So much this. Both Highfleet and Shadow Empire are games I really, desperately wanted to love but just couldn’t because of one thing in each game (combat and logistics, respectively).
I might give Shadow Empire one more go when the next major update is out because the problem is as much mine as the game’s, but with Highfleet I’m done. And that really pains me.
I just realised what would make Highfleet the game I want it to be: competent auto-resolve of combat.
Highfleet looks so cool but it has a very impenetrable interface coupled with unusual balancing decisions coupled with developers who seem a little grudging in responding to feedback.
Wow what a broken wonderful mess.
It is wonderful, isn’t it? Since you say it’s broken I assume you’ve tried to dig into the ship editor?
Some interesting fleet design advice here. Some of the ships look hilarious.
Last 3ma is about the game, and not only are they making a nice job of me buying it the next time i step in front of my computer, it’s also the rare enthusiastic episode!
I stopped listening after ten minutes to prevent myself being spoiled the frustration of discovery (?).
About half way thru they paused and gave an end game spoiler alert, that was the point where I stopped.
I had written this one off as a rage quitter and they’ve talked me back off the ledge, not to the point of buying it, but I’ve put it back on the wishlist. ;)
I wish I was better at this game!
I got from the 3ma the stunning realization that this game is not missioned like FTL but you can go backwards! hehe. Looking forward to trying again with this game and trying to understand it more and playing it more as a strategy game.
So I guess this is a pretty sweet game now? Anything described as The Hunt for the Red October sure gets my silent propulsion system churning!
Anyone play it recently?
It’s always been a pretty sweet game. It hasn’t been updated since November, and none of the updates it did get changed it significantly since launch. It’s hard and I may never beat it but I don’t regret buying it at all.
Anyone have success playing this on a Steam Deck? The store page says unsupported, but that doesn’t always mean anything…
I’ll let you know. I think I tried it and it was fine but I kind of can’t imagine it being legible on the travel screen.
Ok, I’m back! Neither stock proton nor experimental would launch it, but GE-Proton-51 (the lastest) did fine, although the initial load in was long enough to make me wonder if something was wrong. I didn’t play a lot, but I did move around on the strat map and fight a battle, and with Althar’s Binding for HighFleet (the top community binding) it was actually quite playable. Impressive!
Great, thanks for the info! I’ll give it a try during the sale. :)
I’ve run into unexpectedly long loads under stock proton for other games that run fine once they’re up, I don’t know what causes that.
With these unsupported games I wonder if it’s the shaders compiling. Supported games come with precompiled shaders, but maybe unsupported ones don’t? I’ve had some long initial loads with Epic games through Heroic, too, that don’t come with those shader packages either.
isn’t it also linked to more mundane things, like whether you can read the fonts ?
Yeah, that’s one of the criteria for verification (although I have no idea how they determine this programatically), but I wonder if the process of being verified/playable itself triggers some backend process to precompile shaders for steam deck download, and if so unsupported games wouldn’t have that.
@Kolbex is right, it runs fine on the deck with GE-Proton-7-51. Some of the text is -small- but not unreadable (for me, but the weapons description text is right on the edge of legibility).
I’m now three runs in, and it’s starting to gel. I need to get better at handling missiles and airstrikes while I’m grounded (usually while salvaging). Starting to think about how I want to construct ships as well. Digging it so far for sure.
There was an interview 3 months ago with some informations about the next update (cruisers combats and mech !) : Reddit - Dive into anything
Highfleet is definitvely my prefered game of the two last years.
It has everything for me, the immersion, the sound design, the coherency , the need to take notes and calculate, the visual, the mix of military realism and science fiction, etc.
Since its release, I tried a lot of games (simulation, wargames, classic roguelikes/roguelites, games with diegetic interfaces) in the hope to find something which scratch the same itch that Highfleet, but nothing deliver the full package like it.