Trading
I really like trading, so I tried trading. I gave up after half an hour when I realized it would take me several weeks to get a freighter big enough to increase my cargo hold so I would be able to make more than a measly 3-5k profit per haul.
We could really use more intermediate steps for cargo capacity. Being stuck on ~22 for the starter ships is horribad if the next ship with decent capacity is almost 400k credits away which equals almost 100 hauls.
I'm not saying I want stuff faster. I'd like the illusion of progress instead of being stuck with a certain ship setup for tens of hours of gameplay because there just is no upgrade for me.
Cargo scoop
This is for when EVA hopefully will be implemented someday.
Remove the cargo scoop and its mechanic. All ships can pick up floating cargo by opening the cargo hatch and the player goes EVA and attaches a freight claw (personal item, not ship equipment) to move the container into the hold.
Add a Mag-Harpoon launcher turret as ship equipment to the cargo hatch. Get close, fire harpoon and reel in the fis... err, I mean the container. Much more fun than just flying over it.
And no tractor beam pls. Harpoon. Cable. Perfect. No fancy stuff needed.
Missions
Lacking variety is bad. But what is worse is the constant need to grind USS. Also, I can choose between the low paying kill missions whose targets never ever show up in the USS or the high paying "kill that Anaconda" missions that shreds me to pieces (not anymore thankfully, but still). There's nothing in between. It's like I can choose between newbie missions and elite endgame missions and there is nothing in between.
Mission frequency is also way to low. Sometimes I need to wait 10 minutes for a mission to even show.
I did not try the trading missions because of the above reasons so I cannot comment on those... just that the ones I could accept pay not enough to compensate me for the time I would waste to read the description. I would probably lose money from the fuel costs.
Crime
Looking the wrong way at a police vessel is punishable by death. I literally sat there and thought "I just tried to save your life Mr. Policeman, are you $%^&ing kidding me?"
Stray bullets fired upon friendlies should not immediately incur the wrath of His System Wide Holiness upon you.
Either increase the threshold for lethal response or add the option to hail the victim and apologize.
Being wanted for 200cr feels wrong on so many levels.
I have to admit, it is rather funny to grief other players with this though. I wish they wouldn't run so fast.
Just to clarify, yes, you could abuse the apology mechanic to repeatedly damage an officer. If you have the intention to do so, you should be able to, but upon destruction you should get a hefty increase in bounty on top of the officer kill for lying to the authorities to prevent such abuse.
Supercruise
Horrible. Handholding, speedlimits and rails everywhere. "You cannot go faster you are to close to Pebble 443 A 1 which has a diameter of 4cm and a mass of 3 grams."
The concept of dogfighting on rails to interdict someone just doesn't feel right.
Overshooting a target is still faster than using the "correct" 0:07 ETA approach, because all of a sudden you actually use the breaks when you zoom past it. They don't work when you get the "slow down" message for some odd reason. So, tell me, beloved ship, why do you refuse to obey me?
Also, travelling to a station 100k Ls from a star is straining my patience because the ship refuses to accelerate when close to other stellar bodies. I would like a big red "I don't give a #$%^, go faster" button. I might even pay for one. I call it the "Premium No-Speedlimit DLC".
I would have preferred the Star Wars approach, where you jump as far as you want, including microjumps. Police/Pirates can use interdictor vessels that project a fake gravity well to pull you out of common trade routes within or between systems.
But I guess it is too late for that. Which is a shame. I guess we really need those hexagonal wheels, they are so much better than the round ones.
Weapons
My choice of weapons for my ship is very limited. I can choose between four. Burst laser, pulse laser, multi-cannons and maybe cannons. Everything else doesn't do enough damage for the amount of ammo you can carry. Fragment cannons and railguns are pathetic.
Equipment stats
Why is 3 less than 3? How is 4 more than 4? I don't even...
PLEASE clarify on the weapon and equipment statistics. Why do we have health and integrity descriptor when both do not transport any meaningful information. For some reason a multi cannon with 2 bars of damage does more damage than a pulse laser which does... oddly... also two bars of damage?
Imagine this conversation at your shipdealer:
"Yoo, wanna buy this awesome multi cannon? I'll make you a deal!"
"Na man, already got me a pulse laser."
"Yeah yeah, but yours only does two damage!"
"So?"
"The multi cannon does an awesome damage of two!!!"
"Um...ok. That's the same."
"Noooo! No, no, no, no, no! See? The arrow is blue! That means it does more damage!"
"Wha-... Arrow? Wait never mind. I just got a call, I really need to... go. Away. Far away. *cough* From you. *cough* See ya!"
All in all
Awesome game, brings back a lot of old memories, especially the cube stations.
Keep it up.
Ill update this, once I had the chance to do some mining.
I really like trading, so I tried trading. I gave up after half an hour when I realized it would take me several weeks to get a freighter big enough to increase my cargo hold so I would be able to make more than a measly 3-5k profit per haul.
We could really use more intermediate steps for cargo capacity. Being stuck on ~22 for the starter ships is horribad if the next ship with decent capacity is almost 400k credits away which equals almost 100 hauls.
I'm not saying I want stuff faster. I'd like the illusion of progress instead of being stuck with a certain ship setup for tens of hours of gameplay because there just is no upgrade for me.
Cargo scoop
This is for when EVA hopefully will be implemented someday.
Remove the cargo scoop and its mechanic. All ships can pick up floating cargo by opening the cargo hatch and the player goes EVA and attaches a freight claw (personal item, not ship equipment) to move the container into the hold.
Add a Mag-Harpoon launcher turret as ship equipment to the cargo hatch. Get close, fire harpoon and reel in the fis... err, I mean the container. Much more fun than just flying over it.
And no tractor beam pls. Harpoon. Cable. Perfect. No fancy stuff needed.
Missions
Lacking variety is bad. But what is worse is the constant need to grind USS. Also, I can choose between the low paying kill missions whose targets never ever show up in the USS or the high paying "kill that Anaconda" missions that shreds me to pieces (not anymore thankfully, but still). There's nothing in between. It's like I can choose between newbie missions and elite endgame missions and there is nothing in between.
Mission frequency is also way to low. Sometimes I need to wait 10 minutes for a mission to even show.
I did not try the trading missions because of the above reasons so I cannot comment on those... just that the ones I could accept pay not enough to compensate me for the time I would waste to read the description. I would probably lose money from the fuel costs.
Crime
Looking the wrong way at a police vessel is punishable by death. I literally sat there and thought "I just tried to save your life Mr. Policeman, are you $%^&ing kidding me?"
Stray bullets fired upon friendlies should not immediately incur the wrath of His System Wide Holiness upon you.
Either increase the threshold for lethal response or add the option to hail the victim and apologize.
Being wanted for 200cr feels wrong on so many levels.
I have to admit, it is rather funny to grief other players with this though. I wish they wouldn't run so fast.
Just to clarify, yes, you could abuse the apology mechanic to repeatedly damage an officer. If you have the intention to do so, you should be able to, but upon destruction you should get a hefty increase in bounty on top of the officer kill for lying to the authorities to prevent such abuse.
Supercruise
Horrible. Handholding, speedlimits and rails everywhere. "You cannot go faster you are to close to Pebble 443 A 1 which has a diameter of 4cm and a mass of 3 grams."
The concept of dogfighting on rails to interdict someone just doesn't feel right.
Overshooting a target is still faster than using the "correct" 0:07 ETA approach, because all of a sudden you actually use the breaks when you zoom past it. They don't work when you get the "slow down" message for some odd reason. So, tell me, beloved ship, why do you refuse to obey me?
Also, travelling to a station 100k Ls from a star is straining my patience because the ship refuses to accelerate when close to other stellar bodies. I would like a big red "I don't give a #$%^, go faster" button. I might even pay for one. I call it the "Premium No-Speedlimit DLC".
I would have preferred the Star Wars approach, where you jump as far as you want, including microjumps. Police/Pirates can use interdictor vessels that project a fake gravity well to pull you out of common trade routes within or between systems.
But I guess it is too late for that. Which is a shame. I guess we really need those hexagonal wheels, they are so much better than the round ones.
Weapons
My choice of weapons for my ship is very limited. I can choose between four. Burst laser, pulse laser, multi-cannons and maybe cannons. Everything else doesn't do enough damage for the amount of ammo you can carry. Fragment cannons and railguns are pathetic.
Equipment stats
Why is 3 less than 3? How is 4 more than 4? I don't even...
PLEASE clarify on the weapon and equipment statistics. Why do we have health and integrity descriptor when both do not transport any meaningful information. For some reason a multi cannon with 2 bars of damage does more damage than a pulse laser which does... oddly... also two bars of damage?
Imagine this conversation at your shipdealer:
"Yoo, wanna buy this awesome multi cannon? I'll make you a deal!"
"Na man, already got me a pulse laser."
"Yeah yeah, but yours only does two damage!"
"So?"
"The multi cannon does an awesome damage of two!!!"
"Um...ok. That's the same."
"Noooo! No, no, no, no, no! See? The arrow is blue! That means it does more damage!"
"Wha-... Arrow? Wait never mind. I just got a call, I really need to... go. Away. Far away. *cough* From you. *cough* See ya!"
All in all
Awesome game, brings back a lot of old memories, especially the cube stations.
Keep it up.
Ill update this, once I had the chance to do some mining.