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Author Topic: Empyrion: Galactic Survival  (Read 29217 times)

Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #30 on: August 18, 2015, 02:04:46 am »

Yeah, it was a pretty cool trip. I basically used a crashed escape pod to fly to the most badass planet in the system and capture the big alien base full of turrets using only a repair gun.

Short but fun game. I think I'll try again, this time sticking to the starter planet at least until my flying coffin has steering.
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Trapezohedron

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #31 on: August 18, 2015, 03:51:08 am »

This looks uglier than spengeers, but if it plays better (performance wise) I'm all for it.
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Gabeux

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #32 on: August 18, 2015, 07:24:57 pm »

-Dwarven flight snip-

That's awesome! That's exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to read and see people do (or do it myself) in a game like this.  :P

I finally wrote a big review on Steam about it, but I haven't tested the new patches. They still haven't fixed the stuff that annoy me the most, but I do want to test Small Vessel Turrets (SVs can't have Turrets. Sad, but makes sense..as long as they fix space combat), explore the Ice and Lava Planet, and maybe build a Capital Vessel later on.
I think they made the Removal Tool a bit less annoying, and crafting faster (30-60 seconds to craft stuff is insane IMO, specially with no auto-queueing or automatic task allocation for constructors), but I read some people say mining is worst now..even though I saw nothing on changelogs regarding mining.

I'll either do those things and then wait months for updates, or wait months for updates and do those things.
It somehow corrupted my most recent save in which I was diving inside an alien base while shooting plasma and rails everywhere.  :'( Maybe recent patches will load it, though.

Edit:
I recommend backuping saves often (Quit game, back to load screen, click backup).
If the game says anything wrong happened, go to the Empyrion SteamApps folder, go to your Saves folder and delete the newest backup (that's probably broken), then rename your current save to a shorter name.
This backup thing is pretty silly and once you made a lot of backups (if you are crazy about backuping progress like me), it might just break due to the filename character limit or something.
I finally found a working save, and I'm relieved as I'm just parked beside a very angry enemy base.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2015, 09:17:21 pm by Gabeux »
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Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #33 on: August 18, 2015, 07:58:06 pm »

Latest update broke mining by their changes to the drill. One issue is that the drill doesn't just remove, it also seems to shift material around which is pretty weird. You can dig down and bury yourself by turning and digging sideways, as material gets deposited to the side when mining.

The radius is smaller, which wouldn't by itself be bad, but the ore yield is also way smaller. Speculation is rampant about what exactly is causing it. Seems to be either: 1: They just changed the yield without putting it in patch notes or 2: Some ore is falling through the world due to it mining less at a time or 3: The terrain removed isn't being removed properly (shifting, as mentioned above) and that's why it isn't generating ore.

People are reporting 1/3 to 1/2 the ore they usually get from deposits, and significantly more time invested in mining them out due to the smaller radius.

I haven't bothered mining since the update, I just fly around shooting down drones and collecting the scrap.

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Gabeux

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #34 on: August 18, 2015, 08:23:30 pm »

Oh well, that's not good. It's like they are trying to make it as painful as possible  ::)

Yeah, I haven't mined in a while. I'll just say you'll can 'acquire' a good amount of stuff after you get a small ship and some suicidal tendencies.  :P

PS: Wow. Mining is unbereable now. I'm mining Erestrum, but I don't think that should make any difference. Before the patch I mined 200 Saresthium (or whatever the name of the last ore is) in a decent amount of time.
I better just let this sit for like a year.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2015, 10:13:29 pm by Gabeux »
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Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #35 on: August 20, 2015, 10:01:27 am »

Mining isn't THAT bad. Slower than it was, but I got 800 ingots of the special ores easy enough. It's mostly just bugged I think, when they fix the issue with it shifting terrain around instead of digging it (hopefully soon, lol) it should work better.

The game is definitely in pre-alpha, but it's already a lot of fun. I modified the escape pod properly this time by adding thrusters and weapons, then went exploring. Captured the space bases and took out the drones. Those space stations are pretty cool. The huge one over the lava planet is extremely heavily armed. It was too big for me though, I salvaged it and I'm living in the smaller one in the asteroid belt now. Also captured the lava planet base, and was exploring the ice planet last time I played.

When space ships don't have infinite ammo it will be more difficult to just wipe out everything. I would have died trying to kill all the space drones with gatling guns if I had limited ammo, haha. And I must have used a thousand rockets by now killing turrets and drones and creatures on the ground (lava planet is extremely hostile, mining resources there required hundreds of rockets to kill all the critters around the special ore deposits - the wildlife there is freaky and nearly killed me when I missed a couple of them, thankfully I carry multiple loaded rifles).

I actually didn't kill any of the turrets of the space base I'm in now, I just flew in for a landing and ran in with my repair gun and took out the core. Even the huge heavily armed base I didn't try to kill all the turrets (it must have 100 of them).

Capturing the huge armed base was fun. It has two armed satellites (mocked up to be solar powered using glass that looks like solar arrays) and a massive quantity of guns on the base itself. I took out the satellites and did a fly by and saw the huge array of turrets and decided on a different route for the main base. I did a quick landing in one of the landing bays, took out the anti personnel turrets with assault rifles (I carry two loaded ones), and set off exploring the place. Shot a bunch of anti-personnel turrets and eventually found the core to disable and replace it so I could explore with impunity. Got a huge amount of loot and salvage out of the place. By far the most well defended base I've seen so far.

I didn't think to take any screenshots this time, though. I may fly back by the big armed base and get a good one of it, it's a pretty impressive construction.

So far I haven't even died on this game, despite being ridiculously aggressive. Had my ship crippled taking the big base by a stray hit that busted through the side of the docking bay by the huge array of weapons, but was able to make full repairs when I had captured it (thankfully the guns didn't lock on to the ship, but were trying to shoot me when I got out - so they shot the sides of the base up a bit instead of blowing my ship to bits). I have used a lot of medkits though, and every time I find a medical bay I put it to good use. I keep spare parts for my ship in its cargo bays in case I blow a thruster or lose a gun during a fight. I keep that cargo bay under an armor block that I remove to access it, since losing the cargo bay with the parts in it would kinda defeat the purpose.
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Gabeux

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #36 on: August 20, 2015, 08:24:35 pm »

Well, idk. It's the same thing as removing blocks. What's the main point of the game: crafting, mining, building and exploring...or just mining for 10 minutes to get just enough ore for a section of your base / holding left click for half an hour in order to scrap your old design and start from scratch?
I don't see the point in making huge waiting times for crafting/mining/removing, and I think mining was good as it were before: you could dig big holes and drain the resource spots completely in around 5 minutes or less.
If anything, make a difficulty/custom game screen like in Space Engineers. I probably have 5 hours of actual gameplay (exploring, designing, fighting, building, landing without landing gear for science, letting gravity bring me to the ground and see if things explode, etc) and 25 hours of crafting, queueing stuff, mining, managing inventory, etc.
I'm hoping it won't be like this later on.

And yep, the final "Alien Base" is a pretty big fight. I sniped all the turrets easily with twin plasma cannons, even though they instantly destroyed a few directional thrusters as I derp-dodged the lag-barrage. But going inside took me a good amount of reloads because I kept screwing something up or blowing the Fuel Tanks up.
My "end-game" ship is a 5 Rail Guns 4 Plasma Cannons one.
But I didn't do anything creative with it really. And I didn't build a Capital Ship since I tested one in the creative mode and they are currently useless/a pain to build.


Don't get me wrong, I had good fun and all. I just think there's a whole lot of work to do before the game makes any sense, and I remember reading the devs were planning to release the game late 2015...and well, it's already late 2015, and I don't think they can finish it even by late 2016.
Something about their overly positive predictions makes my intuition say "Danger".

PS: You probably know that already, but if you aim at structures with a sniper/assault/pulse/laser rifle, it will show the structure/ship name on the HUD.
So you can know if you found the Lost Outpost or the Alien Base or the Habitat etc people talk about.

PS2: Rail Guns and Pulse Lasers now fire auto, albeit at a must lower rate of fire than most guns. Not sure if they changed or something, but it seems like they did.
Rails are great for sniping without making holes everywhere, and the Pulse Laser is like a no-ammo, much weaker variant of a Rail Gun.
I believe Rail Guns will be expensive to fire, so I'm not sure if having lots of them will be interesting later on. I think it used to take 5 Rail shots on a turret to kill it, that's why I put 5 there.
I also think the personal Laser Rifle is kinda of bad. IIRC it fires semi-auto and fires a weird projectile. It's like a mix between Tier 2 Sniper and Pulse Rifle.
Not that knowledge of weapons make any difference at this point, but I'm interested to seeing how they'll change it as the game develops. Pretty cool to have some choice of weapons.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2015, 08:36:57 pm by Gabeux »
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.

Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #37 on: August 20, 2015, 11:44:24 pm »

I did things backwards. My first trip into space was straight at the asteroid field, captured all that, then went straight for the other space base and captured that. Then landed on nearest planet (lava world) and explored that.

So I took out the most dangerous base and planet before even exploring the moon or the ice world. Still haven't been to the moon, just got finished exploring ice world. Have stuff now to build a big CV, but not sure if I will even bother. Is there any content for a CV yet? I already killed the big bad alien base that I could have used it for, haha. When we have multiple systems and such I could fly around in one as a mobile base, but with the content in the pre-alpha im not sure if there is much use for one. My modified escape pod blew all the threats the game had for me away without a problem. After looting all these bases I have thousands of ingots and materials and enough food and fuel and o2 to last me for ages.

Guess I could do it as a mega project like the crazy stuff I do in DF.
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Gabeux

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #38 on: August 21, 2015, 01:41:22 am »

Nope, no use for a CV. Test the one on the Omicron Orbit creative mode, and you'll see how nonsensical they are currently. Worst than big ships in Space Engineers atm hahaha, but I guess that's fine given the early state.

I wanted to taste the survivaliness (it's late, lets make up words), and I usually stay low-tech for a looong time in games, and then I suddendly rush it all over. The pattern repeated itself here.
I stayed on the first planet fooling around with all the features and interfaces, built a base, tried to crash or break the game many times, used the crashed pod as target practice and all that.
Then head for the moon, then directly to the space bases, then lava planet, then ice planet.
I'll just say that somewhere along that way I found end-game stuff just lying around. They made it harder to get it now, though, but I bet one can just dive with the escape pod on it first thing then fly away with quad plasma and rails.

Also, didn't you have problems fighting drones? My controls break when they are near me, I can't fly the ship properly. It's bizarre. And I can only hit them with gatlings anyway, unless their AI die and they stand still.
The space combat was rushed for the steam release, though, and that's fine by most people as far as I know. I just never seen that happen in a game before. Some people were actually mad saying they were using stock Unity code and that's why it was so bad.
Even though I'm cautious I can't be mad or anything. Too early.

Also, something funny just happened. Someone commented on my review on Steam thinking that the game was made/published by Electronic Arts, because in my review I said "Steam EA Release".
That actually startled me and I stopped breathing for a few seconds, feeling cold.
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Neonivek

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #39 on: August 21, 2015, 08:51:43 am »

Quote
I believe Rail Guns will be expensive to fire

They shouldn't be... Rail Guns only use weighted metal slugs.

I mean in MechWarrior the Railguns made sense why they were expensive.
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kilakan

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #40 on: August 21, 2015, 09:54:52 am »

posting to say this game was moderately enjoyable for about... well 30 minutes or so.  I hope it gets updated to be enjoyable for longer than that in the future. 

One thing that drove me a bit crazy was having to make each and every wire for a part... should be able to que constructing all the nessicary components to an item first and than that item with one click.  Ah well.


Also for mining if you take the button and fire one charge at a time, you seem to get 500% as much ore... so yeaaaa
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Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #41 on: August 21, 2015, 04:17:50 pm »

I noticed a guy is trying to run a dedicated server of this. Good on him for trying, but this game is definitely not suited for that yet haha. It would be fun as a coop thing between a few players, but it has none of the stuff in place to be a dedicated server game yet. No individual ownership for one thing.

I logged into it just to see what was up. Found a graveyard of escape pods, most completely stripped of their parts. A communal base seemed to be running ok, although I saw one guy ripping bits of it apart while another guy added to it. Used their facilities to make myself a few tools and ran off to loot a completely intact tower and the crashed ship. Apparently other people's bases and ships and escape pods make easier targets for most people, haha.

Made a ground vehicle and went off to explore. Found a guy being killed by a drone, so I hopped out and shot it down for him (gatling guns wouldn't aim high enough). He thanked me by hopping in my ground vehicle and attempting to kill me with the gatling guns on it. I shot the fuel tank out with my rifle, then shot him. But then I was stranded since I had no backup parts. So I logged out. Someone will probably enjoy salvaging or using the intact ground vehicle, missing only a fuel tank.
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Gabeux

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #42 on: August 21, 2015, 05:42:26 pm »

Quote
I believe Rail Guns will be expensive to fire

They shouldn't be... Rail Guns only use weighted metal slugs.

I mean in MechWarrior the Railguns made sense why they were expensive.

I agree completely. But in this game, some stuff is expensive for no special reason (actually, progression/"balancing" reasons).
Like the laser rifle that needs 'end-game' minerals that must be mined, and those minerals can be rather well guarded. And the laser rifle is crap.
5 Rails can eat through anything fast enough from a good range, especially with the fastest projectile on the game. Since projectiles converge to the crosshair, AoE guns like Rocket/Plasma aren't THAT useful.

I mean, I know I'm lazy and boring with regards to digging and flying everywhere just to make some ammo clips and all that, but come on.  :P
But all in all, it's a very decent balance for Pre-Alpha. And I'm sure everything is subject to change, though.

...
The bug-fest must be amazing. Only thing I can think about that would be cool currently, is people making teams to build CVs as fast as possible.
Since Turret AI seems to suck in space, people can sit on turrets and fire on each other, while the pilot tries to collide.
Or even do that in creative and spawn blueprints and pit designs against each other, and see how long it takes to kill each other in space with the terrible flight model  :P

There's always the chance to submit community builds too.
From what I read, the Habitat Beta structure was built by the closed alpha community and put in the game by the devs. And I really liked it.
It used to be undefended, now they made it into the usual enemy base. Because you could just land there and have a huge base for free, then just rip the nearby crashed ship for end-game gear.
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It honestly feels like a lot of their problems came from the fact that their entire team was composed of cats, and the people who were supposed to be herding them were also cats.

Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #43 on: August 22, 2015, 01:33:20 pm »

I think they gave up trying to figure out what was wrong with their drills and just reverted lol.

They released a hotfix that did nothing but return drills to the way they were.

Guess fixing the terrain issues relegated to a future update when everyone isn't screaming about mining being broken.
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Paul

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Re: Empyrion: Galactic Survival
« Reply #44 on: August 24, 2015, 03:33:01 pm »

I'm thinking of running a community multiplayer game for a bit. Not a permament thing, but just for fun. After the game I would upload the save and someone else could run it. And next time I wanted to run it I would run the most recent non-broken save. Since it's a peer to peer thing without dedicated servers this seems like a good way to go about it for now.

Anyone interested in that? This game seems like it could be fun as a community thing. Mega projects and all that.

Or if someone else wants to host I would be good with that too. I just want a multiplayer game going that isn't a haven for everyone who thinks they're so amazing that they figured out how to use widely available memory editing tools. (I out cheated the cheater earlier when I logged into a multiplayer game to mess around and found a couple guys running around with infinite assault rifle ammo shooting everyone and everything, funny that they figure out how to cheat infinite ammo for their assault rifles but not their health).
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