Beta Week-end #1 - CLOSED - post feedback here

[DirkLarien]

Hi there. Thanks to Flavien’s effort i was able to again try the IB.
You programmers should be considered endangered species. Thank you.

I took some notes while playing to provide bit of feedback. It is just my silly opinion.
Nothing more.

Launcher

Great to have the Control settings UI in launcher, makes things lot easier to try out.

Notes:

• For some reason my rudder pedal axis(saitek) was detected as a button, but worked normally as an axis.
  Typo i guess.

• Some options and settings could use “hover over explanations” It wasn’t very clear what some of the options meant.

• Checkbox to set default control method.
  Currently it is set to mouse. And when you use joy and forget to hit F4, resulting takeoff is funky.

• Zoom (in cockpit) as an axis.

• More controllers. Currently you can only use two.
  Some like X52 and t16000 series can be linked to be merged into one device. But normally you would have two with stick and throttle. If you want to use rudders and headtracking(since normal track ir/freetrack is not supported you have to use virtual joystick) you are two devices short.
  If you want to use such setup you are forced to use external programs like universal joystick remaper. Which isn’t as easy to setup.
  I guess there has to be a reason it is limited to two devices only. But i have to wonder what is that reason? If for simplicity sake, i think it achieves the opposite.

In game

• I like the changes to flight model in atmosphere. Bank turning is useful compared to way back.
  

• Though i have a control conundrum:

In atmo. i like my controls to behave like airplanes would =>
Pitch and Bank on Stick,
Yaw on Rudder pedals.

My mind expects that, it feels natural.

But when i got into space it was clearly inferior method.
So i changed it to:
Pitch and Yaw on Stick,
Bank on Rudder pedals.

Which feels natural in space But really weird in atmosphere.
This is obviously just my mind’s perceived problem due to years of drill on flight/space sims.
But now that two are blending together it creates this weird conundrum.
Anyone else having similar experience ?
Guess i will figure out some control macro or what not in UJR, to switch it with button press.

• Throttle range
  Seems wasted. I was mostly using first 30% of the throttle range rest was over kill (it seems ok in warp)
  Currently the curve looks like this.

But i would not be afraid to push it even farther like this (that is just example):

• target nearest could be limited to enemy only. (it gets confusing when you are on RED side, you cant beat lifetime of walking on green and stopping at red) But at least this would remind you. Once there are non it does start to rotate friendlies.

• also why cant i target base parts when they are the goal ? Am i doing it wrong ?
  .

• Headtracking

Great to have this enabled now. It makes HUGE difference.
I played first time in a year and ended up surprisingly high in scoreboard.
Not because i was good (i was actually pretty bad :-D) But because of situational awareness.
Fact that you can target what you look at and turrets even track your head movement, oh and spotlight that is just cool. X-B

What could be made better about it.
There is one very strange thing about the head looking.
It seems there is a circle directly in front where the plane of motion is warped towards the middle.
And it feels like your head is pulled towards the center.
Here is a vid. to demonstrate.

Those V motions are not done by me. All i do is move head left to right.
In leveled state motion is ok no issue. But when lookikng slightly up or down and turning your head.:
For comparison DCS (other sims too) with same movement.

You get used to it after a while, but still i have to wonder, is it intentional or a bug ?
Seems strange.

Also range is limited to 90° in all directions. …could we have more ? Please X-B
Cockpits have windows far enough back to utilize it anyway. Guess i am spoiled from DCS.

And there is no transnational head movement. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

UI Elements

• Shields/Hull/Speed/Energy readouts. They are small but i like them small. But they are barely visible. Perhaps more contrast to the readouts or flashing effect/change of color when critical.

• Flight path marker. Is also not visible enough. And it even seemed to disappear near ground. Where i needed it most.

• Overcharge state - would love to know at a glance in what state i am. Tiny numbers are not visible most of the time let alone in the heat of battle.

• Target status ui element. Needed heavily.
  This little thing.
  

  … you could stea…inspire yourselves

• Some sort of close range radar thingy would be lovely too. Had no idea if anyone is behind me or not. Resulting in my test of EMP(or how is it called) affecting someone during stream (sorry dude i wasn’t aware someone was there.)

• “Target suggested battle site” feature or something like that, could be nice. Searching it by the name and pointing at random, planets in the distance is bit clunky.

• have you considered some small hauler craft to transport goods and deploy defenses and building things around the space ?
  You would be surprised how popular this is in multiplayer games. (battlefield series, truck sims, farming sims)
  Not everyone is great fighter, but people really love to participate. (lately was having blast doing this in helicopters around DCS multiplayer servers. I starting to get those weirdos playing Euro truck simulators.

Please don’t be discouraged by negative sounding feedback i was having paper to writing those …i should have had paper for awesome things too

Overall it shaping up really nicely. Pretty nice Inovae.

[INovaeFlavien]

You get used to it after a while, but still i have to wonder, is it intentional or a bug ?

Seems strange.

Certainly not intentionnal. But I do not have a headtracking device to test it, so debugging that will have to wait.

For the rest of your feedback, not much to comment on - most of it will get addressed when the game is in a more advanced state. Some of the changes are easy to do, I’m going to work a bit on the HUD next week. Some changes are out of scope until more game systems are in ( ex.: targetting individual buildings in bases ).

[INovaeFlavien]

Thank you for your feedback Shaamaan; from a new player experience, it is very precious !

I know the UI is in early stages, but it’s VERY confusing to join the red team as a new player and expect to fire on green targets.

I’ve seen this feedback from a lot of new players. So I guess we’ll go back to green = allies and red = enemies in an upcoming patch. However there are potentially 3 teams, so “enemies” could belong to two different teams; that’s the reason the indicators are currently team-color-encoded, although due to limited player count we’re only using 2 teams on the server at the moment.

Also, finding the next battle was sometimes a bit annoying - the mission readout says to join a battle at place XYZ, but it takes a while to actually get a feeling for where things are.

This will be get addressed when the UI is in a more advanced state, including the star map.

My biggest complaint is that, outside of joining massive battles and fighting enemies there’s no clear overarching goal beyond “kill everything in sight”. If there was one, I certainly missed it and the UI didn’t help out. Yes, there are haulers one can try and destroy - assuming one has a ship big enough to stop them, that is. Did I miss something else? On a few occasions there were notifications that my team completed an objective or failed to complete an objective, but I couldn’t pin down what it was we were supposed to do and how I was supposed to know about it.

The main goal is to destroy enemy infrastructure. There are installations of various types and sizes on or around planets. The small ones can be tackled by a small group of players, but the medium/big ones need more organized attacks and potentially bringing a fleet of capital ships.

Each base has various building modules, which provide functionality to the game systems. Ex.: destroying a nuclear reactor will stop providing energy to the base, powering down defenses. Shooting turrets / defenses is obvious. Destroying storage tanks in factories reduce the amount of resources the factory produces. Destroying a factory makes haulers stop transporting resources ( generating credits for your team when reaching a station ). Destroying a radio tower stops the base from detecting threats. And of course, destroying hangars prevents enemies from respawning there. We’ll continue to add more as the development progresses ( ex.: we’ll add shield generators that need to be destroyed by small ships, before capital ships have a chance at attacking a base ).

Another big feature currently missing is the mission system as it is dependent on implementing the new UI / menu systems. Once it is in, you will be able to open a page which will list potential missions. It’ll play a bit like in a MMO, you accept a mission, and if you accomplish objectives you’ll get rewards for it. You can of course ignore missions and go on your own, but completing missions will be a better way to earn quick credits.

Missions will also be an indirect way to force players into each others. Ex.: one player in team red can do an “escort hauler” mission, while another player in the other team will get a “destroy hauler” mission… both on the same hauler / path.

We’ll add more mission types and various things to bring variety to the game. Ideas for small missions are welcome, even if they’re not necessarily combat-oriented. The sky ( and budget / time ) is the limit here, after we get on Steam and release the game we could add a ton more missions / content there.

Progression and credits are a bit weird as well - I’m still not sure if I get credits for kills or just for being in the game.

Both. You get a small amount of credits for enemy kills, but this is not the primary way of making credits. The best way is to work on game objectives, which usually means scouting enemy bases ( in the early stages of the game ) or destroying enemy buildings.

You also get passive credits just for being in the team. However this is affected by how well your team is doing as a whole. Haulers bring resources to space stations and turn those into “team credits”. Team credits get redistributed to players and AI every few minutes.

[jasonbarron]

Brand new guy here, interested in getting some info on this game in order to make a purchase decision: my first question is if I pledge right now for $60.00 and get “immediate access” does that mean that the game exists in some early form that I can just download and play literally right now? Or is immediate access just limited events such as the recent beta?

Sorry if I’m putting this question in the wrong place–it’s my first visit to the forum.

[INovaeFlavien]

Brand new guy here, interested in getting some info on this game in order to make a purchase decision: my first question is if I pledge right now for $60.00 and get “immediate access” does that mean that the game exists in some early form that I can just download and play literally right now? Or is immediate access just limited events such as the recent beta?

No that’s fine

The current event is available to beta-backers ( $60+ ) for this week-end only. Tomorrow you would lose access ( unless you purchased the more expensive alpha which includes permanent access ).

The full / permanent beta is scheduled for early 2019, however we’ll probably host 1-2 more “limited” beta week-ends by then.

[jasonbarron]

Thanks so much for the reply, InovaeFlavien. Is there a prototype that I can download if I purchase the game now that gives me access to a ship(s) so I can learn the controls and just sort of knock around getting the hang of things?

I really love the concept and “The Expanse” vibe you guys have going on.

[Rujasu]

I’ve seen this feedback from a lot of new players. So I guess we’ll go back to green = allies and red = enemies in an upcoming patch. However there are potentially 3 teams, so “enemies” could belong to two different teams; that’s the reason the indicators are currently team-color-encoded, although due to limited player count we’re only using 2 teams on the server at the moment.

I feel like the problem is compounded by the game not really effectively signaling to the player which team they’re in. I didn’t choose a team in the launcher, so it took me a good while to figure out that I’m in the red team. Potential solution is just UI work, to make sure the player understands what’s going on.

Using something else than the standardized friendly/enemy colors would help too. Like, yellow purple cyan or something. Maybe different sets of shapes for each faction’s ships, instead of the default of triangle for fighters etc. for all of them. For colorblind people, and general clarity.

Other things I wondered during the weekend:

-What does the safety lock thing do? I found no difference in setting it on or off.

-The hit indicator sound could have a bit more punch to it, but that’s probably for the audiovisual polish stage. Took me a long time of wondering whether or not I’m hitting anything to notice it.

-I don’t have a particularly powerful PC (In fact I recall asking on Twitter if an R9 270X would even run the thing, and the answer was a no) but it runs fine, aside from when approaching stations and bases, where it freezes for a moment. Odd things seem to happen sometimes during that freeze, like suddenly finding myself reversing away from the base at warp speeds instead of going towards at that speed, and general lag-like maneouvers. Probably something to do with the connection not being solid while the PC figures itself out? I don’t really have anything easily reproducible on it, though, sorry.

[Sab1e]

Is there a prototype that I can download if I purchase the game now

Yes.
The game is currently in an Alpha build state that you can access if you pledge the appropriate Alpha Access tier. This weekend is special, because Beta-level backers also have access to the Alpha build.
So, if you bought a Beta support tier today, you could download and play today, but then would have to wait for the next Beta access weekend to log in again. If you bought an Alpha tier today, you would be able to download, play, and continue playing all the way through to full release whenever you like.

From my point of view (as a Developer-tier backer - meaning I’ve had access for ages), it’s been amazing watching the game come together! If you’re happy to accept that it’s in a really early state, and even give a bit of feedback on what you think, then this is a great time to join. But if you want to wait until things are a little more polished, Beta is probably more for you.

What does the safety lock thing do? I found no difference in setting it on or off.

It’s a safety for missiles/torpedos. Turn it off and you can fire them without a target lock. Make sure you’re aimed properly though!

Odd things seem to happen sometimes during that freeze, like suddenly finding myself reversing away from the base at warp speeds instead of going towards at that speed, and general lag-like maneouvers.

I get this a bit too. When the game loads the stations, it can hitch for a moment as the stations are relatively complex structures. The weirdness afterwards is your computer catching up with where the server thinks you should be (all positions are checked by the server).
It’s basically the server going, “Oh FFS, Client. You should be here, not there!”

[DirkLarien]

Certainly not intentionnal. But I do not have a headtracking device to test it, so debugging that will have to wait.

Sure thing. If you have web camera you can try Facetrack no ir. It is not as precise as a ir tracking, but for testing all you need is just web camera. Software is(WAS) free.
EDIT: No it seems to be paid, hmm. Older version perhaps.
Or i should have one of the old versions of B.O.W.T.T. devices

way back

Weekly Update #25

i could donate But you would still need bastardized web camera(to see only in IR - exposed film should be good enough).

[dchogfather]

This was my first time playing the game and I enjoyed it, I’m still trying to get used to all the controls and power settings but the F9 keyboard layout is a great help, especially for new players.
What I would like to see is the option to increase the text captions that come up at the bottom of the screen, sometimes its quite small and hard to read.
I would like to see in the future where you have the option to explore more and complete goals, maybe the options to do something different instead of just fighting.

[JonnyRedHed]

Looking a the videos from this weekend and the feedback, the controls seem to be expanding and getting a little more complex. The game has to work on a xbox or xbox type controller, one with more top buttons and bottom paddles (for me at least). And then at minimum the entry level and very popular Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas 4 (2016), or earlier T.Flight versions. Or some other basic entry level or mid level joystick and separate throttle like the Thrusmaster - TWCS Throttle (2016 new) or CH Pro Throttle.

Its going to take some clever thinking to make the final release game work well with an xbox type controller. And also maybe offer 2-3 other gamepad layouts, like one would find in a lot of games by 2019/2020.

For me, I’m going to try and get a good xbox type controller with more top buttons and bottom paddles. I’d want I:B to work well on gamepad and or HOTAS set up. And to have a good interactive UI for gamepad and HOTAS, including the rumble/force feedback support (if in final game).

Gotta save for a game rig first capable of running the game.

[INovaeFlavien]

Gotta save for a game rig first capable of running the game.

Now this would be an event to celebrate, about all these years you’ve been supporting us from afar, never being able to experience the game by yourself

[JonnyRedHed]

The last game I played was I:B demo, one orbit of a planet during your kickstarter on low settings @<30fps. Saving has been painfully slow when life and other shit keeps getting in the way. Really sucks balls to be missing so many good years of gaming.

[Shaamaan]

I’ve seen this feedback from a lot of new players. So I guess we’ll go back to green = allies and red = enemies in an upcoming patch. However there are potentially 3 teams, so “enemies” could belong to two different teams; that’s the reason the indicators are currently team-color-encoded, although due to limited player count we’re only using 2 teams on the server at the moment.

Thanks for the response. This could very well be resolved once the main game UI is more fleshed out as well. During the weekend gameplay session I was thrown into the game straight from the launcher (excluding a short “press any key to continue” screen). You could have this kind of information on the loading screen or the initial spawn screen, something like “You’re on team RED (Havoc)”.

It might also be an idea to avoid red for any of the team colours at all, and just keep green for friendlies (regardless of side). Enemies could then be yellow and purple (just two quick colour ideas that popped to my mind). That said - team colours and distinguishing friendlies from enemies is something that needs to happen QUICKLY and at a glance - if the colours start to blend with the backgrounds / environments… well, that could be bad. Another option is to have green / red (friendly / hostile) with small icon indicators showing which team which ships are from (I assume that there’s no way to form alliances, so in a 3-team game it’s all “TDM” anyway).

Ultimately, consider the option to let players customize the team colours to their liking completely, something like:
Team X [Auto | Colour Picker] / Team Y [Auto | Colour Picker] / My Team [Auto | Colour Picker] (of course this isn’t in any way a top priority).

[INovaeFlavien]

Another option is to have green / red (friendly / hostile) with small icon indicators showing which team which ships are from (I assume that there’s no way to form alliances, so in a 3-team game it’s all “TDM” anyway).

I’ve been considering that, and I think it would have been a good idea in any other game. But considering Battlescape can have really massive battles, adding icons on top of the existing icons would make the HUD a complete mess IMO ( imagine hundreds of icons all moving on your screen… ).

Like, if this was your first experience of the game in this beta WE, just know that the AI commander is currently half broken and does not spawn battles as big as it should. The server can support 300-400 bots total, but we barely reached 100-150 during this event due to some AI bugs. So battles can and will grow even bigger in the future

[Captain828]

What sort of changes do you find yourselves making to improve the controls in game?

I was mostly fine with the QWERTY profile:

• fire missile - R-Ctrl is a really bad default unless you have a TKL keyboard; even then, I still think it’s a bad default; changed it Forward button on mouse
• countermeasures - Alt is okay but a bit weird as a default; changed it to Back button on mouse
• freelook - I didn’t change it, but coming from games like Arma and Squad, I can tell you the default is Alt, not Ctrl
• the speed settings (1-4) - I remapped them Elite Dangerous-style, where they actually set your power modes, so 1 does Engine, 2 is for Weapons etc. 4 for no boost

[Shaamaan]

Like, if this was your first experience of the game in this beta WE, just know that the AI commander is currently half broken and does not spawn battles as big as it should. The server can support 300-400 bots total, but we barely reached 100-150 during this event due to some AI bugs. So battles can and will grow even bigger in the future

Whoa!

Anyway, I was just throwing loose suggestions around.

A few more side notes:
I learned to fly space sims using inverted mouse controls (for pitch), and had those on during the beta. In fact, I think this was the default setting. This, on its own, wasn’t a problem. However, I found something odd once I started to pilot one of the larger ships (destroyer / cruiser). I still don’t know which weapons were auto-aimed and which weren’t, but unlike the fixed guns on the interceptor the larger ships had turrets following the mouse cursor. Except… if I wanted to aim “up” to compensate for a target moving “up” relative to myself, it would mean I would start to pitch downward, away from the target…

All in all, I felt that the aiming scheme and inverted mechanics only worked well for the smaller ships with fixed weaponry. And, unfortunately, with no in-game options menu I couldn’t switch the control scheme whilst piloting the larger ships (without exiting the game and losing said ships).

Finally, would it be a sensible idea to be able to log out at a docking port and keep the current ship (or get a refund) for when one logs back in (assuming the game doesn’t end during that time)…?

One more technicality - the installer(s). Once the beta weekend was over I wanted to remove everything; no point keeping an old version around since a lot will likely change by the time the beta / next beta weekend rolls around. However it seems the installers leave all the directories behind. Biggest gripe is the directory in Program Files which I’m sure I didn’t tell the game to create (it was the one with no spaces in the name). I know I didn’t tell the installers to create any folders there because I keep all my games in a dedicated \Games folder on my C drive… Not a huge deal, but as I’m a coder myself this certainly made me cringe a bit…

EDIT:
Just remembered two more things…

Restocking ammo at a pad / corvette is nice, but it didn’t seem to restock countermeasures. Also - and I may be wrong here, as I didn’t take a close enough look - but either the starting ammo on the cruiser is comprised of strange “non-round” numbers, or the re-arming procedure doesn’t top that ship up…

The other was… I was in an interceptor fighting another (NPC) interceptor, and I ran out of primary ammo, so all I had was the energy-based secondary weapon. Now, how’s the damage on that other weapon? I managed to get a LOT of shots in, but I couldn’t seem to get that enemy NPC down. Is it possible that energy-based weapons only deal shield damage and don’t do any hull damage at all (or do very little damage)?

More EDITs:
I’ve watched the developer stream on YT (not live, just now) - and found out some things I wouldn’t have figured out on my own in-game.

• The warp jamming effect isn’t passive, it’s triggered! The UI makes it seem like it’s a toggle (i.e. on/off), while it’s in fact activated… Plus, I would never guess the exact range one has to be for it to work.
• Bases and (stations) have spots you can assault - cool! Is there a way to target these elements so one doesn’t have to know the layout of these bases beforehand?

These are some more things that would either benefit from a better in-game UI with more information or need to be “tutorialized” at some later stage.

[INovaeFlavien]

Finally, would it be a sensible idea to be able to log out at a docking port and keep the current ship (or get a refund) for when one logs back in (assuming the game doesn’t end during that time)…?

Yeah, that’s planned.

Restocking ammo at a pad / corvette is nice, but it didn’t seem to restock countermeasures. Also - and I may be wrong here, as I didn’t take a close enough look - but either the starting ammo on the cruiser is comprised of strange “non-round” numbers, or the re-arming procedure doesn’t top that ship up…

Restocking chaffs should work. You’re right that the max ammo on most ships isn’t a round number. The grand total ( invisible ) is a round number, but it then gets split per weapon group and that’s what you see on the HUD.

The other was… I was in an interceptor fighting another (NPC) interceptor, and I ran out of primary ammo, so all I had was the energy-based secondary weapon. Now, how’s the damage on that other weapon? I managed to get a LOT of shots in, but I couldn’t seem to get that enemy NPC down. Is it possible that energy-based weapons only deal shield damage and don’t do any hull damage at all (or do very little damage)?

Blasters are very effective at taking out shields, but do no damage to the hull. However once shields are down, they deplete the target’s energy ( so they can’t boost / warp anymore ) and it’ll also randomly cause some systems to shut down ( target could lose weapons, power, radar etc… ).

[Shaamaan]

Blasters are very effective at taking out shields, but do no damage to the hull. However once shields are down, they deplete the target’s energy ( so they can’t boost / warp anymore ) and it’ll also randomly cause some systems to shut down ( target could lose weapons, power, radar etc… ).

That’s so cool! I’m really digging this idea. I just wish I knew of these effects before I engaged in that lengthy battle with the NPC with no ammo to spare…

Anyway - all of my complaints above are just general observations from a beta backer - the game itself is shaping up to be a ton of fun, so all the thumbs I can muster are turned upwards.

[INovaeFlavien]

I am glad you liked it despite the early state of many things

And it’s only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of things we’re doing / planning on doing are going to massively improve it.

My personal feeling right now is that it does have some fun elements in it, but it also many frustrating elements ( we’ll work on eliminating those ) and a steep learning curve ( it’s okay for space-sim fans, but if we want the game to be a commercial success, the barrier to entry for the masses has to be reduced ). Replayability is so-so, but I’m not all that worried because a lot of content is still missing ( ship / weapon upgrades, more planets / environments etc… ).

More importantly, the game still feels very “sandboxy” at the moment. There are objectives, but we often see players fly randomly with no coordination in their team, not knowing what to do / where to go. Once we have a smarter AI commander that makes bots less intrusive, better objectives / map awareness, more missions / secondary objectives ( conflicting between teams ) and the remaining major features missing ( attack on shield generators to allow capships to attack ), it’s going to feel like a totally different game.

One thing that it is currently completely missing and which has us a bit worried is the long-term hook.

Individual matches can be fun, but unlike other games they could last pretty long. There’s a good chance most players will participate in the match for some time but won’t be able to attend the end of the match. That’s a big issue that detracts / demotivates players in the long run.

We have ideas to add persistent benefits to participating in winning matches ( even if you’re not there at the end of the match ) but we’ll expand on that once we start to refine gameplay.