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HighFleet - Desert Russians Fight With Warships In Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

downwardspiral

Learned
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Mar 12, 2020
Messages
131
I've a few questions if you don't mind, although if you could keep spoilers outside of these topics to a minimum that would be great.

1. Approximately how much of the game is left after taking Hiva? I bumrushed it with my fleet and only Sevastopol survived, only to be pleasantly surprised that the game did not end and that it was effectively a Pyrrhic victory since I did not have anywhere enough ships to take all the possible missile launch cites.

2. Does the eclipse/temperature drop ever reverse itself or is it effectively a hard time limit for the campaign? It seems like you'd be spending 75% of the game fighting in darkness which is a bit weird.
1 You hunt down two nuclear missile ships then it is over. It could take a while depends on how quick you find and hunt them down.
You should be able to recruit free ally from cities nearby. Nuclear ship fleet itself is not that tough but you need to find some ways to deal with nuclear missile.
I use allies who just joined as meat shield.
Try to use a fleet that has high endurance and fast speed to lure SGs away from your assaulting fleet when you try to rush Khiva.


2 No idea, I think it is a soft time limit. I rushed khiva before it went too bad.
 

downwardspiral

Learned
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Mar 12, 2020
Messages
131
I had a go, expecting downwardspiral's comments to be highlighting where I'd find it a bit offputting. And, yeah, it's beautifully styled, it really is. Wish I could love it more for that to get past the 2d arcade minigames. Sadly not but hope the dev has tons of success for those who want to play the blend of things he's offering with it. I wouldn't say the difficulty is particularly high, it's more that the systems are obscure until you figure out what's going on with them as others have commented. I can see how you'd play it as part of the experience of the game. There's definitely an old school late 80s/early 90s vibe to the minigames - had flashbacks with the combat to a very old game called NOMAD which had a similar thing with needing to factor in gravity, leading on your targets, and ducking out of the way of return fire. All it needs is to put it into space and have three more walls and momentum to worry about too.

Would really love to see this done for old farts like me who prefer a more sedentary pace to combat in our old age. The setting and the art and the way it's all put together is very, very well done indeed.

Strategy + 2D shooting.
It is a strange combination.
But if you like both parts then the game merge it quite well.

The best part of the game is,
It doesn't really force player to excel in any particular elements of game.
You can downplay the part you aren't good and gain advantage in other sections of the game.
Like if you are very good at dodging and shooting, then you could use a light armor fast speed ship armed with few heavy guns to slowly take down SG by shooting their weak spot.
You could always retreat once fuel run low and then send second ship to strike it again.


You can also try to use heavy armour and bigger gun to go head to head, if you design your ship very well, it could take SGs and sustain a manageable danamge.

Doing good strategy movement on map will save you alot of trouble. Make shooting part much easier.
Notice how morale = arcade shooting retry chance.
The more you allow your crew to rest the more life you going to get in arcade shooting mode.
You could also completely dodging most of the combat and just go stealth.

And if you doing good in all aspects of the game then it isn't that hard.
I like how it doesn't try to be just hard by limiting player's options like many games today.
It allows you to beat the game the way you want. A very sand box style game.
Freedom over Difficulty seems to be the design principle of this game.
But yes, I think it is best for people who accept and love the 2D shooting combat instead of treating it as 100% strategy.

The more I played, I love every bit of the game(except the bug), even the landing mini game part is not bad.
Because how you design your ship also affect how easy you going to get the repair bonus through landing.
Not to mention how many time my landing gear was blown off in combat so I need to do hard landing with my rocket engine.
It felt pretty epic to land a half broken ship from a deadly battle.
I will try to design my newer ship with better landing gear and probably some side skirt armour that can be use as emergency landing gear.
And ofc, you can also design your ship without landing gear to reduce weight if your ship never need to go through serious repair.
It is very arcade but they make it connects to other parts of game instead of just being an isolate mini game section of the game like landing in other arcade games such as Ace combat series.


The more I play I prefer this 1v3 shooting combat over all vs all 2d command battle with small tactical map (somethign like airship conquest or master of orion type of game)
Because the biggest problem of those 2D ship battle is distance and small map.
In games like 2D tactical game such as MOO2 or Airship, the combat distance is often too short. There is no tactical maneuver of your battleships.
If the game really want to go for the non-action style battle, I think it is best to follow CMANO or Rule the waves type of game. Where battleship gun shooting range is also beyond visual range and fight directly on the global map instead of a separate tactical battle map.

The 2D shooting combat is very methodological. In a weird way, it reminds me the time I play IL-2.
Where I use 20mm cannon to rip enemy airplane apart. In this game, 100mm and 130mm are wonderful.
You don't want just spray the bullet. You want to position you self and aim for their fuel tank and bridge then use MG to probe a bit, if the trajectory match, then fire the cannon.

You could also use boom and zooom, don't shoot in long range, just dodge then fly pass enemy and only shoot in close range.
 
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Van-d-all

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Standin' pretty. In this dust that was a city.
Played around some more through the weekend, and definitely the arcade part is a major loophole in the entire game.

It can be approached seriously with matching ship classes like a NAVTAG proper, but it's quite easy to design a lightly armored ship with some major guns (like a modified Gladiator with armor all around and guns pimped to 2x 2A37 for infinite point defense + 2x Mk-2-180 for killing) that's faster than most other ships (330kmph+) and with just a bit of skill (I'm not an arcade player by any means) can take out pretty much anything solo, including the strike groups. Pair it up with modified Skylark (radar + fuel tanks) and you have a 2 ship strike squadron for <$50k meaning, if you ditch the Sevastopol (!) you start with four of those.

Sure the missiles, the bombs, and the airplanes are fun to use, especially combined with ELINT elements, but they present a constant resource drain - given their external mounts, they are usually first ones to get destroyed, so they need to be fired and used up either way just to get bang for buck. But in a resource management game, it's far from optimal, and there's also replacement availability issue on top of that. It's just easier to strip them off. Just like every non essential system.

And lastly - bugs. Undo a ship modification - infinite money. Plethora of crashes with different carrier/aircraft returning scenarios. Merging main fleet with strike squadron in a city cancels repairs. Missile attacked prize ships disappear. Custom blueprints can't be deleted because the GUI switches to ship description. Are just the few I remember.

All in all it's still a fine game, but honestly it's just as good as you LARP it - there's an arcade game underneath and it can be played as such. IMO it would've been better if the battles were more tactical, eg. with active pause where you'd get to give vector orders (direction/speed + firing solution) to the entire fleet, possibly with added complexity of command points like Starsector.
 
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Magitex

Educated
Joined
Aug 2, 2017
Messages
62
I don't think the arcade side of Highfleet is a loophole as such, it just rewards players who spend time getting good at combat, you could just as well spend most of your time deleting groups with missiles/planes or avoiding them entirely by using the strategic layer.
I killed an entire strike group with a single Navarin but I can't say I like the pressure of trying to do it - it's easier to use a rounded fleet, or if you want, a modified ship capable of soloing them... or just leading them on a wild goose chase.

If I had to complain about the Sevastopol, it'd be that it is actually a genuine battleship (it's fun to use, and effective at combat) but it cannot indirectly fire artillery batteries at incoming strike groups/hostile cities, although perhaps it is purposefully outdated like the battleships of old. If it had some artillery capability to soften strike groups it would be a real asset instead of a drag.

I'm finding some of the bugs/design decisions infuriating at times, but I guess overall it has been okay, with most of the systems being fairly logical. But sometimes I will redesign a ship, oh I better dock it now, now the design is gone.. and it has also removed all the parts for the new design so it can't land properly.. sigh.
I also really hate not being able to see in the top and bottom corners in combat because of the interface and hard edges of the map, I think combat would have been a lot better if we had natural altitude restrictions from engine power and a centered camera with a much larger area to fight in.. and the ability to zoom in and out. Everything is so small!

When I'm not raging at the game, I find Highfleet is really fun in every respect, basically a high-intensity submarine game.
 

Magitex

Educated
Joined
Aug 2, 2017
Messages
62
Despite the lack of any info, the game has just been updated, and the most jarring bugs like infinite money seem to be patched.
You mean I don't have to be afraid of the undo button?
Seems like mouse acceleration was removed or reduced, and we got a bunch of new graphical and aiming options. Been playing the past hour or two with them, good to see the developer patching things quickly.
 

downwardspiral

Learned
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
131
Played around some more through the weekend, and definitely the arcade part is a major loophole in the entire game.

It can be approached seriously with matching ship classes like a NAVTAG proper, but it's quite easy to design a lightly armored ship with some major guns (like a modified Gladiator with armor all around and guns pimped to 2x 2A37 for infinite point defense + 2x Mk-2-180 for killing) that's faster than most other ships (330kmph+) and with just a bit of skill (I'm not an arcade player by any means) can take out pretty much anything solo, including the strike groups. Pair it up with modified Skylark (radar + fuel tanks) and you have a 2 ship strike squadron for <$50k meaning, if you ditch the Sevastopol (!) you start with four of those.

Sure the missiles, the bombs, and the airplanes are fun to use, especially combined with ELINT elements, but they present a constant resource drain - given their external mounts, they are usually first ones to get destroyed, so they need to be fired and used up either way just to get bang for buck. But in a resource management game, it's far from optimal, and there's also replacement availability issue on top of that. It's just easier to strip them off. Just like every non essential system.

It is why I felt BVR is limited.

There is one simple way to make arcade combat connects to the tactical layer more and remove the advantage of big gun on smaller high mobility ship and make missile a bit more important.
Just make normal HE shells cost ammo as well.
And the amount of ammo per flight is limited by the ammo loader component.
then rename it to ammo storage.

So even if one are good at dodging and shooting.
one need to pay attention to logistic in the tactical layer.
And smaller ship need to retreat faster due to low ammo, and every engagement cost 1 morale, meaning a drain in logistic.

Then we might as well put a cargo ship that carry equipment and ammo so there will be some item management gameplay as well, instead of global storage.
 

agris

Arcane
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Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
according to steam forums, Win7 support is patched in. A lot more options were added as well, so you can turn off mouse acceleration and customize more VFX. The non 16:9 resolution handling has improved a lot as well, although if you're using an ultrawide it's still apparently pretty messed up.
 
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Yeah patch just dropped and the new crosshair options are basically cheating. Highly recommend whoever struggled with the combat try them out, might be what you need to enjoy the COOM i mean combat ehe
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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What the fuck is "interface-'em-up"? What the hell does "diagetic" mean? Jesus Christ, man, these pseudo-intellectuals...
The term "diegetic" indicates that something typically present only for the audience, not for the characters in the medium, actually does exists for the characters as well. For example, a movie soundtrack typically consists of music played for the benefit of the audience, but a track would be diegetic if the characters in the film are actually listening to it. Similarly, the user interface in a computer game typically exists purely for the benefit of the player, without any in-game characters having an awareness of it, but if the user interface consists of vehicle controls intended to be identical to the controls employed by character(s) within the game controlling the vehicle, then this user interface would be diegetic.

Qt6dBKC.png

ReypOVO.png

3Ib1ExB.png


Pictured above: a diegetic user interface in ArcticFox (1986)
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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Skeuomorphism refers to interfaces that design virtual icons to resemble real-world objects with similar functions, e.g. a trash bin or waste basket icon to hold files deleted from a computer hard drive before final removal.
https://99designs.com/blog/trends/skeuomorphism-flat-design-material-design/



Pictured above: Intuition, the original graphical user interface for the Amiga OS, had a calculator-resembling icon for the calculator utility, a trashcan-resembling icon for the trashcan, floppy-disk-resembling icons for opening a window showing the files on floppy disks, and so forth.
 

FreshCorpse

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
TLDR; reviewer came to pop-moles and got popped. HighFleet is pure
incline.png
despite the technical problems

Kaiser is a long-time specialist strategy game reviewer and this is probably not a case of him coming to pop-moles but getting his own moles popped instead.

For a strategy game to be good you do need to have a) systems that affect your success at the game and b) to have some kind of idea of what you choices in those systems are doing - what tradeoffs you're making.

I've read the manual, looked at a couple of different streamers (the submarine guy already posted and CohhCarnage) and can see where he is coming from on that. The streamers do seem to still be in a "I have no clue wtf i am doin'" state even after several hours of play, which does suggest the game is under-explained both in the manual and in tutorials.

That said, I think I am going to put my twenty quid into it and give it a try myself. Playing as a reviewer on a review copy with no one to ask about how to play is a different proposition from playing after release and being able to watch tutorials and read forums and so on. And ultimately that's about the way the EU4 (Kaisers favourite game?), works in practice anyway. No one starting out with EU4 has any idea what the fuck they are doing and they certainly don't learn from experience in-game.
 

agris

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TLDR; reviewer came to pop-moles and got popped. HighFleet is pure
incline.png
despite the technical problems

Kaiser is a long-time specialist strategy game reviewer and this is probably not a case of him coming to pop-moles but getting his own moles popped instead.

For a strategy game to be good you do need to have a) systems that affect your success at the game and b) to have some kind of idea of what you choices in those systems are doing - what tradeoffs you're making.

I've read the manual, looked at a couple of different streamers (the submarine guy already posted and CohhCarnage) and can see where he is coming from on that. The streamers do seem to still be in a "I have no clue wtf i am doin'" state even after several hours of play, which does suggest the game is under-explained both in the manual and in tutorials.

That said, I think I am going to put my twenty quid into it and give it a try myself. Playing as a reviewer on a review copy with no one to ask about how to play is a different proposition from playing after release and being able to watch tutorials and read forums and so on. And ultimately that's about the way the EU4 (Kaisers favourite game?), works in practice anyway. No one starting out with EU4 has any idea what the fuck they are doing and they certainly don't learn from experience in-game.
Good for you for trying it, and you are right that there are some mechanics that are either not fully explained, or not explained at all. Aircraft carriers, armaments, tactical vs strategic missiles, ammo points - all those come to mind.

Feel free to ask questions here, I'm in full-on shill mode for this game as I think it's a very unique gem in the rough.

One point to your defense of Kaiser - whether he is or is not a filthy casual, his review does make it sound like he (1) did not RTFM and (2) did not get past the 1 - 3 hour prologue.

The game absolutely does what you laid out in a & b above. Several pieces of advice
  • Unused cash from the prologue is added as a bonus to the start of your campaign
  • The game doesn't not save when you quit, or offer a manual save, unfortunately. But it *does* save whenever you exit combat, and the first time you land in a new city. Take advantage of this knowledge so you won't get frustrated (save on quit will probably be patched in once dev stops being obstinate)
  • In the prologue there is no downside to retrying a fight, unlike in the campaign where you lose 1 moral per retry (and at a moral of 1 your ship will no longer fight). Take advantage of this, as you will not be any good at dog fighting at the start.
  • By the time you get to the actual campaign where there is a penalty to retrying combat, pop into the ship editor and practice combat with the ships you will use at the start of the campaign. I recommend a lightning with 130 mm cannons (easily scavengered) and a gladiator with 130 mms as well.
  • To the point above, do *not* engage in combat with your flagship. It's a tanker to get you around. Use fast moving strike groups and take cities before they can alert enemy strike groups. When fully zoomed into the strategy map, the green bar shrinking over an enemy city is the timer until they alert an enemy SG. You need to engage before it vanishes, which is why I say use a fast strike group of your own (lightnings excel here). A red flag is the location that the enemy reported to a SG, so you want to stay clear of that space for several days - but, SGs move slowly, so you have some time (except for when they shoot cruise missiles at you :D)
 
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TLDR; reviewer came to pop-moles and got popped. HighFleet is pure
incline.png
despite the technical problems

Kaiser is a long-time specialist strategy game reviewer and this is probably not a case of him coming to pop-moles but getting his own moles popped instead.

For a strategy game to be good you do need to have a) systems that affect your success at the game and b) to have some kind of idea of what you choices in those systems are doing - what tradeoffs you're making.

I've read the manual, looked at a couple of different streamers (the submarine guy already posted and CohhCarnage) and can see where he is coming from on that. The streamers do seem to still be in a "I have no clue wtf i am doin'" state even after several hours of play, which does suggest the game is under-explained both in the manual and in tutorials.

That said, I think I am going to put my twenty quid into it and give it a try myself. Playing as a reviewer on a review copy with no one to ask about how to play is a different proposition from playing after release and being able to watch tutorials and read forums and so on. And ultimately that's about the way the EU4 (Kaisers favourite game?), works in practice anyway. No one starting out with EU4 has any idea what the fuck they are doing and they certainly don't learn from experience in-game.

Cool but Highfleet is nothing like most strategy games and especially nothing like EU4 so I have no idea how his credentials are relevant to his critique. Highfleet is 50% a game emphasizing reflexes, and the other 50% - the game's strategic component - is more akin to systems found in simulators like silent hunters as opposed to traditional real-time or turn based strategy games, grand or otherwise.

That is not to say that the game's systems aren't opaque or designed to be learned mostly through learning from one's mistakes. I just don't think someone having a 1000+ hours in EU4 would make them a good authority on Highfleet any more than me having 100+ hours in Hotline Miami would make me an authority on Baldur's Gate, regardless of how superficially similar these games may be.
 

FreshCorpse

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Played to the first floppy disk city (couple of hours) and had a blast. That tip that you can repeat battles in the prologue is golden as it means I'm starting to get the hang of the battles which were the part that gave me the most worries when watching streams.
 
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At this point I favor 100mm guns over 130mm Molotovs on my corvettes. Faster projectiles + higher ROF = better at shredding unarmored ships. Developed the Tarantella, an abomination hacked out of the Navarin with 6 NK-25 engines and 4 100mm guns, giving me the maneuverability of a corvette with the firepower of a frigate. Have no idea how it performs logistically in the campaign, have been having too much fun just killing shit with it in the Editor.

I maintain a custom Gladiator with 130mm guns as my starting frigate of choice.

Did a bunch of horrific shit to the Sevastopol, including adding a flight deck. However, the most practical change and one I recommend for everyone would be replacing the secondary 50mm guns with 37mm rotary cannons - it makes the Sevastopol FAR more reliable at stopping enemy long range missiles, making it an excellent defensive upgrade for the entire fleet while cutting down the cost of the ship.

You have to do 1337 hax in order to enable custom ships for use as flagships - google it, just a simple file edit with a notepad.
 

agris

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I like putting the triangular 4 piece hull segments on the side of large ships without weapons and turning them into missile carriers. Vostok X2 and WASP aircraft carrier have both gotten this treatment.

In my current run I have a shortage of corvettes and am rich in radar bedazzled frigates - the opposite of how I want to play.
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
So, I managed to finish the campaign.

I have some mixed feelings about the game. On one hand the audio-visual presentation is top notch, and when the mix of different mechanics work, it's great.
But on the other hand, the developer tried to cram so many things into one game, that it quite often shows lack of time or will for proper QA of the existing parts.
I've had a couple of crashes, freezes and bugs. High Fleet also misses some QoL features in almost every department.

The story and atmosphere are also nice, but the situation gets a little ridiculous at the end and it's clearly unfinished (there's a slide for quoda pillar in the game files).

Overall I had way more fun, than frustration, so I'd rate it 7/10 at this moment.
 
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FreshCorpse

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Ok, first run ended in defeat at the 1st or 2nd floppy disk town depending on how you count. I was doing well but then had two consecutive hard victories after which I was down to to just 2-4 ships in pretty bad repair. I probably should have retried at least one of them but in the rush and surprise of winning I forgot to and stupidly clicked "continue". I got to a fleet HQ, found nukes but was found by 4 missle cruisers who utterly mullered me. I suppose that was the strike group I'd been dodging for a while.

My primary miscalculation was probably not buying enough fuel to allow me to leave a town when when radar defence started bleeping.

I see what reviewers and streamers are saying about under-tutorialisation but frankly the setting and the combat together are so compelling that I'm willing to wade in. Maybe some of you can clear some stuff up for me.

Firstly: missiles. Firing them from one of my craft in combat: fine, that's an ok opening strategy. I don't always remember to fit them but when I do they help a bit. But when should I be firing them over the horizon at others? And at what? At towns? At radar contacts? The manual heavily hints not to fire nukes lightly, for fear of beginning a nuclear exchange but the game opens with the baddies nuking your capital so that doesn't make a lot of plot sense.

Secondly: ship repair/refitting. I haven't really ventured to adjust the loadouts of any of my ships yet save buying some alternative ammo. I take it I probably should Incendiary ammo is presumably best used against ships with larger fuel tanks. I can't say that I've had a great deal of success trying that yet though. When should I think about using AP ammo?

Thirdly: intercepting messages. To begin with I was getting gaps in messages even though I did a perfect decryption - which contradicts the manual. And with respect to intercepting encrypted messages - if you later get the cypher can you then read old encrypted messages? But would there be any point given that messages largely contain enemy movements which would be very out of date?

Fourthly, when I restart, is it worth my while (mechanically) to run through the prologue again?

Finally: IR detection? The tutorialisation was telling me that I had contacts but I couldn't see shit on it.

I probably need to go back and re-read the manual now on the basis of my new experience.
 

Beowulf

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Firstly: missiles. Firing them from one of my craft in combat: fine, that's an ok opening strategy. I don't always remember to fit them but when I do they help a bit. But when should I be firing them over the horizon at others? And at what? At towns? At radar contacts? The manual heavily hints not to fire nukes lightly, for fear of beginning a nuclear exchange but the game opens with the baddies nuking your capital so that doesn't make a lot of plot sense.

A-100 are really fast, but have short range - best to intercept enemy ballistic missiles. K-15 have many variants - the K-15P is an anti-radar missile, it will home in on any radar emission.
Basically you want to shoot those missiles at cities where the enemy fleet is stationary. If you have enemy radar signature on your ELINT display, you can send those anti-rad missiles in that direction. You can scout any city with a lone plane, that you retreat immediately after entering the combat screen. Be aware that a missile attack will put the enemy group in alert mode.

If you use nukes, the enemy will start using his own nukes from that point onward. If you capture enemy fleet HQ's you will get more nukes, so it's up to you to judge if it is worth starting the nuclear war.

When talking about missiles there is also one more question that you should be asking yourself - how to counter them?
Best send a plane with AA missile - it gets in air even after enemy missiles got into visual range.
You can also lure them away with a fast corvette with good t/w ratio - it should be able to dodge non-nukes, and if you have decent CIWS installed you can even try taking the missile out

Secondly: ship repair/refitting. I haven't really ventured to adjust the loadouts of any of my ships yet save buying some alternative ammo. I take it I probably should Incendiary ammo is presumably best used against ships with larger fuel tanks. I can't say that I've had a great deal of success trying that yet though. When should I think about using AP ammo?

Special ammo is best sold for fuel money. Perhaps AP might be worth conserving if you will be facing some heavy cruisers. Proximity rounds are also good for your fast attack crafts to deal damage in initial surprise attacks, when you load into the battlefield so far away, that you can't see enemy ships.



Thirdly: intercepting messages. To begin with I was getting gaps in messages even though I did a perfect decryption - which contradicts the manual. And with respect to intercepting encrypted messages - if you later get the cypher can you then read old encrypted messages? But would there be any point given that messages largely contain enemy movements which would be very out of date?

Yeah, I don't think you can intercept a message without any gaps. But usually it's just one word missing, so no big deal. Don't remember that bit too much, but I think that messages are displayed with the current cypher set - so uncoded messages might become unreadable, as well as old messages with different cypher used (that might have been patched, though). So you could write down your cyphers, but I've never felt the need to do that. The enemy changes his cyphers, but not that often.

Fourthly, when I restart, is it worth my while (mechanically) to run through the prologue again?

After completing the prologue you get some bonus that goes towards your new campaign. But you should be able to get bigger bonus just from playing the campaign and restarting (clicking restart will apply the bonus) - but bonuses have been nerfed in one of the patches as well.

Finally: IR detection? The tutorialisation was telling me that I had contacts but I couldn't see shit on it.

If the enemy is far away it's just a very small blip on the IR display. Once they get closer you'll be able to see it easily.
But really the IR is only useful if you separate a group without a radar, or turn your radar off.
 

Zariusz

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Interesting game, i love atmosphere and ui (though i don't know what half of buttons do, at least for now), combat is ok for what i tried but to be honest i wish it was more like Starsector (so isometric and you can deploy more than 1 ship at the same time).
 

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