The State of Avorion, As I See It

[Blaine]

I'd like to note first and foremost that I adore this game. It's fantastic in many ways, and as a veteran of EGOSOFT's X series with over 1,500 hours put into them all since 2002, I never expected another developer to attempt basically the same thing and manage to pull it off. In many areas, most notably ship customization, Avorion is the clear winner.

 

Now, I've only recently returned to Avorion after being away for a year, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten everything. In my view, there are three major issues to be resolved before Avorion can be the most excellent, definitive space trading, combat, fleet commanding, empire building game that's been developed to date.

 

The Economy

 

Clearly, this needs tweaking. For starters, goods shouldn't be artificially capped to restrict players to 500k profit per single trade. Not far into the game, you can start selling claimed asteroids in for 400-500k each at a fairly rapid pace; an Exotic C43 Object Detector makes this faster still, and effortless. You can probably claim 20-30 in an hour that way. In the meantime, once you've got some decent salvage lasers, you can salvage derelict stations for many millions of credits worth of minerals when you find them. With the cap, trading requires far more effort for a much smaller return.

 

There's also the issue of empty stations, extreme resource and component shortages, and stalled factories producing nothing. EGOSOFT's X series was similar in this way, but in Avorion it's worse (or certainly it seems worse to me), since the economy in Avorion isn't fully organic, as evidenced by the trading cap. Also, even after out-of-sector activity was implemented, most sectors will remain dormant unless a player's ship is there. There are fewer tools to stimulate the economy. Not every good has a proper consumer, and the game's entire economy basically revolves around the construction of turrets.

 

Combat Balance

 

Randomly dropped/purchased turrets are very mediocre (with a few exceptions, like Exotic or Legendary salvaging/mining lasers with much higher Efficiency than can ever be crafted). Factory-built turrets are awesome and deal 5-10x as much damage as random drop turrets, with 50-100% more range, and better stats all around. Eventually the player will obtain lots of strong shield boosters, turret upgrades, and so on.

 

So, the game starts out pretty tough and challenging, but the moment the player gets 6-10+ factory turrets, 2 Exceptional shield mods (or even 1), and the resources for a 6-slot ship, the challenge vanishes from the game on any but perhaps the highest difficulty. Dreadnoughts at the edge of the core barrier can be DPSed down in seconds. The only remaining threats are enemy turrets that bypass shields.

 

In my opinion, factory-built turrets need a significant nerf, random turrets need a significant buff (and should be available regularly and in quantities of 4-6 at a time at Equipment Docks, so the player doesn't feel forced to rush to factory turrets), and shield mods should perhaps be toned down a little... but not too much, maybe by 25% across the board. I realize Koonschi wants people to use random turrets from salvage, stashes, Equipment Docks, and so on, but let's be real: No one does that right now anyway. They're all vendor trash compared to factory turrets, and even research generally just yields a higher-rarity piece of vendor trash.

 

General Quality of Life and Miscellaneous Issues

 

Streamlined and reliable fleet jumping; better fleet management; more commands and more powerful scripts for AI captains; cargo shuttle tweaks; fixes for "AFK" civilian ships; overhauling of certain practically useless system upgrades (like ore detectors that highlight ore from 5km away, when you can easily see the colored glow from 50km away; they should highlight all ore of a type in the sector); faction wars that happen realistically, rather than continuing to spawn in fleets regardless of how much of a faction's infrastructure has been destroyed; your captained combat ships not shooting enemy civilians; and many other small and miscellaneous issues that, if addressed, would immensely increase people's enjoyment of an already excellent game.

 

Also, in my personal opinion, there should be more random things to find when exploring off-the-lanes energy and mass signatures. There are already quite a few, but they mostly boil down to various combinations of claimable asteroids, wrecks, pirates, stashes, smuggling stations, and a few plot- and quest-related things. Just a few more fairly unique encounter types would go a long way.

[Cyka]

 

 

i already posted an economy fix in detail in the economy section, sadly no body has yet to give it any attention.

 

In terms of combat and difficulty, gimping player is not the way to go. I dont want to fight bullet sponges, i want fights to be interesting. Making factions, pirates and aliens uses their own turret upgrades is the way to go, and have proper fleet battles instead of the current random encounter annoyance.

 

I'd sincerely hope dev can give some updates now, time flies by and we have 7 months left until their original august release deadline, yet we still have some game breaking bugs that are STILL not yet resolved such as cargo/AI bugs, crashes, duplicating wreckage etc.

 

I understand this is early access, but we are still alpha testers who paid to test for the devs, some updates will be nice.

[Blaine]

In terms of combat and difficulty, gimping player is not the way to go. I dont want to fight bullet sponges, i want fights to be interesting.

 

I don't want to fight bullet sponges either, and I'm generally not one to call for nerfs, but come on now. With two M-TCS-4 and 10x Xanion, Trinium, or even Naonite lasers from a decent turret factory, you just press LMB and ships explode like a bunch of popcorn. Currently they're the opposite of bullet sponges—they're balloons, and your lasers are the needle.

 

I know that everyone has done the same thing at some point. In fact, I removed an M-TCS-4 and replaced it with a C-TCS-5 so I could fit salvaging lasers for convenience, because even 6 factory lasers are enough to annihilate almost anything quickly, except beefy stations of course.

 

Making factions, pirates and aliens uses their own turret upgrades is the way to go, and have proper fleet battles instead of the current random encounter annoyance.

 

I tend to agree. Random pirates and aliens simply appearing at the player's position at intervals is less than ideal, and it becomes obvious after a while that they're just a timer that follows you around.

[Cyka]

In terms of combat and difficulty, gimping player is not the way to go. I dont want to fight bullet sponges, i want fights to be interesting.

 

I don't want to fight bullet sponges either, and I'm generally not one to call for nerfs, but come on now. With two M-TCS-4 and 10x Xanion, Trinium, or even Naonite lasers from a decent turret factory, you just press LMB and ships explode like a bunch of popcorn. Currently they're the opposite of bullet sponges—they're balloons, and your lasers are the needle.

 

I know that everyone has done the same thing at some point. In fact, I removed an M-TCS-4 and replaced it with a C-TCS-5 so I could fit salvaging lasers for convenience, because even 6 factory lasers are enough to annihilate almost anything quickly, except beefy stations of course.

 

Making factions, pirates and aliens uses their own turret upgrades is the way to go, and have proper fleet battles instead of the current random encounter annoyance.

 

I tend to agree. Random pirates and aliens simply appearing at the player's position at intervals is less than ideal, and it becomes obvious after a while that they're just a timer that follows you around.

 

The problem is that the nature of combat IS left clicking, game play wise it didn't change much for me at all fighting vs the wormhole guardian at 30k omnicron or 300k omnicron, it was basically press left mouse button and wait until the gigantic hp bar moves to zero. Back when i was smaller size there were maneuver dodge moves but once i get into a colossal dreadnaught it is literally impossible to dodge those bullets/lasers except may be cannons/missiles. Unfortunately this is just the nature of combat atm, this isn't elite or space arcade like games, heck even starpoint gemini warlord had timed CD and spin your ship around to the correct shield in order to survive. Right now late game is just mashing buttons or spam a bunch of obnoxiously invincible fighters and watch them decimate anything afar. To truly make an engaging gameplay we'll have to see what the combat update brings, but i wont hold breath.

 

 

[eduty]

timed CD and spin your ship around to the correct shield in order to survive

 

I really think this is the way to go.

 

Directional shields create an incentive to keep moving.

 

In the early game, you naturally have to dodge as blocks start to fly off. Or maneuver to hit areas of the enemy with weaker blocks.

 

Overall shields remove that necessity.

 

Consider shields abstracted as a big cube with 6 sides: fore, port, starboard, aft, dorsal, and whatever the nautical term is for the underside of the vessel (navel?)

 

Shield generator blocks operate like directional thrusters. Their effect is calculated to a certain direction based on facing. All the shields facing a single direction add to the HP of that side.

 

Shield generators are naturally nerfed as each generator is split one of 6 ways, rather than adding to a massive total HP value.

 

Ships get infinitely more interesting as they get "weak points" where there are less facing shield generators.

 

You're now trying to fly your ship and shoot to keep damaged shields out of the line of fire, while simultaneously trying to keep your enemy's weakest shield in your ideal firing arcs.

[Cyka]

timed CD and spin your ship around to the correct shield in order to survive

 

I really think this is the way to go.

 

Directional shields create an incentive to keep moving.

 

In the early game, you naturally have to dodge as blocks start to fly off. Or maneuver to hit areas of the enemy with weaker blocks.

 

Overall shields remove that necessity.

 

Consider shields abstracted as a big cube with 6 sides: fore, port, starboard, aft, dorsal, and whatever the nautical term is for the underside of the vessel (navel?)

 

Shield generator blocks operate like directional thrusters. Their effect is calculated to a certain direction based on facing. All the shields facing a single direction add to the HP of that side.

 

Shield generators are naturally nerfed as each generator is split one of 6 ways, rather than adding to a massive total HP value.

 

Ships get infinitely more interesting as they get "weak points" where there are less facing shield generators.

 

You're now trying to fly your ship and shoot to keep damaged shields out of the line of fire, while simultaneously trying to keep your enemy's weakest shield in your ideal firing arcs.

 

To make the game difficult like star-point you need equivalent resource sinks and economy to support that difficulty. Star-point/Sins of a solar empire/Any 4X games have stations generate resources and money on regular intervals so even if you had your entire fleet destroyed you can still rebuild. What we need really is a re-spawning feature for resources and a functional economy, both of which will provide room and justification for heavy difficulty tinkering so the player can actually afford constant repairs without it becoming a grind. Imagine fleet battles where you loss millions of materials and billions of credits in minutes, there must be equivalent of supporting that, and right now it just isn't possible in the game ESPECIALLY multiplayers.

 

Just to add: also im not sure the AI is combat ready at the moment. Right now the fleet AI for you are tedious to manage and outright utterly retarded. You got a custom ship rather than a stick? too bad for you, the ship will now spins around until death and NEVER FIRES ANYTHING. I've never had any of this kind of problem in any other space game thus far, it is making the game extremely frustrating, feels like you are protecting your FLEET rather than the otherway round as it should be. Once all of these issues are fixed, i welcome any drastic increase in difficulty, until then it is just a chore.

[Shrooblord]

I would love to see something like how FTL battles work: target shield, target turrets, take out their engines, etc. etc.

 

I love tactically weakening enemy craft, but right now it's near impossible to actually destroy firing turrets even if you focus a full 18k omicron at a single turret for over a minute. The only way to take it out is by destroying the block it's attached to, but I'd honestly enjoy it if a turret could get shot off. It's cool to do as the player, and it adds some tension and drama if it happens to the player.

 

Boarding mechanics would be cool, but I agree the ship combat should probably be improved first.

 

The point Cyka made about resource economy not supporting your loss of resources in a big battle is very valid, and one I've dealt with in different ways myself while playing and inevitably crashing into some asteroids (watch the road when you're driving, kids).

 

I like the idea about shields facing a certain direction, but I'm not entirely sure if that would add to the gameplay value of combat, or subtract from it. It may become a little too micro-ey for how Avorion plays right now if you suddenly have to keep an eye on all corners of your screen; but maybe that's exactly what you're advocating for. I don't know: but personally I wouldn't enjoy it too much, I don't think.

 

I find the game very nice to play as a meditative / empire building experience, and random battles up the tension. But as it's been said here, it becomes a little obvious that the battles follow you around wherever you go, and don't necessarily occur mostly anywhere else in the galaxy. It's a stable steady-state board that never changes until you, the player, is around to observe it. Then suddenly the curtains rise and a set of actors play out something dramatic for you to enjoy, retreating behind the facade when you leave.

 

While inherently there's nothing wrong with that, it does make the game feel more dynamic, and the galaxy feel more alive, if there was something going on inside it that the player doesn't necessarily immediately witness;

• suddenly your neighbours are becoming hostile, because they're jealous of your resources, or because of rising tensions at their other borders with another set of empires looking out to kill them, and you're simply in their way, or maybe they don't like so much that you're also trading with their mortal enemy;
  
• one empire gets assimilated by another empire and suddenly you're dealing with another faction than you were previously;
  
• the Xsotan, mysterious as they are, conquer a couple of systems and do... something strange and terrifying... with what they've taken over;
  
• civilians are on a tour or trip or pilgrimage of some kind and are escorted by a band of hired Corvette defenders from another faction;
  
• destinations of said journeys are galactic phenomena you can randomly encounter in the universe, such as holy sites or strange abandoned temples, old planet homeworlds that are being returned to after the nuclear winter that ravaged them and forced their faction to leave has died away, a wormhole or black hole tears apart a faction's homeworld and now they're on their way back with some powerful and alien new technology to fix the rifts in spacetime;
  
• Pirates wipe out an entire faction and gain a foothold in a larger part of the galaxy's economy, so trading is affected.
  

 

These are just some (silly) ideas, of course.

 

EDIT:

Some more interesting combat mechanics could include tractor beams that can immobilise you like docking stations do with freighters (or if you're familiar with the Haul Goods mod, with you); ships devouring other ships à la opening up a massive cargo hold and capturing ships inside it, then dissembling it for parts (ew, devoured alive); incapacitating warp drives like some ships already do, so escape is not an option; incorporating AI escaping using their warp drives when things look dire; reinforcements... I could go on forever with ideas...

[Shadowflare]

I absolutely love the concept of directional shields. Can we get this?