Incline Avorion - procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build ships out of blocks

[Perkel]

Well after spending some time with builder i made this. It was attempt at kind of homeworld style ship and i spend some time playing with armor plating at angles. Basically a miner.

 

[polo]

This is straight ocd
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=946567181

 

[Perkel]

Yeah fuck that. I made small corvette sized ship and i already spend like 2 hours tinkering with it. This probably took months.

 

[Perkel]

Made something akin to Elite classik. Armor in this game is a huge bitch. Managed to get this thing armored but now it barely stops. Those dual engines though are freaking fast.

 

[Perkel]

Why do i think that Borg cubes will be the best for avorion ?

 

[Perkel]

Well my Elite classik wing design is officially garbage for combat. Just got absolutely mauled by random shitty pirate corvete. First my right wing trusters got fucked and then my front ones. Ended up drifting without ability to do anything other than to go straight.

I need to spend some time on designs. But imho it is awesome how you need to marriage practical design with style. For sure i shouldn't use so much armor. Imo it should be used in key areas that are super squishy while rest should be outfitted with hull. I also think that stuff like thrusters should be hidden in crevices of ship that need close angle to get shot. Same with turrets. I think bunker like design for weapon mounts would be nice way to ensure your weapons are not destroyed in after few first shots, only point defense need open angle.

I would love for this game to have mounting slots much like starsector and then fixed weapons system. So you would have S M L turrets/weapons etc.

 

[DraQ]

But imho it is awesome how you need to marriage practical design with style.

[nods with agreement in Children of a dead Earth]

 

[Perkel]

Creating combat corvette: Take2:

Black - squishy parts
Shades of Blue - Armor

It removed a lot of angle from my fire but taking down my guns now requires to attack me straight or from above. I installed also sideskirts for my trusters on arms for better protection.

 

[Perkel]

Ok i have now 4 small miners getting those resources rolling. Also got now i have a wingman with ship same as mine. It was a husstle to get similar upgrades so wingman could function same as me but it was worth it.

I love how deep outfitting system is. You can spend barely anything on hull but outfitting it will cost you fortune. Definitely hits that X3 vibe i get from X-tended.

I would love for game to have more resource types though. It would be amazing if each resource had its own special qualities. Like X having better defense against lasers while other better against physical. So designing a ship would be even more fun trading various kinds of properties to make ship that fits what you want to do.

Right now i am thinking of creating small carrier and see how it works. If everything goes right i will have 1 small carrier and 2 corvettes aka small strike group. My Corvettes side thrusters are major weak point from my testing, i think i will have to extend armor quite a bit more to cover them better.

 

[Perkel]

Ok i found something that annoys me greatly.

Founding cost of ships are retarded. It is artificial limit on how many ships you can have. It progressively requires more and more money and resources of better quality the more ships you want to have. First 3 ships are iron, then titanium and so on until you reach 26 where each new ship requires 1 000 000 + avorion regardless if you want to make small miner or capital class ship.

checked out mods and there are in no removal of that price..

 

[Perkel]

Managed to get myself Carrier. Creation of fighters is neat stuff and i like how AI works in this:

 

[Perkel]

Ok, i got my ass handed so bad that my whole fleet got destroyed. Since I spend nearly all my money on Carrier i also went broke. So decided to restart since i learned new things.

As for battle itself My carrier and 3 other Corvettes from posts above went to take on PirateShipyard. Initial strike was success but then whole fleet of pirates warped on me. Like 20 different ships and even with my amazing shield on my carrier they went through them like paper.

----------------

On other hand i decided to play a round a lot more with builder to see what is possible etc. with it. Honestly i am pretty impressed:
- You can change grid size of local points meaning that those annoying "somehow doesn't fit" no longer is a problem
- You can actually edit both fighters and turrets. Each have their own smaller grid so you can go wild on creating really detailed weapons. Want to make WW2 style battleship cannons ? Yup you can do it.
- You can change initial block purpose via Transform. So instead of hull you can make it black box, generator or anything you want.
- Templates is amazing feature that allows you to build via huge parts instead of everything from ground up or using other ship. You can finish nice looking Cargo container space and then save it as template. Later on just copy paste how much do you want.
- Templates can be stretched and transformed just as any block. So if you have nice cockpit design for small fighter you can actually use it for bigger ones via templates streatching
- With Coaxial Turret Block you can make fixed mount guns. Combine with turrent customization and you can make neat things !

Thanks to those above i was able to create such small neat ship:

 

[Perkel]

fuuuk. Via workshop. People know some magic fu. I full expect someone making total overhaul with Star Wars, X3 etc themes.

star wars

warhammer40k:

 

[Norfleet]

Question: Does the enemy AI typically aim for the center of mass, such that making a ship that has a hollow void in the center where shots just fly through harmlessly results in a ship that can facetank ludicrous damage like I've done in other games?

 

[Perkel]

Spend like 4 hours making this. Halfway done. Basically space"ship" frigate

- Around 10GW of power
- front has torpedo tube
- Front and underside is heavily armored
- Main deck has also layer of armor but i use integrity field generators to increase its resistance

Question: Does the enemy AI typically aim for the center of mass, such that making a ship that has a hollow void in the center where shots just fly through harmlessly results in a ship that can facetank ludicrous damage like I've done in other games?

From what i have seen it is varied and enemies aren't that accurate either even with lasers. So your plan wouldn't work. And game is 3D so enemies fly around you.

 

[Perkel]

Finished my space"ship"

 

[Norfleet]

- Front and underside is heavily armored

I don't see the guns on the underside. Is there a reason why you have chosen to heavily protect a side of the ship you don't want facing the enemy because it would render the ship mostly useless?

 

[Perkel]

Space battles are not 1vs1. So if i protect underside then i can focus on pounding with what i have above deck while scoff off stuff underside.

I have main 5 slots on deck, torpedo launcher at front and 4 PDs at the side hunting those fighters and torpedoes. Underbelly doesn't have anything other than good armor amount.

More times than not you fight outnumbered. So having one side that is well protected, 2 that are mid protected gives you a way to survive attack from all sides. Batteries on my main deck also don't need much angle to fire so my main deck is pretty protected with maneuvers.

I just finished battle where i fought with Pirate's mothership and her escort and they hammered from all sides my AI fellow and didn't even take 20% of his health because most of that fire was on 3 sides that were well armored.

 

[Perkel]

Ok i think i am done for now with game.

My main issue is that it actually is not great replacement for X series despite very similar early look.
Whole economy is just nothing to do with gameplay. It is entirely fake. Player just uses different rules.
Moreover simulation takes place only near you. Stuff like pirates spawn on you and regardless if you have 99 other ships they will always spawn on you.

What is the point of creating chain of production when you can build ship without any of those itsems and without shipyard. You can just found new ship and voila. The other annoying part is that you can't even create chain to get some weapon you want because how game is randomized.

Still someone will probably make some decent overhaul sooner or later. It is still great space game for those who look more focused journey type of space game it is just not replacement for X series for now at its current state.

Reading on patches released so far it is clear that game improves massively form patch to patch so there is hope dudes will change some thing.

 

[DraQ]

Psst... Perkel - need a fix?

 

[Perkel]

Psst... Perkel - need a fix?

aww shit here we go again...
Yeah looks like right up into my alley.

But from what i see i need a lot of time to grind with this. So not for now, probably next week will sit down on it.

 

[Perkel]

Update 2.0 - Now Available!
New Progression, better UI and tons of improved features!

We’re incredibly happy to announce that Avorion is now finally ready to have another version increase! With update 2.0 we bring you a ton of Quality of Life improvements. We have streamlined several features and massively improved the UI! We’re absolutely thrilled about this update and hope that you are, too!
Thank you for buying Avorion, supporting us and for helping us make this game better and better!

New Progression
With this update we’re introducing a new experience that makes the game a ton more fun. The new progression keeps players on their toes, challenging them in a new way and encouraging them to try new things.

Instead of being able to build everything right from the get go, the new system requires you to build with the materials at hand and limits the processing power and size a ship can have. To unlock the next material you have to acquire the building knowledge for it. This can be done by either fighting a boss or a difficult pirate encounter, or, if you’re not the fighting type, it can be bought at Shipyards.

With this you can experience the game in a new way! Explore regions and their materials and learn how to use their advantages to build the perfect ship to overcome the next challenges.

And if we weren’t able to convince you - you can simply go back to the old system and play the game in the new Classic mode, too!

Captains, Commands and Crew Improvements
Our old captains got some love with this update. They now have personalities, perks and quirks and are much more autonomous. Instead of having to click a ton to set up a good mining route, you can now simply make a contract with your captain. You tell them where to go and which ships to take as an escort, and they will handle everything around it. From finding the sectors with asteroids to refining the collected ores, and regularly sending you their yields, everything will be taken care of.
Of course, we’ve done that not only for mining. The new commands include everything necessary to live a comfortable life in the galaxy, such as trading, scouting and even traveling long distances!

With the introduction of the captains we’ve also reworked how the crew in general works. In short - you now need less crew, but can over-assign posts to achieve up to 200 % efficiency! And you no longer need to hire higher ranked crew members, as your crew automatically promotes crew members as soon as higher officers are needed. This should make finding enough crew for your awesome battleship much easier!

Player Profile
To keep better track of what you’ve achieved on your playthrough, we added a new Player Profile section. In this section you get an overview of all the things you can do in Avorion. We hope that you’ll have just as much fun unlocking the milestones as we do!

Fighters
We’ve rebalanced fighters and among several changes to their stats we’ve also improved their overall gameplay feel. With improvements to their AI, pilots now staying on the ship and not getting lost if the fighter is destroyed and fighter production having been reworked (both in cost and time), the carrier playstyle will feel much more viable now.
Additionally squads now get one overall squad skin, so that all fighters within a squad have the same look. This also means that the game performance around fighters is much better!

Hyperspace engine
The hyperspace engine got lots of love as well. In short, your hyperspace engine will now charge before the jump and can even do several consecutive jumps without having to reopen the map every time! Additionally, hyperspace jumps need much less energy in total now and with the new animation and sound they feel a lot smoother.

Autopilot
And last but not least, the universally most wished feature is here! Every ship is now equipped with a powerful autopilot that can do menial in-sector tasks for you. Docking to a station, flying somewhere, mining or salvaging, repairing or attacking ships, … Give the order and lean back while your ship does all the work!

This is only a small selection of what is actually contained in the new update. For full details check out the final patchnotes for Update 2.0

 

[Perkel]

Did some time with 2.0 recently and imho while it adds progression it does it in very annoying way. Main way to obtain next material tier is to buy it from faction. Only way to do that is by grinding repution to up to 65k.

While 65k is about 2 hours of trading grind the overall feel of it is just boring shitty grind. There are some other way to gain such stuff like buying tier illegaly or defeating boss but overall it feels very "gamy" like artificial blockade because developers couldn't figure out how to make some interesting progression.

They also reworked how stuff is simulated. So there are no longer active and non active cells. Everything is simulated. But again my initial issue still stands. There is no need for economy. It is not like X3-4 where you need economic backbone to start empire. In here you can just build stuff out of thin air and there is nothing limiting other than artificial amount of money.

I still wait for some sort of mod that will overhaul game system. For one i would wish that randomized gear would be completely out. Currently randomized gear just dosen't bring anything to game especially since weapons don't really feel that much different from each other in first place. Sure lasers and bolters aren't exactly the same but in the end only DPS matters and there are pretty much no interesting ways to make combat more tactical esepcially since enemies are pretty much all the same.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Might be time to give this game a try.