If you notice, when a new event appears, in the Star Map it says Duration 1.. and over time it goes up. It's just how long the event has been occurring at that system. It can go to 12 or more, there's an element of random to it because it's a simulation of NPC Hunters & Merchants attempting to resolve those events. ie. All those NPC Bounty Hunters are attracted to areas with Pirate/Zerker raids and NPC Merchants are attracted to ship goods to economic crises. etc It just means when an event is new, you have more time to resolve it, while one that's say duration 8 or more, you should prioritize it and hurry it up else the NPCs will get it.
Severity or scale. More and bigger Pirates basically. Better opportunities for huge bounties, but more risky for noobship.
Bug: hangar slots are persistant (!) My pilot slot 3 game has access to ships saved during my pilot slot 2 game and vice versa. (The hangar was in the FU. The transferred ships where merchant frigate, FU corvette and prototype FU cruiser.) Bug: vanishing modules (?) I had several occasions where Im sure some modules (turrets, missiles, drones and system modules) I just bought were stolen. Sadly I cant reproduce this but I think there is selling of old, buying of new modules and switching between the shop options involved. Lore: roguelike death I was told my ship, cargo and modules were stolen after being killed (ship blew up). IMHO a better wording is: I went cheap on insurance covering only a basic ship (without any modules*). *I think this is bad. It should have at least a turret for pirate bounty hunting in case there is no money left for trading. Patch feedback: mercenary for hire IMHO the elite mercenary (cruiser) is far too cheap (IIRC only 3000 credits). During pirate fights he wont receive critical damage and docking repairs his ship. Event question I had an event where I salvaged data involving Zerker. I finally found a person interested in this data. But his wording sounded hostile. But because I was in the stage of deciding which faction to join and I didnt want to risk standing with the FU I gave the data away. I got credits I didnt need. Now the question: Was this the trigger for gaining access to the prototype FU cruiser? If I hadnt given away the data would I had the chance to get something else? Endgame frustration (normal difficulty) My standing with all major factions were about 300. I sided with the Federation because they seemed to have the upper hand. Whenever I join a major battle it is usually won. But there seems to be no progress: e.g. we kick the Empires *** on the left side. Omni does not attack the Empire but attacks the Federation in the center and captures our systems. Although the Empire should be weakened they send fleet after fleet. I go to help against Omnis attacks. The Empire has more breathing room and start to recapture their systems while we stop Omnis progress but are unable to drive them out. Now I try to weaken Omnis economy. I need two drug runs per planet. I manage to drug 4 planets before the effects start to wear off (question: are these effects comparable to the effects of a normal crisis? Is it more effective to strengthen our economy than to weaken the economy of one enemy?). But Omni still is winning in Federation territory. I fly back to clear our systems of pirates and zerkers and help against invasions. In the meantime the Empire won back all of their systems. Now I try a second drug offensive - against Omni Prime (and other planets). I kill their home fleets, deliver the goods (question: does killing home fleets have a long term effect?). Seems to have no effect I abandoned this game and started a roguelike one. Question: Is there any indicator of making endgame progress? Does it come down to good luck for my faction and bad luck for the others? FU cruiser vs. Federation cruisers (turrets / missiles / drones) Polaris: 3M / 3M / 3M Oracle: 2M 2S / - / 3L Divinity: 1L 2S / 3M / 2M I kept my Polaris because I think it has better stats than the others. How useful is the Divinitys turret combination vs. small, medium and large ships?
@marsch Wow, persistent Hangar slots between Pilots.. looks like something went wonky with the iOS code! I'll log it and check, thanks for letting me know! Btw, only between Pilots #2 and #3 slots, not #1? When you buy a new ships, the modules you have on your old ship will be stripped due to slot incompatibilities. This could be the cause of missing modules, I've not been able to replicate it under normal buying/selling or storing into your storage. As for dying in Roguelike and being out of cash, you always can go to battles and scavenge Lifepods to make credits, if you're completely broke. The elite Merc is a bonus, he only occurs in a random encounter and is never an option to hire him on ports. It's your lucky day, I guess to balance the karma, as some random encounters result in a negative outcome. The Zerker data and Free Union prototype ships are not linked, it's based on your Free Union standing and personal Pilot reputation whether you have access to these advanced ships or not. Though the Zerker data do have an alternate outcome if you refuse when given that choice. Drugging colonies work good if you overdose them (maximum is ~150 units of drugs), the effect lasts longer giving you more time to spread the mass addictions. If you manage to drug their homeworld, it is very crippling, leading to an easy victory. However, the conquest via regular warfare is more like chess, where you may have to sacrifice some colonies in order to gain in the long term. At it's basic level, AI sieges take a long time to resolve compared to your direct intervention in a siege. ie. You can quickly push multiple planets against one faction, at a cost of losing 1 to the other hostile faction. The way to win is to have a strong squad, geared well to quickly defeat the hostile forces so that you can capture 3 colonies or so before you lose 1 on the other front. Then make your way back to the other front and push them back etc. The factions will know when a hostile faction grows too strong and they will focus their forces on that stronger one. It's to maintain the status quo/balance, but the player's squad is the decider. -------- Divinity for a turret spec Pilot hits very hard at long ranges. L-Class Railguns for example, pierces shields better resulting in high hull damage despite the target having strong shields. Whereas the Polaris has everything above average, but requires Pilots to multi-spec to take advantage of it. You do not get enough points to spec in everything, so perhaps Polaris will only become better when your Pilot is very high ranked. If that makes sense. Starborn ships though, will always be faster & more agile. Going faster is important for end-game too, as you can cover the multi-fronts battles quicker.
Persistent hangar slots: All pilot slots are affected. E.g. my pilot 2 gifted a Divinity to my pilot 1. Vanishing modules: If it happens again I will note the circumstances as accurate as possible. Display bug when continuing a game: Sometimes wrong values for rank and credits are displayed in the dialog for continuing a game. E.g. despite being rank 42 and having 200k-300k credits my pilot 2 was once displayed as rank 0/credits 0 and once as rank 22/credits ~150. After loading the pilot the values are always correct. Drugging colonies: I always stopped after 70 units/colony (when a negative effect was displayed). For 150 units I will need 3 deliveries using a Polaris. Wish I had sided with Omni for the cargo capacity of the missile cruiser. Using a merchant cruiser sounds like a bad idea if there are capital ships waiting after leaving port. Also for clearing the landing zone guarded by capital ships (e.g. Omni Prime) I feel saver being in a warship. AI strategy: I already thought there must be code trying to maintain status quo. Ai patrols performance: My pilot 2 is rank 42. After nearly maxing out the skill tree for ship performance (and using an level 3 engine module) my ship should be better than comparable ships. E.g, my FU corvettes speed and turn rate is 500/145 vs. a stock FU corvettes 400/100. Without afterburner Im a bit faster but with afterburner I cant outrun them? Do these patrols have skilled pilots or have superior ship modules? Federation ships arent always faster. The prototype FU cruiser (Polaris) has the same stats for speed, turn rate, evasion than the Oracle and Divinity. My pilot 2 has a nearly maxed out skill tree for ship performance (because I think even a cruiser should be agile). After that I put points into the turret tree and the drone tree. Fast ships in endgame: My Polaris (and the Divinity I recently bought) has a speed of 437 and a turn rate of 87.
@marsch That's a really cool side-effect of the Storage Hangar, persistent, reminds me of Storage in Diablo 3.. hmm. The Merchant Cruiser is pretty durable, modules & Pilot skill makes a big difference in ship performance. It's good for a 2 trip maximum drug run. In a three way battle, it's in the interest of each faction to prevent any single faction from being too powerful, at times, your enemy's enemy is your friend. Enemy ships have bonuses from Modules and Pilot skill as well as the player, there's an element of random involved. The Divinity and Polaris are both very fast for being a Cruiser. I prefer the Divinity & Oracle (drones), but they all have their perks. I've seen a good variety of players say their favourite are one of the different faction ships. If you do play on Roguelike, there's an extra two Capital ships you can acquire during your journey, the Nadeshiko (Carrier) and Tannhauser (Battleship). They are huge!
Star Nomad 2 (by Anh Huy Phan) This game is simply awesome but the limited sectors (systems) with an incredibly small area really affect its immersion. Would you consider changing sectors so that they aren't confined by invisible walls? All gameplay and system assets would remain the same, only that beyond the invisible walls the ship would continue to fly on the space background. May seem like a small thing but would make a huge difference. The universe would just feel more real and less arcade.
I understand this point you've raised very well, but only after the PC build was released. Unfortunately that idea or approach did not grabbed me from the start, for a few reasons, so the current result was what it was designed ground up for. If I could go back and do it differently, definitely a more seamless/endless space approach with the current jump point / fast-travel mechanics would be the go-to. It's one of the few regrets I have with SN2's development. Re-working the game space would require a massive overhaul of all the inner workings of the game and honestly I just do not have the funds to be able to spend that amount of time on it. I have a deadline that I need the next game (current project: think Mad Max + Mount & Blade + Survival RPG) to be released by, else I would end up broke and unable to pay the house loan & bills.
Sounds awesome! Looking for beta testers? # Also, is there a way to win in rougelike without drug running? It seems an important, albeit unsavory, path to victory.
Bug: vanishing modules (now reproducible!) The culprit is (at least for system modules): sell a module from ship storage while there is an installed module. E.g. buy an energy upgrade [optional], move this module to ship storage [optional], buy another energy upgrade [optional], sell the module from ship storage, the installed module is still shown, close the outfit screen, open the outfit screen again: The installed module is gone! Although I havent a recipe to reproduce this bug for turrets, missiles or drones those can vanish, too. Feedback: My roguelike game is won (pilot 3). I saw a Tannhauser several times in store (and bought it when I had enough money) but never the Nadeshiko. Bad luck? A capital ship is nice but not needed to win. Used ships: merchant corvette -> merchant frigate -> merchant cruiser -> FU cruiser -> FU capital. I resisted the temptation to use the Polaris prematurely and the Divinity which were placed in the hangar by my pilot 2. Congrats on your maintain status quo code: Early and mid game I left the factions alone. At one time Omni was down to 3 systems but they recovered. Watching this helped me with my winning strategy: Later when I had a Polaris and where saving for a Tannhauser the Federation was cornered. I waited till they were down to 3 systems and decided to join Omni (the faction with the then most systems). I needed to raise my faction standing about 50 points but after gaining ally status I immediately assisted in defending against and after that attacking the Empire. The Federation slowly recovered but posed no threat allowing us to weaken the Empire decisively. If the Federation had been at normal strength this would have not worked. Drug runs were not needed. I won at rank 45. I could have won earlier but was hoping to see a Nadeshiko. My FU standing is >1500. Thoughts about ships: IMHO FU ships are designed to be solo ships while many major faction ships shine as part of a bigger fleet. But the player needs a versatile ship. While the FU corvette is a fun ship and strong corvette using it more seriously may be too risky: e.g. running into Zerkers while being already damaged, 5 pirate cruisers de-cloaking right in front of me firing a full salvo, stray shots of bigger guns which I didnt see in the heat of the battle. A merchant cruiser (with high end turrets) is OK for pirate hunting and with 90 tons cargo capacity its easy to make money and resolve crisis. For endgame I recommend a warship cruiser. I prefer the Polaris. Weapons and resistances: Those red enemy missiles - are they red because they are hostile or are they special missiles unavailable to the player? One of my M turrets is a plasma cannon (dmg 280). Usually I see it damaging for 213. That would be a damage reduction of 24% which is not a stock ships resistance vs. plasma? How useful is armor (DT) vs. armor resistances - e.g. a level 3 hull upgrade DT+5 (vs. K,E and P) vs. +25% resistance (vs. K, E or P). Id say only against burst weapons (8x XX) is DT preferable. I know graviton lances fully pierce shields. But what about the other weapons - is shield piercing capabilities a hidden stat?
@marsch Thanks for the detailed bug report, that's a strange one and I will log it to be fixed. Definitely you can win without Capital Ships, those big ships were added in a Steam update, bonus content for players supporting the game. That approach you took is a really clever one, join the top alpha side to secure the win. Though not very manly. haha The Nadeshiko is a chain quest from a random encounter (in Roguelike). I won't spoil it but your choices matter. The Merchant ships were designed to be capable at fighting as well, with good modules, due to how dangerous it is to ship goods around contested systems. But yes, major fleet engagements they do poorly. It's good to have a merchant ship in the storage Hangar though. NPC missiles are the same as player ones. You can even get the Starborn multi-warhead torpedos too. NPC ships have modules, NPC Pilots have ranks/skills, so they will upgrade and level up over time. Which is why you're seeing damage reduction on your Plasma Cannon. Armor DT is very effective versus rapid firing low damage weapons, or multi-fire burst weapons like "shotguns" or Omni Fireflies (4x 25 damage, - Resistances - DT, not much damage taken). It is useless against slow firing high alpha weapons. Some weapons have hidden bonuses, M & L Class Railguns will pierce shields 25% and 50%, ie, doing 25/50% damage to hull even if the target has full shields. The Empire Beam Cannons can "sweep" to hit multiple times. This is especially strong on the Beam Ships, with oversized weapons mounted on the hull so they fire only forward. You can sweep it across a bunch of enemies and it strikes them x2 to x3 times!
Just picked this up, and man, really into it. Feels like you're part of a bigger, dynamic world. I like the trading aspect, but wish you could hire traders to work for you, similar to Unending Galaxy, which strikes a very similar resemblance to this game. And the art work/music is killer as well. Keep up the great work. There's a hidden depth here and I think I've only just scratched the surface
Thanks man! I have some of the wishlist features from SN2 players that I didn't implement down on a file, so I can add these into the core gameplay of the next game I'm working on while it's still early in development. Hiring merchants to do trade runs (Caravans) will be a major component of the global trading system in Nuclear Nomad. I'm coding that feature now actually.
My game engine doesn't support mobile controller. If they add it, I'll be happy to spend some time to tweak the code to add controller support. With two alternative methods to control, it's very playable without a controller.
