Game is far far too easy ?

[laminblake]

The Skunk is a Hyperion Vanguard crossed with a Springblossom, dropped into a world that consists only TL-strength capitals and M5 fighters.

It is, for all intents and purposes, an Arcade-game ship.

Am i so bad? i get killed every time on that boording mission :/

Get a pile of shield regenerating drones, and rebind your boost to an easier button. Shift is decent for keyboards, while controller boost is better on the left shoulder button (swapping with reverse).

And TL-strength capitals without shields to add insult to injury

[Lise]

And turrets that are incapable of leading targets.

[SieurNewT]

maybe ?

Just kill turrets, start with the ones below the ship, then take you time for other turrets ... and move, dont just stop front turret at 100 m, try to strafe a little ... I done this mission with basic ship not even shield upgraded as i didnt really understood the offer at this time ... and really no problem (or only one, is that 10 marines with a rookie marine officer => fail)

Or just take 30 marines and just kill the jumpdrive, then dock to a station and wait next step of the plot

[DaddyMonster]

Yeah, def needs balancing.

Destroying a cool looking Xenon cap ship shouldn't be so easy (even if it takes time). I remember Bernd saying that no way should the Skunk be able to take on a cap ship - that you would need another cap ship for that - so this isn't by design. An easy fix would be equipping them with missiles to remove the blind spot but they really need many more turrets or defence drones guard the perimeter.

[Zhat]

You guys abusing weak spots much?

ALL the time, although its not necessary, ships dont do dmg

Standard Vessel Hardpoint
HIT Turret DPM(Damge per Minute!) 54,000 x4 = 216.000 DPM
Shield Strength MK1 FFP 50.000 MJ

Albion Skunk:
Dmg from Pulse Laser mk1 = 288,000 DPM
Shield Strength MK1 Balanced= 30.000x2 = 60.000 MJ

The Skunk in its weakest condition has more shield- and more firepower than a single hardpoint

Try to engage a capital ship in for example X-BTF with your starting vessel (You should do some trading and buy 1 alpha impulse ray emitter, otherwise it wont work .

I think its not about the weak spots. I installed the Fight Reloaded Mod recently, it just feels better, still its far too easy to stay in the blind spots, because of this new "gravity field" (which is a really cool feature, when not considering cap fighting)

[TDQuasar]

I'm hoping that there will be new, bigger, stronger enemies introduced soon. New systems will open up. Then the game will make us suffer. Not with bugs but with well designed challenges.

Am I a hopeless optimist?

[Sandalpocalypse]

AI needs to travel in bigger groups, i'm experimenting with that.

[Artean]

AI needs to travel in bigger groups, i'm experimenting with that.

Yes, and freighters shopuld have the ability to call in support. Not spawned ships, though, but actual cap ships that will have to travell to the engagement.

[JClosed]

You guys abusing weak spots much?

We are being critical, I see no problem with that.

I guess you misinterpreted that. I think he means things like destroying drone launches and shooting from the inside, and if you are inclined to use that weak spots in stead of "fighting fair".

I should say that indeed the enemy ships could be more aggressive (and maybe your weapons an tad weaker). I should say the drone launches should be protected with a strong force field. And that same force field should prevent you from flying inside the ship and blast everything away..

If these two things are done, attacking an big ship will turn into a far bigger challenge..

[Santi]

I am curious to know if most of you dedicated a few hours with the long range scanning at the beginning to upgrade the Skunk to the maximum and if that messes up the difficulty. I was expecting a harder upgrade path, and while not in all areas, hostile ships to be more active.

Edit: What you think the effect of reducing the loot from the long range scanning will have in difficulty?

[Bobucles]

Edit: What you think the effect of reducing the loot from the long range scanning will have in difficulty?

Then people will spend TWO hours scanning instead of one?

There are many problems with scanning and some of them tie into the fiasco that is Rebirth's dual economy. The abundant, bottomless spawns are just one aspect. Scanning zones are incredibly close to stations and are practically everywhere. There are NO vessels patrolling these areas of space, no pirates or police or competing scavenger craft. The Skunk has infinite storage for everything you can find (missiles are capped at 170 regardless of type). Finally, you can sell any amount of goods to any proper merchant. You can sell a hundred, a thousand, or a million terran rations and there is literally no difference in selling price or how much a merchant would reasonably want.

If Rebirth used a single complete economy, many of these issues would be solved simply by virtue of using the core economy rule set and giving the Skunk a proper inventory.

[steelgrey75]

I remember many years ago doing some long scanning sessions with a few friends playing Eve, our aim was to track down wormholes. These wormholes could take you literally anywhere, often straight to your death as you suddenly appeared in a system with 30 Goonswarm members just hanging out. However sometimes you could find old wrecks that had artifacts in them, these were worth insane amounts of money, millions and millions to be made from one wreck. However people soon started to realise this and before you knew it everybody was doing it. As a result the market was flooded with these artifacts and the price dropped so much it just wasn't worth doing anymore. Thats how it should be in this game, its all very well finding 500 space suits, but there should only be a limit as to how many merchants want to buy, and if the limit is almost reached then the product should be worth less value and demand.

[Sandalpocalypse]

No, the upgrades arn't the problem. they contribute, but they arn't the problem.

In most battle scenarios you take nearly no damage - because you engage single enemy ships that in most cases arn't attacking you.

For example, take the typical 'cartel attack' mission: the mission spawns single enemies at random points around the station, set to attack the station. All the player does is boost from enemy to enemy, pouncing on nigh-defenceless prey.

This is also the case in Escort missions, though at least this mission has a fail condition. Random enemies around the map are sort of like this, since raiding parties/fighter squadrons are typically in groups of 2 or at most 3 and you can take one ship out before they aggro on you typically.

By far the most difficult battle I've seen in the vanilla game so far (i haven't gotten to Omicron Lyrae ) is the prison transport attack. That's in part because of ths sheer number of light drones that are deployed to attack you, on top of a constricted battlespace. It's sort of the platonic ideal of X Rebirth combat, except for the HoA armada - it's far too powerful, and the only reason it doesn't wipe the floor with the poor PMC in the first 2 minutes is that they don't attack.

Another problem is that you are much faster than all enemies XS/S/M ships. As far as I can tell, they never boost under any circumstances. Boost drive is the Jump Drive of X Rebirth. (or if you are calling back to x2, the Strafe Drive.) So strategically, the player has every advantage since they always choose whether to engage or not. (Some would argue this is moot, because in vanilla balance the player can easily defeat all but the strongest enemy groups.)

Freelancer's solution to this problem was a super fast missile that could knock ships out of cruise drive, making it more difficult to evade enemies. It would not be a terrible idea to rip this off entirely.

Freelancer also had a charge time on the cruise drive. I see some evidence that Egosoft experimented with such a mechanic, and chose against it. Truthfully, I cannot argue with their decision, as it does make flying around the large station zones far more fluid than it would be with charge times. If they added a charge time mechanic, it would likely be necessary to seperate Boosters into Afterburners and Boosters.

However people soon started to realise this and before you knew it everybody was doing it. As a result the market was flooded with these artifacts and the price dropped so much it just wasn't worth doing anymore. Thats how it should be in this game, its all very well finding 500 space suits, but there should only be a limit as to how many merchants want to buy, and if the limit is almost reached then the product should be worth less value and demand.

The easiest fix would simply be to make scavenging less lucrative, particularly in terms of large quantities of high value items. It would also be interesting if wreck fields never replenished without combat in the area.

Frankly though one reason people gravitate towards wreckfield scavenging is that only boarding and scavenging are truely lucrative. Both activities need to be less profitable and/or more difficult, while other activities (missions and trading) need to be more lucrative. This may require some economic rebalance.

[LastChime]

Yeah I think it would add some more strategy is the boosters could only be engaged at over 80% shields and if firing weapons/taking damage disengaged them

[Sandalpocalypse]

It would make them a lot harder to be used as afterburners. And tbh, it won't make a difference until you actually have a reason to run away xD

[Shootist]

Game is far far too easy ?

First, they fix the game, then they begin to balance it. If it is anything like TC, the process will take years.

[steelgrey75]

Game is far far too easy ?

First, they fix the game, then they begin to balance it. If it is anything like TC, the process will take years.

How is your comment relevant? The game is far far too easy, so the OP is correct, he was asking peoples opinions.

[e66h34dd]

The Skunk is a Hyperion Vanguard crossed with a Springblossom, dropped into a world that consists only TL-strength capitals and M5 fighters.

This sums up the difficulty and challenge of the game quiet nicely, made me laugh.
And then cry.

[winscale]

I like it just the way it is, but maybe I have not been fighting that much. Maybe ES can add difficulty levels later for those who wants it.

[chikatilo]

first game ever that made me learn how to code .XML
wouldn't call that easy