Post by sfsdfd on Jun 15, 2011 1:29:02 GMT 10
Having spent about eight hours with v0.2, I have some observations:
1) Banks are even more useless than I imagined at first. For example:
* There is no point in using banks in the early- to mid-stages of the game. Any credits that you earn are much more wisely spent improving your current ship than saving (at 0% interest) toward a future ship. This logic even applies in a defensive sense: If you want to safeguard against risk, is it better to save money for a head start on a future ship... or buy some more bubble shields?
* There is no point in using banks in the late stages of the game. In order to harvest a crapload of money without unnecessary effort (and past the point where money can buy you a better ship), your current ship will be extremely powerful... and expensive. My current ship, made of Joliet-level parts, would require something like 1,000,000 credits to rebuild. Sure, I COULD spend hours using this awesome ship to fly around and collect scrap to save in the bank in order to achieve the option to rebuild a functionally equivalent ship in the future... but is that really worth my time? By the time I reach this point... frankly, I have beaten Captain Jameson and don't see much point in playing it any more.
* Now, here's the kicker. Let's suppose I go to the effort of stockpiling sufficient cash in banks to build myself a new ship. What does the rebuilding process look like? I need to take my basic ship... fly around to many other banks, stretching across the galaxy, to retrieve my credits... and then fly around some more to the factories where I can find the parts that I want. This process will probably take a long time... an in fact, in order to reach those distant banks and factories safely, you may need to upgrade your ship (e.g., through combat). In other words, the process of buffing your ship (using credits and factories) requires buffing your ship (through other means). There's a bit of a catch-22 here.
Solutions:
a) Raise the credit limit.
b) Network the banks into a unified system, so that credits deposited at bank A are available at bank B.
c) Dump the banks entirely and implement Garage station types instead. Let me use the scrap that I collect to make new ships that I can swap between. This is EXTREMELY helpful for those high-level parts that I can't currently use (e.g., a second chrono module), and yet don't really want to sell for a modest amount of credit. ESPECIALLY when said parts are damaged: a halfway-beat-up chrono module sells for a trivial amount of credit, but would be very helpful glued to a jalopy that I can pull out and fly around at a future time...
===
2) Quirks in the module valuation and level system:
It is about 50% cheaper to buy a low-level module and upgrade it to Joliet than to buy the same Joliet-level module outright. That seems a bit odd to me. Similarly, for many types of modules, there is simply no point in upgrading. For example, the best level of chrono module available is actually the alpha level. Higher levels don't provide any functional benefit (besides structural integrity... but if you're relying on your chrono module to absorb damage, you're doing it wrong
) ... and yet add much more weight and price.
Solutions:
a) Upgrade prices need to be scaled based on the number of levels of upgrade needed (e.g., upgrading a Foxtrot-level module to Joliet should be much more expensive than upgrading an Indigo-level module).
b) Maximum upgrading: Only allow parts to be upgraded through a few levels - e.g., four. In order to implement this feature, you'll have to store the original level of the module (so that the player doesn't simply upgrade a module from A to E at one upgrade facility, and then upgrade the same module from E to I at another facility), but that should be easy.
c) For modules lacking a meaningful improvement in exchange for an upgrade (e.g., chrono modules, oxygen modules, and girders), either the upgrade value needs to be ridiculously small, or these modules should not be upgradable at all.
===
3) Zoom level:
The zoom level of the game really needs a flexible upper limit - i.e., on the maximum range that is visible at the lowest zoom level. At present, the Captain Jameson UI has a maximum zoom-out level throughout the game.
Problems:
* When the player is maneuvering a huge ship around huge stations, doing battle with other huge ships, the low zoom level causes problems with seeing all of the station and the other ship. This isn't a good gameplay mechanic.
* Games like Katamari Damacy and The Wonderful End of the World use a flexible perspective to great effect: as your character grows, the perspective on the world around you changes to accommodate your size. The hard upper zoom limit of Captain Jameson imposes the opposite effect: the more your ship grows, the more *cramped* you feel within your environment. It's pretty bizarre to feel cramped in the vastness of open space...
* I- and J-class ships often have lots of powerful long-range weapons... like snipe lasers. Because of the hard zoom level, it's possible to be demolished by a volley of laser shots fired from the edge of the screen - or even beyond (e.g., if you're moving quickly and happen to fly *into* a volley of laser shots). That's unfair and just downright irritating.
Solution:
Based on the size and/or average module level of the player's ship, factor a little bit of flexibility into the upper zoom limit. (Taking module level into account is helpful because a player may create a comparatively small J-class ship for battling the guardians of J-class stations.)
===
Smaller comments and observations:
* Owning a single, high-level repair tool module makes the entire Repair class of stations utterly useless. They're just too convenient: with one J-class tool, I can repair any module immediately and for free. (And it won't even require much rebuilding, since damaged modules tend to be on the outside of your ship...
) Perhaps repair tools need to be Nerfed? Maybe a slow repair process, or a limited number of uses per module?
* Regarding oxygen modules, I've noticed the same oddity as others: I encountered them very rarely during the early game, and NEVER in the later game. For example, I've never seen an oxygen module attached to a Delta- or later-class ship. It's like the ship generation algorithm has a hole in it that makes adding oxygen modules to higher-level ships impossible, or at least extremely improbable.
1) Banks are even more useless than I imagined at first. For example:
* There is no point in using banks in the early- to mid-stages of the game. Any credits that you earn are much more wisely spent improving your current ship than saving (at 0% interest) toward a future ship. This logic even applies in a defensive sense: If you want to safeguard against risk, is it better to save money for a head start on a future ship... or buy some more bubble shields?
* There is no point in using banks in the late stages of the game. In order to harvest a crapload of money without unnecessary effort (and past the point where money can buy you a better ship), your current ship will be extremely powerful... and expensive. My current ship, made of Joliet-level parts, would require something like 1,000,000 credits to rebuild. Sure, I COULD spend hours using this awesome ship to fly around and collect scrap to save in the bank in order to achieve the option to rebuild a functionally equivalent ship in the future... but is that really worth my time? By the time I reach this point... frankly, I have beaten Captain Jameson and don't see much point in playing it any more.
* Now, here's the kicker. Let's suppose I go to the effort of stockpiling sufficient cash in banks to build myself a new ship. What does the rebuilding process look like? I need to take my basic ship... fly around to many other banks, stretching across the galaxy, to retrieve my credits... and then fly around some more to the factories where I can find the parts that I want. This process will probably take a long time... an in fact, in order to reach those distant banks and factories safely, you may need to upgrade your ship (e.g., through combat). In other words, the process of buffing your ship (using credits and factories) requires buffing your ship (through other means). There's a bit of a catch-22 here.
Solutions:
a) Raise the credit limit.
b) Network the banks into a unified system, so that credits deposited at bank A are available at bank B.
c) Dump the banks entirely and implement Garage station types instead. Let me use the scrap that I collect to make new ships that I can swap between. This is EXTREMELY helpful for those high-level parts that I can't currently use (e.g., a second chrono module), and yet don't really want to sell for a modest amount of credit. ESPECIALLY when said parts are damaged: a halfway-beat-up chrono module sells for a trivial amount of credit, but would be very helpful glued to a jalopy that I can pull out and fly around at a future time...
===
2) Quirks in the module valuation and level system:
It is about 50% cheaper to buy a low-level module and upgrade it to Joliet than to buy the same Joliet-level module outright. That seems a bit odd to me. Similarly, for many types of modules, there is simply no point in upgrading. For example, the best level of chrono module available is actually the alpha level. Higher levels don't provide any functional benefit (besides structural integrity... but if you're relying on your chrono module to absorb damage, you're doing it wrong
) ... and yet add much more weight and price.Solutions:
a) Upgrade prices need to be scaled based on the number of levels of upgrade needed (e.g., upgrading a Foxtrot-level module to Joliet should be much more expensive than upgrading an Indigo-level module).
b) Maximum upgrading: Only allow parts to be upgraded through a few levels - e.g., four. In order to implement this feature, you'll have to store the original level of the module (so that the player doesn't simply upgrade a module from A to E at one upgrade facility, and then upgrade the same module from E to I at another facility), but that should be easy.
c) For modules lacking a meaningful improvement in exchange for an upgrade (e.g., chrono modules, oxygen modules, and girders), either the upgrade value needs to be ridiculously small, or these modules should not be upgradable at all.
===
3) Zoom level:
The zoom level of the game really needs a flexible upper limit - i.e., on the maximum range that is visible at the lowest zoom level. At present, the Captain Jameson UI has a maximum zoom-out level throughout the game.
Problems:
* When the player is maneuvering a huge ship around huge stations, doing battle with other huge ships, the low zoom level causes problems with seeing all of the station and the other ship. This isn't a good gameplay mechanic.
* Games like Katamari Damacy and The Wonderful End of the World use a flexible perspective to great effect: as your character grows, the perspective on the world around you changes to accommodate your size. The hard upper zoom limit of Captain Jameson imposes the opposite effect: the more your ship grows, the more *cramped* you feel within your environment. It's pretty bizarre to feel cramped in the vastness of open space...
* I- and J-class ships often have lots of powerful long-range weapons... like snipe lasers. Because of the hard zoom level, it's possible to be demolished by a volley of laser shots fired from the edge of the screen - or even beyond (e.g., if you're moving quickly and happen to fly *into* a volley of laser shots). That's unfair and just downright irritating.
Solution:
Based on the size and/or average module level of the player's ship, factor a little bit of flexibility into the upper zoom limit. (Taking module level into account is helpful because a player may create a comparatively small J-class ship for battling the guardians of J-class stations.)
===
Smaller comments and observations:
* Owning a single, high-level repair tool module makes the entire Repair class of stations utterly useless. They're just too convenient: with one J-class tool, I can repair any module immediately and for free. (And it won't even require much rebuilding, since damaged modules tend to be on the outside of your ship...
) Perhaps repair tools need to be Nerfed? Maybe a slow repair process, or a limited number of uses per module?* Regarding oxygen modules, I've noticed the same oddity as others: I encountered them very rarely during the early game, and NEVER in the later game. For example, I've never seen an oxygen module attached to a Delta- or later-class ship. It's like the ship generation algorithm has a hole in it that makes adding oxygen modules to higher-level ships impossible, or at least extremely improbable.
