tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading

Post your best tactics and strategies for getting the big bux in Vega Strike
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Endar
Insys Pilot
Insys Pilot
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:56 pm

tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading

Post by Endar »

I've played vegastrike now for two or three days. I seriously tried. read most of the manual, strived the forums, and yet I am a little disappointed about the game. BTW I'm playing the newest binary (no CVS). Until now I haven't been able to play far enough to get a new ship.

Before "bashing" it, i want to point out the things i really like about VS.

Freedom. The possibility to go anywhere, do anything. Want to get some cheap medics, while you're on a mission. No prob. You can do something reasonable at every station and planet. I played a wing commander remake based on the freespace engine, and i felt kind of locked into the mission. I couldn't go anywhere. So 2 thumbs up!

Dynamic universe/trading.
I played with the thought to make a similar "game" like VS. And I immediately got stuck at this. How can I implement dynamic economy?

Open Architecture.
Even other open source games and indie games are more "locked". In VS you can finetune the gameplay(theoretically). A pity that a lot of options and switches(even the documented in the WikiManual) don't work.


Now what bugged me:

Getting compromised.
I got compromised so often by damn pirates or whatever. I wasn't able to flee, or anything. I HAD to fight. It was mentioned already in this forum, that it is very unfair, when you defend yourself against one ship, suddenly his whole clan is after you.
One of the most frustrating, because no possibility to get away, is when you get into an aggression right in the moment you are launching. I had this at a Relay. I couldn't get away.

Freedom is relative:
Although you can theoretically go anywhere you can, you are limited by your relationships (this is okay). The frustrating experience that you get immediately into dogfights if you jump 4 or 5 systems into any direction is totally demotivating.

It is hard to get money. Trading is a difficult task. Most of the other missions are not a alternative at the beginning, you are just too weak for them. So it's hard to get any decent upgrades or ships.
While my last game I noticed something strange. I was a merchant. While I did decent cargo runs, my Money dimished. I couldn't believe it. I looked at my Savegames, and i haven't done any profit. I lost money continously.WTF?

And the last thing bugging me was TIME. I take SO long for just one single cargo run. Not to say earning enough money to buy at least a decent ship. This can be so boring. YES i use Autopilot, YES I habe jump drive.

Last but not least: Keyboard Orgy. This game has so many keys, so much functionality. This could be handled easier. A good example of what I'm imagining is Space Merchants. You can do A LOT with the mouse, and you don't have to know zillions of keys to play the game succesful. What could be done at LEAST is e.g. the right VDU, that there is a little note: Hit key xyz to switch views. Or some kind of online help (of course you can turn that off) e.g. when you have destroyed a ship, and it has left cargo, that there is somekind of note telling you that and how to get the cargo.
RedAdder
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 149
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:11 pm
Location: Germany, Munich
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Re: tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading

Post by RedAdder »

I agree that to do any mission is difficult at the beginning because you get yourself into trouble with the factions.

Well I personally use some techniques/exploits to handle this:

- if locations run out of resources to trade, take a break and later restart the game. The dynamic universe is regenerated and you can redo some of the trade routes.

- check your standing with the factions using the info button when you shot or collided with something.

- when you are attacked/followed by single ships, you can use f1 to talk them into befriending you(or sometimes f3 with less chance of success since you only need to use f3 when f1 doesn't work because you really are a lot at war with the other pilots faction.) This is especially useful with factions that hate you just a little

- When you have to fight to exit a base, kill the foes you need to kill, and then eject and explode. Because the dynamic universe is generated at game launch, and isn't saved, the enemies will be gone and you can peacefully reach your destination.

So basically my main character is a pacifist with charisma, who just sometimes can't stop himself to pull the trigger :-)
I guess the game would be better if I needed less of these tricks, but I am not sure how you would do that - if you provide safer surroundings and safer traderoutes, players would just sit and run these.
peter
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 165
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:40 am
Location: Halifax, NS, Canada

Re: tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading

Post by peter »

Endar wrote:I've played vegastrike now for two or three days. I seriously tried. read most of the manual, strived the forums, and yet I am a little disappointed about the game. BTW I'm playing the newest binary (no CVS). Until now I haven't been able to play far enough to get a new ship.

Before "bashing" it, i want to point out the things i really like about VS.

Freedom. The possibility to go anywhere, do anything. Want to get some cheap medics, while you're on a mission. No prob. You can do something reasonable at every station and planet. I played a wing commander remake based on the freespace engine, and i felt kind of locked into the mission. I couldn't go anywhere. So 2 thumbs up!

Dynamic universe/trading.
I played with the thought to make a similar "game" like VS. And I immediately got stuck at this. How can I implement dynamic economy?

Open Architecture.
Even other open source games and indie games are more "locked". In VS you can finetune the gameplay(theoretically). A pity that a lot of options and switches(even the documented in the WikiManual) don't work.


Now what bugged me:

Getting compromised.
I got compromised so often by damn pirates or whatever. I wasn't able to flee, or anything. I HAD to fight. It was mentioned already in this forum, that it is very unfair, when you defend yourself against one ship, suddenly his whole clan is after you.
One of the most frustrating, because no possibility to get away, is when you get into an aggression right in the moment you are launching. I had this at a Relay. I couldn't get away.
The trick to running away is to hit y to switch your flight governor to "travel" mode. The AI never does this, so can only SPEC to catch up once you're going faster than their max combat speed. Pick a direction, hit your afterburner, and start rolling (to spread damage over multiple shield/armor faces) until you stop getting hit. Then figure out where you want to go. Once you're not getting hit at all, you can SPEC. If there is a jump point you want to use in your forward 180 degrees, great. Or a planet. Some stations are slow to dock at, so often not a good choice. Planets are easy, because you can get lined up from far enough away to not use the autopilot too much. (It limits itself to max combat speed). You can point at the planet. build up some speed, engage SPEC until the multiplier drops to 1 before disengaging, with your finger on the afterburner the whole time. By the time you're too deep in the gravity well for SPEC, you'll be going well over the combat speed of any ships chasing you, so you're in no danger before you can land.


As for trades, there are some _very_ lucrative trades. Get a copy of vstrade, or check out some of the highlights: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 70#p107970
Once you have a bit of cash, buy Mining and Construction equipment at factories and commerce centers, and sell it to Mining stations. Now that I've found a lot of the good tricks for getting rich quick, my main complaint is that it's too easy to make money fast. Of course, since that's not the only goal of the game, only a way to get access to the fun equipment, it's probably a good thing that it's not too hard to get money.
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC
V3N0M1300
Star Pilot
Star Pilot
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 7:41 pm

Re: tideous gameplay. strange behaviour when trading

Post by V3N0M1300 »

yeah, but then you end up waiting to go into spec mode with your shields down. You're a sitting duck.
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