[Shivan Hunter]

Yeah, I used secondaries. It says a lot about your gameplay balance that they're the ONLY useful weapons in the game. Primaries are more than useless; I might as well not equip them at all and simply maximize engine power. Consequently, the other fighter (not the Angel) is completely useless since it has no secondary banks.

make primaries useful, and fighters should die easier. I found myself hammering away endlessly at enemy fighters and giving absolutely no thought to my own nigh-invulnerable fighter. pre-Shivan FS1 gameplay is a good thing to emulate.

[bigchunk1]

Ok I beat the first mission

Spoiler:

Iota 3 was at 4% when the mission ended! Beat it on first attempt after seeing walkthrough.
I figured it's best to fly under the attacking Panther fighters to avoid their dorsal turrets. That helped a lot.
Now that I know what I'm doing I like M1. Still think it's hard though. I was on very easy.

Skyboxes look really cool. Especially Pluto. Props to whoever came up with them.

I really like what you all are going for in terms of gamplay. It is something very new and different. It also gives a glimpse of how space combat was like before the terran-vasudan war. Fenris cruisers are valuable and tough! Keep it up!

Ship maneuverability seems to be ok for me since I use the mouse. I would imagine people who use joystick or keyboard will have some frustration with aiming. Might want to make available a 'joystick' fighter with lower maneuverability but more firepower or something. Primary weapon placement on the the non-default ship is wide. Reminds me of a Thoth or a Horus.

Those refineries look pretty cool. Don't be next to one when it explodes!

Those cruiser turrets miss a lot but they are punishing when they hit. I learned my lesson after trying to attack one of the pirate cruisers in M3.

Freding was cool. Missions seem to have a lot to look at. I like the atmosphere you are all trying to set. The attention to it goes far.

Picky:
Mission 3 has a departure directive after your fail to destroy the first wing of transports, even though it's a secondary objective.

All in all great stuff. I very much look forward to act 1.

[General Battuta]

Okay, more or less liveblog of thoughts playing the demo.

Going through the first CB, writing's decent, few complaints there. For some reason I had the impression this was set in the FS-verse, but it seems like a sort of parallel take on it? A lot of the terminology (Human Empire, so on) speaks to a different setting.

The first CB is well written but I have no idea who these factions are and no idea which one I'm part of. That could be a problem, hopefully I'll pick up on it in the briefing though.

Actually I do have one thing I really want to rag on. Did you have to lift a line wholesale from Halo Reach? That made me frown.

Briefing gridlines can be aligned (I believe by pressing ctrl-shift-L) if you are so inclined. They look a little ramshackle. There are some typos in the weapons as well but this is minor stuff.

I think my big issue coming out of the briefing is that I have no idea what's going on or who I'm fighting with. By this time in FS1/FS2 you knew what the war was about and what side you were on. However there's nothing else egregiously wrong with it; I know what I need to do.

===========================================================================

Pretty skybox, though it's a bit fuzzy and painted-on. I think you can probably get a better source to give it a sense of depth. The stars don't feel like points of luminance, they're more like droplets of paint.

I missed the first few messages because there were no beeps. 

Wingmen behavior is a little weird. I can't give them orders, and the enemy has very long-range weapons. They don't break to attack until after the enemy gets in weapon range of the transports. Their tactics suck and this is frustrating. Wish I could give them some pointers with the command menu.

I lost a transport and command told me to depart even though there were still friendly transports under attack. Don't we want to help save them? 

The Brackley jumped in and then immediately jumped back out, that was kinda janky.

I warped home, got a failure debrief, hit accept to replay, and got sent on the to the next mission. 

There's a lot of potential here but I think you probably should've tested it a little longer.

[General Battuta]

Second mission, I can't follow any of the chatter because there are no beeps and I'm too busy shooting things to watch for messages. Why are they talking about base positioning in the middle of a dogfight?

There are so many friendlies, I barely even get a chance to shoot anything! I think you should consider taking the number of friendlies down a little.

I like the support ship, cool model.

I can't tell what the hell is going on, the messages are going too fast. Something happened with a ship called the Sunshine and now someone's talking about his brother. But I don't even know what the Sunshine was, or what other ship was involved.

We blew up the poor Diablo. It seemed totally helpless and could not hit a single thing. Everything takes a ton of hits to kill so I can't actually tell if I'm really helping, which robs me of my sense of agency as a player.

The Diablo blewing up blew me up.

[TopAce]

The first CB is well written but I have no idea who these factions are and no idea which one I'm part of.

Agreed. It wasn't clear to me, either.

Briefing gridlines can be aligned (I believe by pressing ctrl-shift-L) if you are so inclined.

It will be so in the full Act I release. If I haven't aligned it yet, then I will now.

I missed the first few messages because there were no beeps.

The absence of beep sounds is due to faulty packaging. It was placed in the wrong folder or what.

Wingmen behavior is a little weird. I can't give them orders

It's intentional. You are Alpha 3, not the squad leader.

and the enemy has very long-range weapons.

I hope this will be fixed soon.

They don't break to attack until after the enemy gets in weapon range of the transports.

It's been fixed. It will be so in Act I release.

I warped home, got a failure debrief, hit accept to replay, and got sent on the to the next mission.

Get the patched campaign file from the first post.

[General Battuta]

Cool, thanks for the reply. Sounds good.

[Shivan Hunter]

Something happened with a ship called the Sunshine and now someone's talking about his brother. But I don't even know what the Sunshine was, or what other ship was involved.

Spoiler:

I had to look behind me to see this. As you're chasing a wing of enemies right after they warp in, the Sunshine warps in right in front of an enemy gunship, and they both explode. This is guaranteed to happen 180 degrees behind the player if he's chasing the enemies- why?! I didn't know what was going on the first time either. And the dialogue is a little wonky but as ttuta and I said, without emptymsg.wav we have no idea when messages are playing.

[Nemesis6]

Straight off the bat, the first mission is way too hard. My wingmen don't react to incoming waves. That's to say they don't intercept them, and so I have to fight them all alone, which I can't.

[TopAce]

Do they sit still with "No Orders" or are too late to react to the enemy attack?

[Lucika]

Something happened with a ship called the Sunshine and now someone's talking about his brother. But I don't even know what the Sunshine was, or what other ship was involved.

Spoiler:

I had to look behind me to see this. As you're chasing a wing of enemies right after they warp in, the Sunshine warps in right in front of an enemy gunship, and they both explode. This is guaranteed to happen 180 degrees behind the player if he's chasing the enemies- why?! I didn't know what was going on the first time either. And the dialogue is a little wonky but as ttuta and I said, without emptymsg.wav we have no idea when messages are playing.

Forgot to react to this. Why would everything need to happen with the player necessarily noticing it, especially if it has nothing to do with the mission's outcome or events? You're a nameless cog in a great machine, not James Bond. If you're interested, you can check it on the second try.

Straight off the bat, the first mission is way too hard. My wingmen don't react to incoming waves. That's to say they don't intercept them, and so I have to fight them all alone, which I can't.

Not even if you stay close to the transports as recommended? They do go out and attack when they get close.

[General Battuta]

Forgot to react to this. Why would everything need to happen with the player necessarily noticing it, especially if it has nothing to do with the mission's outcome or events? You're a nameless cog in a great machine, not James Bond. If you're interested, you can check it on the second try.

Because there's a whole bunch of messages about it, and if players don't know what the heck's going on they're going to assume it's important and check the event log, which means breaking the flow of gameplay.

FreeSpace 1 and 2 were both very good about giving the player cues to see important events. One of the basic tenets of game design is that you should avoid confusing the player - you want to keep the gameplay space centered on them, even if the narrative space isn't.

Having a bunch of text (without audio cues) scrolling past at the bottom of the screen freaks players out and makes them look around to figure out what's going on.

[Nemesis6]

Something happened with a ship called the Sunshine and now someone's talking about his brother. But I don't even know what the Sunshine was, or what other ship was involved.

Spoiler:

I had to look behind me to see this. As you're chasing a wing of enemies right after they warp in, the Sunshine warps in right in front of an enemy gunship, and they both explode. This is guaranteed to happen 180 degrees behind the player if he's chasing the enemies- why?! I didn't know what was going on the first time either. And the dialogue is a little wonky but as ttuta and I said, without emptymsg.wav we have no idea when messages are playing.

Forgot to react to this. Why would everything need to happen with the player necessarily noticing it, especially if it has nothing to do with the mission's outcome or events? You're a nameless cog in a great machine, not James Bond. If you're interested, you can check it on the second try.

Straight off the bat, the first mission is way too hard. My wingmen don't react to incoming waves. That's to say they don't intercept them, and so I have to fight them all alone, which I can't.

Not even if you stay close to the transports as recommended? They do go out and attack when they get close.

Well, two enemy wings will jump in, and one of two things happen -- They ignore either as they're both flying directly toward the transports while shooting at them, or they all fly at one wing, leaving the other wing free to do whatever.

Anyway, I can't really finish this campaign; I don't really want to because it's too hard.

[Shivan Hunter]

Something happened with a ship called the Sunshine and now someone's talking about his brother. But I don't even know what the Sunshine was, or what other ship was involved.

Spoiler:

I had to look behind me to see this. As you're chasing a wing of enemies right after they warp in, the Sunshine warps in right in front of an enemy gunship, and they both explode. This is guaranteed to happen 180 degrees behind the player if he's chasing the enemies- why?! I didn't know what was going on the first time either. And the dialogue is a little wonky but as ttuta and I said, without emptymsg.wav we have no idea when messages are playing.

Forgot to react to this. Why would everything need to happen with the player necessarily noticing it, especially if it has nothing to do with the mission's outcome or events? You're a nameless cog in a great machine, not James Bond. If you're interested, you can check it on the second try.

Because everything in the campaign is by definition meant for the player's consumption. Either it's part of the plot, or atmosphere, or whatever, or it's just random extra stuff that doesn't have any impact. You had a good moment going in an otherwise very, very bland mission; why ruin it by having it directly behind the player?

Also, Nemesis6, knock it down to Very Easy or just cheat on the first mission. It gets easier (the second mission pretty much plays itself)

[Madmigas]

Does anyone have the countermeasure patch file? The mediafire link to this file seems to be dead =/

Thx in advance

[X3N0-Life-Form]

You mean this?

It looks like countermeasures got accidentally culled
download http://www.mediafire.com/?r7a4zfrz0lk5515 and create a folder called tables in the data folder for the demo and place the file in there

sorry for the inconvenience guys

OK, I've extracted the countermeasure entry from tables. Install instructions should be identical
http://www.mediafire.com/view/yf94nx8bhsezcef/syrk_cm-wep.tbm

Disclaimer: I haven't tested the file, but in theory, it should work just fine.

Also, if I remember correctly, the syrk demo was pretty bad, like alpha-state bad with bugs, balance issues, pacing issues and stuff.

[Veers]

Na, fairly right. We released it very pre-maturely.

Music is fantastic though, and the story line was very good. Although, that's still our secret (I think)

[X3N0-Life-Form]

I still listen to the OST every now an then.

Aww hell, I'm gonna zip up my Syrk folder and see if it's light enough to be uploaded