I like it! I haven’t played in a couple of weeks, but maybe I’ll try this easy mode. It’s got atmosphere in spades.
From an objective point of view it’s absolutely brilliant. However the amount of enjoyment you get out of it depends a lot on how willing you are to work with it. It’s a niche game and has to be played in a specific kind of way. You need patience, and you need to really learn the subtleties.
Myself, I didn’t have the patience at the time. Combat is absolutely brutal if you’re not incredibly prepared for it. But I’ve seen quite a few people call it a masterpiece and I suspect I’d agree with them if I could muster the patience. I’ll definitely go back to it eventually.
It’s a masterpiece at conveying atmosphere, that I can see just from what little video I’ve seen of game play.
And when I pick it up at 50% off I’ll make the call on whether it’s a masterpiece at game play.
You can probably guess which way I’m leaning on that score already by the fact I won’t pick it up until it’s half off. ;)
Yeah I am starting to think the same way, I want to play it , but am not sure I’ll invest the time to get good at it.
I finally bit the bullet and committed the time to actually LEARN this game:
- Playing the “tutorial” several times to get good and comfortable with combat.
- Watching LOTS of videos to learn how aircraft and missiles worked.
- Again, lots of videos to learn the subtleties of enemy strike groups and Missile/Carrier groups.
- Finally, watching “getting started” videos are a must have.
I REALLY enjoy this game. Brutally hard? Yup. Atmospheric? Yup - in spades.
One of my favorite surprises in 2021 so far.
SamF7
I didn’t do any of that, and I’ve come close to getting to Khiva! Now, I will say that the aircraft sortie interface is not intuitive, and I had to read a steam forum thread to understand it.
I’d say it’s worth the money. I mostly enjoyed the beating this game gave me and plan to go back for more at some point. Especially now that there’s an easy mode where you can save.
Though I’m still hoping for a proper mouse cursor in combat. Or if not that maybe some way to mod in use of an Atari paddle controller for aiming. Having to use an invisible mouse to aim against the aimbot AI is still my biggest frustration with the combat. It worked in Hammerflight because that was melee. When adapting that to ranged combat there should have at least been an option for an actual cursor.
Is save anywhere the only thing that supposedly makes easy mode easy? Because that doesn’t sound like enough of a change to me.
According to the game itself it makes combat easier, and true to Russian dev form it also gives you a little bit of shit for selecting it. “For those who don’t want to master the intricacies,” indeed.
It’s still pretty tough!
Yes it is, and it’s irritating that the dev says “for people who can’t be arsed to learn the nuances of the game” when all I want is a way to save where I choose. Fuck you, Konstantin!
I had another honest go at this again yesterday because I want to love it so much. Really thought about my ships, my strategy, tried different modules and ammo types, made notes all over the map based on signal intercepts, etc. It’s so close to being an amazing game, but I always come back to…
…yes, the combat. I can handle difficult. I can handle the odds being stacked against me. What I can’t handle and makes me rage every time is if you have to bring on a second ship it always, always gets absolutely pummelled instantly. Literally every time it happened I got streams of gunfire from all three opponents landing the instant I was on screen. If you’re flying a little ship like a Lightning that’s at least 50% of your health gone before you even know where you are, literally.
I just can’t believe the dev ever thought this was a good idea. One second of respawn invlunerability, that’s all I ask. Or enemies having to actually find and aim their turrets at you instead of instantly a) knowing exactly where you are and b) having turrets trained at that precise location.
It’s really soured me on an otherwise excellent game and, sadly, I think I’ve played it for the last time.
Nice!
- Key binding.
- Updated ship designs, all modules are brought to the same characteristics.
- Added ability to change ammo types in editor to test ship.
- Added ship test landing in the editor.
- Added ability to stretch screen for widescreen monitors.
- Fixed the bug with sound when changing the playback device, such as switching to a Bluetooth headset.
- Fixed the bug with getting information about hidden cities.
- The point at which the strike groups spawn is chosen randomly.
- Added ship’s role icons.
- Added a division of the moral accrual: fleet moral, squadron moral, ship moral.
- Fixed automatic selection of ships to attack cities.
- Fixed the bug with session time during radio interception.
- Fixed spamming of merchants’ radio calls.
- Fixed super-fast repairing in cities with bonuses.
- Fixed the bug with the tarkhan ship not appearing in the city.
- Fixed the bug with the merchant lands and takes off if the enemy is nearby.
- Fixed the bug which led to the loss of the item when leaving through the escape button.
- Fixed the bug at the separation of tankers (when the initial squadron remains in the small ships fuel was lost).
- Fixed the bug which caused the repair values of the landing towers to change during the landing.
- Fixed the bug which led to inability to rename ships back to the system name.
- Limit on number of characters in ship’s name (20).
- Fixed crash in the story script.
- Fixed the bug that caused APS to shoot down its own planes.
- Marketplace removed from the tutorial.
- Fixed the bug when there is no loot left at the battle site.
- Fixed the bug with instant refueling on the undo button.
- Fixed the bug which caused unarmed ships not working APS and Flares.
- Fixed the bug which led to incorrect order in the battle if there are ships with zero morale.
- Ships with insufficient thrust to fly are now crashing.
- Fixed the bug with connecting engines.
- Fixed the bug with ability to take out hull parts from under FSS.
- Fixed the bug where a frame would flip in the editor.
- Fixed the bug with the tiling of combridges.
- Fixed crash on the global map.
- Fixed screen jerking bug.
- Fixed bugs with destroyed planes on the global map.
- Fixed the bug which caused MRLS sights not to be drawn when MRLS go to the secondary.
- Fixed the bug which caused the loss of ammo if you load it on the ship, but do not use it in battle.
- Added a number of fixes to remembering radar settings between saves/battles.
- Fixed the bug with instant and free refueling if you remove and put the fuel tanks.
- The ram algorithm was tuned.
- Added an auto repair of slightly damaged modules.
- The landing procedure was fixed.
- Fixed the bug in the quest “A MATTER OF HONOR”.
- Added a special cursor when selecting planes.
So, does this move the game from dripping with atmosphere but unfortunately coupled to rage quitting game mechanics into a playable state worth me reconsidering?
Looking at the list, no, not at all.
On initial examination this looks like it could be one of the greatest titles ever designed. At least this description from a friend of mine who turned me onto the idea:
I’ve been going through this thread and have found about 1,000 reasons not to try this so of course I immediately bought it.
Congratulations. It is a pretty singular game. I really need to play it more, but like, you know.
Setting this thread to watch to hopefully enjoy your upcoming experience of trying to play Highfleet, failing, and rage uninstalling it as a way of reliving my own experience.
-Tom
I decided awhile back to live vicariously and enjoy the ride from a distance myself.
I call this the Tom Chick Maneuver . :)
I perfectly executed said maneuver with Shadow Empire.