Thing is I am pretty sure the GMG mentioned free Space Marines along with Beta access a few weeks ago, they changed the site recently to mention neither of those things now that the game is released.
I contacted GMG to see whats going on. I am sure I will get a Schultz reply.
If they did that, they are surely to blame, and not Focus Home or the poor developers, as the angry mob seem to think.
So I loaded it up yesterday, start from scratch and the first mission tells me to move the camera using WASD, and only 2 of those keys work. So I am thinking the final build is still wonky, this is not good. Go into settings and camera keys are set to QAZS (or something like that). I never remapped the keys. So that was kind of weird and scared me, but everything seems else ok otherwise.
Fun game so far. I do wish it had a full pause still. Lots of writing on the tool tips and when I have about 8+ buttons per ship, and I have 4 ships, I want to sit down and go through them all. Otherwise slowing down the game works really well. It makes it very manageable even when your ships are spread out and in many cases I don’t even feel as I need it.
I ran into the same thing with the last-minute remapping of the keys. Oh well, easy enough to change back.
Checking my order history for Battle fleet Gothic, found I ordered through GMG in beginning of March, when GMG is still advertising free space marine along with Beta access. I’m not happy that I’m not going to get the DLCs, GMG contacted, awaiting reply.
I’m pretty sure the Humble Store advertised the free stuff as well (they no longer do). I’m not too upset however, because I still made a donation to Wikimedia and I don’t mind supporting such a cool game. It’s unfortunate because the devs probably had little, or nothing to do with the mistake.
Beyond the marketing fiasco, the game is really, really good. I’m a number of turns into the Campaign and I really like the setup. You will have a story-driven mission most (if not all) turns and then another mission or few you need to run to keep the Orks at bay or insurrections down. The story and cutscenes are really well done. They are simply fleshing out the handful of mission types the game has, but I appreciate the extra fleshiness.
Ok, I bought this, largely because I really like 40k stuff and it seemed well reviewed. I’m generally not a RTS player but this seems doable, and the atmosphere is really cool.
If you play this weekend will you post some impressions? I’m wondering how this takes to non-rts people like myself as well.
I also grabbed this, and I’m another non-RTS person. But I am absolutely a singing ork space pirate person. Will post later this weekend :)
Yes yes please!!!
I am not a RTS person either but thinking of trying this out. How hard is it? If I can progress fairly well even with poor clicking skills than it might be fun.
I’m playing on normal and it has certainly not been a walk in the park. I’m a big RTS fan as well, though this has a different kind of micro than others do in terms of range and broadsides v prow shots and whatnot. It really gets the adrenaline pumping.
I just wish imperial ships had variety. They all look so similar. Here’s hoping the Astartes fleet has some uniqueness.
It is not a clickfest by any means. In single player you can play it in super slow motion, which gives you more than enough time to to give orders and activate special skills. Regular speed I can see being a huge clickfest, but basically what I have been doing is playing normal speed until guns start firing and then I activate slow motion and stay in it.
I am really really bad it. The AI has been pretty good and lining up torpedo shots to make them difficult to deal with if you aren’t careful, and the orc ships are so much faster/maneuverable that I am finding them difficult to deal with. I am barely denting their ships as I rush to catch up with them.
The game is extremely well done. Ships look really cool, and the animations of ships getting rammed while the orcs cheer is pretty cool. So far it’s fun, but I really need to learn how everything works, because that is really holding me back. You can’t simply go charging in with guns firing hoping to win.
The game is an RTS. You’ll need to micro your ships, although it’s possible to automate them to an extent. Not totally, just enough to make the game easier for you. Pretty much just telling ships to attack on their own, auto-cast abilities, what range and facing to stay at from their target.
Another thing you can do to make it easier on you, is army composition. Instead of picking for instance, a whole bunch of smaller ships, pick the biggest you can choose from, so instead of having to control 9 ships, you only have 3. Problem with this idea though, is that the game puts you in scenarios. You’re either the attacker or the defender, and not all army compositions are equal. They’re not particularly balanced either, different races, army compositions and scenarios, all add up to matches where it’s quite possible for one player not to have any chance at winning. Trying is still a load of fun, though. :D
On top of that, the game has a bit of a progression system baked into it. Your ships level up, gaining skills and abilities. IMO, is quite fun, though it’s probably better if you’re aware of the source material. Also, the campaign is Imperial Fleet only, but you can play scenarios against the AI / other players, so even if you don’t particularly want to run the story FOR THE EMPRAH!, there’s stuff to do.
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!
I looked at the guide on the website but it’s short on details about the individual ship stuff–weapons and abilities, that sort of thing. Is there a good guide somewhere?
I read the guide last night looking for more info, and the guide is mostly worthless. I really want to know how things work, but the guide doesn’t offer that. I searched last night and couldn’t find anything else. There isn’t a proper manual either.
Thanks for the tips DarthMasta. One of my big issues is I can’t figure out which ships to bring. Reading weapon stats, I can’t determine which ship has better weapons. One ship’s weapons has a rate of fire of 3 and 5 damage per hit, compared to a RoF 1, 25 damage per hit. Over how much time is rate of fire? What are the to hit % at range? Is it better against shields or armor? Stuff like that.
Think I just need to slow down and experiment with it. I could always put it at easy as well. Reading the Steam forums there are a few people complaining about difficulty, but I don’t think that is completely fair. The game just needs more documentation/information, and a better tutorial in my opinion. Still, don’t get me wrong, it is fun, it just has a steeper learning curve than I expected and I would love a full pause and look around option.
I failed horribly on the second mission, an escort mission against Orc pirates. Some things just don’t work the way I thought they would. For instance, when I group two ships, and give them orders as a group, they don’t act the same, but seem to do their own thing. I agree the documentation is woeful.
You’re not alone, I also got smashed. Divided the transports and my escorts into two group as it kind of suggested then both proceeded to get smashed. Literally and figuratively. I didn’t lose any of my ships but two transports went boom before I could effect any significant opposition.
Think I need to learn the hotkeys, that might help for starters. The ability to just plain pause and browse around the screen would be nice too. The tutorial does not allow for anytime to read tooltips once it starts throwing things at you. You need to find some downtime, but that is at odds with the tips popping up on the right and wanting to read a few things as you are in the middle of a fight.
Easiest way to figure stuff out is to start a solo skirmish admiral. Plenty of time to check what everything does, and how it works, without screwing up your campaign.
Some tips, ROF is actually time between shots, so, lower is better. Orders to a group, you can tell a group where to go, who to shoot at, range, and facing, but special commands apply to the selected ship only. Stuff like accuracy, there’s a tab for that, but it’ll depend on what traits each ship has. You can tell ships to choose their own target, but they’re dumb as rocks, and won’t avoid mines or anything. Right clicking on abilities sets them to auto-cast, but the AI isn’t too smart on their use (I usually use it on torpedoes).
Really, start a solo skirmish admiral, and just try stuff.