Carrier Command

[QuantaCat]

Just got it (the beta that is), and played for ten minutes. Tried to land on an island in order to build a command centre, but I have no clue how to do exactly that.

So far impressions:

1) I LOVE the launching of stuff. You are actually inside the carrier, and when you press "undock", you are either put into the water (the amphibic ATV kind of things) or put on the carrier deck (the hovercraft things) in order for you to launch. Wonderful.
2) so far, I love the map, where you can issue orders. I havent faced the AI yet, but it seems like it might be just as fun as Hostile Waters.
3) graphically impressive. but its a beta, so I dont know how feature complete it is. It seems overwhelming at the moment, but thats just because I dont know what stuff does.

Anyone else?

[DaftPunk]

Nope,never played neither the original nor this one,but it looks really stunning and Bohemia its making it if i'm no mistaken,so we are up to good stuff.

[Stevo]

Just got it (the beta that is), and played for ten minutes. Tried to land on an island in order to build a command centre, but I have no clue how to do exactly that.

So far impressions:

1) I LOVE the launching of stuff. You are actually inside the carrier, and when you press "undock", you are either put into the water (the amphibic ATV kind of things) or put on the carrier deck (the hovercraft things) in order for you to launch. Wonderful.
2) so far, I love the map, where you can issue orders. I havent faced the AI yet, but it seems like it might be just as fun as Hostile Waters.
3) graphically impressive. but its a beta, so I dont know how feature complete it is. It seems overwhelming at the moment, but thats just because I dont know what stuff does.

Anyone else?

I am loving the look of this and may pick it up tonight just on the their launch trailer alone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3SL6HoaDs8 fucking cool).

Some feedback on how it plays would be great. Gameplay wise what sort of strategy are we looking at here? If it's sandbox mode at the moment are we looking at 30 minute matches or much longer focus.

The more info the better!

[Hensler]

I pre-ordered, still waiting for beta access. I never played the original, but I hear this has a lot in common with the old game Hostile Waters... which is why I pre-ordered. Definitely looking forward to it.

[Stevo]

How does the pre order beta access work exactly?

[QuantaCat]

you get a download, with a key. then you can play the beta.

there is no single player campaign, and Im sure they have more features on hold. You get to play the island hopping skirmish mode.

[Stevo]

you get a download, with a key. then you can play the beta.

there is no single player campaign, and Im sure they have more features on hold. You get to play the island hopping skirmish mode.

Well I bought it based on that trailer alone. So do tell is the skirmish mode any good?

[QuantaCat]

its really hard, but I like it so far. youre really overpowered in the beginning, so you have to think very tactically.


EDIT: the enemy is overpowered, not you.

[Stevo]

its really hard, but I like it so far. youre really overpowered in the beginning, so you have to think very tactically.


EDIT: the enemy is overpowered, not you.

Right that is 20 quid well spent IMO. This my sort of tactical game, one where you may not finish it in the first few sittings and the pacing is quite slowish to a degree. But yeah it is difficult I have no idea what the hell is going on half the time and the controls can be a bit of a struggle. That said I fucking love the whole live feed of your units! Wish there was more then just 2 main units you can produce so far.

[FuriKuri!]

Kinda sailed around a bit launching crap at islands without knowing what to do (Bohemia's usual interface 'issues' present and correct). Ended up getting one of my islands under attack so I sail in, shove my carrier up the enemy carrier's arse and splurge plasma all over their rear (oo'er missus!). 5 mins of spam javelling later and its all over 'cept for the walk of shame home for the enemy team.

Not entirely sure what to make of that. First, victory shouldn't have come that easily considering I had no idea wtf I was doing and the way it played out raises serious doubts in my mind as to the point in all the island business if its all going to end up being quickly solved in a slugfest between capital ships. All my mantas were destroyed quickly by the other carrier and my walruses paddled about attacking but not seeming to add much to the fight.

[QuantaCat]

re: the carrier showing up so easily

thats because the number of islands is so low, but usually, you get overpowered by the enemy carrier. Also please remember that this is a beta and there has only been a bit of balancing. (but there was one official reason for it being so easy to find the carrier, look at the cc forums)

re: the UI

YES. I wish they would just USE the keyboard, instead of that really annoying "press space, then move mouse, then release space"

Though I did find out you can undock with F. Also, getting a hook for your mantas, then picking up the ATVs is made of win, though I didnt find out how to do this over the map ie. telling the AI pilots to do it.
Also, isnt there a shortcut for the "EMERGENCY!" radial item?

[squirrel]

Hey, you mates would upload some of gameplay video from the beta? I so much look forward to this game myself.

Of course, if the beta is under NDA, pls forget what I said.

[QuantaCat]

no, we bought the beta. I just cant be bothered, though.

[soldant]

I'm still downloading it. Man, the Sprocket servers are abysmal. I was a fan of Hostile Waters (too young to have played the original) and this looks particularly good. Concerned about the UI problems though... tell me it isn't like ARMA's abysmal command menu?

[QuantaCat]

I like it so far. I just managed to take over an island, I simply had to scout ahead, then send in air support to cover for the walrusses. worked like a charm.

Also, it wasnt a defence island, so it was comparably light defended.

ALSO, afterwards, I ran into the enemy carrier. I died. DAMN!

[Caleb367]

Just had a whirl on it, and man it's looking GREAT.
I quickly picked up the interface despite no tutorial yet - but I may be in luck, as I'm working on almost 20-years old memories.
It's all mouse-driven and intuitive, as in, you want to send three Manta VTOLs to scout and/or attack three different places on an island? Just click on the vehicle number, zoom in on the map, click again on its destination. That's it. Change of plans? Select vehicle, click "get the hell back here".
So far it's really, really slick.

[FuriKuri!]

No, it's (a lot) better than ARMA's. It's just there's a lot of crap going on which the interface doesn't make clear. I'm mostly hating on it because I can't rebind my movement keys away from (urgh!) WASD to arrow key movement. But now that I've worked out how the game is supposed to be played it ain't so bad. It's mostly just a lot of minor niggles leading to frustration; the radial menu sucks (clearly geared toward gamepad input) and the map view feels both jumpy and sluggish. Unofrtunately those two places are where all the menu action takes place...

The gameplay is interesting but waiting for the enemy carrier to attack then swooping in for the kill is definately the easiest and quickest way to win. The AI there certainly needs to be improved, it does try to escape after a bit of punishment but it's fairly easy to destroy the engines and all that's left is to pummel on it for awhile. It's quite unbalanced against the "intended" way of playing which frankly seems to take too much time. A lot of this game seems to be waiting for things to happen (boring things like production finishing) when there's not much else for you to do. Don't know if I missed it but it would've been excellent to have the 'speed up time' option available without having to sail to another island and waste fuel.

It suffers a lot from Supreme Commander syndrome in that it's a lot more effective to play the game from the map view and make abstract symbols fight other abstract symbols in some weirdo RTS version of Gridwars. Might be the horrid WASD setup messing with my mojo but telling my units to shoot things seems to be a lot more effective than me doing the shooting myself - most of the time.

If you're just about to get into the game I'll save you some flapping about - you only build command centres, one per island, and you choose what type of command centre you want via what you load onto your walrus. You'll start with some islands you own (pay them no heed) and an empty island belong to nobody. Sail to the empty one, scout for the empty command centre plot with your air units then send one walrus with the command centre of your choice to build it. You don't need to hang around for it to build.

Your choices are factory (decrease production time), mining (increase resource output) and defence (can withstand enemy attack better). You can convert an island between these types later - click on the island in the map view like you were going to sail to it and there's a menu screen tucked away on the left tabs. Some islands are better for production, some are better for resource.

The last thing to note is that when you produce stuff it ain't loaded on your carrier. It goes to your special stockpile island which you have only one of (but can be changed via the above island convert method). You must manually select what supplies to transfer to your carrier from the supply screen and a fast shuttle is sent to you with your goods. I'm not sure but I think a stockpile island gives you resource and production and is best paired with a 'defence' command center. So your choice seems to be a balance between moving it closer to the frontlines for faster restock or putting it on a nice 'plump' island to get the best resource turnover.

[soldant]

Okay I'm trying to apply my limited knowledge of Hostile Waters (been a long time) and I have no idea what I'm doing. Thanks FuriKuri you've given me a starting point, but I still don't really understand a lot of the interface. Could use some work here. I spend most of the time accidentally screwing around with the UI trying to find an effective way to give orders.

Also what's the point of the command rosette that pops up when you press SPACEBAR?

[QuantaCat]

The production isnt supposed to be quick; its like a tech tree progression, really. You order better weapons to then be sent to you afterwards. Usually, the first trip gives you the first item pretty much at the end of your journey, and I love the supply system. There's obviously some stuff that just doesnt work exactly as it should, and the radial menu is simply horrid, as it cannot be replaced by shortcuts, yet.

Though my absolute love increased when I found out undocking by F key. Also get a hook, it pays off, as well as making one manta a scout one, just remove its armor.

[Caleb367]

You're right about the radial menu, right now it's pretty much useless.
Probably you have already noted this, but:
To get actual supplies - as in, fuel, new vehicles, weaponry, ecc. you have to request a supply barque being delivered to you. The barque can only be loaded with stuff already present in the stockpile (as in, no "wait until the laser cannons are ready and then deliver") and more importantly it is generated from the stockpile island, meaning that as you conquer more islands, you'd do better to put your stockpile towards the frontline or be prepared to wait a long time between resupply runs.

Oh, and btw: naval bombardment of coastal defenses. AWESOME.