Fractured Space - MOBA to the Stars

Games
1

So, this little game is free to play this weekend, which is nice, but it’s alpha, so what’s the point? Well, the developers are giving the game for free to anyone that signs up this weekend.


Anyway, this is a little moba, but with star ships instead of heroes. Instead of having creeps, the game has mining facilities that you try to take over. These generate resources that let you level up your ships (when its at a base) and eventual upgrade different aspects of your ship (Offense, Defense and Utility).

Using unreal engine, the game sets you up as the captain of your vessel, allowing you to pilot in all three dimensions. Sadly, going up and down works more like a vtol instead of a jet, so you are stuck without the ability to do barrel rolls. Not that you would want to because you are in a starcruiser, so being large and in charge means that maneuvering is a little out of a the question. In the smaller ships, you can dodge behind asteroids and the evade attack, but depending on the type of ship you have, you are in for a fight.

The ships themselves are variable, ranging for smaller frigates that can dodge away, to larger destoyers and carriers that I guess just sit back and take it. You have limited options on how to equip the ship, but you can decided which officers will take up the 5 slots on your ship. These officers usually give you percentage bonuses to damage, refresh rates on abilities, range of missiles, or even resource generation mentioned above.

Finally, the map is divided up into 5 maps that you can jump into and out of (jumping out makes you vulnerable, so make sure the space is clear of enemies). The home bases of the 2 teams, 2 Mining belts (with minor bases), and Gamma, and booster area that is locked down for part of the game. The home base is invulnerable to attack until one of the two minor enemy bases have been captured. After that, the enemy can warp in. These bases can be retaking, cutting off reinforcements though.

Anyway, it’s a MOBA that’s a bit different, and bit slower, but definitely fun. It’s alpha still, so I’m looking forward to improvements in the future, and more maps.

2

Played the ever-loving hell out of it since they first put it on early access. The game has come a long way since then and, once they get the matchmaking figured out (which seems to be giving them all kinds of problems that they’re finally making headway on), I’ll be dumping a lot more time in.

Currently trying to get my precious Destroyer back, which is excruciating when I always end up having to play the team’s healer now that the newbies are everywhere. They’ll awaken to the Protector soon and then I can play something else for once.

3

I just got my colossus, which is pretty cool, but what I really want to check out is the paragon. Sadly, getting XP to get teh Paragon is troublesome because it means playing as the same ship for a very long time.

4

While I hate to be the bearer of bad news, don’t get the Paragon for now. They are planning to completely redesign it because it just doesn’t work right now. Currently the worst ship in the game by a significant margin.

5

Was there a reset lately? I really liked the Frigate I’d kitted out. I’d hate to have to grind back to it.

6

They ran the final progression reset last week so everyone’s down to the Pioneer, Venturer and Sentinel (plus the premium Reaper/Ghost if you have them). I don’t think the Frigate (which got renamed to the Raider) is all that far up the chain but I might be mistaken.

Good news is they won’t reset progression ever again, so that counts for something, and the Venturer is the best ship in the starter lineup so it’s not as bad to grind up the Zarek tree.

7

Thanks for the update. Maybe I’ll see if I can rope one of my buddies in for a few rounds, now that it’s getting more polished.

8

Well, if the Paragon is out, maybe I will make a run for the destroyer instead. By the way, do you sink money into crew right away, or do that after you get the ship? I purchased a few crew members with repair and armor bonus for my big guy.

9

Crew is in need of a rebalancing too, since people have had time to crunch the numbers and figure out who the best people are. It’s obfuscated at the moment by how deceptive some of the traits on the crew are. The three people worth buying and using on just about every ship are the captain with the 7.5% damage reduction (stacking this with the pilot bonus is especially effective), the repair specialist with the highest armor bonus (the repair rate boost is less useful) and the utility officer that cuts cooldown times by the greatest percentage. Beyond that, if you use the robot pilot and the tactical officer with the highest fire rate boost, that’s basically the best you can do for the moment.

I’d get those three crew members ASAP since they’re upgrades you can use on every single ship, instead of being locked down to a particular vessel.

10

That’s sad. I do like, despite the polish, there is going to be more to the game. I wish there was something that could be done about disconnects. Most games end of being 4 on 5, although some of those games are still rather close.

I am hopefully that having the colossus will make the game a little more interesting. The starting ships are okay, but nothing fancy. Still, it took only a weekend to earn a new ship, and most of my hours were on the venture (that tech tree needs a cheap ship, ASAP!)

11

They might (keyword: might) take down the matchmaking and put up a server list now that the free weekend is coming to an end, and that allows players to join games that are in progress. The matchmaking thing is still relatively new (server list has usually been the default) and this last test, despite its numerous issues, was the best attempt thus far.

The Colossus is nice if you remember to get the Photonic Charges upgrade (super important, has 50% higher DPS but a lower fire rate and less splash, so you’re trading a lot of your effectiveness against fighters/bombers in return for a DPS increase against other players themselves, which is worth it). I like Radial Missiles too since it makes your entire barrage fire simultaneously instead of in sequence, so it helps with delivering as much damage as possible in the shortest window.

For Zarek, the Hunter is still one of the best ships out there and it’s relatively cheap on the tree, but I still prefer the Venturer. If you stack three defense upgrades on it during a match, use the shield buoy and heal sphere to their maximum effectiveness and rotate your armor to spread damage around, you are basically unkillable 1 on 1 in the late game. People underestimate that ship to an absurd degree, but once it clicks with you it can be extremely dangerous.

12

Yeah, I got a lot of kills with the Venture while staying at range, but I really was looking for something that could launch fighters or bombers. Break the armor, shot with lasers.

13

So, this little game is free to play this weekend, which is nice

I thought it was f2p in the first place? I installed the game ages ago, I had on the “hidden” steam games category together other f2p games.

edit: checked my user account, I added to my steam in April 19 2015, and it was free.

14

It will be free to play after the official release. At this point, only if you picked up the founders pack, or installed it during the weekend do you get it for free for the rest of the alpha testing.

Maybe you purchased it, or got a key?

15

Been playing it on and off for a while and I kinda like it.

16

They did a free weekend in 2015 (must have been mid-April) which is most likely when anyone who didn’t pay for it picked it up. The game will eventually go F2P for everyone forever, but while it’s still in development they want to keep it locked down to a certain extent. This time they wanted to stress test matchmaking so they opened the floodgates for a few days.

By the way, if anyone missed out and decides they want in, I have three Steam keys that I can PM out if you quote this line of my post and ask for it. Just for the base client, none of the fancy packs.

17

So, as a person with out good reflexes and likes to take things at a slower pass, what should my next ship be after the colossus? If the Paragon is out what is the next best thing?

18

Any of the snipers (Watchman/Overseer), cloaking ships (Infiltrator/Ghost/Black Widow) and the skirmishers (Raider/Ranger/Equalizer and others) would basically get ruled out, and I’d caution against the Hunter (which relies on its blink to be effective and can be super disorienting). Honestly, I’d lean toward the Leviathan over the Destroyer if reflexes aren’t your thing, since the Destroyer has a huge lead time requirement on its shots at maximum range to be effective and tends to require aim and a good read on your opponent’s intentions to be effective.

The Leviathan has:

  1. Solid armor
  2. A series of rapid fire laser cannons with high spread but no cooldown as long as you keep firing (their only cooldown is after you let off the trigger)
  3. Those same lasers cut your top speed by 60% while firing so it’s more about positioning yourself before opening up instead of jetting around the battlefield
  4. It has a front-facing death ray
  5. You can deploy a temporary jump point on your position for your teammates to use, which can help create pushes out of thin air
  6. Seriously, death ray
19

I don’t have too much time with leading a target, but I like the idea of setting up jump points. Hopefully, they’ll have more carriers in the future.

20

It’s harder at 25000 range with shots that have a travel time of over four seconds, which is what you end up having to do with the Destroyer. Not saying I’m all that great at it myself, but it’s more that I love the idea of the Destroyer than its current implementation, which has been the victim of a bit of power creep from all of the competition. The Leviathan, being a more recent introduction, doesn’t have that issue since it was a more recent design and hasn’t needed to be revisited.

Either one is better than the Paragon, though, and I think they both come with one squadron of something (Destroyer definitely gets a bomber squadron, can’t remember about the Levi right now).