Game News Colony Ship Update #33: State of the Game - Combat Demo Screenshots

[orcinator]

Seeing those filled and half-filled shields disturbs me because it reminds me of nuXCOM and Wasteland 2 combat. Hopefully combat is not as snore inducing as those.

Does cover automatically make combat boring for you?

Looking like one of the dozens of games that tried to copy nuCom, pretty much all of which were shit doesn't inspire confidence.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I assume when you say games that tried to copy nuXCOM and failed, you're talking about the lack of proper stats and skills, two-action combat, single attack type, etc, not the fucking shields icons?

 

[orcinator]

I assume when you say games that tried to copy nuXCOM and failed, you're talking about the lack of proper stats and skills, two-action combat, single attack type, etc, not the fucking shields icons?

I was talking about that AND the fucking shield icons because those usually indicate the game will have limited LOS and no projectile physics. While not always the main reason for a Nucom inspired game's failure, (Massive Chalice was a very blatant and very bad clone and I don't remember if it even had em), for the past six years those little shields have been the first sign that a game will fail to fix nucom's flaws and ignore the things it did right.

 

[Zeriel]

Why the fuck would a RPG be trying to fix XCOM's flaws?

 

[Mustawd]

Why the fuck would a RPG be trying to fix XCOM's flaws?

I have no idea why orcinator is so concerned about shield icons tbh.

 

[Zeriel]

I think he just saw shield icons and went, "Oh, this must be an XCOM clone! And XCOM clones that use shields are bad!"

It's like if Fallout had shield icons it would be a bad game, no matter that Fallout was not trying to be a squad-based military strategy game, and neither is this.

 

[Shadenuat]

I'm ok with Nu-XCOM 2, but thing that made Nu-XCOM 2 ok were the timers for missions which made you take risky actions (as opposed to Nu-XCOM 1 where you just camped safely with plasma sniper rifles in some good position) and be constantly on the move around 3d levels where you could climb stuff, destroy walls and do other steel rehhn maneuvers to quickly solve mission objectives. I doubt we can expect that level of complexity as for now it looks about as flat as W2 and it's not mission based, so best can happen is complexity through rule system.

This type of combat is often prone to party camping at good place and shooting retarded AI, which happened a lot even in good old JA2 where you would turn a single building corner into deathtrap and lay 20 enemies in a neat line of dead bodies with bait tactics.

 

[orcinator]

Why the fuck would a RPG be trying to fix XCOM's flaws?

Why the fuck would a game be trying to have tolerable gameplay?

 

[Junmarko]

Looking like one of the dozens of games that tried to copy nuCom, pretty much all of which were shit doesn't inspire confidence.

Why the fuck would a RPG be trying to fix XCOM's flaws?

Why the fuck would a game be trying to have tolerable gameplay?

I don't think the comparison to Firaxis' XCOM is exactly an apt one. Unit complexity can only be so deep when they're made to be disposable.

The "shield" cover mechanic just adds more environmental utility to games heavily focused on ranged/gunplay. Shadowrun trilogy did a good job of implementing it, along side other class skills/equipment that could be used - many alternate solutions outside combat as well.

 

[Fenix]

Fuck Firaxix "XCOM", long life to Colony Ship!

 

[Kem0sabe]

We won't know if the combat is shallow or inclined until we get the combat demo, everything else is speculation.

AoD is not a valid starting point to judge how this will turn out because it's heavily focused on melee, while the sci-fi setting in this will shift the focus to ranged.

 

[Fenix]

AoD is not a valid starting point to judge

It is, look at Atom - their combat is, as I understand is mediocre, despite 10 years in development.

 

[Fryjar]

The game looks great, really looking forward to it.

Any ETA on an ingame video?

 

[Vault Dweller]

The game looks great, really looking forward to it.

Any ETA on an ingame video?

Right now we're working on the combat demo so we aren't doing any quests or gameworld-related work (meaning not much to show), other than the starting town. Here are some gifs and screens in case you missed them:

Spoiler

We're planning to start a closed beta in 2 months, open beta in 3 months. When we're done with combat system, we'll start working on quests and only then we can show gameplay videos. 6-7 months from now I'd say.

 

[Infinitron]

We're planning to start a closed beta in 2 months, open beta in 3 months. When we're done with combat system, we'll start working on quests and only then we can show gameplay videos. 6-7 months from now I'd say.

Wait, what? Videos from the combat demo count as gameplay videos too!

 

[Vault Dweller]

We're planning to start a closed beta in 2 months, open beta in 3 months. When we're done with combat system, we'll start working on quests and only then we can show gameplay videos. 6-7 months from now I'd say.

Wait, what? Videos from the combat demo count as gameplay videos too!

I assumed he asked for a proper video that shows different gameplay aspects, kinda like the Outer Worlds trailer. As for combat videos, the combat system needs to be much closer to being finished and at least somewhat polished before we take any videos. My guess is that we won't show any videos until we're ready to start the open beta and at that point it's kinda pointless anyway as many people will be recording their own videos.

 

[Vityaz]

Really loved Age of Decadence and Dungeons Rats, so cannot wait for this.

Are you guys gonna allow modding like in AoD?

 

[Vault Dweller]

As much as we can.

 

[Diggfinger]

btw camera will be rotatable just like in aod right?

Fixed camera. First, it's easier (and faster) to make better looking levels when you have a fixed viewpoint instead of going 360 degree. Same goes for setting up lighting and particle effects, doing paintovers, etc. Second, rotatable camera has always been a pain, it didn't work well in NWN, KOTOR, WL2, AoD, DOS, etc. It adds very little but causes a lot of frustration. You'll be able to see through objects that block your character and see other characters' silhouettes.

Fixed camera with 3D graphics sounds awesome. Please go ahead.

 

[Fenix]

I don't like free camera because I noticed that I wrestling with it like ~50% of the time.
So yeah, fixed camera is Super Classic like Agatha Christie's detectives.

 

[Kem0sabe]

As long as performance is good and load times are super fast, I couldn't care less about the camera. Fuck obsidian and their pretty games with absurdly long load times.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

I like the dark atmosphere, hits the spot oh so perfectly.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Vault Dweller, is there any chance of implementing consumables to temporarily increase stat and skill points like in FO?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller, is there any chance of implementing consumables to temporarily increase stat and skill points like in FO?

Not planned.

 

[MrMarbles]

btw camera will be rotatable just like in aod right?

Fixed camera. First, it's easier (and faster) to make better looking levels when you have a fixed viewpoint instead of going 360 degree. Same goes for setting up lighting and particle effects, doing paintovers, etc. Second, rotatable camera has always been a pain, it didn't work well in NWN, KOTOR, WL2, AoD, DOS, etc. It adds very little but causes a lot of frustration. You'll be able to see through objects that block your character and see other characters' silhouettes.