Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 2 3 [4]

Author Topic: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??  (Read 9489 times)

Knave

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #46 on: November 27, 2021, 11:30:56 am »

I really like his videos (For the most part), He does a great job of explaining neat subsystems that make a game fun. And the games he plugs always get a big bump in popularity, so I imagine this will be a net positive for the game.
But man, the crowd his videos attract is always so toxic. See Caves of Qud as an example https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-09-07-keeping-trolls-out-of-the-caves-of-qud-community
Logged

George_Chickens

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ghosts are stored in the balls.
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #47 on: November 27, 2021, 12:50:07 pm »

Eeeeh, with what I've seen from the Caves of Qud server, pretty much anything could be declared trolling. I get the impression there has been a serious overreaction. Especially considering that, as far as I can tell, this hasn't happened with any other community after a game has been reviewed by him.
Logged
Ghosts are stored in the balls?[/quote]
also George_Chickens quit fucking my sister

thegoatgod_pan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #48 on: November 27, 2021, 04:52:34 pm »

It was not an overreaction: imagine if a thousand people showed up in bay12 posting Nazi memes all at the same time.
Logged
More ridiculous than reindeer?  Where you think you supercool and is you things the girls where I honestly like I is then why are humans on their as my people or what would you?

nenjin

  • Bay Watcher
  • Inscrubtable Exhortations of the Soul
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2021, 06:38:01 pm »

I like his videos but yes, he draws the memelord / edgelord crowd for sure.
Logged
Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Vivalas

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #50 on: December 05, 2021, 05:42:08 pm »

Hell yeah!



I've been enjoying this over the weekend. I love being able to intercept a radio message and then draw out some plots with my in-game pencil. Lots of systems I haven't even dug into yet, though I'll say the game does have some user experience issues- it doesn't tell you when it saves, for example. I kind of thought I'd lost patience with stuff like that, but Highfleet is otherwise so immersive I guess I can forgive some of its foibles.

lmao I nearly spit my drink out, this is the perfect image for this game. completely sums up campaign mode.

Been playing a few hours and I'm enthralled. The immersion.. the story... the art. I love the desert / tribal / persian cultural aesthetics and the game just immerses you so much. You FEEL like you're the final heir of a dying empire. The world building is amazing.

Combat is awesome, somehow more satisfying than starsector. Lighting is my favorite, but every now and then in foggy rain at night I prickle up a bit as I nearly crater the ground at 600 kph doing a 15g turn. All the little details really pull you in, the smoke filling the sky after you shoot things down, flames in cities as shots miss and blow up buildings below... the visual / infrared / radar detection ranges and mechanics. It's probably one of the best games for the modern naval warfare sim vibe that is still accessible and actually beautiful with graphics.

FTL had a stepchild with silent hunter and your choice of naval wargame, dune, and dieselpunk and its simply glorious.

A few frustrating quirks here and there but they give the game flavor. Microprose is really coming out of nowhere this year with some of my favorite games ever.
Logged
"On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage

The Imperial Question | Stranded Among Stars

Ozyton

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #51 on: December 05, 2021, 05:50:15 pm »

I don't know if it's been gbrought up in the thread (too lazy to check) but if you enjoy the game you should check out the previous game by these devs, Hammerfight. Funnily enough, the GOG version is a slightly more up to date version than the Steam release, but if you have the files you can copy them from the GoG install into the steam install directory and play the updated version that way if you want steam integration for some reason.

Still have yet to play through Highfleet though, been too busy with other games.

nenjin

  • Bay Watcher
  • Inscrubtable Exhortations of the Soul
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #52 on: December 05, 2021, 05:54:35 pm »

(It's kinda right there in the title :P)

I bought Hammerfight years ago and fired it up for like 2 minutes. I think I bought it as a recommend for coop but never got around to actually doing that. What makes it so special?
Logged
Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Il Palazzo

  • Bay Watcher
  • And lo, the Dude did abide. And it was good.
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #53 on: December 05, 2021, 05:56:59 pm »

Imagine you get into an outhouse, lift off, and go on a rampage with a giant sword. What's not to love?
Logged

Egan_BW

  • Bay Watcher
  • Perhaps I'll
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #54 on: December 05, 2021, 06:16:41 pm »

You get to smash things with a big hammer. It's satisfying.
Logged
Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

forsaken1111

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • TTB Twitch
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #55 on: December 05, 2021, 06:35:07 pm »

There are also guns, but I never got good at them and they seemed strictly inferior to spinny hammer tactics
Logged

Egan_BW

  • Bay Watcher
  • Perhaps I'll
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #56 on: December 05, 2021, 08:01:10 pm »

Yeah, but you don't lose much from equipping one along with your hammer. The mortar seems best since it really whacks the enemy rather than doing some dumb pew pew thing.

You could use dual melee weapons instead of hammer and gun but that seems quite hard to make work.
Logged
Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

Salmeuk

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #57 on: December 06, 2021, 01:31:25 am »

Hammerfight is actually a difficult sell, imo, but it is worth getting into. you DO need to watch some gameplay to make sure your mouse is at the proper sensitivity for a good experience. the tutorial helps you with this. The higher your mouse sensitivity the easier the game becomes, generally, though there is a point where precision falls off. If you play at the wrong sensitivity you might not have much fun..

The story is more immersive than Highfleet, thanks to the storybook style and sense of character and impact. Divergent choices and all that. And the biological enemies are super satisfying to slice and bash...

The game has a really cool 'armory' where you can select all kinds of medieval weapons (implied to be the size of houses) and the choices have genuinely meaningful impact on how you play. A spiked flail will be much more difficult to aim and feint with, but the centripetal force allows for a really strong flick attack. Whereas a straight-hafted pike will be awkward but strong, and difficult to miss with.

There are throwing weapons, too, and I always wanted to do a challenge run with throwing only. 

--

Regarding Highfleet, I have found carrier tactics to be the best strategic option, since the aircraft bombs are so cheap for the kills you can get, but it is so boring. So my progress with the campaign has been limited, since it can turn into a bit of a grind after you start upping your strike capacity.

Logged

Vivalas

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: HighFleet - Hammerfight goes dieselpunk and is now a strategy/simulation??
« Reply #58 on: December 06, 2021, 10:02:55 pm »

Hammerfight is actually a difficult sell, imo, but it is worth getting into. you DO need to watch some gameplay to make sure your mouse is at the proper sensitivity for a good experience. the tutorial helps you with this. The higher your mouse sensitivity the easier the game becomes, generally, though there is a point where precision falls off. If you play at the wrong sensitivity you might not have much fun..

The story is more immersive than Highfleet, thanks to the storybook style and sense of character and impact. Divergent choices and all that. And the biological enemies are super satisfying to slice and bash...

The game has a really cool 'armory' where you can select all kinds of medieval weapons (implied to be the size of houses) and the choices have genuinely meaningful impact on how you play. A spiked flail will be much more difficult to aim and feint with, but the centripetal force allows for a really strong flick attack. Whereas a straight-hafted pike will be awkward but strong, and difficult to miss with.

There are throwing weapons, too, and I always wanted to do a challenge run with throwing only. 

--

Regarding Highfleet, I have found carrier tactics to be the best strategic option, since the aircraft bombs are so cheap for the kills you can get, but it is so boring. So my progress with the campaign has been limited, since it can turn into a bit of a grind after you start upping your strike capacity.

I suspect this is one of those typical types of things where the early game is generally the most difficult / rewarding / fun part and it progresses into a grind as you get further along and get better. That being said the fact you can completely build your entire fleet from scratch, along with being able to modify things, I suppose means once you get to that point you can experiment a little.

I haven't gotten very far yet but each time I learn more and get further and the progression feels very satisfying. I really love the storytelling in this game as well. The art is amazing and it's my favorite sort of aesthetic so it's all very appealing to look at. The ant event really tugged at my feelings too a bit  :)

As I've been reading about the game a bit it seems the consensus is that the combat is very pretty and satisfying, but the real meat of where the game excels is the strategy layer, and I think agree. There's a crazy amount of meaningful decision making, and some really cool emergent situations crop up. The event that started the slow tumble downhill of my last run felt very fair and proper in a way. After I had figured out how to decode radio messages without needing to rely so much on keys, my map turned into a war room of notes and lines and scribbles about the names and current activities of all the freighters in the area. After a particularly unfortunate encounter with a garrison in another town that raised the alarm, leading me to have to pop a strike group close and personal with the Sev, I managed to surprise strike a troposcatter town and finally had time to refuel and repair. I was a bit peeved by the troposcatter revealing a strike group AND a tac group in the town up north, but I had no choice, I needed the downtime desperately, so I put an interceptor up in CAP up by the town with the 2 fleets so I could get early warning on when I needed to get the hell out of there with a comfortable margin.

So I was just repairing, resting, and refueling, feeling up about the current run and intercepting all the radio traffic in the area. It all started going downhill when I got a message of a freighter in another town that was departing. At first because I misread the message I thought it was coming towards the town I was in. I was thrilled (and satisfied) to have the early warning due to the radio intercept, but it had 7 hours to arrive and I still needed to repair my main combat ships. Do I strike it with planes and cause a distraction that diverts the nearby strike groups (and maybe gets it to turn back?) do I sacrifice an interceptor to go pop the merchant and its escort before inevitably dying in a hellfire of cruise missiles and aircraft from the nearby tac groups? Do I sit still and hope for the best? I needed to refuel either way, so I couldn't just jump ship and move out of town.

Well despite the options I had, I then "re-read" the message again and misinterpreted the speed of the merchant for its course, and then sighed in relief. "I'm being silly!" I thought, it's not coming towards me, its going somewhere else.

You can imagine my surprise when I get a thermal signature and then out of nowhere this one desert truckin' fucker rolls up on me with my pants down and fuel lines still connected to the docks when he calls up the entire Gerati fleet to roll up on me. The rest of the run was me desperately hopping from one town to another FTL-style as the rebel fleet slowly wore me down. It ended in nuclear hellfire after I figured "fuck it" and tried to nuke Khiva (to no success) and then launched my other nuke in anger at one of the carrier groups that had blown most of my fleet to pieces.

Despite it all I wasn't angry. Usually these types of games make me pretty salty at times (especially you, Starsector!) but even in the worst moments I'm too caught up in a Dwarf Fortress tantrum-style type fascination of all the emergent systems and chaos unravelling around me to be angry at the game. This is probably the first strategy type game where the game is just so damn pretty and immersive that losing genuinely feels like an epic story and less of a big middle finger, which is awesome.

The game genuinely feels like you're a fleet admiral desperately trying to win a war against all odds. Some of the decisions you have to make really both weigh on your conscious as well as the historical parallels they draw when you're wondering what your favorite naval role models would have done in your situation. It's pretty cool. Haven't experienced something like it before.

Logged
"On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
- Charles Babbage

The Imperial Question | Stranded Among Stars
Pages: 1 2 3 [4]