Nice game... but how does it work?

[TallTroll]

Firstly, awesome game, I'm really enjoying it. Like all roguelikes though, it has its frustrations, because there are a few things I've come across where I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong, or a part of the game is missing / bugged

Repairing ships : I've found abandoned ships in space and on planets a few times, and even managed to "acquire" an Explorer once, but one game I found no less than 2 merchantmen AND a Heavy Scout, and failed to be able to do anything with them. I *think* it's because I didn't have a "ship repair kit" in my inventory, but the "it will take x hours to repair this ship, start now y/n?" message is spectacularly useless. What, precisely, does that mean? That I can repair the ship eventually? Or is it hinting that I need to go and find a repair kit?

Buying specific items : In the same game, I desperately wanted to buy a ship repair kit, but nowhere had one in its' sale list. I tried to use the "order item" function at several shops, and they ALL told me "I don't know what that is". Do I need to go to a specific shop? Or use a specific request to buy the item? I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong, or I've found a bug or what

Ground combat mechanics : I'm not sure how combat works on planetary surfaces. I can see that your away team has ranged and melee combat numbers, but it's not clear exactly how they work. Do all weapons in the team get added together into one number which is used to attack the target, or does each weapon fire separately? Does a large team with weak weapons have a chance to hurt a heavily armoured target? Or do you need a weapon that exceeds the targets armour value to have a good chance of damage?

I'm learning, slowly, but the lack of documentation for a lot of this stuff is making progress a little uneven....

[magellan]

[Happy Corner]

Ground combat. If I recall right, armor in this game doesn't automatically absorb damage (like it does in many games). Instead, for every point of damage a target gets, their armor provides an X chance of negating that point. So in theory, you could damage a heavily-armored monster with a weak weapon. I suspect that all your team's weapons are added up, and each point of that total is applied to the target separately. I'm not sure exactly how (or if) fractional damage points count, though. Or even if I'm correct about what I just wrote above.

Magellan himself would have to explain the whole system in more detail.

[TallTroll]

Hah, some progress then

>> That's the time it will take to repair the ship

Ok, but what does "23 hours" *mean*? 23 turns? 23 waits? I think the explorer I found was just floating in space, fully functional, so I just moved over, and it wasn't an issue. Good to know I don't absolutely require a ship repair kit though

>> If you press A you can see the individual members of your team and what armor and weapons they have.

Yes, I have learned to manage my away team from here, although it's not the most intuitive screen ever. It seems awkward to assign specific equipment to specific personnel, although I haven't tried playing with it too much yet

>> If you attack a critter everybody tries to hit the creature. Everybody who does manage to hit, does damage according to the weapon wielded. Hope this helped?

Yes. The collated damage values are a little misleading. A large team all with weak weapons will have a different damage profile compared to 2 or 3 powerful ones, but the same apparent attack rating

[magellan]

I see what you mean now. It's the only place where time is measured in hours.
I've been thinking a bit yesterday anyway about changing the time display. Turns sounds a bit too OOC. Not sure what would be a good system though. total hours perhaps, with 2 seperate counters counting daytime and weekday?

Not entirely sure on the other hand what you mean with misleading armor and weapons aggregates. Could you elaborate a bit? What was misleading you how?

[TallTroll]

>> Not sure what would be a good system though. total hours perhaps, with 2 seperate counters counting daytime and weekday?

Yeah, keep it simple whenever possible. Although the fact that most crews (at least most of mine) don't survive even a week might start to grate

>> Not entirely sure on the other hand what you mean with misleading armor and weapons aggregates. Could you elaborate a bit? What was misleading you how?

Sure. In the awayteam view, the figures for armour, melee and ranged weapons show the total values of all equipped items. However, a team of 10, all with rifles might have the same "ranged" value as a team with 2 or 3 decent weapons. Depending on what they are shooting at, fire might have very different effects, despite the nominally similar values. Unless I misunderstood how ranged damage is calculated, which is entirely possible

[magellan]

Still not sure I get it.
It shows how much armor and damage potential your group has. Do you think an average would be more helpful? or both? Total and total/crewmembers?

[TallTroll]

>> Do you think an average would be more helpful? or both? Total and total/crewmembers?

I don't really know. It depends a bit on exactly how the combat mechanics work too. I'm not sure I'm really asking for anything about it to be changed anyway. As it is, it's a guide to how well armed / protected you are, but you have to look through your actual crew stats to see the real picture, but that may be a good thing