Okay, playing through on stable, the space combat is most certainly is not balanced. Just trying to get through gentle star anomalies with the starter mech is incredibly difficult because; The starter weapon you get is very weak and has a super tiny projectile. The enemies move around like drugged-up houseflies, and somehow learn to halt all movement in space when you start leading your shots. They take around 5 to 6 hits with said pea shooter mech weapon to die, even considering the fact most of them are impossible to hit consistently. Outside of the mech, the end-game personal weapons barely even tickle them. You can't run from them. It's just not possible without giving up and beaming to your ship. The gentle star enemies do enough damage to punch through violium armor, doing about 20-30 damage with each hit. This caused me to have to retreat after FINALLY getting to a hostile ship, because I was completely surrounded by three shooter enemies, a turret, and about 4 bandits (That weren't anywhere near as tough). After doing about 5 or 6 anomalies, space stations, and ships, I still have neither found a schematic for a maybe new not-awful weapon, nor am I anywhere close to actually finishing the first fetch-quest for the penguin guy so he can give me something that maybe isn't awful. Seriously, no one seems to have this much issue with the update, what am I missing? Somebody please tell me so I can actually enjoy the new content.
Enemies can be outrun with boosters with 4 in top speed or good maneuvering with 4 in maneuverability. First point: yeah, that's why it's the starting weapon; using your drill to deflect melee attacks is an important thing in the early game. Second point: I haven't seen that at all, they seem pretty easy to hit if you make sure to aim the right amount ahead of where they currently are. As to your fifth point, 20-30 damage per hit ain't much. Learn to heal, or get a healing (preferably healing III) augment if you're having trouble finding the time to do that manually. The last point is a matter of RNG, and also the fact that since they move on and off the star map, you're expected to do larger numbers of ships and anomalies than planets. Two things you should do: 1: Move along the bottom of the map, especially when you start out with your low-tier mech. It'll help you avoid like 80% of enemies. 2: Get out of your mech when your mech is about to take a lot of hits. High-tier armor is better capable of taking damage than your initial mech. Bombs are very effective if thrown (in space, they fly straight, which works well in combination with their 100 DPS per hand, bouncyness and AoE, although you've got to make sure you don't hit yourself with them), and even while you're outside of your mech, batteries will still charge up the mech, so killing enemies by hand will let you recharge your mech easily (although you may have to fly to enemies you've killed at a distance). A rocket spear is key to getting around in space without your mech, and is faster than any booster if wielded properly. I'm honestly not seeing where you're having trouble, so do you want me to come up with a /spawnitem command for you so you have better armor to make the second tactic easier for you?
I had meant that I was wearing solarium violium armor. Also, they were all attacking me at once over and over, so I really couldn't get to my healing fast enough. Although, that stay on the bottom tactic could really help.
@Caaros the King of Chaos : You basically need to practice space movement with the mech and your aim. I struggled at first, but I eventually learned how to do it and now I can survive in places higher level than I should be going to, lol. If you want I could try to stream some mech combat, in fact, I could even equip the starter gear (I still have it!) to show you it isn't that hard once you get the hang of it. It just has a steep learning curve. EDIT: @DinoExplorer2000 : Go to Outpost, go right of the Beak Easy, new room in there. Accept the penguin's quest, do the test run, and you get the mech for free. Not sure when it unlocks (I waited until I was in the Titanium Tier, but before the Floran Dungeon).
@Caaros the King of Chaos : Using Ctrl lets you move the camera so you can snipe from outside their detection range, which helps you get the first few hits off, or with a mech weapon with good range, all of the shots you need.
i found that the instant i found space mechanics in mech only areas were different with going too high or low lol... cheese it all also a question is... whats useful in the anomaly areas other then getting parts by killing things? the most interesting thing i found was a room with the gravity wall... all i can think of is theyre meant to be part of a destroyed base made in asteroids also... another lifehack is that you can use the mech to get partially somewhere then jump out and rocket the rest just before it dies (thats what i did to get to the second anomaly that had gravity) it does say you might need a mech to use the things giving signals btw on scanning it but idk what i do if its true... minor annoyance: anyone on steam with mods installed if they updated when starbound did then it might say there was only workshop stuff and not the game itself updating... also controls which would be worse to happen but not that bad still theres an easy solution but the update reset my controls so had to fix them... and last annoyance and i think there was a way to fix is the graphics flicker when in fullscreen or borderless so if anyone has a way to fix this? other then that... SPACE!!! and the fact thats still minor and only did it unstable so mightve changed but stations dont match races it seems ill edit this if i remember to and can find it if its different now... and 2 annoyances unrelated to the game is im addicted to typing alot and to spoilering anything i type pls save meh
So, I have learned that my biggest problem with the space combat is that it's almost impossible for me to hit a moving target if I'm also moving. The shots just don't go where I think they will. Also, space exploration is significantly easier with a friend.
Projectile weapons seem to suffer from selective conservation of momentum. Basically your own movement speed at the time of launch seems to be added into their velocity, so don't change your movement while lining up a shot. Only mech projectile weapons seem affected by this, and other fundamental physics are still as screwed up as you'd expect in a video game (bouncing off the "edge" of space maps, arbitrary top speed even if you continuously fire your thrusters, contact damage only works to your detriment...) Until you can get top-tier thrusters just sit still, dodge shots if necessary and point the drill at anything coming too close. Snipe stuff with the highest dps mech gun you can find. Once you have good thrusters fly about and focus on dodging while just shooting in the general direction of the enemy until they're dead.
@Caaros the King of Chaos : Read up on Newton's Laws of Physics. I don't mean this in a condescending way, but I'm glad that projectiles work this way, because they should. Do this IRL: Get a little flat cart with wheels (like a toy car or something) and put a little toy spring-loaded cannon on it and make sure it is pointed straight up, exactly 90 degrees compared to the ground. Get a piece of string that you can use to tug on to fire the cannon, put a little ball in the cannon. Push the cart and tug on the string while the cart is moving. What happens? The cannon ball flies up, and has the same forward momentum the cart has, and the ball will drop right back down into the cannon assuming you had it exactly 90 degrees perpendicular to the ground. When you fire a projectile, your current velocity indeed affects it. Applying this to Starbound, it's a skill you will have to learn, it takes some practice to get the "feel" for it so you can predict where the shot will end up. I'm not perfect either, lots of times I still miss. But I'm getting better. And yes, stopping before firing or at least slowing down will improve your accuracy. This also has to do with getting a feel for how much thrust you need to slow/stop movement in any certain direction. Like I said earlier, this is a lot to do with a learning curve than actual numbers difficulty. You just need to get a feel for your vehicle, and how it handles, and also the guns and how they handle. Once you get better at it, you'll tear through enemies with ease. It's one of the few things that actually require any sort of skill in Starbound, and unlike a lot of other games out there, this actually feels fair. Sure, the enemies could move maybe a little slower, but it isn't THAT bad. Just don't barge into 5 enemies at once and expect to come out unscathed -- those little red arrows and the ctrl camera movement exist for a reason. Slowly engage your targets in smaller groups. Don't fight near guns. etc.
My issue with it is the inconsistency. Conservation of momentum does not seem to apply to enemies or any object generating constant thrust. actio=reactio should translate to more equal damage and knockback in collisions. Empty space at the top and bottom edges of the map is not a physical object that can impart momentum (you still "bounce" off it rather than just stopping or looping around). Your mech drop pod breaks apart and leaves you stationary with little to no indication of reverse thrust and its remains even continue hurtling "down". Dropped items seem to exhibit some amount of friction even in mostly airless anomalies. It's a new game mechanic inspired by real physics and it's decent unless you need to "wiggle" mech thrust when dodging, with how quickly you can change direction and throw off your aim those jets should let you zip through the entire debris field in seconds (then smash into pieces against the nearest asteroid, but you get the point).
That's kinda like arguing over semantics. The pod breaking is not really a part of the gameplay, so why should you be rocketed in some random direction? The bouncing off the edges, eh, that's kinda needed otherwise you have this infinite map. Looping is even worse, Space is not a toroid, afterall. The Knockback thing is kinda... eh... yeah it'd been kinda cool if mobs knocked back too, but I don't think it's a huge thing. Constant thrust... okay so you want lightspeed if you hold the button down long enough? SB barely runs on some peoples' computers as it is.. you want their framerate to tank after a few seconds if they hold the button down? A max speed keeps things from getting too ridiculous, even if it is slightly physics-breaking. The space combat is like anything else -- keep the things that promote fun gameplay, get rid of the things that don't. I like the aiming mechanics -- they enhance gameplay. Stuff like infinitely rocketing across the screen break gameplay, therefore it should not be there. EDIT: And why are we arguing "inconsistent realism" when we have things like teleportation, magic wands, and the ability to store tons and tons and tons of equipment and items on our person, as well as the ability to build things that just hover in the air with absolutely no gravity physics at all? I mean, why have the player have gravity when blocks don't? Isn't that inconsistent? At some point in time you need to just accept what makes for fun gameplay and hand-wave the rest. I feel CF did a rather good middle-ground here, the only point of yours I really feel that I agree with, is the enemies being knocked back when they ram you. That might have made them a little easier to deal with.
We are arguing because you quoted real-life physics to defend a questionable game mechanic. As for your points: The pod should either halt and have zero net momentum in its disintegration, or our mech should continue moving. Yet it halts our mech, and then falls "down". Excusable since they probably use the same animation for areas with gravity. Real space is not 2D either. A toroidal structure makes sense as a (somewhat odd) representation of a closed surface, as if the entire map was on a spherical shell or something like that. A bouncy barrier in an empty void makes no sense at all. Not just knockback, though mobs flying through you after a damaging collision is silly. If the impact is severe enough to damage an armoured mech it should leave a mark (read: damage) on a floaty space rock too. I agree realistic thrust would handle terribly in this game, but so do those guns. It's "intellectually" interesting they thought of that mechanic but shooting while changing your trajectory is a major pain. The space combat is like everything else: a little simple with some great ideas ruined by a few flaws in the implementation, though in this case I'm more faulting the mechs and stat balance. Do you consider enemies constantly sitting inside your own hitbox abusing contact damage to "promote fun gameplay" though? Because that's what they reduced procedural monsters to I like the aiming mechanics while in motion. I do NOT like the aiming mechanics when attempting to change that motion. Especially since it essentially promotes spam or passive play due to lack of other mechanics: shots fired seem to use no energy, that same unphysically high acceleration which throws off your aim also allows you to sit still and only dodge at the last second, enemies shift erratically when hit with most projectile weapons throwing off your next shot even if you do aim correctly, and actual melee weapons (read: not the drill shield) are crap so you have nothing to properly take advantage of enemies coming in close to abuse contact damage.
Couple quick notes: 1) There is a little reverse thrust after the drop pod, it just doesn't last much longer than the pod animation, so it's hard to see. Watch your mech's feet. 2) Knockback in collisions is there. Just try staying in in one spot while asteroid mobs are ramming you, and you'll see! I do agree that CoM should apply to enemies and damage calculations. As for the top & bottom of maps, I imagine that's just an effort to not blow up your computer every time you enter a space map.
So I played some entry-level mech battles again today (as part of my new playthrough). Yeah, seriously, it's not hard. When you see multiple red arrows indicating nearby enemies, spin your drill up. It doesn't cost anything (that MJ/s calculation is passive energy drain, and it drains regardless if you are using your weapons or not!) and it is an awesome shield (I will admit, at first I thought it sucked then I made it a point to give it a good test and yeesh, the thing is far more awesome than one would think at first). The drill knocks enemies back and assuming you had it spun up before they reached you, it isn't too hard to fend off 3-5 enemies at a time, by pointing your cursor at them. Once you knock them back, fire a shot in that direction and you will almost always hit because the knockback acts like a stun -- enemies can't change direction while they are being knocked back, so you are almost guaranteed a hit. Also, you gain contact damage immunity if you hit an enemy just before it goes through you, so you won't take damage even if you did fail to hit an enemy with your drill somehow. I was taking on groups of 3-5 enemies, even the Mustache Robots (though I agree those are the worst) without too much trouble with the starting gear. This is, of course, on Gentle Stars. EDIT: RE: @greenwiz29 : Hah! I never noticed that about the dropship pods. That means it IS physics-correct, because if you fire your thrusters as you break the pod open, you'd be propelled upwards (or at least your downwards movement cancelled) while the bits of the pod would be blasted away from you downwards and outwards, exactly as the animation plays. EDIT2: As for the top/bottom borders, what they COULD do, is do some hand-wavey thing where there's gravity that pulls you towards the center of the map if you go too far and make it so that when you reach the edge, you don't konk into something solid but yet you slow down, stop and are gently pushed back towards the center.
1) You're right! Sadly the pod still has thrusters burning on the wrong side so now we have the opposite problem of the pod slowing down for no apparent reason 2) Just tried it, seems to have been changed since I stopped paying attention in Unstable. Enemies would routinely impact on my mech and fly straight through me. Still doesn't damage them at all though, even those that aren't designed to ram you hurt like hell while taking no damage themselves. I'm perfectly fine with the map looping vertically too, it makes as much sense as horizontal looping unless you try to perform a parallel transport experiment. I know the mechanics of those weapons all too well, ground my way through T6 encounters in Unstable before they nerfed them. Being able to respawn for free is the biggest difficulty killer as it's fairly easy to take down one group before you die. Not entirely sure what triggers the damage immunity but it's not raw damage, zapping stuff with the Tesla Stream doesn't make me invulnerable. My guess is the damage they inflict scales with their speed so heavy knockback resets it. Will check in the monster files eventually.
I don't know about all enemies, but the little asteroid guys, when you shoot them, they get these big white wide eyes (a sort of "oh!" face) and when they are like that, they fly right through you and do nothing. Mustache Robots do similar.
What are you shooting them with? As I said the Tesla Stream seems lacking in that regard, while the Flak and Cannon arms stagger everything pretty heavily.
