Unlocking new ships is way too difficult

[NWade]

While I see several sides to this issue, for those who feel that unlocking the ships is too hard:

Don't look at the game as "trying to unlock the ship while beating the Rebels". Instead, try playing the game where your objective is just to find the ship. Its like a different game (or a mini-game built into the main game). It doesn't resolve the whole issue; but it puts a different spin on things and may change the attitude a bit.

One thing I will say: I'd like to be able to mouse over the sectors that are down the chain and find out their names. That way if I'm looking to go to Sector X to unlock a ship and I don't see it on the sector-map, I can just quit and restart immediately.

--Noel

[zabbo2]

Noel: I can see the merits of your idea but I think it would be frustrating (for me personally) to base a game on unlocking the ships because it is indeed very random. Don't get me wrong, love the randomness of the game, but still, wouldn't want to base a play-through's goal on something mostly dependent on randomness.

Now skill based achievement unlocks on the other hand, for the 'Model B's, are perfectly implemented I think, and a lot of fun for me to have as goals for a game.

What if some (or one) of the ship unlocks were tied to getting the games 'Achievements' (or the other category, I forget what they are called.)

Also forgot to mention another issue I have with how hard the ships are to unlock: I think for many players (and certainly for me) I could have really benefited from having some of the ships unlocked earlier because they make the game easier. It is currently sort of in reverse right now: you get better and better at the game, unlocking stronger and stronger ships, which makes the game less and less challenging. I don't propose any easy fix for this though. Ideally ship unlocks would also unlock more challenging versions of homeworld sectors or something, but that's probably too complicated or too much work to implement. Or maybe unlocked ships are just better balanced by reducing there starting missile/scrap/drone inventories or something simpler.

[icepick]

Eh, the kestrel is easily the best beginner's ship. the others are just easier b/c you have a handle on the game.

[zabbo2]

That might be very well be true but I'm not sure...it is so subjective for me I suppose it is difficult to accurately judge.

[icepick]

Yeah, it is very subjective. :/ This is my own perception obviously, haha.

[PirateCat]

One thing I will say: I'd like to be able to mouse over the sectors that are down the chain and find out their names. That way if I'm looking to go to Sector X to unlock a ship and I don't see it on the sector-map, I can just quit and restart immediately.

That is something I can completely get behind.

Eh, the kestrel is easily the best beginner's ship. the others are just easier b/c you have a handle on the game.

Well, and they might just fit your favored strategy earlier in the game.

[gingerbill]

I love that the response is to just cheat to unlock them

game is to hard, just cheat

if you no longer want to play the game because you want new ships then it makes sense to cheat and unlock them ' , some ships are harder to use than the default ship , its not like you cheating or spoiling the main game.

To me having all the ships is a good way to adjust the difficulty or tweak it slightly.

Personally i unlocked a few variants and ships in game , wanted some more variety so cheated and unlocked the rest . Big variety of ships to choose now which i find more fun over many games.

i agree with zabb2's post.

[Warhawx]

I have 4 words to add to the thread title

"as it should be"

[Eji1700]

Several thoughts-
1. This is a dugeon crawl. It's supposed to be hard.
2. Some prizes are fairly easy to get. The Voltan one didn't strike me as all that difficult to figure out and the Taurs is basically thrown at your face for just surviving.
3. I'll admit that maybe one or two more, easy to find ships would be nice. Learning the game is the part where you're stuck restarting the most, and it's nice to switch ships so I can blow up in different colors and lose in new and exciting ways.
4. I do sometimes wonder about the variants. Several of the variant quests kinda strike me as unwinniable playtyles most the time, so you're not really playing the same game anymore, so much as trying to grind out a silly achievement that's a little more luck based than normal(then again I still suck so maybe there's more to not upgrading a voltan reactor than I know. However finding one of each race for The Kestrel seems pretty RNG influenced given how rare some species can be.)
5. Finally if you hate unlocks then yeah...cheat. I mean whats stopping you? I get that some people don't enjoy or don't have the time to really grind everything out and just want to see all the bells and whistles, and that's still an option.

[Sli Fi]

Unlocking ships is not based on skill. It is PURELY luck. The only thing that is skill-based is unlocking layouts. I've unlocked 5 ships and all of their layouts, and I've played 50 hours of the game. The past 10+ hours have been repeating the same thing over and over again in an effort to get specific events.