock-paper-scissor way with hull, armor and shields. Some combinations do 150 percent damage and some only 50 percent. That can make certain weapons look weak if they are hitting the wrong layer. Some layers are currently underrepresented, which makes some weapons feel over/underpowered. That should change with more enemy variety. More varied wave compositions and enemy loadouts will follow. I'm currently keeping it more or less consistent to have some predictibility and being able to balance out that base run before adding more variety, which will lead to a less obvious meta and increase the strategic potential of different builds.
Missiles explode early when intercepted by Point Defense. That applies to both player and enemy missiles. The final enemy wave uses 2x tier 2 missile launchers. That's intentionally very hard but they are as strong as if you use 2x tier 2 missile launchers. There is no difference there. More or better PD can help to take out more missiles before they hit and shields can help eat up the explosive damage from missiles as explosive damage only deal 50% of their damage against shields. Plus the shields may recharge before the next barrage hits as long as they are not fully depleated.
Losing a ship early is supposed to be painful as all invested resources are gone, but I agree, it currently feels too punishing. I am looking into comeback mechanics so a run is not decided immediately when one ship goes down.
Regarding positioning and AI: Enemies and friendly ships use the exact same targeting rules. They both attack the closest valid target, and if that target is already being attacked they look for the next closest one. I looked into weapon-specific targeting priorities but that's too much micromanagement. Don't want to add that layer of complexity. There are other ideas, that I'm exploring to allow for some control but that's not decided yet. However, you can already assign ship behavior like staying in formation or advancing to the range of their longest or shortest weapon (right-most option in the fleet panel). This also avoids being taken out by a out of range enemy ship, as your ships would close in until they are in fire range. So long-range enemies are dangerous only if the ship commands to close the distance are not set.
Putting all defense on one ship and using it as a forward tank is a valid strategy but is risky as losing a ship is punished hard. So maybe spreading ships in a line is actually safer because it distributes damage better as enemies will attack different ships depending on their position. That is where positioning becomes important.
About crits and DPS math. Crits might need some number tuning, but balance in general will get a full pass once all core features are in. Every new feature shifts the numbers again, so while trying to maintain a reasonable balance, a deeper tuning will follow.
VFX is mostly final and reflects the best I can do within my skill range and budget. I get decent feedback in general and rather focus on gameplay and balance than looks. I know its not top-notch but yea, that's how it is. I will improve here and there of course but mainly it's set.
Hope this clarified some things and gave a good picture of the current state and an outlook on where I'm trying to go.
Thanks again for playing and taking the time to give detailed feedback. Keep an eye on updates!
> and if that target is already being attacked they look for the next closest one.
There are certainly scenarios where a target saturation algorithm makes sense (I once wrote one to hunt down a spread-out group of fragile targets during a hackathon, for instance), but I think that's actively counterproductive here. Focusing down one target is the optimal strategy for line battles.
> Putting all defense on one ship and using it as a forward tank is a valid strategy but is risky as losing a ship is punished hard. So maybe spreading ships in a line is actually safer because it distributes damage better as enemies will attack different ships depending on their position. That is where positioning becomes important.
In practice, I'd say that around 95 percent of the damage goes onto the front ship pretty consistently, so long as there's a meaningful gap. For positioning to be of interest to the player beyond that, I think there has to be a bit more complexity.
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Very cool concept. I love it! Some remarks:
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback! The camera and especially the closing UI elements are probably mainly because it's still the same build as for the mobile version: Not enough space on the small screen for different elements to be open. I'm currently separating the pc and mobile version and shift focus more to pc. So it should get a more pc-like interface and controls in general as the current one is made primarily for mobile. Not sure how far that will go but it should make the overall ux on pc much better.
Performance is indeed a bit of an issue later in the web version but should be better on pc and mobile. The web version still helps to give a nice and quick insight as many only want to play a few rounds to get a feeling. But I'm always trying to improve performance. I'm sure there is still much to optimize.
I’ve tried the Android version but it is even laggier and all the fights stutter. And there’s a graphics glitch when ships are destroyed like this:
I know the very first fighter death lags for some reason on android but other than that I'm not aware of general performance issues at this stage. Never seen or heard of that glitch and can't even say what that is. I'll gladly run some tests and try to find out more.
Great game, seems really good after 4hours playing.
Are you going to make a french version ?
Thanks! Glad to hear you like it. French is definitely one of the first localisations I'm thinking of but I still have to rework some parts to prepare the game for multi language support. That'll take a bit and then I'll probably start with German, then French. Atleast that's what data shows currently.
After playing again I can safely say the enemy fighters main problem is they have to much health, they take multiple shots from any effective weapon , PD is pointless to even equip due to the health which seems to scale in response to the level
pd is way strong not only dose it do ok damge when u tier it up but also shoots down missle later in game
Also do you plan on making a Mac version? Or adding a way for browser players to save their data at least?
A mac version is not planned. Saving progress in browser should be possible though. I think it depends on the browser and browser settings/permissions. I need to check that in detail.
The enemy fighters need significant nerfs, they deal way to much damage for the amount that spawn in and shred starting vessels to 25% health or less in a instant, they are way to overpowered and a real killer to keep playing
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll look into that.
i don't know were to report bugs so i will do that here
bug 1 the speed up graphic doesn't reset at game start
bug 2 the first time you equip a shield the effect is permanent
bug 3 some of my ships wont shoot the bigger enemy ships
Thanks for the bug report. For bug 1: Is it just the graphic but the speed resets? Because based on feedback I did make the new wave start at speed 3, if you had it there last wave. That's deliberate.
Bug 2 has been worked on; it will be fixed in the next patch. Bug 3 is still being investigated. I have troubles reproducing it.
bug 1 it is that when you start a new game the graphic says speed 3 but it is going at speed 1
anyone have recomendations on how to beat threat 1?
I'm not sure about the current meta but please feel free to join the discord to discuss. I know there are some, that did beat threat level 3.
It’s quite OP that when you have any support module and run a wave, then remove it, the bonus from the module stays. It looks like a bug because every wave i can add and remove shields and it’ll cause me to have an unkillable ship with too many shields.
Thanks for the feedback. It definitely is a bug. It will be fixed with the next patch.
Just a lot of UI bugs, and shuffling what's in the shop does not actually change what is in there the vast majority of the time. That's not even touching on the significant balance problems. As a demo it doesn't entice me to buy. I'm not even confident it's ready for public sale.
Thanks for the feedback. The demo is more of a playtest and not a sales measure atm. I'm aware that we are not ready for a release yet but I'm sure we'll get there within a few more updates. The shop issue should be fixed with the latest update. The UI and especially the balancing will take a bit more time but I'm sure we'll reach a fun balance eventually. Keep an eye on updates!
Purchasing a better weapon in the shop with your savings and then finding out you just didn't get it is a bit of a bother.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll gladly look into that.
Fun game, I really like the pixel art and core gameplay loop. Slowly building a fleet is satisfying and appropriately difficult on the first run, but the meta-progression trivializes the challenge a little too much. Has a lot of issues in its current state, hoping the dev can iron those out.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it. The balancing is a bit tricky and will take some more time but thanks to a lot of valuable feedback, I'm sure we'll find a good balance soon. Keep an eye on updates!
so im having problems with the basic laser gun or whatever because it will shoot at the smaller enemys but after it kills off the tiny ones its goes back to neutral and does not shoot at the enemy with the laser turet so he just sits there taking damage even though he is in range of my attack
Thanks for the report. The issue should be fixed with the latest update.
Game bug-out really fast.
-M-laser beam sound is often stuck the entire game.
-Shop list is 90% lock at the same set of items, and it rarely change. So, re-roll does not help anything since item pool is very lock in the same set of items.
Even after unlocked the better version of weapon or mod, it still offered you the worst version of those things.
-New ship as free item is pretty OP. Even if it not useful, you still can salvage it later for ~300 currency, that is x3 more than skip the reward
-Fighter wing of ship that destroyed last round is still active even if you do not recover the destroyed ship.
-Enemy loadout is unpredictable strong at sometimes, but sometimes, it really weak. Maybe they got a random mod too? and is some of them have certain upgraded in weapon? Sometimes it spawns a very powerful cannon that vaporize your T2 ship in 10 second.
-L weapon can buy and offer in reward even if you can't upgrade your ship to tier 3. This thing shouldn't even in there if you can't use it atm.
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Also, I do saw a decent potential in this game. Please do keep develop it, I'll keep looking for another update!
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I do try to play and analyze the shop random system. It seem to trying to help you get the item you currently use the most... That's look cool, But the problem is it really rob away player's freedom to build they ship.
If you using armor, shop will almost lock-in the armor-plate in their stock, So you can't use another item, it get worsen while game is progressing, until the point that you don't have any choice anymore.
For mod. It really bad idea in some situation that you need 2-3 mod for your ship,
For weapon, it even worse. If you pick M only weapon, It will be very rare to find other weapon in shop, you will feel the frustration in the late stage, when you have a ship contain one of weapon, and enemy is surprise you with full of defensive mode that seem to anti your weapon.
Also, your Tier3+ ship won't gonna have L weapon to fill the slot later since the shop is 90% lock in M weapon that you use the most.
Maybe, you should free up one or two slot for completely random
I have also encounteredered these issues. The shop bug is the worst most runs I get locked in to the same build for every ship.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. The shop problem should be fixed with the latest patch; you'll get more variety in the options and no items that you can't use atm (L weapons or Hangars if you don't have the fitting ships). I'll gladly look into the other points for a next update.
Yeah, those things are fixed.
Also, big complain is laser beam sound that always stuck after the end of the wave.... It can be pretty annoying.
for some reason after the first few waves the shop becomes flooded with only one or two items, the items seem to be random but in my last round after wave ten the only stuff in the shop was point defences and armor plating, and nearly nothing else. Whatever system it uses to choose has GOT to go
Exactly the comment I was going to go for, I suspect DEV is attempting to stall progressing for the player or increase the difficultly, but in fact this simply makes fitting a space ship frustrating.
I would rather the waves of enemies be of greater quantity or quality and I need a little fortune within my build to progress.
A couple of other issues I am currently finding are that my ships are only going within ANY weapons range, if told to close all the way in, medium and hold position will sit on the map not contributing in any manner.
The other issue is the hover pop up box on ships in the setup screen can be a bit of a pest, I quite often need to right click or drag scroll the screen to remove it, allowing me to select objects that would be hidden by it. I would suggest making it a little more reactive and rapid in its appearance/disappearance, or relocating the bounding box for this, off to the side of the screen.
Edit:- Of course the game is still fun, I am glad to see active development, I had seen many iterations previous to my initial foray in December then it went quiet for a while. So Bravo!
Hi, thanks for your comments and inputs. The shop behaviour is not meant to add difficulty or influence progress. The idea is to give players more useful options instead of stuff that is not fitting the current build at all, which is very frustrating and was one of the most brought up issues in earlier versions. The feature should help the player and make the fitting of the ships more satisfying. It's simply buggy at this point and makes the process even more frustrating instead. I'm aware of that and I'm working on it to fix it.
I'll put out an update fixing this and the weird ship behaviour you are mentioning asap. That's another new bug, making the experience a bit frustrating in this version.
The behaviour of the popup box can be influenced by tapping the health bar. It makes the box disappear and decides if the box pops up on selecting a ship or not. I'll change the default setting to it not popping up and add a tutorial step for it, so players are aware of this feature.
I guess as development progresses, deeper insight into the statistics may become more relevant, for now 'muting' the pop up would be good.
As to the shop, I wonder if, as we are offered three options, would it be possible that you can match one option per tier (Grey, Green & Blue), putting quite a substantial mark up on higher tiers, you could perhaps offer goods that are not yet unlock from the full item list, presuming that the shop engineer has sufficient expertise in the offset, to fit an item the player is not yet qualified. this would also allow you to open new items to the player at a more steady pace if you desire, as the item on rare occasion still becomes available.
edit:- I have my first cruiser 👍
With the cruiser you should also get more higher tier item choices. They are partly tied to your fleet: more advanced ships brings you more advanced item choices, which again, should make the equipping more satisfying over time. I think I'd rather avoid forcing different tiers to show up every time and rather make the system smarter in general, offering you fitting modules in fitting tiers to make you feel the progress.
This game is very cool. Love the atmosphere and graphics. Here are a few comment and suggested changes based on a few hours of playtime:
- Make it easier to find the list of potential upgrades (to find it, click on your username in the bottom left, then click "Archive", and you'll see how to get different upgrades)
- Add more tooltips throughout to help players understand how things work. Examples: What is the difference between armor and hull? What do the various hull/armor/shield efficiencies do? How do different weapon types work?
- Add some way to target enemies -- either by clicking or by setting a "priority" for each ship under the fleet menu
- Somehow inform users if they can use equipment before buying it (e.g. Hangar or L-weapons). Still haven't found a ship taht can use L-weapons.
- It seems like Reroll in the Shop doesn't always cycle through items. Sometimes I will Reroll 5-10x and never see a weapon, or never see a Hangar.
- Autocannon seems very weak compared to the other items.
- Success really seems to depend on getting an extra ship as a Prize (free, but $750 value) early on.
- It seems like L2 weapons don't appear as Prize/Shop items unless you max out the L1 weapon again *within a single game*
- I have probably played 20-30x games and cannot beat the Tier 1 difficulty. Luck and buying the right upgrades seems like the only thing I can do. But even when I have a "perfect" build I suddenly get demolished around Wave 27 or Wave 28, whereas all the earlier Waves were easy.
why does my ships not attack last enemy on wave 13?
That seems to be a bug in the current version. I'll look into it.
I liked it. one of my ships stopped shooting and just died and my 4 other ships did not move into range to shoot the last ship so it just shot and killed 2 of them before the timer ran out. couldnt recover from that. solid base game though, had fun with it.
Thanks for the feedback, that helps a lot. I'll look into the bugs.
I don't get it. There's no game here. It's impossible to get past the third wave, you don't seem to get anything after each run, and there's no way to see the controls in the menu.
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback. Please note that this is not a finished game, it's still very much in development and in demo stage. The latest update brought a lot of major changes in systems and mechanics and with it major changes in balance. I'm aware of the problems in the current version and the point of this playtest is to gather feedback to find all those bugs and problems in balance. I appreciate the feedback and hope you'll give it a try again in a coming, more stable and balanced version.
The game has a pretty solid base and lots of potential, but a lot of jankiness as well.
The most irritating part is the bug where ships just stop shooting. They are in range, fully loaded, but just stop shooting until the end of the wave.
The rewards and shop are pretty annoying, i keep getting the same rewards over and over, when i'd like more variety. I also get weapons for large slots when i have no ships that can use them.
The AI could get significant improvements, ships just stand there until they're destroyed. Imo it would be nice to have more options for it, as well as having options for guns. For example being able to select so that beams focus on larger ships while point defence goes for fighters first.
It would also be nice to have more information, like progress towards unlocking crew.
Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate it. I just added a tag system for the rewards and shop items to allow for more personalized options fitting your previous choices and playstyle. This is in its first iteration and first testing round and still needs to be balanced and optimized. I'll gladly take your feedback into account for that. As well as your other points. Thanks for that and keep an eye on updates!
Ohh i see. While i can see how it'd be useful, i find it annoying more than anything. For example i noticed that damage to hull, armor, and shields depends on the kind of damage, such as armor taking significantly less damage from kinetic weapons, so i want to go for a more varied loadout where i have armor, shields, energy, and kinetic, but if i take a couple of pieces of equipment related to one of them i quickly stop getting equipment for the other. same thing for equipment for accuracy, hull repair, reload and firing rate. I personally would prefer it to stay more random, with the only exception being to not have the same equipment twice in a row when refreshing the shop
The Beam preset says it has 20% energy damage bonus and 20% kinetic damage malus, but where is it applied? To the flagship, or the entire fleet?
In fact, I would say all stats in the game would benefit from having a summary of relevant modifiers instead of just showing a number.
The crew effects apply for all the ships in your fleet while the module and weapon effects apply only to the ship they are equipped on. You can tap the health bar to get an overview of all values with their modifiers for the selected ship.
on the first reward you have to pick one even if they are of no use to you. like if you know that you are not qualified yet to even have a ship that can load a L weapon and you have only those to choose from. you can’t skip for 100 and you can’t sell those either.
That's deliberately for different reasons. I think the real problem here is the options you get. If you can't use anything in the first wave, the options must be real bad. I'll gladly look into that, thanks.
would be great to see the progress
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for a coming update.
i guess the lower one should be IV
How do you see the list of all the stuff to unlock?
Click on the username in the lower left, the Archive
Yep, true. Good catch, thanks.
totally lost the inspiration. accidentally clicked on salvage because the button is exactly at the same spot where i clicked on the ship. and the weapons and everything got destroyed as well with that. the shop system still feels broken because you just don’t get a chance to get the items you need. in the begin you care to upgrade a weapon to get to next level, but in another run you would not get the weapon anyhow until wave 10 or so. and since you can’t sell any unused weapons you are stuck in a stupid reroll grind. i am fine with rogue like, but for me there is a point where it just doesn’t make fun anymore.
maybe you could have the option to buy the higher tier weapon once it is unlocked. so the shop could still be random but you can choose how much money to spend. and it would be great to have the option to upgrade a weapon in the inventory to next tier. individual upgrades can still be reset when doing that. i have the feeling that would vastly improve the experience.
always the same
Thanks. I just introduced a tag system to allow for less random options in the shop but rather offer more options that fit your previous choices and playstyle. I agree that it still needs a lot of adjustments and maybe a bit more rng again. Gladly look into that.
when you have weapons of the same kind but some are upgrade and some are not, you have not really a way to choose the version you want, or at least the most powerful. instead you have to resort to randomness.
True, they stack together. I'll keep them separated if they are not exactly the same. Thanks for that.
a bit sad and idiotic when you have a flagship with the best weapons and it decides to just not move an inch further but wait until it is destroyed
that’s actually the greatest frustration for me that ships just wait to be killed and don’t consider moving into firing range.
and i have just realized that i don’t have the budget to revive, so i thought i will save and then do next wave. but after next wave the ship is gone for good. well.
and the prices for reviving a ship are too random. a few waves earlier it was 1900, now one ship is 1050 and the other 1100.
just found out that you can drastically reduce the revive costs from 2150 to 1200 but reloading ;-)
Thanks for your feedback, it's really valuable. The save and continue feature is brand new and still needs a lot of testing and optimization. And apparently exploit safety. That's the point of these playtests. Thanks a lot!
When re-rolling for items in the shop, please make SURE that the same 3 items does NOT come up over & over & over & over again, just in different configurations.
I have been re-rolling about 5 times after 3 separate matches & all I get is just: repair & field-repair systems & Pulse Laser, I want an AI-targeter & Launch Bay, but I CAN'T get one, I have WASTED SO MUCH MONEY on ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, that sucks.
The rest of the game is really good.
Thanks for playing and leaving a feedback. I just introduced a tag system to allow you to get items fitting your previous choices and playstyle but it seems to be a bit too restrictive. I'll weaken its effects and increase the RNG again in the next update.
Cute game. Here are my criticisms:
The tutorial broke on me. It told me to upgrade the weapon, I upgraded damage. It didn't acknowledge that I had upgraded it. Then when I clicked the system slot, it just gave me the tutorial for equipping one. But then it gave it again, when I clicked the other system slot. And it gave other tutorials again as well, until I had beaten two waves, then they finally just stopped coming up at all.
I think the shop broke at some point. It started only ever giving me Hull Reinforcement, Pulse Laser, and I think Reactive Hull. This happened after (somehow) unlocking a bunch of things, which I never ended up seeing.
The first run was a little too long for me, especially because I didn't realise I was working towards unlocking new things with my actions. I think I would have been more interested if that had been communicated to me. I did eventually unlock things but I had no idea what I had done to unlock them.
Lots of things are just a bit unclear, including the UI itself, but you probably know that already.
Thanks for playing and leaving a comment. I'll gladly look into these points.
Great game, loved it! ❤️
Only thing I would ask fixed is I had a bug that caused my ships to stop firing entirely. The enemy was definitely in range, so idk. Other than that, great game, and keep making more. 👍
Anyway, I'm up to almost 100 runs now. Still having fun with the demo, and need more content! Please let me know if you need any further music tracks to add to the ambience.
I did come across a possible bug, involving the speed of the game. If i set the fastest speed after starting a round, i notice my autocannon seems to miss fighters a lot more consistently than if I were to set it at the the 2x speed. During matches, I will change the speed and instantly see the difference from having the 3x setting to dropping to 2x setting, where my autocannons will now hit fighters instead of harmlessly passing through.
EDIT: To clarify a bit on this, the autocannon still does hit the fighter eventually, but I've seen strings of 7, 8 shots pass harmlessly through, like the frames of the shot aren't there at the fastest speed. I tried slowing down on 3x to 2x when it happened, and instantly my shots were registering a lot better.
But of a nitpick but the lasers shouldn't have recoil because they are light beams
Even subatomic particles have mass (see Solar Sail), given that they have to bombard a spaceship of armoured mass (x)tonnes to destruction, I would suggest there would be recoil.
Edit: I guess it may be easier to counter the recoil force using the thrusters in a consistent protracted coherent beam than an explosion to propel munitions. Rail guns?! likely with a good on board computer easier to counter.
Anyhow, it is more likely to be effected by the condition and quality of the barrels/lenses/track and quality of counter thrusters and fuel combusted.
I see. Learn smth new every day
Yes I investigated myself to find that photons are considered without mass, I do not dispute this but would hypothesise some recoil with a vast amount directed in parallel solely upon one vector.
One proposed theory I have read regarding matter within the universe would be that all atoms at their most basic level are in fact waves trapped within a localised area, which if waves had absolutely zero mass, then multiples of these waves forming a structure would be zero as well.
Also could be optimized more lots of lag
Minor graphical glitch where if you go to your profile and then exit and go to the ship select screen the fleet from the menu will show instead of the ship of the class
For balancing i think laser beam should be made a small weapon because I cant see it being viable as a main. That ro a massive damage buff
Unlocked all three no clue how though. Also the tank sprite in the selection shows two pulse lasers (the green small ones) instead of point defense
Itch io is being dumb so I have to make this as a new comment instead of an edit
On this account: 15 runs played ~7k points level 4 109 ships destroyed unlocked all shield upgrades and a handful of other upgrades but trying not to clutter the shop up until I unlock beams
Unable to change username (on Mobile at least) I found this out attempting to enter a dev menu as the laser beam seems impossible to unlock for some reason. Have unlocked it on pc before but I've beat this like three times on mobile and haven't unlocked it, I reset my save by clearing cookies and now I can't even unlock missiles/railgun, what are the specific unlock conditions for these items?
I like it. I also felt like Widmo206, so I am not going to repeat what he already wrote about shop dilution. I did change my playstyle from hunting for item in store to just not buy anything and only take the free upgrades unless you want to unlock a higher tier weapon.
While it was still about hunting for the desired parts I missed that I can't check what I already have so that I don't double buy.
Sometimes I wished I could switch between ships in the top left menu while having the weapons or modules panel open.
Thanks for your message. I'll gladly look into your points. Your last 2 sentences are not connected but they gave me a great idea for the shop problem; i'm struggling so far displaying all these information about current ships and weapons and storage alongside the shop so that you know what you have. But we can simply make the shop closable. So you can close/minimize the reward/shop screen, switch to your fleet screen and explore your fleet just as usual before reopening the shop and making your decision.
The game is pretty fun, but there are some glaring issues
Weapon upgrades seem downright detrimental; they’re very expensive while giving marginal bonuses. I only see them being useful once, to unlock the higher tier of a weapon
Ships keep dying due to bad positioning. I know there’s an option to give standing orders to each ship, but it’s too restrictive. Setting it to “lowest range weapon” on a ship with PDCs will have that ship pull out of the fleet, get focused, and die. Setting it to hold position leads to ships being outranged or firing with only one gun. Setting it to “highest range weapon” leads leads to ships bunching up in an arc, with one ship getting ahead of the others, getting focused, and dying. More granular control, or the ability to order ships to retreat (or to change their orders mid-fight) would improve survivability by a lot
As more weapons and modules are unlocked, the shop is more and more filled with items that are undesirable or unusable at the current stage (like railguns, missiles, etc. in the first shop of the game). On a few occasions, I’ve ran out of money rerolling before seeing a single weapon
Laser beams randomly freeze up and stop firing despite having enemies in range
Laser beams randomly loose track of a target or get interrupted by other enemies passing in front of them
Laser beams seem unable to target enemies taht are too close or directly behind, despite showing a full circle firing arc
Major mechanics are not mentioned anywhere in the game (I had no idea about the rock-paper-scissors between damage and armor types until I saw one of your comments here)
As far as I can tell, there’s no way to see weapon stats (fire rate, range, damage per shot, reload time, etc.) in-game, except for a DPS value, with no indication whether it includes reloading or not
There’s also other issues that, while not game-breaking, can be pretty annoying
Switching between ships in the upgrade phase doesn’t always get detected
Fleet menu is too close to the wave counter; you can easily missclick and start a wave when trying to reposition ships or change orders
All menus should stay open until manually closed or a wave is started; having to constantly reopen menus while comparing equipment or moving the ships around is a little tedious
Thanks for your feedback. I agree with all of your points. Most are already in work. Some are due to the fact, that this is a mobile-focused version; I need to close the menus because there is no space for multiple menus beside each other on the small and narrow mobile screen. The plan is to finalize and release the more casual mobile version before adapting a proper PC version with the same gameplay but more fitting game modes, a dedicated UI and more space for all the details, numbers like ship and weapon stats, and statistics.
Thanks for replying
I don’t know what engine you’re using to make the game but, in Godot at least, you get some information on what the user’s machine is, so you can for example hide some menu options if the game is running on a mobile device. If the engine you use supports it, you could do something like that for the menus (auto-close them on mobile but leave them open on browser/desktop)
Also, I tried the mobile version and I found some buttons (start, reroll, close shop, …) pretty difficult to click reliably, it takes a few tries usually
Yes, I'm using Godot. And I use the features to detect OS/device, as well as screen size and inputs for some things already, especially controls and ui. It's less about technical limitations and more about priority. I just did not invest the time to optimize and polish in that direction yet. It will come soon is what I'm trying to say, I guess. I'll gladly use your inputs for that. For now, I'm just focussed on solving those problems in the mobile version and make a proper and shippable game out of it.
I like spaceship games, so I gave it a shot. Some bugs/issues:
- The achievement unlock system definitely provides progression, but there's a huge gap between maybe getting a 100 credit item every round and maybe getting a 600 credit item every round. Also, the achievements and what they unlock should be visible with a button placed somewhere prominent on the main menu.
- Energy weapons, even with the buff from their dedicated ship, seem useless. You want PD, autocannons on the mediums, railguns on the larges. That seems like the only worthwhile fit.
- Related, missiles seem useless too. They appear to explode before hitting the target, doing very little damage. Enemy missiles are lethal, though.
- If you lose a ship while still getting started, it's usually just game over. Getting to keep the weapons/equipment of a dead ship, and maybe sharing its EXP with your other ships at a positive-sum ratio, might make that less the case.
- In general, you've got one ship taking all the damage unless enemies arbitrarily decide to focus down something else. Difficulty is low enough that you can afford to stick an armor+repair on everything else, but putting all defense on your middle ship and clustering everything else just slightly back from it is meta. Positioning should be a more major part of the game - maybe enemies should attack the weakest target in range rather than the first one they see.
- Related, friendly ship AI is all over the place. I've had a single ship shooting at three different full-health enemies at the same time.
- Am I missing something, or are crit buffs useless? 5% critical damage on a 5% critical chance is a 1.0025 multiplier to your total damage, if that 5% is applied to base damage. Still lackluster if it's applied to crit damage directly and it's 400% base. A 10% fire rate boost, assuming you spend a quarter of the time reloading, is a 1.075 multiplier to your total damage, which is thirty times better. Likewise, 10% faster reloads are three times worse than that fire rate buff.
- One try, I started up the game, beat wave 1, and then wave 2 was a big ship that kited me to death with no opportunity to shoot back. No opportunity to get a weapon with longer range, nor any warning to upgrade range beforehand.
Beyond that, some more ambitious stuff:
- Autobattlers need cool battle effects, so dedicating some effort to tuning the VFX and crunch of each weapon so that they feel different could be worthwhile.
- Variety is a major gap, both in player ships and enemies. Having different ship classes that do different things could help. As it is, you're just building a better stat brick.
- Enemy wave variation in particular could use a look, for replayability's sake. Maybe have a map or something, and enemies in different 'areas' have different doctrines. One round, the player chooses between fighting the enemies with lots of fighters and the enemies with long-ranged guns, and then, a few rounds later, has to choose between a subdivision of the fighter enemies where fighters drop close-ranged bombs, or one where they upgrade into fewer but stronger gunships with rocket pods.
- Likewise, interplay. Right now, you have three ships that all work kind of the same. Upgrades are all mostly independent from each other, and amount to making some number higher. The core gameplay of this genre is planning out complex builds, since there's no direct player control or anything like that, so having upgrade X have some major impact on upgrades Y and Z that the player plans around is vital.
As an example of variety, strategy, and interplay, suppose the first upgrade branch let you choose between "destroyer" and "command ship". Command ships have one less medium turret, but allow the player to set 'orders', like telling friendly ships with low health to retreat behind the nearest friendly (if unobstructed) until they recover, or to always target the lowest health/fastest/slowest/deadliest enemy with XYZ weapon type.
Thanks for playing and the detailed review. Appreciate it! I'd like to clarify a few things and also explain what is planned or still in development.
Every module has three tiers, and higher tiers unlock by using that module. Once a tier is unlocked it can appear in wave rewards or the shop. Higher tiers appear less often and cost more because they are stronger. Although the drop chances and prices/values are subject to change (especially the Tier 3 modules are way overpriced currently). There is a screen that shows all unlocked modules (player stats available by tapping the player name in the main menu), but it does not currently explain the unlock triggers. I may improve the clarity there.
About weapon balance: The game uses a damage type system where kinetic, energy and explosive damage interact in a rock-paper-scissor way with hull, armor and shields. Some combinations do 150 percent damage and some only 50 percent. That can make certain weapons look weak if they are hitting the wrong layer. Some layers are currently underrepresented, which makes some weapons feel over/underpowered. That should change with more enemy variety. More varied wave compositions and enemy loadouts will follow. I'm currently keeping it more or less consistent to have some predictibility and being able to balance out that base run before adding more variety, which will lead to a less obvious meta and increase the strategic potential of different builds.
Missiles explode early when intercepted by Point Defense. That applies to both player and enemy missiles. The final enemy wave uses 2x tier 2 missile launchers. That's intentionally very hard but they are as strong as if you use 2x tier 2 missile launchers. There is no difference there. More or better PD can help to take out more missiles before they hit and shields can help eat up the explosive damage from missiles as explosive damage only deal 50% of their damage against shields. Plus the shields may recharge before the next barrage hits as long as they are not fully depleated.
Losing a ship early is supposed to be painful as all invested resources are gone, but I agree, it currently feels too punishing. I am looking into comeback mechanics so a run is not decided immediately when one ship goes down.
Regarding positioning and AI: Enemies and friendly ships use the exact same targeting rules. They both attack the closest valid target, and if that target is already being attacked they look for the next closest one. I looked into weapon-specific targeting priorities but that's too much micromanagement. Don't want to add that layer of complexity. There are other ideas, that I'm exploring to allow for some control but that's not decided yet. However, you can already assign ship behavior like staying in formation or advancing to the range of their longest or shortest weapon (right-most option in the fleet panel). This also avoids being taken out by a out of range enemy ship, as your ships would close in until they are in fire range. So long-range enemies are dangerous only if the ship commands to close the distance are not set.
Putting all defense on one ship and using it as a forward tank is a valid strategy but is risky as losing a ship is punished hard. So maybe spreading ships in a line is actually safer because it distributes damage better as enemies will attack different ships depending on their position. That is where positioning becomes important.
About crits and DPS math. Crits might need some number tuning, but balance in general will get a full pass once all core features are in. Every new feature shifts the numbers again, so while trying to maintain a reasonable balance, a deeper tuning will follow.
VFX is mostly final and reflects the best I can do within my skill range and budget. I get decent feedback in general and rather focus on gameplay and balance than looks. I know its not top-notch but yea, that's how it is. I will improve here and there of course but mainly it's set.
Hope this clarified some things and gave a good picture of the current state and an outlook on where I'm trying to go.
Thanks again for playing and taking the time to give detailed feedback. Keep an eye on updates!
> and if that target is already being attacked they look for the next closest one.
There are certainly scenarios where a target saturation algorithm makes sense (I once wrote one to hunt down a spread-out group of fragile targets during a hackathon, for instance), but I think that's actively counterproductive here. Focusing down one target is the optimal strategy for line battles.
> Putting all defense on one ship and using it as a forward tank is a valid strategy but is risky as losing a ship is punished hard. So maybe spreading ships in a line is actually safer because it distributes damage better as enemies will attack different ships depending on their position. That is where positioning becomes important.
In practice, I'd say that around 95 percent of the damage goes onto the front ship pretty consistently, so long as there's a meaningful gap. For positioning to be of interest to the player beyond that, I think there has to be a bit more complexity.