Bay 12 Games Forum

Any d/l links for potential alpha testers? I'm kind of a fan of little strategy games, and usually don't care about graphics if the gameplay's solid.

The most recent Batman game was supposedly a horrible PC port that would floor most graphics cards. It may have been fixed by now, but it should still give your box a bit of a workout.

I don't know if the regular driving sections could be considered self-abuse, but otherwise it seemed like it was "ok" as a game, if you haven't already burnt out on the series yet. Turn it all way up and see how quickly it tries to fry things.

Glad to hear that they've done up combat movement compared to DS1/2. I was starting to wonder if it was going to go down the Dynasty Warriors path.

But before those stopping points, it all gets a bit worrying. That the churches preach to the peasants "This is your lot in life, be content with it.", while ressing the rich and powerful.

That most of the higher-ups stay dead does show that maybe there's something to it. When you can literally talk to dead people, or travel to that plane and ask in person, heaven probably makes a lot more sense. It really is pretty damn good, and it tends to be the BBEGs that get into necromancy and being raised, because they really don't want to stay where they went. And it has to be a pretty extreme reason for a good guy to want to intercede if it's new business that hasn't got much to do with them.

Good guys:

"Hey Tim, sorry to interrupt your existence of eternal contentment, but we've got dragon problems again. In a dungeon. Should be pretty easy. There's riches, fame and bitches in it for you as well."

"What? Fuck! Again? Ok then, but this is the last time! In fact, nah, fuck ya. You sort it. I'm not leaving this awesome place to travel to your tiny, little, shithole world and sort your problems in some dank dungeon. Not my problem, bro. I've done my bit, that's why I'm here. You deal with it."


Evil guys:

"Hey Tim, we've got an immensely dangerous thing for you to do that will have you reviled by gods and mortals alike. It's nasty. Something to do with a dragon in a dungeon. You can keep the dungeon afterwards, but it's a bit leaky and there's some back-rent to be paid. A lot of back-rent, actually."

"Yes! Please. Anything! I'll even pay you. Anything you ask! Just get me the fuck out of here. The pain........."

Well, got to Arena 5, and am merrily bouncing back and forth between that and Arena 4. Which goes to show, you don't have to be THAT good to get there. Or even play sober sometimes. I'm hoping skill comes into it a lot more at this point.

But I can happily conclude that being drunk does make you worse, so it's not entirely a Pokemon-like, with time being the limiter rather than XP/Level. So it is somewhat skill based. But time does sub in for skill sometimes, because that's how you get higher level cards. But you can still lose quite easily with higher level stuff (especially when drunk).

I'm wondering if the whole DX/Mantle/Vulcan releases will kick the specs down a tad? Fair enough, it's necessary to double render everything, but I wouldn't be surprised if some things get worked out in the render pipeline to make that a bit easier. They are two different "cameras/viewports", but they're pretty damn close together for standard binocular vision.

There's lots of things that only have to be loaded once and used used twice (to use a fairly incorrect analogy). But GPUs are multicore parallel by default, so there are ways.....

Ps3 got pretty sexy by the end of the console's run, x86 hardware is going to end up the same. In some respects, standardized console hardware should make it easier to push the techniques, with easy flow-over to PC (and all it's horribly dissimilar configurations). GTA5 was worlds ahead on render distances compared to early PS3 releases, just due to a few well known coding tricks that weren't used as well up until that time. So I'm assuming similar twinned-pipeline, direct-to-hardware coding tricks will come into being pretty soon for VR. It's usually better/faster than dealing with another layer of middle-ware between your good coding and fast screen output. Screen 1 and Screen 2 is a thing in VR.

It's still a graphics card bottleneck, but CPU specs may not need to be as vigorous once Vulcan, etc come through properly, as well as CPU->GPU pipelines getting properly sorted for twin displays, freeing up some processing resources for most users.

Is split-screen local multiplayer that hard to do? Not really, but it does use more GPU power. VR is like that, but you've got a really good chance that all models, brushes, textures, shaders and lights all get used twice in every frame. Those two "viewports" tend to be pretty close together asset-wise on rendering the final scene, even if you're a giant mecha. But all at full render resolution, through different "monitor ports", one for each eye. In a way, it's no different from split-screen, or anything that renders multiple viewports/cameras. There's already very good ways of doing so, but utilizing multi-core parallelism has never been one of indy dev's strong points. And that's what half of VR seems to be right now. Tech demos and indy 1-shots. When the big boys go "Oh, we've already got rendering pipelines that do that, we call it "split-screen and multi-monitor support"", a lot of problems go away.

They'll still want you to buy a 970+. It makes framerate problems go away too.

Cattleprods are great for early captures. You get them by researching Contacts:Smugglers, then buying them from the black market. They're cheap and hit for plenty of stun damage, but they're slow as hell. Handles and fisticuffs are your other option for stuns, but prods work for weak, inaccurate gals, and do enough damage that a bit of armour isn't a huge problem.

+1 to flamethrowers. They're everything they say they're not. They look expensive, but they're cheap to run. They're accurate, as even a 6% chance to-hit still hits a lot. They pack stacks of damage with 8 shots hitting under armour with incendiary, even at only 20 damage. They're about exactly the same range as anything automatic in the early game, because not much hits beyond 9 tiles anyway. They're good. And very satisfying.

Spiked maces are good if you don't mind a bit of lethal mixed with a slight chance of a capture. You get them by researching Primitive Weapons. There's better mêlée weapons, but maces aren't bad, and they're cheap to make (4 scrap metal and a bit of time). Think of it as "bonus captures", rather than any actual chance to plan for them.

+1mil to smoke grenades. They're amazing as always.

Try out Gym Suits and Bikinis. Some people swear by having stacks of armour and beer. I personally swear by having heaps of TUs and Stamina to run wherever I want. Especially early on, when the armour you can get isn't that much better than your skin. Honestly, you probably won't miss the inventory space once you get used to it, but you'll love always having a heap of energy for running and mêlée captures. They essentially make you money, because you'll go for captures more often, instead of just shooting people. Good armour is good, but bikinis really do save you messing around as much on the inventory screen. Get them by researching Our Abilities, Gym Suits, Mutant Porn and Bikinis. Until you've got better armour, you may as well have an assault team of 4 quick gals (at least). Try it out and see if it fits your playstyle.

The Linux SMG is surprisingly good. It's about as accurate as any other SMG/automatic (ie: not very), but at least it hits pretty hard with its 38 damage. Not quite a boarding gun, but not as heavy/slow either. Definitely an upgrade to most of the vendor trash you can buy at the start. You get it by researching Guns and Ammunition Manufacturing, and Linux SMG.

+1 to Assault Cannons with Expl.Cannonballs. +3 actually. They don't seem great until you have 3-4 of them. Then they seem awesome. Not too hard to make, cheap ammunition, and fairly accurate at "reasonable range". I don't actually use them for sniping, I run them up with my gals and create a small firebase under smoke cover. Makes them more accurate because they're closer, and gives you the option to run inside on bigger ufos pretty quickly. They're not perfect, but they are very multifunctional. Cheap is good, but you can go grenade launchers or mortars if you want. I like the bit of extra range over GLs, but with way more mobility than Mortars, that the Assault Cannons bring. They're what make mutant pogroms (Terror Missions) seem possible, and even just moderately difficult, though long as hell to slog through. Even a fairly weak gal in runt duds can bring one and a fair bit of ammo.


Selling off between 10-30 of your scrap pile isn't bad at the start, for a hefty cash boost. You don't need it early, you won't have time to manufacture it down anyway (or much to use the scrap/chems/wire on), but $50-150k is very useful to get going. Keep a fair bit, but don't be too concerned if you sell quite a lot of it. By the time you really need it, you can just buy the bits and pieces if you need them for making stuff (excepting gun almanacs, etc).

I may have already done so, and requested a character in it. Didn't realize there was an update.

For them's that never check the "Play With Your Buddies" subforum, Boltgun's Let's Play:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151935.0

(it's damn good)