[Colonol Dekker]

Sorry i thought it was a sarky go at me........

I'm gonna remove the reference.

[Col. Fishguts]

So can somebody who's got it tell something about the gameplay ?

[Mefustae]

There are two resource types; mass and energy. You can either build Mass Extractors on certain points around the map giving you a rather sizable mass income without too much power drain, you you can build lots of Mass Fabricators, which give you a moderate mass income by drain a heck of a lot of power. Regarding power, you can either build three types of Power Generators at the various tech-levels, or build a Hydrocarbon Power Plant at specific points around the map for an inexpensive boost.

The aim is to keep your overall economy efficiency above 50%, in that you're approximately gathering enough mass & power as you are spending. You can build storage tanks for both power & mass that allow you to store larger caches of reserves should your spending start to outstrip your income, but if you've got a solid enough economy, you might not even have to worry about it.

Once you've established yourself a basic positive economy at the start of the game, you can start building units from your various factories and take the fight to the enemy just like a regular RTS. Simple as that.

[Fineus]

That's all good and well to say.. but..

I just played my first skirmish against turtle-AI. It did nothing of the sort and it wasn't long before my meager forces were facing down some sodding huge "Creepy Crawler" I believe it's called which levelled my entire base.

I found I was spending most of my time trying to work up the tech-tree to reach an economy that could build enough defensive units to make a difference (I'm a turtle player by nature myself). Suffice to say I frequently found building took far too long and that the mass extractors didn't extract enough mass to keep things running smoothly. I either hand full mass or no mass.

Any tips on that sort of thing? I noticed the shivan-esque opponent I was fighting (haven't learnt the army names yet, sorry) had all its power generators next to its factories and they seemed to be linked into the factories via cables somehow... is there some sort of proximity-to-unit bonus that I'm missing out on, like building power plants next to extractors makes them more efficient or something?

[Mefustae]

You seem to have been facing the Cybran race, essentially cyborgs that have a penchant for spider-like mechs, as demonstrated by the Monkeylord you evidently faced.

It's worth noting that Mass Fabricators are pretty borked in most of the beta version out there, and you'll get most of your income from your Mass Extractors when you upgrade them. You should still build Mass Fabricators, but build them en-masse and directly adjacent to an energy generator, for reasons i'll explain below.

Now, whenever you build a factory, it's always a good idea to build a few energy generators directly adjacent to it, as it gives you a small [but noticable] production boost. Moreover, if you build mass storage tanks next to your Mass Extractors, you get a small mass production boost, which works the same way with Energy Generators and energy storage tanks.

All of this is explained rather deftly in the tutorial videos available on FilePlanet, here.

[Ace]

[petresun]  Well i'm true to the homelands, Earth is key and must not fall, [/petresun]

Eat dust dirtborn! 

[Sandwich]

I've got the location of a torrent and patches to unlock the AI of the game. Would it be bad to release them here, since it is a closed beta?

What do you mean, unlock the AI?

[Colonol Dekker]

2829.3529
IMPERIAL NAVY:

The Grand Fleet departed from Luna to quell the hostilities on Mars. ETA is three months standard. Expected mission will be to resupply the Knights and commence mop-up of surviving rebel forces. His Imperial Majesty has ordered that Mars be taught a lasting lesson, and we are it.

Watch out duster, we're gonna smack you down......

[Mefustae]

I've got the location of a torrent and patches to unlock the AI of the game. Would it be bad to release them here, since it is a closed beta?

What do you mean, unlock the AI?

It's only a multiplayer Beta, but earlier versions are susceptible to cracks that allow the use of skirmish.

[Colonol Dekker]

Hmmm, *wanders off to snoop for said earlier versions*

[Fury]

FilePlanet has a exclusive deal with Gas Powered Games to distribute a public beta of the game and requires user registration. Distributing the beta by any other means can still be considered illegal. If Gas Powered Games would have wanted the beta to be downloaded by anyone by any means possible, they wouldn't have made the deal with FilePlanet only in the first place.

Beta testers are obliged to obey the rules laid out by developer and publisher, otherwise they have no right whatsoever to beta test the game.

[redsniper]

Watch out duster, we're gonna smack you down......

The NEXT will replace the obsolete Human//Animals.

[NGTM-1R]

* ngtm1r goes to summon pLaGuE DOg from the DSC forums.

[Colonol Dekker]

Flipping eck, Glitches........

*runs off*




Whens this game slated for release by the way?

[Fineus]

I think it's first or second quater, 2007.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of content and features are already in place. They just need to balance things now.

Also keep in mind that what was released was a beta that they wanted to release. So it must have been stripped of a lot of things (like maps, tutorials, storyline and so on). I reckon it'll be ready by mid-spring 2007.