Infinite Space

[Evil Avnovice]

TGS 2008 japanese trailer. I do hope I have this right, as this was formerly called "Infinite Line". (Gametrailers (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/41093.html))

41093

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3658/3401834847_44a28c550b_o.jpg

-Official Website/Forums (http://platinumgames.com/category/games/infinite-space/) at PlatinumGames
-Official Website (http://mugen.sega.jp/) (Japan)
-Infinite Space@SEGA (http://www.sega.com/games/?g=375)
-Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com/infinite-space-ds)
-Wikipedia Page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_space)
-Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Space-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002BRWU8U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1255722595&sr=8-1)
-Play-Asia (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-49-en-70-3bl1.html)

North America: Spring 2010

[Superman's Dead]

I'm sorry; is this the giggle uncontrollably thread?

[That Darn Kat]

Veeeeery interesting. I'm almost sold. I'll be watching this game closely, but I'm pretty sure Platinum Games + space + 2D artwork = instant win.

[JayVe]

Oh SHIT! This is all kinds of awesome! It includes starship construction? Hells yeah!

[Tayaya]

I want this, but will proabably wait for an English version, if one ever comes, since it looks very, very text heavy.

[Goronmon]

It includes starship construction?I wants.

DS? That would definitely make a ship easier to work with.

[QueQueg]

But what kind of game is it!?! I saw the starship construction bits, that looks hot, but what is the core gameplay? The only english text I saw was "RPG", but yeah... what kind of RPG? Turn-based starship battles? What?

<much frothing>

[Everyone vs Dinosaurs]

Veeeeery interesting. I'm almost sold. I'll be watching this game closely

Can't do that, StarFox.

[Heretic Machine]

Yeah, I'll definitely be looking for this one; the space opera genre is severely underused in gaming.

[Purple Santa]

How I love Avnovice post/vids that are only in Japanese :)

Space Opera RPG? I'm so confused by that trailer I now will have to keep an eye on it to see if I know what is really going on in the game...

[Raen]

Space Opera RPG? I'm so confused by that trailer I now will have to keep an eye on it to see if I know what is really going on in the game...

Yeah if nothing else this game has me intrigued now.

[Rakael]

Wow, I may just have to snag that.

[Variable Gear]

I wish they wou;dn't have changed the title... :(

[mister slim]

Wired has a pretty positive hands-on (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/10/hands-on-infini.html).

[JayVe]

Wired has a pretty positive hands-on (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/10/hands-on-infini.html).

Wow. Thanks to you and Wired for bring this up. Here's a bit of the hands-on impression...

Infinite Space's big selling point has been the ship-to-shop combat, and deservedly so. That head designer Hifumi Kouno (Steel Battalion) has managed to bring such epic battles to the tiny screens of the DS without losing the sense of scale is indeed a remarkable achievement.

Battles happen real-time, with a gauge letting you know when you can perform certain actions and attacks. Launching an attack is as simple as a touch on your ship's interface, and I loved how it is accompanied by tiny cut scenes and anime-like dialogue that help with the immersion, without getting in the way. You can also access your cockpit, and then view the action from various perspectives on your ship's viewscreen.

The rest of the gameplay included some exploration sequences -- you choose your destination on a space map and take flight, although you can accelerate the time it takes to reach your target -- and then encounters on planets and space stations that advance the game's storyline.

I really liked the presentation -- a mix of anime characters with detailed ships and commands -- and I'm hoping this could end up being one of the best RPG experiences for the DS once it comes out in 2009.

[danhoo]

All kinds of awesome

[Spectre-7]

Damn. This might force me to pick up a DS.

[Sandman]

I want it.......I wants it now.

[Evil Avnovice]

The first [anime] episode (http://mugen.sega.jp/anime/index.html) of Infinite Space. (mugen.sega.jp)

[Ten19]

Fantastic. I'm just about as giddy as I was when the very first tiny screenshots were released awhile ago, was actually one of the few reasons I bought my DS when I did :D However, I hope the flood of anime doesn't get too in the way of the ship constructing/RPG gameplay.

[Evil Avnovice]

The same anime episode, now available in Gametrailers (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/41737.html) form.

41737

[Deadend]

Oh wow, the designer is the guy who did Steel Battalion?! This game could end up kicking ass.

[Goronmon]

I want this now.

[jpublic]

Oh my lord, that looks so awesome.

Do want.

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images from Livegen (http://www.liveds.fr/news/117201/Infinite-Space-s-039-illustre.html?c=0).

[Superman's Dead]

Thanks Avnovice!

[JayVe]

Hot diggity. Do Want!

[Hemalin]

Was that a sonic boom...in space?

[Shrinn]

Do want do want do want.

[J Arcane]

This looks positively crunchtastic, and I hope it gets translated because it looks there's no way in hell you'll be able to play it without reading it.

[mister slim]

Hopefully if your ship is defeated you'll have to close your DS to keep your pilot from dying and your savegame from being deleted.

[Ten19]

Seriously, these screens take a very specific part of my brain and just cover them in warm jam. When in the effing eff is it released in NA?

[Shrinn]

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_space) it's a Spring 2009 release in Japan and TBA 2009 in NA. Hopefully when it releases in Japan we'll get closer to knowing it's release date for NA.

[Superman's Dead]

It's based on an Arthur C. Clarke novel!? Customizable crew!?!?!?!

...I don't wanna have to learn how to speak Japanese. =(

[Evil Avnovice]

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_space) it's a Spring 2009 release in Japan and TBA 2009 in NA. Hopefully when it releases in Japan we'll get closer to knowing it's release date for NA.

From what I've been seeing, Infinite Space is supposed to release in North America this month.

I hope it's true, as there's been little to any info out there on the game. *fingers crossed*

[Heretic Machine]

From what I've been seeing, Infinite Space is supposed to release in North America this month.

I hope it's true, as there's been little to any info out there on the game. *fingers crossed*

Eh, GameFAQs has it listed as Q3 2009 for North America. Oh, and for those who don't know: This is being made by the same people behind Madworld.

[mister slim]

Eh, GameFAQs has it listed as Q3 2009 for North America. Oh, and for those who don't know: This is being made by the same people behind Madworld.

More important is it's directed by the guy behind Steel Battalion.

[Xydarc]

This game may be the tipping point in getting me to purchase a DS.

[Everyone vs Dinosaurs]

Av, where did you see that it should be coming out NA within the month?

[JayVe]

Av, where did you see that it should be coming out NA within the month?

I walked into a store and saw the box on shelves. There was a whole aisle dedicated to Infinite Space, both sides.

Then I woke up. :(

[Evil Avnovice]

A second anime video, along with the first, as a prior link I had [for the first video] is no more. (GoNintendo (http://gonintendo.com/?p=77123))

IeVcn2iYHBY

mXyCIW4RSf0

[mister slim]

Interesting. Though I immediately start thinking about how I would build those dramatic elements into the actual game.

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images from Gamekyo (http://www.gamekyo.com/newsen30626_infinite-space-new-pics.html).

http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090330_173653_0_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images0_4_30626.html) http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090330_173655_2_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images2_4_30626.html)

http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090330_173655_6_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images6_4_30626.html) http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090330_173656_7_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images7_4_30626.html)

[Evil Avnovice]

A few details from Siliconera (http://www.siliconera.com/2009/03/30/infinite-space-blasts-off-in-june/).

Japan will get their first game from PlatinumGames on June 11. No, it won’t be bloody MadWorld. Sega is only releasing that in the West for now. Infinite Space will be PlatinumGames’ first domestic release.

Nude Maker, the studio behind Steel Battalion, is developing the space opera RPG where you pilot and create a fleet of spaceships from 150 blueprints. Yuri, the protagonist, starts as a crew member and moves up the ranks to captain, eventually recruiting crewmen for his fleet. Hone your combat skills in story mode and then challenge a friend to a local wireless spaceship duel.

Infinite Space is scheduled for an international release, but Sega USA has not set a specific date. They are localizing a handful of RPGs for the Nintendo DS like Phantasy Star 0 and Sands of Destruction so Infinite Space might not land here until next year.

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images/character artwork. Simply scroll down halfway at the Famitsu page. (GoNintendo (http://gonintendo.com/?p=79116); Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1223496_1124.html))

[Evil Avnovice]

A new 3 minute trailer. (Gamekyo (http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen14917_infinite-space-new-video.html))

[Superman's Dead]

Why must I wait sooooo loooooong =(

Thanks for keeping this updated, Avnovice.

[Ten19]

Dear Platinum Games,

Please localize this and ship it to the United States very very soon so I can pay money to buy and it play it forever.

Love,

Ten19

[danhoo]

What Ten19 said. Geebus, that new trailer looks EPIC!

[Purple Santa]

FU Sega USA. Next year? I hope that speculation is wrong that it might not be here till next year...

[Evil Avnovice]

"Battle" TV spot.

48807

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images. (Livegen (http://www.liveds.fr/news/121109/Une-nouvelle-belle-video-pour-Infinite-Space.html?c=2))

[Evil Avnovice]

Gameplay footage and some new details from Siliconera (http://www.siliconera.com/2009/05/06/infinite-spaces-intergalactic-battles/).

KtRHEu0WaWE

....Hero ships don’t float on the left while enemies wait on the right. The action takes place inside the comfy cockpit of your space cruiser.

PlatniumGames and Nudemaker came up with a creative way to utilize the DS’ dual screens. The bottom screen shows the perspective of the commander, while the top screen acts like a battle camera. Bonus points go to the developers for showing the top screen as a virtual screen in the commanding ship. The set up makes ship combat subtly feel distant.

[Superman's Dead]

Cockpit?!

If this game were only like the arcade game in The Last Starfighter...

[Evil Avnovice]

Cockpit?!

If this game were only like the arcade game in The Last Starfighter...

You don't mind if I post this, do you? (GoNintendo (http://gonintendo.com/?p=81799))

http://gonintendo.com/wp-content/uploads/space.jpg

[Superman's Dead]

Curse you, Avnovice!

[Purple Santa]

Why do I come in here to be continually teased.

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images from Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1224063_1407.html).

[Goronmon]

Why do I come in here to be continually teased.I was thinking the same exact thing.

[Evil Avnovice]

Gamekyo flavoring (http://www.gamekyo.com/newsen31015_infinite-space-new-pictures.html).

http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090512_145748_0_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images0_4_31015.html) http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090512_145749_7_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images7_4_31015.html)

http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090512_145748_1_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images1_4_31015.html) http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Images/71061020090512_145748_4_big.jpg (http://www.gamekyo.com/images4_4_31015.html)

[Evil Avnovice]

A very, very, VERY small glimpse of Infinite Space video. (GoNintendo (http://gonintendo.com/?p=82406): Around the 24-30 second mark.)

a1K8ZcgjItM

[Evil Avnovice]

A new trailer. (Livegen (http://www.livegen.tv/video/121815/Infinite-Space-Trailer-4.html))

[Evil Avnovice]

Anime short #3. (Livegen (http://www.liveds.fr/news/122202/Un-troisieme-court-metrage-pour-Infinite-Space.html?c=1))

[Evil Avnovice]

Higher quality version of the recent trailer I've already posted, in Jeux-France flavoring.

[Evil Avnovice]

Anime short #4. (Livegen (http://www.liveds.fr/news/122276/Anime-pour-Infinite-Space-et-de-quatre-.html?c=1))

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images. (GoNintendo (http://gonintendo.com/?p=83451); GameWatch (http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20090522_169849.html))

http://gonintendo.com/wp-content/photos/mugen10.jpg

[Evil Avnovice]

Atsushi Inaba (Producer) and Hifumi Kouno (Director) will hold an event in Akihabara for Infinite Space on May 30, 2009. There will also be a playable demo at the event. (Andriasang (http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/05/22/infinite_space_demo_event/))

In addition to the launch date for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and the unveiling date for both a new Metal Gear and Idol Master game, the 30th will see two major game developers make an appearance in Akihabara to pimp their new game.

The two developers are Atsushi Inaba and Hifumi Kouno, respectively producer and director of Platinum Games' Japanese debut title, Infinite Space (properly known here as Mugen Kourou). Ahead of the game's June 11 release date, the two will appear at Softmap in Akihabara on the 30th for a demo event. the event will run from noon till 17:00. It's unclear when exactly the two gaming celebrities will appear.

[Evil Avnovice]

A 26-second (piss-poor quality) gameplay video. (TinyCartridge (http://tinycartridge.com/post/111904312/episode-3-of-infinite-spaces-webisode-ugh))

z-0UVufGYsU

[Shrinn]

There's some sort of crazy race flash game. It's all in Japanese so I can't make heads or tails of it but I did win!

http://www.mugen-sugoroku.jp/

[Evil Avnovice]

A few new Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1224351_1407.html) images.

[Evil Avnovice]

A few pieces of character art. (Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/1224751_1407.html))

[Evil Avnovice]

Some new images from GameWatch (http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/review/20090611_283940.html).

[Evil Avnovice]

Anime short #4. (TinyCartridge (http://tinycartridge.com/post/126064436/episode-4-of-infinite-spaces-web-anime-series-as))

kS0bm0KRJmE

[Evil Avnovice]

There are three strategy vidoes available for viewing over at Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1225255_1124.html).

[JayVe]

I so hope we get this game here. Hope, hope HOPE!

[Superman's Dead]

I started to dream about it. It had a weird mechanic where the game would contact you in your real life if there was a space battle that needed to be fought.

...I hope we get it too.

[RandoM51]

I so hope we get this game here. Hope, hope HOPE!

http://www.ebgames.com/browse/search.aspx?N=0&Ntk=TitleKeyword&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntt=infinite%20space

12/31 is a placeholder date but IGN among others has TBA 2009, which would seem to indicate to me that it is definitely coming to the US, just a matter of when.

On the other hand, this article has the release date as July 7th. http://ds.ign.com/articles/996/996150p1.html

[Wasson_]

It's like...Sega travled back to 1996, and into an alternate dimension, and stole the greatest PSone game of all time and then came back and started selling it in Japan on the DS.

[LordDon]

Fucking WANT!

[Evil Avnovice]

Sega of America has dubbed the first of the anime episodes that were already released in Japan. Word is that the title may be expected to hit North America in Spring 2010. (TinyCartridge (http://tinycartridge.com/post/133833542/infinite-space-blasts-off-to-us-in-spring-2010))

-9LEVv_1HVw

[JayVe]

As much as I am looking forward to this game, this anime sucks. I can't imagine more inane dialogue.

[Evil Avnovice]

This has been announced for Europe. (Wiiz (http://www.wiiz.fr/article.php?a=24635))

Google Translation:

Out since last June 11 in Japan, we learn today that Sega locate account Infinite Space for Nintendo DS in Europe. This RPG produced by Atsushi Inaba (Okami) offers the opportunity for players to control, build and customize more than 150 vessels, with the presence of 200 characters and the power to control multiple devices simultaneously.

However wait for the Spring 2010.

[Evil Avnovice]

A few pieces of ship/character artwork. (GoNintendo (http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=88326))

[Evil Avnovice]

A new trailer. (NintendoLife (http://ds.nintendolife.com/news/2009/07/brand_new_infinite_space_trailer))

UFceTmD_gFE

Note: In case it was missed, this is confirmed for both North America/Europe for 2010.

[menage]

This has been announced for Europe. (Wiiz (http://www.wiiz.fr/article.php?a=24635))

Google Translation:

By that time spacetravel is pretty common. Sega needs to speed some shit up. Like Feather, PS and this.

[Ten19]

2010?! Oh, come ON. I need this game yesterday.

>:(

[Evil Avnovice]

I've posted it several times already, as the first anime episode was recently dubbed by SEGA, but I've went and updated the OP to include Infinite Space's PlatinumGames page.

[Evil Avnovice]

Episode three in english dubbing. (TinyCartridge (http://tinycartridge.com/post/173306513/third-dubbed-episode-from-infinite-spaces-web))

LUjIfnw-CLk

[Evil Avnovice]

TGS 2009 trailer: (GoNintendo (http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=98028))

OAe7aBH5g8M

[Superman's Dead]

I did not watch this with sound.

It did not show one second of gameplay.

BUT I AM SO EXCITED.

[Ink Asylum]

I keep getting reminded of the little known casual PC game "Strange Adventures in Infinite Space" when I see this thread title. It's a great space exploration/combat game that was put out by board game creators Cheapass Games. I kept hoping for an iPhone port but apparently Cheapass Games has been defunct for a couple years so that's highly unlikely.

[Evil Avnovice]

I did not watch this with sound.

It did not show one second of gameplay.

BUT I AM SO EXCITED.

So these won't excite you either? ;_; (Escuadron Pikmin (http://www.escuadronpikmin.com/2009/09/24/tgs09-imagenes-y-trailer-de-infinite-space-para-nintendo-ds/))

http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-1.jpg http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreensho.jpg http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-6.jpg

http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-7.jpg http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-5.jpg http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-4.jpg

http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-3.jpg http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-2.jpg

[J Arcane]

I keep getting reminded of the little known casual PC game "Strange Adventures in Infinite Space" when I see this thread title. It's a great space exploration/combat game that was put out by board game creators Cheapass Games. I kept hoping for an iPhone port but apparently Cheapass Games has been defunct for a couple years so that's highly unlikely.
Fortunately for you, Cheapass was just the publisher. The developer (http://www.digital-eel.com/) is still around, and they even made a sequel.

[Ink Asylum]

I have the sequel, which is great. I'd forgotten about the developer, though. Perhaps I will bug them about porting it to the iPhone. I think it would do very well. The gameplay would work great on a touch screen and the average game time is 5-20 minutes, perfect for casual play.

[JayVe]

Woot! Those screens are EXACTLY what I was looking for. Not too interested in the anime stuff, but the gameplay screens I eat with a spoon.

Edit:
http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx230/Avnovice/Infinite%20Space/Infinite_Space-Nintendo_DSScreen-2.jpg

Sweet Jiminy Pogo!
This looks EXACTLY like a game I played when I was a kid. There was a free tabletop starship game, somewhat like Full Thrust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_thrust). It was a small photocopied playbook that had a few ship stats and illustrations, all based on what I think were from the Space Battleship Yamato (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato) universe. Think of it like a lite Star Fleet Battles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles), without a hex grid.

Holy jeebus. Back in the day, a photocopier was all you needed for freeware. :D

[Ten19]

Every day that I don't have this nestled in my DS is a day I die a little inside.

[Superman's Dead]

Those screens are so amazing. I mean, I used to name my ships and Captains in Homeworld! Now I get to have a fleet for REALS?! Awesome.

[Evil Avnovice]

IGN TGS 2009 preview (http://ds.ign.com/articles/102/1028383p1.html).

[Evil Avnovice]

Pre-orders are now open on Amazon. The projected release date there is March 31, 2010. OP has been updated with the page.

[BLeeP]

I keep getting reminded of the little known casual PC game "Strange Adventures in Infinite Space" when I see this thread title. It's a great space exploration/combat game that was put out by board game creators Cheapass Games. I kept hoping for an iPhone port but apparently Cheapass Games has been defunct for a couple years so that's highly unlikely.

Thank you for dampening my day! I had no clue that Cheapass Games had closed up shop. I don't see how I missed this two year old information, especially when I used to check their web site constantly for when they added limited run games (that usually made use of some excess parts that were given to them to use by one of the big boys).

They made the best games 8-(.

*ahem* Yes, Infinite Space will be quite grand!

[mister slim]

The guys who made SAIS are still around. They just released SAIS for free in order to attract people to the sequel, Weird Worlds.

[zarathstra]

Thank you for dampening my day! I had no clue that Cheapass Games had closed up shop. I don't see how I missed this two year old information, especially when I used to check their web site constantly for when they added limited run games (that usually made use of some excess parts that were given to them to use by one of the big boys).

They made the best games 8-(.

*ahem* Yes, Infinite Space will be quite grand!

CHEAPASS GAMES IS GONE? Crap.

[Superman's Dead]

Anything new here, Avanovice? =)

[Evil Avnovice]

Anything new here, Avanovice? =)

Nope.

Unless what looks to be the US boxart is enough to keep you excited. (TinyCartridge (http://tinycartridge.com/post/266698410/infinite-spaces-u-s-and-japanese-boxarts))

[Evil Avnovice]

A GameSpot interview (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/infiniteline/news.html?sid=6244764&mode=previews) with Nude Maker's Hifumi Kouno and Platinum Games' Atsushi Inaba on Infinite Space. Some of the things they talk about are the basics of the game and a potential sequel.

[Evil Avnovice]

"Cinematic" trailer:

60665

[Evil Avnovice]

A couple of new images from Gamekyo (http://www.gamekyo.com/newsen34359_infinite-space-new-images.html).

[Superman's Dead]

SO CLOSE! Whee!

[Evil Avnovice]

Not to get anyone's hopes up, but SEGA and Nude Maker have this set for a more accurate release date of March 23, 2010 (North America) and March 26, 2010 (Europe) Gamekyo (http://gamekyo.com/newsen34836_infinite-space-new-release-date.html).

Checking the game's page at Sega.com pulls up nothing, and as Nude Maker doesn't have an american site that I've seen, Infinite Space's wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Space) page seems to be the only other place that gives the same dates.

[Superman's Dead]

Avnovice, I want this game so bad.

So bad.

I will spend the last month and a half of my collegiate career in the back of class playing it.

[Tayaya]

Not to get anyone's hopes up, but SEGA and Nude Maker have this set for a more accurate release date of March 23, 2010 (North America) and March 26, 2010 (Europe) Gamekyo (http://gamekyo.com/newsen34836_infinite-space-new-release-date.html).

Checking the game's page at Sega.com pulls up nothing, and as Nude Maker doesn't have an american site that I've seen, Infinite Space's wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Space) page seems to be the only other place that gives the same dates.

You have gotten my hopes up now, Avnovice. Pray they are not dashed... :p

[Ten19]

Same! My expectations are now artificially inflated, it cannot in any way release a day later than stated!

[Tayaya]

Same! My expectations are now artificially inflated, it cannot in any way release a day later than stated!

Not even if the stated date is a ship date.

[JayVe]

Oh man. I have a hankering for this game.

A hankerin' I say!

[Evil Avnovice]

According to this new trailer that Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/24/infinite-space-lands-on-ds-march-16/) got their hands on, the release date is confirmed for March 16, 2010.

arGOHK2WXqg

[Ten19]

GLEEEE!

Now to pre-order it.

[Evil Avnovice]

Battle tutorial & Developer interview videos. (GoNintendo (http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=116406))

[nnanji]

I can't wait, but at the end of that video it says 26th March 2010.

[Superman's Dead]

...but...but...but...

[nnanji]

I see now, the video that Evil Avnovice linked to above is the European video, thus the different date. March 16th it is!!!

Really, the PEGI rating should have been a clue.

[Superman's Dead]

Sending my copy of Bayonetta back today (Sorry Avnovice) so I can get this for launch from Gamefly. SO excited. I will spam this thread.

[AversionFX]

That gameplay trailer is very lackluster, and leaves a lot to be desired. Such as the game actually being played, rather than some anime story sequence and menu screens. :(

[Superman's Dead]

Is anyone playing this today? I'm waiting on Gamefly but oh boy, if I didn't have to pay my rent...

[Ten19]

Still waiting on mine to ship, they have an ETA of next week for me :/

[Evil Avnovice]

Haven't gotten the text from GameStop yet. Having checked their site (http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71455), they claim that the ship date was March 16, and are currently shipping it out. :confused:

But the real problem is that you sent back Bayonetta!?? Why couldn't you do it to some other SEGA game? ;_;

[JayVe]

What? This game is out? Why did it have to come out at the same time as Pokémon? :(

[RandoM51]

So there'd be at least one good DS game to buy that wasn't just the nth reskin of an existing game.

[StarGypsy]

I got the call from game stop. Tomorrow afternoon I'll be reaching for the stars.

Thanks Evil Avnovice for bringing the game to my attention.

Link to the Manual.
http://dl.sega.com/guide/infinite-space/infinite-space-zero-g-manual-us.pdf

[Superman's Dead]

Haven't gotten the text from GameStop yet. Having checked their site (http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=71455), they claim that the ship date was March 16, and are currently shipping it out. :confused:

But the real problem is that you sent back Bayonetta!?? Why couldn't you do it to some other SEGA game? ;_;

I know, I know, I knew you'd be upset. It was really good...but Infinite Space is probably one I'll use 'Keep It Now' on almost right away, with my discount and coupons and stuff.

Edit: Wow. Thanks for the link to the manual, Gypsy. That's...look at all the modules on the ship!

[Evil Avnovice]

I got the call from game stop. Tomorrow afternoon I'll be reaching for the stars.

Thanks Evil Avnovice for bringing the game to my attention.

You lucky dog. And you're welcome. :p

I know, I know, I knew you'd be upset. It was really good...but Infinite Space is probably one I'll use 'Keep It Now' on almost right away, with my discount and coupons and stuff.

Nah. I was just teasing by giving you flak for it. ;)

[Superman's Dead]

Whatever. Jerk. ;)

This game can't have come out at a more perfect time. While lesser students drink and party their spring breaks away, I will be commanding a fleet. Oh boy.

[RandoM51]

Well, what is the word? Surely somebody is playing this by now.

[Tayaya]

My gamestop only got ONE copy of this. They're hangin' onto it for me. Impressions tonight.

[Superman's Dead]

Well, what is the word? Surely somebody is playing this by now.

It's on the way from Gamefly yesssssssssss.

Also, IGN gave it a 7. Basically it's clunky, the UI isn't the best thing around, and grinding is repetetive.

I read nothing in the review that would discourage me from playing this game. I grind in Disgaea all the time for absolutely no reason; doing the same thing but with spaceships will be like cocaine.

[Superman's Dead]

They only have it at the Los Angeles shipping center?!?

If it isn't in Missouri by Saturday I'm going to start kidnapping postmen.

[Evil Avnovice]

Just got the text from GameStop. After I get off from work in about 4 hours, I'll swing by to pick up my copy and should have impressions either tonight or tomorrow.

Aren't these the most epic "I almost got teh Infinite Space" posts ever?

[zarathstra]

Gamesztop shipped my copy today. Fingers crossed for a quick delivery

[Tayaya]

Sorry no impressions yet - haven't had a chance to open up the game. Real life got in the way yesterday, followed by too much Yakuza 3! Hopefully this afternoon afternoon after work will give me some time to blow up some spaceships.

[RandoM51]

I played up to the first hub.

Initial Impressions:

Dialogue and story: cliche space opera, but that is pretty much what we signed up for.
Graphics: Excellent.
Sound/Music: Excellent. The mix during battle could use some work as the background music is crazy loud while the command dialogue isn't.
Combat: Overwhelming at first. The tutorial is very basic and will leave you wondering about some things. The initial battles are versus near-harmless enemies though so you should have time to play around. I'd be happier if it were entirely turn-based.

Has atmosphere similar to the original wing commander games. :)

[Tayaya]

Has atmosphere similar to the original wing commander games. :)

Everything else you said above could have said the game was utter crap, and you still would have had me sold just by saying this part right here.

Even though this game isn't one of those games that gives you direct control of a fighter, the universe in WC is one of my favorite sci-fi game settings ever. At least, until they put it all in the shitter with Prophecy.

WCII and WCIII are two of my all time favorite games. I also drew up concepts for a massively mulitplayer Wing Commander game when I was like 13-14, long before MMOs were popular. There was some WWII flight sim I used to play, where you could not only fly fighters but you could fill up bombers with a full crew, having dedicated gunners, bombadiers, etc... I think it was called Air Warrior II or something like that. Anyway, my thoughts were to have a game like that, where players could man the guns on capital ships as well as captain them, and carriers could launch players into the game, but would only have a certain amount of fighters, requiring pilots to know when to pull out of combat and get their crippled ships home for repairs, etc. All in the Wing Commander II-III universe. Crazy shit, I know, but I was young and full of dreams that were bigger than the tech of the time allowed!

[jpublic]

There's a couple really interesting features to the game that impress the hell out of me. Like, when you travel/fight, and there's an internal display on your cockpit view that is a direct mirror of the upper screen.

I'm having some trouble - I just got my Destroyer - am I to assume I'm not supposed to go back to fight the bad guy right away? I've tried it twice and he kicks my ass.

[Evil Avnovice]

I've managed to play up to the tutorial, which was easy to pick up as far as the basics. Right now, I'm up to the point where I talked to Nia over the suggestion that I travel to a nearby planet where I can buy some blueprints.

Made me my first Destroyer. :)

Note: I love how you get an inside view of your cockpit when in battle, or how you can toggle the screen while traveling between planets to display either you ship data or the outside view.

[RandoM51]

I'm having some trouble - I just got my Destroyer - am I to assume I'm not supposed to go back to fight the bad guy right away? I've tried it twice and he kicks my ass.
I went right back and fought him.

Make sure you have the best modules.
Make sure your crew is in positions that give you the fastest recharge on the combat gauge, this is crucial. If you can't recharge fast enough you won't have enough time to dodge and deliver your own attacks in a timely fashion.

Watch his gauge, if it drops a color level without him firing you know he just enabled dodge, so fire a normal for the crit.

[jpublic]

I went right back and fought him.

Make sure you have the best modules.
Make sure your crew is in positions that give you the fastest recharge on the combat gauge, this is crucial. If you can't recharge fast enough you won't have enough time to dodge and deliver your own attacks in a timely fashion.

Watch his gauge, if it drops a color level without him firing you know he just enabled dodge, so fire a normal for the crit.

I think I may be doing something wrong. The only other crew I have is Nia.

Here's my path so far:


Game start
Head to Layer 2 planet where I get the ultimatum
Build my destroyer, improve weapons, add in fire control and radar
Run a delivery mission to get access to the piracy point
Run a piracy mission.
Go to home planet, get tuned


Clearly, something isn't working there.

[RandoM51]

I don't know what to say, I even used the cheaper of the two destroyers. I suppose you could grind a level or two on your main character and Nia but doesn't seem like you should have to, or that it would really make that much difference.

You socketed her in as 2nd in command or in radar, right?


...and I don't know what you're talking about in terms of piracy. Oh wait, you mean the luxury goods transport ship? Yeah, had to get the destroyer so I'd be fast enough to kill it before it escaped, but after that I'm pretty sure I just went and killed the boss. Wasn't anything left to do.

[Shrinn]

RandoM, Jpublic

What's this piracy mission with the luxury cruiser? I beat the boss and got to the other side of the warp gate. Went back to the first system and asked around but saw nothing of this kind of mission. Care to elaborate?

How are we supposed to know what these passive skills do? For example, the one that just says "Amateur Chef".

My weapons say they attack twice, how come most of the time they only shoot once?

There's a lot to this game that confuses me. Hopefully someone can clear it up. I'm enjoying it, but I feel like I'm getting my ass kicked a lot harder than I would be if I knew how the mechanics worked.

[AversionFX]

What's the consensus so far? I hurt for this game.

[RandoM51]

What's this piracy mission with the luxury cruiser? I beat the boss and got to the other side of the warp gate. Went back to the first system and asked around but saw nothing of this kind of mission. Care to elaborate?


One of the first ??? destinations is a place where luxury item transports pass through delivering goods to the planetary dictator of your homeworld. Your first NPC mentions it and I think one of the bartenders does too. If you go there in the first ship you won't be able to catch the transport. Your second ship should be able to catch it and you'll get some money for it.


How are we supposed to know what these passive skills do? For example, the one that just says "Amateur Chef".

That is one of the complaints with the game, they don't explain any of that.


My weapons say they attack twice, how come most of the time they only shoot once?

Probably firing two rounds simultaneously.


There's a lot to this game that confuses me. Hopefully someone can clear it up. I'm enjoying it, but I feel like I'm getting my ass kicked a lot harder than I would be if I knew how the mechanics worked.

Have you checked the help section in dockyard? I think it is in the ship buying section. I haven't but they might cover some of the specials there.

The kid gloves come off in the second chapter. I didn't realize that I could flee from most combats at first. In the second area it might be a good idea to flee from any combat that involves a larger destroyer until you've gotten some upgrades and levels under your belt.

Fleet layout is important. When you get the ability for a second ship in your fleet take Nia's ship and put it in the front row with your main ship. It will add a bit more damage to your attacks, but more importantly it will act as a damage soak. If any ship besides your flagship blows up it doesn't matter, it will get completely repaired when you dock at a base. When you have the money, get your second destroyer and put it where her ship is. Just work it this way each time you get unlock a new ship spot in your fleet.

What's the consensus so far? I hurt for this game.
I put eight+ hours into it yesterday, first thing I thought of when I woke up was to play some more.

The combat appears very simple at first glance but there is actually quite a bit of depth to it once you start figuring out how to time your moves, particularly in fleet actions.

For example: You start a battle with enough juice for a normal shot but you usually aren't in range, plus you start off targeting the wrong row. You have to switch to the appropriate target and decide if you want to back off and charge up or move forward to get in a quick shot.

The groups I'm fighting right now I move up a bit because the first ship almost invariably turns on dodge---important point here, dodge isn't a "move" it is a toggle, you turn it on and it doesn't go off until you fire, dodge, or get hit with a normal---and you can tell when he does it because you can see the color of his power gauge. It goes green->yellow->red. If you see his gauge drop from yellow to green you know he just used energy. If he didn't shoot at you and you didn't get a graphic of some special then you know he used dodge. Knowing that you immediately do a normal fire and hit him for a nice crit if he is in range.

There are lots of little tells like that in combat to figure out, makes it sort of like poker.

Don't use barrage as an action, always use it as a reaction or a follow up and don't waste it on ships smaller than you.

Example: You know he has dodge and you have a full power gauge. Fire normal then immediately fire barrage. Normal will take down the dodge and odds are pretty good your barrage will hit before he brings dodge back up.

Example: You're pretty confident he doesn't have dodge up and he barrages you, immediately barrage him.

[Tayaya]

I really need to start playing this. It's sitting in the DS rarin' to go, and I've made sure to keep my DS on my person at all times. Real life needs a pause button, damnit.

[RandoM51]

RandoM, Jpublic
How are we supposed to know what these passive skills do? For example, the one that just says "Amateur Chef".


There is a Help option under CTA. It takes you to a screen with a butler-like robot who can tell you about the skills, and a bunch of other stuff.

Amateur Chef, for example:

An assignment-bonus type of Special Skill.
When a character with this Special Skill is
assigned to a food services post, a bonus
is applied to the overall fleet's Livability.

[RandoM51]

Couple more tips:

Weapons have a minimum and maximum range. In the combat window there is an icon for each ship in your fleet, and above that icon smaller symbols for each weapon. Keep your eye on them when changing distance so you can figure out at which distance every weapon you have can hit, so as to maximize your damage.

Don't make multiplanet jumps. If you make a multiplanet jump you don't "refresh" at each hop, which leads to high fatigue among your crew, which leads to a very slowly recharging combat gauge, which leads to getting destroyed. :) It is a pain when grinding, but so is dying and reloading. Your ships don't get repaired either in a multi-hop. Perhaps when we have larger ships/crews the Livability will be to the point where fatigue isn't an issue. I am in chapter 3 and haven't reached a point like that yet.

[Superman's Dead]

I couldn't help myself, I hit 'Keep It' before I ever got it so that Gamefly can send me something else and I never have to worry about sending Infinite Space back

[zarathstra]

Argh. I keep checking my tracking number every couple hours to see if anything has changed. If it doesn't come tomorrow, I don't know if I can stand the thought of waiting until Monday!

[Shrinn]

Probably firing two rounds simultaneously.


Sometimes it shoots twice. (Two hits/misses) sometimes it only shoots once. Both my weapons (small and medium) are 2 hit models. Also, how do I know/pick which weapons fire?


Have you checked the help section in dockyard? I think it is in the ship buying section. I haven't but they might cover some of the specials there.

The kid gloves come off in the second chapter. I didn't realize that I could flee from most combats at first. In the second area it might be a good idea to flee from any combat that involves a larger destroyer until you've gotten some upgrades and levels under your belt.

Fleet layout is important. When you get the ability for a second ship in your fleet take Nia's ship and put it in the front row with your main ship. It will add a bit more damage to your attacks, but more importantly it will act as a damage soak. If any ship besides your flagship blows up it doesn't matter, it will get completely repaired when you dock at a base. When you have the money, get your second destroyer and put it where her ship is. Just work it this way each time you get unlock a new ship spot in your fleet.


I did check out the help section and, while helpful, I still got my ass beat. I just got the ability to have a second ship before I quit playing though, so I'll have to play around with that more.

I know my ships fire in formation, a normal causes both ships to shoot normal. But does that happen for enemy ships too?

There is a Help option under CTA. It takes you to a screen with a butler-like robot who can tell you about the skills, and a bunch of other stuff.

Amateur Chef, for example:

I thought I checked all of the sections. Dunno how I missed that.

Thanks for the tips. I'll report back more later.

[JayVe]

I couldn't help myself, I hit 'Keep It' before I ever got it so that Gamefly can send me something else and I never have to worry about sending Infinite Space back

This is for the best. It means GameFly will order another one, and someone else will get theirs faster. :D

[jpublic]

RandoM, Jpublic

What's this piracy mission with the luxury cruiser? I beat the boss and got to the other side of the warp gate. Went back to the first system and asked around but saw nothing of this kind of mission. Care to elaborate?



Before you fight the boss, if you go to the planet that starts with an H you can get a mission from the bartender to deliver a package to the B planet for 300G. If you do that, then talk to the B bartender again, he'll tell you about the star lanes in the area, which is where you can commit some piracy.


I concur on the special skills. I have no idea what any of them do.

[RandoM51]

quicklook (http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-infinite-space/17-2216/) on giant bomb. might be new, might already be posted.

[Shrinn]

There is a Help option under CTA. It takes you to a screen with a butler-like robot who can tell you about the skills, and a bunch of other stuff.

Amateur Chef, for example:

An assignment-bonus type of Special Skill.
When a character with this Special Skill is
assigned to a food services post, a bonus
is applied to the overall fleet's Livability.

I still can't find this. I go to the help menu and click Spec skills and everything except the last three skills are grayed out and those are melee skills. Any idea why they'd be gray if I have a person with the skill?

[Ten19]

Got my copy today and am -really- enjoying it thus far, the level of customization makes my geeky brain very happy.

[RandoM51]

I still can't find this. I go to the help menu and click Spec skills and everything except the last three skills are grayed out and those are melee skills. Any idea why they'd be gray if I have a person with the skill?
I suppose it might not "unlock" the help for a skill until you put that npc into a crew slot where the skill would be active. That would be kind of ass-backwards, though.

If people want specific ones looked up I could start adding to that post so we'd have a list. I've almost got a full crew now.

Oh, and speaking of crew, it is worth going back to previous areas after you finish a chapter to check for new crew. After finishing chapter 3 I went back and hit every tavern/base up to that point and found 3 crew members who I had missed or who had not appeared yet when I was last there.

[Ten19]

[spoiler]
The kid gloves come off in the second chapter. I didn't realize that I could flee from most combats at first. In the second area it might be a good idea to flee from any combat that involves a larger destroyer until you've gotten some upgrades and levels under your belt.
Except when half of the combats in Chapter 2 are tagged with "CAN'T ESCAPE' and feature a giant armada of ships kicking my ass :(. Even if you back off all the way, you don't flee, you just sit there. I had to turn on auto-save at that point.

[RandoM51]

There aren't very many in chapter two that are can't escape until you get 4 or 5 layers into the system. Stay up near the top until you grab the new modules. Don't think there is anything in the region tougher than two destroyers and two frigates, at least non-storyline.

I have a battleship, a cruiser with 4 fighters, and a destroyer now and walk all over random battles. I don't even have to think, just hit forward, wait till I'm in range, bang-1 ship gone, bang-2nd ship gone, wait a couple seconds for recharge, bang-3rd ship gone. Story battles can still be rough.

[Shrinn]

I suppose it might not "unlock" the help for a skill until you put that npc into a crew slot where the skill would be active. That would be kind of ass-backwards, though.

If people want specific ones looked up I could start adding to that post so we'd have a list. I've almost got a full crew now.


I did some research. It unlocks the descriptions sometime in chapter 3.

I had some trouble in the big mission in Chapter 2. I saved after it started so I was stuck in it. It wasn't until I found out how to use Kira's Medic that I was able to pass. I had the unfortunate luck of going into it before I bought my second destroyer.

Thanks for the tip about revisiting old systems!

[RandoM51]

Spoiler about the Help system:

later on in the game something happens with the help Robot. You have to have specific crew for it to trigger and I think you have to have visited help a number of times, or perhaps within a certain timeframe. Triggered in chapter 6 or 7 for me.

I'm tooling around with a carrier and two battleships now, battles getting rough again. Wish I'd unlock a 4th ship slot.

[Superman's Dead]

How can you use Kira's Medic? Is that an active skill?

Man, I love this game. I've got maybe seven hours into it, not counting games I've lost while forgetting to save, and I dig it. I'm glad I heard about constantly talking to people for new information, or that would have gotten old very quickly. This kind of game just needs a much bigger manual than fits in a nintendo DS case.

I did a TON of grinding to get my first battleship, and I love it to pieces. I named it the BANNER (because it is indeed a Hulk), and I'm presently grinding to fill it up with awesome modules.

After a little investigating, I don't really understand people who say that there's only one 'right way' to place your crew. Each officer has two skills higher than the others, as well as several special skills that might work in a different area than either. You jsut get to choose what's important to your fleet at that time and how important their skills will be.

The game is a classic JRPG. "Oh no! Pirates killed your father and stole your company! Sure you can join up, let's go get em! Yarrrr!" But I love it. I love it I love it I love it. Because it's in space, and that makes all the difference.

I'm totally a fighter pilot guy, so I'm gonna make my fleet really cruiser heavy, and having a limited amount of space/placement for modules on ships really lets you decide your playstyle. Man I dig this game.

[zarathstra]

When does the ability to command more than one ship open up? I'm through the void gate, but I can't seem to hit any damned thing. I'm hoping having an extra ship would make a difference.

[nnanji]

When does the ability to command more than one ship open up? I'm through the void gate, but I can't seem to hit any damned thing. I'm hoping having an extra ship would make a difference.

Visit taverns.

[Tayaya]

Specifically, taverns on the far left side of the Lutsk system.

Put in a couple of hours today in between dealing with mean customers at work and after work as well. Just built my second destroyer (the Lil' Brudder) and put the Daisy on standby. Upgraded the snot out of those ships with new bridges, an amplifier, and all the good gizmos for better ship livability and lower expenses. Slapped some shields on the lead ship in the fleet and moved my Flagship (the S.S. Clunker) to the middle row. I am steamrolling everything in the sector now.

At first I was a little disappointed with this one, finding the combat to be a little to simple and not really getting a good grasp of the tactics behind it. Kind of had a "that's all!?" mentality about it. But now that I'm nose deep in menus and got a chance to completely gut my two vessels and customize them into some serious war machines, I can't wait to get crackin' on some new ships once I open up some different weapon types and ship types. It took a little while to grow on me, but now that I've gotten a feel for it this is a real gem of a game, despite its rough edges and unforgiving learnng curve.

[zarathstra]

Okay, it looks like I got the skill the command 2 ships, but I can't figure out how to get both of them to fight at the same time. I thought I put them into formation, but when I go into battle, the Daisy isn't there. Also, is there a way I can set the crew for my other ships?

And I still can't hit a friggin thing.

[nnanji]

Okay, it looks like I got the skill the command 2 ships, but I can't figure out how to get both of them to fight at the same time. I thought I put them into formation, but when I go into battle, the Daisy isn't there. Also, is there a way I can set the crew for my other ships?

And I still can't hit a friggin thing.

When you are editing formation, make sure that after selecting where in the grid you want the Daisy, press the button on the right marked assign (or maybe equip.) If done correctly, the number 2 should appear next to the Daisy's name on the list, to indicate that she is assigned to the number 2 slot on the formation grid.

Also, you only have 1 crew for all ships. Think of the Daisy as a slaved remote that responds to the main crew's commands. All of the ships in your fleet will work together as one unit in battle, and they will all benefit from the crew assignments.

edit: To help with hitting, make sure that you are within your attack range before firing, and that all weapon indicators are blue, not red. Focus on normal attacks at first until you get the hang of it. And if you are using many low accuracy weapons (the laser that shoots twice has a lower accuracy than the laser that does one higher damage shot), think about adding a Firing control module to improve AS accuracy.

[zarathstra]

When you are editing formation, make sure that after selecting where in the grid you want the Daisy, press the button on the right marked assign (or maybe equip.) If done correctly, the number 2 should appear next to the Daisy's name on the list, to indicate that she is assigned to the number 2 slot on the formation grid.

Also, you only have 1 crew for all ships. Think of the Daisy as a slaved remote that responds to the main crew's commands. All of the ships in your fleet will work together as one unit in battle, and they will all benefit from the crew assignments.

edit: To help with hitting, make sure that you are within your attack range before firing, and that all weapon indicators are blue, not red. Focus on normal attacks at first until you get the hang of it. And if you are using many low accuracy weapons (the laser that shoots twice has a lower accuracy than the laser that does one higher damage shot), think about adding a Firing control module to improve AS accuracy.

Thanks for the info on formations, I got that one down now, but I still can't hit anything after the Void Gate. I have a Fire Control module, I switched to the higher accuracy lasers, I wait until both weapons are blue...and I still manage to score approximately 1 hit per battle, all the while the enemy is pounding me into scrap. I really want to like this game, but I can't figure it out!

I'm still level 2, could that be the problem?

[Tayaya]

Thanks for the info on formations, I got that one down now, but I still can't hit anything after the Void Gate. I have a Fire Control module, I switched to the higher accuracy lasers, I wait until both weapons are blue...and I still manage to score approximately 1 hit per battle, all the while the enemy is pounding me into scrap. I really want to like this game, but I can't figure it out!

I'm still level 2, could that be the problem?

Make sure you bought all the blueprints you could find in the first system - blueprints are dirt cheap and allow you to build more modules to help boost those stats.

In your case, once you have any and all possible blueprints, go to the Remodel shop and fit any parts that will increase Anti-Ship (AS) accuracy. Make sure you've slotted any crew members as well, as they provide great stat boosts to your ship. Seating someone in one of the artillery positions should help give you some extra accuracy when firing as well.

It helps a little if you go back through the void gate to heal up and seat your extra crew member (the fat kid.... forgetting his name right now), and to save. This way you don't have to risk an encounter and get forced to do the boss fight again (not that it's all that hard, but you know how annoying that can get).

[nnanji]

The blueprint and crew advice are good. My first thoughts are that you either didn't assign crew to the artillery positions, or you are always using Barrage attack and they are dodging it. The fat boy is a good artillery control crew member for the beginning of the game.

Oh! Make sure you are attacking the ships in the correct order. When the battle starts you will almost always be targeting the wrong ship, and you will miss a lot. Look under the ships for a diagram that looks like this: [< < <]

Make sure you switch targets to the ship in the front position ( [< ), and work your way back through the formation.

[RandoM51]

How can you use Kira's Medic? Is that an active skill?

It is a command skill, shows up as special two in combat if you put her in the 1st officer slot.

After a little investigating, I don't really understand people who say that there's only one 'right way' to place your crew.
I haven't seen anybody say that, anywhere. :)

I'm getting boned by a story battle in Chapter 7. So annoying that two battleships and a carrier with 32 strikers can't take this guy out.

[Superman's Dead]

Who on EARTH would make Kira the 1st officer!? Well, someone who wants to use medic I guess.

So I was all thrilled about having the Banner and beating the snot out of some pirates, and then I get to

The second battle with that pirate in Chapter 3, where he has the huge ship over the artificial planet. I haven't tried super-hard to dodge every barrage, but even if I do the normal attacks still take it out of me. And the Commang Gauge is so slow because the crew is tired because there's like twelve thousand asteroid belts between me and them. Ugh. I grinded for the battleship, I grinded for every livability module I could get, I don't really want to grind some more.

Advice?

Also, I really dig what they were trying to do with the guessing game of green->yellow->red. Unfortunately for me, I'm a little colorblind, so I have to reeeeeeally focus to see exactly what color that tiny outline is. I wish there were some way to see it as a huge block, or even a letter next to it to make it more recognizable.

Edit: And thanks so much for pointing out the min/max range thing. Oh man. I was just moving my ship around for fun before that.

[Tayaya]

Oh! Make sure you are attacking the ships in the correct order. When the battle starts you will almost always be targeting the wrong ship, and you will miss a lot. Look under the ships for a diagram that looks like this: [< < <]

Make sure you switch targets to the ship in the front position ( [< ), and work your way back through the formation.

Nice catch on that one. I totally forgot to mention that, as I was treating it more like a stat problem than as a combat issue.

[RandoM51]

Chapter 3 Pirate Battle(s)


1. You don't have to do two battles in a row. After the first battle you can hit the cancel button in the lower right of your screen, go back to nearest base and recharge/save, then come back for the next battle.

2. You only need to use deflectors to get through the asteroid field the first time. You can go switch them out for something more useful. I didn't do this myself, just read about it.

3. Gen has a command ability that allows you to ignore enemy formation levels for a short while. You can use this ability, then attack the enemy flagship regardless of which row it is in without penalty to accuracy and damage. Makes this battle quite a bit easier. :)

4. After you finish the two space battles you'll have some ground melee battles. You might want to head back a 2nd time to swap your crew around so that you have somebody in the combat crew slot(s). I didn't do this myself, only took two tries to do the melee battles without combat crews.

[RandoM51]

Who on EARTH would make Kira the 1st officer!? Well, someone who wants to use medic I guess.

When you get a new character who has an active/combat skill you might want to use later on you might consider putting them in a crew slot for that particular stat(leadership/control/combat/etc.) as soon as you get them. After they've leveled up a number of times they'll have decent numbers in that stat even if they started out with crappy ones.

So yeah, Kira starts out with crappy leadership, but it doesn't have to stay that way. :) For those interested, I tried Medic lvl 1 out in chapter 7 and it only does around 10-15% repair. I've got somebody with Medic lvl 2, need to give that a spin.

[jpublic]

Supes:

Remember that Command Gauge charge speed is, fasted to slowest, Destroyer, Cruiser, Carrier, Battleship. To offset how damn slow your BS is, put a DD in the fleet.

[RandoM51]

I wouldn't worry about that unless you grind all the time and can afford 3 battleships before chapter 4. :p My progression went like this:

frigate
dd+frigate
dd+dd
dd+dd+frigate
dd+dd+battleship
dd+cruiser+battleship
cruiser+battleship+battleship
carrier+battleship+battleship

As long as you're keeping command gauge in mind when remodeling and assigning crew you won't have a problem with slow command gauge---at least an inherent problem, all bets off if you go into battle with max fatigue!

[Tayaya]

I wouldn't worry about that unless you grind all the time and can afford 3 battleships before chapter 4. :p My progression went like this:

frigate
dd+frigate
dd+dd
dd+dd+frigate
dd+dd+battleship
dd+cruiser+battleship
cruiser+battleship+battleship
carrier+battleship+battleship

As long as you're keeping command gauge in mind when remodeling and assigning crew you won't have a problem with slow command gauge---at least an inherent problem, all bets off if you go into battle with max fatigue!

Man... two battleships and a carrier... that just sounds like overkill, but I know you're getting walloped right now, so clearly that may not be so much overkill after all.

I just got my first set of battleship plans last night but I'm tapped out on money so I can't use 'em yet. I'm actually considering building a cruiser first to have a little anti-fighter capacity as my two destroyers are weak in that stat, but no one's sent fighters my way yet (just going into Chapter 3) so it hasn't been critical.

I really hope this game sells well enough to warrant a sequel on a more powerful console. Imagine how much more awesome this would be if you could customize the appearance of your ships (module placement affecting the way the ship looked on the outside, actually seeing or placing the guns, etc), make a custom emblem and markings for them, and have online skirmishes between fleets. Of course I'm sure we'd see ships with gigantic dicks painted on them, but hey, all the more reason to blow them up.

[RandoM51]

The game warns you ahead of time about the first battle with fighters, leaving you a window to retool your fleet and/or grind some extra cash. I had plenty in the bank right then so no grinding was needed.

You don't even need fighters just because they have them, you can just have good AA in your fleet.

What fighters are very good for though is telling you if an enemy fleet with AA is using dodge or not. If you send in your fighters and you see his AA firing---change one of your views to show his ships close up or just listen to the sound effects---you know his dodge is not active since you can't have AA and Dodge active at the same time.

So you just back off out of range until your gauge is half full or so, launch your fighters, then follow them in. By the time he has engaged the fighters with AA you'll have the charge for barrage or final roar and you'll know he isn't dodging.

Oh, one other thing about fighters, when a fleet is engaged with enemy fighters the fleet cannot move.

[RandoM51]

Figured out that chapter seven boss I was having problems with.

He is devastating at mid to long range. Get right up next to him though and he can't bring his weapons to bear. Long as you keep him pinned with fighters he can't move back to get range, either. :)

[zarathstra]

I think you guys may have hit on my problem with the accuracy. I just always assumed that the first ship icon was the lead ship in the formation. Obviously, that's not true. Sheesh! Its amazing how something so simple (and something they warned you about) can trip you up.

[RandoM51]

Later on you get weapons that will hit every ship in their fleet. :)

[nnanji]

Chapter 3 Pirate Battle(s)


1. You don't have to do two battles in a row. After the first battle you can hit the cancel button in the lower right of your screen, go back to nearest base and recharge/save, then come back for the next battle.

2. You only need to use deflectors to get through the asteroid field the first time. You can go switch them out for something more useful. I didn't do this myself, just read about it.

3. Gen has a command ability that allows you to ignore enemy formation levels for a short while. You can use this ability, then attack the enemy flagship regardless of which row it is in without penalty to accuracy and damage. Makes this battle quite a bit easier. :)

4. After you finish the two space battles you'll have some ground melee battles. You might want to head back a 2nd time to swap your crew around so that you have somebody in the combat crew slot(s). I didn't do this myself, only took two tries to do the melee battles without combat crews.


I'm having problems figuring out the command abilities. Is there a way to figure out what crew position makes these abilities usable in battle? I guess I could just keep swapping people around and trying random battles to see what happens, but there must be a better way that I'm just not getting.

[RandoM51]

I'm having problems figuring out the command abilities. Is there a way to figure out what crew position makes these abilities usable in battle? I guess I could just keep swapping people around and trying random battles to see what happens, but there must be a better way that I'm just not getting.

Command abilities only work for your Captain(space and ground battles), First Officer(space battles), and Security Chief(ground battles).

In space battles they show up as special 1 - spc1 for the captain, special 2 - spc2 for the first officer, and spc3 if your flagship has a special. Ground battles the specials show up beneath the rock/paper/scissors triangle.

[jpublic]

I need to grind more cash. I burned it all setting up my Cruiser.

[nnanji]

Command abilities only work for your Captain(space and ground battles), First Officer(space battles), and Security Chief(ground battles).

In space battles they show up as special 1 - spc1 for the captain, special 2 - spc2 for the first officer, and spc3 if your flagship has a special. Ground battles the specials show up beneath the rock/paper/scissors triangle.

Brilliant. Thanks!

[zarathstra]

Okay, the ship targeting issue was my problem. I'm cool now...

[Superman's Dead]

Where on Earth is the security officer position and why can't I find it

[nnanji]

Where on Earth is the security officer position and why can't I find it

I think it's at the bottom of the list, but it doesn't get it's own folder.

[RandoM51]

Where on Earth is the security officer position and why can't I find it

You have to manually scroll to the bottom of the management group to get to it. They're the last two slots in the same group as the management types.

[Superman's Dead]

Stupid manual scroll! NOW I see it.

So I got that boss in level three by...surprise...doing it in the correct order! It's really interesting how much you can lower an enemy's attack numbers by taking out a destroyer or two.

[Tayaya]

Man, those battles at the end of chapter 3 are HAAAAAAAAARD.

I got the first group out of the way, but Balik's fancy new ship is just straight up nasty. In that fight I can usually get the first 4 ships out of the way without losing any of my 3 ships, but then he just wipes the floor with me, and all my ships even have shield frames equipped for extra HP.

I think I'm going to have to dump the S.S. Clunky (my first destroyer) in favor of something a little better. I don't have nearly enough for a battleship and really don't want to have to grind THAT much on battles that only earn 300 credits or so a pop. There's gotta be a better way!

[RandoM51]

...or you could just ignore the other ships, disable the formation bonus/penalty with a character special and zoom right up and take his ship out with 2-3 barrages.

[Superman's Dead]

...or you could just ignore the other ships, disable the formation bonus/penalty with a character special and zoom right up and take his ship out with 2-3 barrages.

I kept trying to do that, but having his whole fleet complete meant that if he hit ME 2-3 times, I was done. Working my way backwards as per usual was best for me.

And you're right, grinding 300 credits at a time DOES suck. But now I have a Battleship. ;)

[RandoM51]

300? I had to grind 32k for my last ship.

The ships in the second half of the game are awesome. They have 2-5x more durability and lots of space for modules. Livability of my fleet is over 75 now thanks to all that extra module space, I can do trips of just about any length without having to worry about crew fatigue.

I had a melee battle I just couldn't win so I bought one of the new cruisers, put a basic engine and bridge in it, then stuck 8-10 level 3 crew modules in it and nothing else! Stuck it on the back row so it wouldn't get destroyed in the charge to melee range. 600 extra boarders made the melee battle quite a bit easier, lol.

Check out these ships(these numbers are with space combat loadout, best modules available).

Junkyard-class Cruiser

wpnslots 4/4
crewreq 500

anti-air 42
anti-ship 40
cruise spd 159
battle spd 172
mobility 58
armor 76
durability 3880
atk range 19900
livability 100

I've got two of those cruisers paired with a 48 slot carrier, loaded with 48 Intrigo multirole fighters.

speed 170
flt time 95
dur 120
ainti-air 28
anti-ship 28

Basically the firepower of an early game destroyer packed into a fighter, a fighter that I launch 48 of at a time. Then again, each of those fighters were 500 credits, so it cost me a bit to load the carrier. :)

[Tayaya]

...or you could just ignore the other ships, disable the formation bonus/penalty with a character special and zoom right up and take his ship out with 2-3 barrages.

Yeah, I thought about that too, but haven't tried it yet. The biggest problem is that my crew is so tired that my bar is charging really slowly. Some of the newer ships I have plans for have better livability than the first destroyer I built.

I love my Orfey (or is it ofrey... not with my game right now), but you have to get in super close to use your missles, and it's hard to launch a barrage and have enough juice in the tank to put up a dodge again to block a wallop from the whole fleet, so I don't want to build a second one of those.... decisions, decisions....

[RandoM51]

I'm finding that with medic 2 in the first officer slot and a carrier that I can sit back at extreme range and let fighters do all the work. The enemy AI won't let them come to close range for some reason, they stay at the edge of range moving in and out. Keep dodge up, send the fighters in over and over again and use special 2 for the occasional normal hit at extreme range. Boring, but effective.

So effective that instead of putting a battleship in the 4th slot I'm thinking about a second carrier instead. My current carrier is worth 75k fully loaded, though, so I'm going to have to make some more money. :p

[jpublic]

I haven't tried this, but in the fight after the meteor storm, can you halt travel and turn back? I've done that in other trips before.

[Tayaya]

I haven't tried this, but in the fight after the meteor storm, can you halt travel and turn back? I've done that in other trips before.

Yes. Yes you can.

[jpublic]

Yes. Yes you can.

In that case, wouldn't the fight following that be much easier?

[Superman's Dead]

In that case, wouldn't the fight following that be much easier?

Not really; the boss can still drop 1/2 to 1/3 of the health of any of your ships in a single target (it looks like his special ignores rows). You need to watch your meter and make sure dodge is active at all times. A good tactic for a rough battle is turn dodge on, wait for the meter to climb to red, then use a normal attack and turn dodge on right away again.

If you're more patient you can do the same thing with a barrage, but then it can be dodged and the turn can be wasted.

I want fighters so bad I can taste it. Need to play more.

[Tayaya]

In that case, wouldn't the fight following that be much easier?

That fight is still rough. Going in fresh makes it a lot more winnable, but that Heavy Cruiser that Balik's piloting is exceptionally nasty. Even with shield frames, any one of my ships is instantly wiped out by his special if it hits. Very potent stuff.

[jpublic]

Yeah, I'm still mangled by him. Managed to demolish the rest of his crew, but he Normals me to death.

[RandoM51]

I just had a boss fight where the enemy leader had the "comeback kid" skill which allows him to return a unit to battle if it gets retired. The solution is obvious, but I was rather annoyed that I couldn't get the credits from destroying the rest of his fleet.

Somehow I've stopped making any real money except from story battles. Makes it hard to fill that 4th slot with the 70k barebones battleship or 90k fully equipped carrier I want.

[jpublic]

How did you guys take out that pirate encounter? I currently have a destroyer (my first ship) and a cruiser, and he's absolutely killing me. I can manage to take out his escorts, but I'm so damaged by random Normals by then I can't handle the Cruiser. If I try to use Gen's Formation Break skill, I manage to damage him, but before I can load up a Dodge he Barrages me back and takes out my cruiser.

[Tayaya]

How did you guys take out that pirate encounter? I currently have a destroyer (my first ship) and a cruiser, and he's absolutely killing me. I can manage to take out his escorts, but I'm so damaged by random Normals by then I can't handle the Cruiser. If I try to use Gen's Formation Break skill, I manage to damage him, but before I can load up a Dodge he Barrages me back and takes out my cruiser.

I haven't gone back to try it in a few days, but last time I did I had TWO destroyers (my first, and an Ofrey-class), an a Rurik-class Cruiser, and still got destroyed. I'm going to ditch that original destroyer tonight and see what I can do about building something with a bit more durability, livability, and of course, mo' gunz!

[Superman's Dead]

How did you guys take out that pirate encounter? I currently have a destroyer (my first ship) and a cruiser, and he's absolutely killing me. I can manage to take out his escorts, but I'm so damaged by random Normals by then I can't handle the Cruiser. If I try to use Gen's Formation Break skill, I manage to damage him, but before I can load up a Dodge he Barrages me back and takes out my cruiser.

I'd check your formation, see if there's anything you can do there. Check your crew, see if you can re-arrange anything to give you an edge. If it's just the normals getting you, and you manage to dodge everything else, I'd say keep going through it by the book without using Gen's skill (to give you more attacks) and hope the computer randomly chooses Barrage a lot.

Also, I'm about to go looking for FAQs, but (chap 4)

I'm trying to get to the ruins/void gate, but the sector security won't let me past! I've gone all the way back through every planet and can't figure out how to do it.

[nnanji]

I'd check your formation, see if there's anything you can do there. Check your crew, see if you can re-arrange anything to give you an edge. If it's just the normals getting you, and you manage to dodge everything else, I'd say keep going through it by the book without using Gen's skill (to give you more attacks) and hope the computer randomly chooses Barrage a lot.

Also, I'm about to go looking for FAQs, but (chap 4)

I'm trying to get to the ruins/void gate, but the sector security won't let me past! I've gone all the way back through every planet and can't figure out how to do it.

Also make sure that you have upgraded weapons for that pirate battle. Level 2 weapons (if they are available) make a big difference.

For Supes

Have you gotten the scientist yet? Pick up Minas (sp?) from his lab and he will want to get to the far planet. Then, having ran into the security cordon, try going towards planet Zantas (sp?) in the back right hand side. In one of the ??? sectors by that planet, I ran into a passenger ship being attacked by a pirate and defended by the Security Fleet. After meeting the Security Fleet captains, you can go to the Security HQ to advance the plot.

[RandoM51]

Ground Combat Tips:

Ground Combat attack power is governed by two things, the combat skill of the crewmembers in Security Chief and Security officer roles and the quality/number of security modules in your fleet.

Ground Combat soldier count is the combined crew of all your ships.

There are only a few patterns the game uses for choosing which attack type to use. For about 75% of the game you can win versus a foe with similar stats by 1st choosing whatever is strong to what he is using and then when you have the advantage always immediately choose what he is using. He'll be switching to be strong against what you were using previously, which will in turn be weak against what he was using before. Since you just pick whatever he is currently using you don't have to remember a pattern or try to guess the right move.

If you need more soldiers, pull out a bunch of ship modules you don't need for ground combat(shields, radar, livability modules, etc.) and replace them with a bunch of crew modules.

How much difference can it make? Here is an example:

With my two best crewmembers and my fleet configured for Space Combat my Combat attack power was 98 with 1200 soldiers.

With the same two crewmembers and two of my four ships converted to support Ground Combat my Combat attack power was 157 with 3600 soldiers.

Big difference. Made the fight versus the pirate with 1600 soldiers and 140 combat attack power go from impossibly hard to trivially easy.

[RandoM51]

Check your ranking at the CTA every now and then. Once you crack the top 100 you get a free blueprint or two for each ten levels you move up(top 100, top 90, top 80, etc., all the way to number one.)

When you hit #1, what blueprint do you get?

The Corsair!


Discovering this made me happier about all the grinding I've been doing lately. Oh, btw, they won't trigger until you leave the rank screen.

[jpublic]

Cripes, Random, I can't believe how much you've been grinding at this.

I spent like 3h last night getting my battleship, and now I'm going to have to spend another few hours getting the cash to equip it.

Although grinding cash is a lot faster now that my Normal attacks can crush DDs.

[Superman's Dead]

Hell yeah. I'm saving up cash for the first carrier I can buy, and I hope I get the 4th slot soon. I think I'm about to enter chapter 5, and the customization of the ships is so wide open it really feels like you can design whatever kind of fleet you'd like.

I really dig this game.

[RandoM51]

The only time in the game you have to worry about random encounters is in the second sector, since at best you'll only have two destroyers when you get there and there are some 2 destroyer/2 cruiser encounters there.

The rest of the game most of the random encounter ships will be 1 or 2-hitters OR have little to no damage output of their own.

It is painful to see a ship with a base price of 265,000 and/or a module that costs 26,000 for one of my existing ships when I'm still averaging 1000 or less per random encounter.

[RandoM51]

Hell yeah. I'm saving up cash for the first carrier I can buy, and I hope I get the 4th slot soon.

You don't get your fourth slot until the end of chapter 8 or so.

You don't get your fifth slot until

Chapter 5 or so in the second half of the game.


And yeah, the devs have said you can do the game with just about any fleet makeup you want, as long as they are the best ships of that class available at that point in the game.

I don't know about destroyers, though. Low armor, low module space, relatively low weapon count. The increase in combat gauge doesn't matter when it is capped and you can cap it fairly easily in any class of ship with the use of modules.

[Superman's Dead]

It is painful to see a ship with a base price of 265,000 and/or a module that costs 26,000 for one of my existing ships when I'm still averaging 1000 or less per random encounter.

That is horrifying.

Are only ships equipped to your fleet adding to the overall stats? Like, could you buy a cheap carrier and fill it with nothing but holds and shops and accounting offices, not have it in one of your slots, and just have it generate revenue? Or build it and then cruise from planet to planet, making cash while you take on random encounters?

[RandoM51]

That is horrifying.

Are only ships equipped to your fleet adding to the overall stats? Like, could you buy a cheap carrier and fill it with nothing but holds and shops and accounting offices, not have it in one of your slots, and just have it generate revenue? Or build it and then cruise from planet to planet, making cash while you take on random encounters?

You have to put it in your fleet, and it does work.

The problem with making cash as a "trader" is that you don't get any exp or fame points.

I suppose the thing to do is put a couple battleships in the front line that can 1-hit/2-hit anything, and then put two massive transports in the back row. Thing is, they don't give you any transport blueprints, which means you have to layout a lot of money to use high module cruisers/battleships that you wouldn't otherwise need.

...and I've yet to get more than 1000 credits when coming back to port after a long trip, even with two ships crammed with holds because I couldn't afford real modules for them.

So yeah, I suppose using that back row can increase your earnings, but you'll still have to make most of your money on encounters and you have to figure out if the initial investment is worth the cost.

It would be nice if you could see the module space for a ship before you buy it. :)

I think I'll give this a test. I just unlocked the 5th fleet slot and need a new ship anyways. I'll do a with/without test using a ship in that 5th slot crammed with holds and modules that increase revenue/reduce upkeep. Make the run twice with and without the ship and we'll be able to see exactly how much revenue it generates.

[AversionFX]

After about 4 hours, I absolutely love this game. Combat (thusfar, in chapter 2) seems a bit too simple. Dodge, wait, get attacked at all, counter with barrage, repeat. I'm sure aas different ships and combat tactics become available, the flow of combat will evolve appropriately.

I did run into a minor annoyance though. I end up meeting the military commander and he says to come hang out. I go, he's not there. So I spend about an hour flying all over the damn place looking for him. Come to find out, I was supposed to know about one of the bartenders' friends who has a missing brother in the military. At least my wandering pocketed me a couple thousand G.

[Superman's Dead]

Hey Random, can you tell me if you can get carrier blueprints around chapter 5? Cause I have blueprints for a level 2 hanger, but none for a carrier yet. I don't know where I missed them.

[nnanji]

Hey Random, can you tell me if you can get carrier blueprints around chapter 5? Cause I have blueprints for a level 2 hanger, but none for a carrier yet. I don't know where I missed them.

A couple of the ships in chapter 4 can use fighters, even though they aren't designated carrier class. When you are in the shipyard, touch the DS icon in the upper right hand corner to switch to the information screen. Look for the the word Capacity in the Fighters line. Those ships will have catapults.

Where did you get the plans for a lvl 2 hanger at? I still only have lvl 1.

[RandoM51]

You'll get cruisers with catapult space before carriers. I can't remember when I got the first one, though. I'd think it would be pretty soon for you, SD.

[AversionFX]

Stop giving me L-shaped blocks and not enough space to fit them evenly! Having a few errant single-squares of space is driving me crazy.

I think it would've made a little more sense to be able to rotate blocks. :(

[RandoM51]

With 5 ships, 4 of which are completely outfitted for trading income I make about 800 credits per waypoint, which isn't too shabby. There is one fairly large sector where I can do a big loop and the loop makes 10,000 or so even if I don't fight along the way.

Ships:

Erebus Battleship - Configured for space battle

4 Junkyard Cruisers - Configured for trading
5 Level 3 Holds
2 Level 1 Holds
Level 6 Accounting Office
Level 1 Shop

[AversionFX]

Novice question:

What does a ship's blue bar (under HP) represent? I've scoured the Help bot (and killed him in the process...), and still no luck.

[RandoM51]

Crew.

Don't worry about it unless you plan on boarding.

[zarathstra]

After about 4 hours, I absolutely love this game. Combat (thusfar, in chapter 2) seems a bit too simple. Dodge, wait, get attacked at all, counter with barrage, repeat. I'm sure aas different ships and combat tactics become available, the flow of combat will evolve appropriately.

I did run into a minor annoyance though. I end up meeting the military commander and he says to come hang out. I go, he's not there. So I spend about an hour flying all over the damn place looking for him. Come to find out, I was supposed to know about one of the bartenders' friends who has a missing brother in the military. At least my wandering pocketed me a couple thousand G.

Ugh, I'm stuck on that one too. What the hell am I suppose to?!

[RandoM51]

Finished it, finally.

When you finish you open up a couple things.

1. Extra mode. In extra mode you start out with a different universe layout, one without any story/quests/etc. You start with all your old blueprints and many of the people you met in the regular game. Each sector has 3 bosses and when you kill them you open up the warp to the next sector. It starts you with 20,000 credits.

2. New game+. You can start a new game with NPCs at the level they were when you finished. You still have to go through and find them again, though. You also start with the money and at the level in which you finished your first game, but without any blueprints. I gave this a spin. Makes the game quite a bit easier, knowing what your doing, being able to afford the best available as soon as it becomes available, and having pre-leveled crew members.

I dabbled with both of these, but I'm moving on to Strange Journey today!

[AversionFX]

Ugh, I'm stuck on that one too. What the hell am I suppose to?!

On one of the planets, the tavern's bartender is actually a named NPC who introduces you to a new character [Tatiana], you talk to her and end up telling her you're going to the military base, and she comes with you to find out about her missing brother, who is also in the military. When she joins you, the commander will be at the base.

Finished it, finally.

What was your total playtime, and does that include any substantial amount of grinding?

[Tayaya]

I dunno how you managed to beat this game, Random. I'm STILL stuck on the Balik fights in Chapter 3 or 4 (whichever one you have to save Tatiana in). I finally took down his spaceship and now I can't win the melee battle. I have 910 crew and a combat rating of 27. He's got 600 and a combat rating of 40. Best I've done is to get him to about 70, but he always ends up turning the tables on me and winning.

I could fly back to the nearest shipyard and remodel for ground combat, but it feels so silly going back and reconfiguring to get over the next hurdle every time... like I'm cheating.

"Hold on Tatiana! We had to turn around and take off our deflectors to shoot down Balik's big ship. We did that but now we need to turn around again to load up on ground troops for the assault. Don't you worry, we'll be there as soon as we can. Try not to let Balik rape you too much in the meantime."

[AversionFX]

Tayaya:

Equip both Nia and Poplo (I believe you have him at this point) to the security positions (at the bottom of your crew positions). This makes the fight significantly easier.

I always have a security office in my ships (they're relatively small modules), and I don't outfit for crew size, and I have zero trouble with melee combat. Later on, your HELP bot blows up, and the professor will re-build it as a girl; she has somewhere in the high-20's of Combat.

[Tayaya]

Tayaya:

Equip both Nia and Poplo (I believe you have him at this point) to the security positions (at the bottom of your crew positions). This makes the fight significantly easier.

Will do that. I have nia on artillery right now since her artillery skill was so high. Still involves flying back (I think it's silly you can't just tell them to move to another part of the ship).

[AversionFX]

Will do that. I have nia on artillery right now since her artillery skill was so high. Still involves flying back (I think it's silly you can't just tell them to move to another part of the ship).

I was the same. Sometimes you'll have to move some crew around for specific fights. I agree on the need for a CTA to move crew around; it's silly and unintuitive.

[Tayaya]

Yeah. I don't mind doing it, but I've just been determined to on this set of fights because like I said it feels like cheating to have to go back and reconfigure for each new stage of the big siege. I guess though this early in the game you just can't expect to be able to build a good all-rounder of a fleet.... you're definitely outclassed going into this one. This would be OK if the game didn't make you continue from your last save (as opposed to a checkpoint system of some kind) every time you fail. Sitting through travel and cutscenes again over a small mistake does not make for a happy gamer.

It's a case of wanting to love this game to death but finding so many bad design decisions that it's honestly hard to even want to keep playing at times. When you get over it, though, the core game is wonderful.

[RandoM51]

What was your total playtime, and does that include any substantial amount of grinding?

55hr, yes.

[AversionFX]

Sitting through travel and cutscenes again over a small mistake does not make for a happy gamer.

It's a case of wanting to love this game to death but finding so many bad design decisions that it's honestly hard to even want to keep playing at times. When you get over it, though, the core game is wonderful.

Tap the screen to skip cutscenes, and hold R to speed through dialogue.

I think my biggest complaint would be the lack of any kind of quest log or journal. There have been numerous times that I've loaded up a save, and wondered what I needed to be doing.

Hopefully the game gets a sequel and they iron out all of the bad design choices and flaws.

[Tayaya]

I think my biggest complaint would be the lack of any kind of quest log or journal. There have been numerous times that I've loaded up a save, and wondered what I needed to be doing.

The built in notes app on the iPhone has been my little buddy for that.

[RandoM51]

Whenever I was lost I just visited every waypoint in a sector and every !/tavern. Since I normally did that anyways periodically to look for new subquests, new modules, new ships, new crew, etc., it wasn't a big deal for me. All that flying ends up yielding more exp, more money, more fame points, etc., too.

Quest log would have been nice, though, no doubt about it.

[Superman's Dead]

Random, or anyone else who knows things about Part 2 of the game:

I'm in chapter 3, and I picked invading the Zoations or Zonotions or whatever those weird guys who plug into their ships are called. They're 2-3 shotting my flagship like woah and it's super hard to get them to a point where I can take most of their ships out. Worst of all, I can't re-design my ships because there's no Remodeling place in the area and I can't go through a void gate. Any advice besides the usual cautious dodge-normal-dodge?

Very rarely does the game frustrate me to the point of not playing, and I always feel like a badass once I beat them. I take pride in designing my ships, and it's really interesting to note my playstyle. How do you guys like to play?

Personally, I don't give a damn about defense. I load my ships with armor and durability and everything else goes into the guns. I have two battleships that do a ton of damage, one destroyer, and a carrier loaded to the gills with the most expensive multi-use fighters I can buy. Once you get a bunch of those things and launch them at an enemy, it's so satisfying to watch them blow up without you having to hit 'normal'.