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[forsaken1111]

Any advice on  how to get going? The starter ship seems pretty weak and its hard to find find an opponent I can beat. And the starting credits is not enough to buy any fighters, so its all solo until you can kill something.

Depends on what you start with but go after single wings of fighters and single pirate ships, or hit an independent trader or something.

[RaySmuckles]

Whoever described it as 2D Mount & Blade in space described it accurately.

Which is a great thing. I love Mount & Blade, and I love sci-fi/space opera. This game is going to rock.

[Frumple]

Any advice on  how to get going? The starter ship seems pretty weak and its hard to find find an opponent I can beat. And the starting credits is not enough to buy any fighters, so its all solo until you can kill something.

Basically what forsaken said, but the thing he might not have emphasized enough is that your starting ship is randomized -- as near as I can tell, it just gives you a random frigate. Not all frigates are created equal, heh, to say the least. I've only had one that had real trouble dealing with other frigates so far, though.

But yeah, target single ships or frigates with single fighter squads until you can get some fighters or an extra frigate or two yourself. If you set up your main well enough (upgrade weapons! Occasionally the station changes inventory.) you'll be able to trump most other frigates pretty easily. Some decent PD weapons will let you shred fighter squads, too -- hit their fighters first, then jump the remaining ships with the aid of your own wings.

As for finding, check the map. Most triangles that are the same size as your own are roughly on par with you. Chase 'em down.

[Paul]

It's kinda minimal, but it's still fun. It reminds me a lot of the early M&B builds where pretty much all that existed was a town named Zendar and some enemies to fight, so all you could really do was fight stuff and get money to recruit troops and buy equipment.

Been fighting the corporation now, building a fleet of Medusa destroyers. Get a few cruisers too, but they slow my little group down too much so I wind up selling them. Only groups I'm not able to kill are the really big fleets with battlecruisers.

As far as starting, it gave me a lasher to begin and I refitted it with a bunch of the dual machine guns from the store and just attacked a pirate fleet going against a lasher, talons, piranhas, and one of the lower end destroyer/carriers (buffalo? I forget). Managed to shred the talons when they approached, then did the same to the piranhas after running around a bit and venting flux from the missiles swarming me. I then strafed the carrier and severely damaged it before the other lasher came at me, and I ended the thing with a big battle against the lasher while the carrier ran away. Wound up having to finish him off by ramming after my machine guns ran out of ammo (after that fight I refitted to double the ammo capacity).

Not sure how it might be with other starter ships, but the lasher is a really nice one to get going. With the engine upgrade it can outrun most stuff and it has a lot of good weapon slots. I did a lot of fights solo in the lasher before I expanded my fleet.

[forsaken1111]

I ended up refitting my ships with engine upgrades just to catch stuff. The other ships are exactly the same speed or faster than me so its hard to catch them.

[Tarran]

Okay, I'm mildly interested in this. Four questions that I'm sure have been repeated several times:

1: How easy is it to add stuff? The main thing I like about BSF is adding new sprites, ships, weapons... all from scratch. How easy will it be to mod things in in the future when the game is 'finished', and how easy is it now?
2: When is this 'demo' I heard of here going to be released? Or are they not telling the truth/feeling hopeful, like when they mentioned not seeing multiplayer when the official FAQ says there won't be multiplayer?
3: I don't think there's damage for 'sections' of the ships like in BSF besides various modules, weapons and such, is there? If there isn't any damage, is there any chance for that level of damage in the future?
4: How good is the AI at using weapons and ships already built in the game, and how good are they at using custom weapons and ships? Will there be improvements?

And for any non-dev:
Is the game worth $10-20? Yes right now, yes in the future, maybe, or no?

[Frumple]

And for any non-dev:
Is the game worth $10-20? Yes right now, yes in the future, maybe, or no?

I'd say jump in on the giveaway going and if you don't make it, drop the $10 now. Buying in now gets whatever comes later, and it's already quite impressive if still rather bare bones. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone fond of the top-down 2d space thing. Check out the giveaway thread for some links or mentions to LPs, you can get a feel of how the game goes down that way.

As for the modding stuff, no clue. There's apparently already some mods of varying extent out, though, so it can't be terrible hard.

[Tarran]

I'm kinda adverse to getting on a giveaway. I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there less well off than my family, so I think others should get a go without me reducing their chances.

Anyway, giveaway thread links to LPs? Which thread? There's no links in the latest one.

[Flying Dice]

And for any non-dev:
Is the game worth $10-20? Yes right now, yes in the future, maybe, or no?

I'd say jump in on the giveaway going and if you don't make it, drop the $10 now. Buying in now gets whatever comes later, and it's already quite impressive if still rather bare bones. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone fond of the top-down 2d space thing. Check out the giveaway thread for some links or mentions to LPs, you can get a feel of how the game goes down that way.

As for the modding stuff, no clue. There's apparently already some mods of varying extent out, though, so it can't be terrible hard.

This, pretty much. I preordered it when all that was out was the first 6ish missions, and that alone was worth the $10. The sandbox mode is pretty limited for the time being, but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun with it, and if things keep going the way they are, the game is going to be great once we get multiple systems.

There are a number of mods adding new ships, missions, etc., and from what I remember, there is a decent degree of support for mods.

[Frumple]

Anyway, giveaway thread links to LPs? Which thread? There's no links in the latest one.

Here's one. The totalbiscuit thing mentioned in the latest giveaway thread. A short intro-type thing, I think -- haven't actually watched it. There's some other in-game stuff on youtube.

[RaySmuckles]

Oh man, I am going to end up putting as much time into this as M&B... which was easily hundreds of hours.

I love it.

[Tarran]

Anyway, giveaway thread links to LPs? Which thread? There's no links in the latest one.

Here's one. The totalbiscuit thing mentioned in the latest giveaway thread. A short intro-type thing, I think -- haven't actually watched it. There's some other in-game stuff on youtube.

I've already watched it before. But like the thread says, it's for an older version and it's kinda more tilted to a review from just plain gameplay than a Let's Play.

[mendonca]

Okay, I'm mildly interested in this. Four questions that I'm sure have been repeated several times:

1: How easy is it to add stuff? The main thing I like about BSF is adding new sprites, ships, weapons... all from scratch. How easy will it be to mod things in in the future when the game is 'finished', and how easy is it now?
2: When is this 'demo' I heard of here going to be released? Or are they not telling the truth/feeling hopeful, like when they mentioned not seeing multiplayer when the official FAQ says there won't be multiplayer?
3: I don't think there's damage for 'sections' of the ships like in BSF besides various modules, weapons and such, is there? If there isn't any damage, is there any chance for that level of damage in the future?
4: How good is the AI at using weapons and ships already built in the game, and how good are they at using custom weapons and ships? Will there be improvements?

And for any non-dev:
Is the game worth $10-20? Yes right now, yes in the future, maybe, or no?

The best answers I can give:

1: A doddle. There are a few tools being made by the community to help things along, some working ok, but at the minute you can modify existing stuff just by editing the JSON scripts and CSV files.

New stuff is just new sprites and creating new JSON and CSV files, set up in a seperate sub-directory under 'mods' which the game reads in if you tick the relevant 'mod' in the start-up menu. It's very mod friendly, and Alex (the main programmer) is opening up as much as possible to mods as the game is developed. Expect to see some new factions for the campaign relatively soon, once a few people get the urge and the drive to go through with it.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=177.0

There's a few mods here. Check out 'Junk Pirates', it's awesome ...

2. The devs are trying to do it soon, in line with the 0.5 'full' release. At least, that is the general stated intention.

3. There is armor locational damage (which you can take down section by section to get to the hull hitpoints), but not specifically hull section by hull section damage. Guns and engines go offline if they take damage (EMP weapons are great at doing this), and that is about the extent of what is planned, I think.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/09/17/new-feature-damageable-modules/ (blog post)

4. The AI is awesome, and will definitely get better. Alex seems to put a lot of stock in this, and has been good at responding to various points of feedback from the community in making the AI more believable, as well as obviously playtesting the living hell out of it himself.

http://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/07/08/thoughts-on-ai-collision-avoidance/

Here's a blog post on the subject.

[Flare]

Spoiler: It's a lot like Italian-fu (click to show/hide)

In that in some situations, it's a bunch of ships surrounding one other they jumped and proceeding to kicking the ever loving poo out of it. Game is not so hard anymore, is it?

[ThtblovesDF]

It would benefit the gameplay and enjoyability of the game a lot of the "capture" chance would start stacking (no claimable ship for 20 fights in a row? Increase chance by 20%).

Let me know if that mechanic is in already and I am just crazy with my 25 or so without a capture (crew/marines in mass)