Subset Games Forum

Just some things I'd love to see in future updates.

1. Airlocks - Suction! I really wanna be able to jettison invaders from my airlock for a swift kill if I'm able to kite them into it. On the other hand if your door control system gets damaged while the airlock was open you risk losing crew members to the abyss if they open depressurized rooms.

2. Ship stealing. If you take out the enemy crew you should be given the choice to take it over.
Once while playing I was been left with only a fraction of my crew with my hull integrity failing, critical systems down but the teleporter was still functioning... My crew makes a last second escape to the enemy ship and takes out the enemy crew members, taking control of the ship as their last ship explodes in a hail of fiery glory. But then I get game over. The tension of it all made it felt like I should have been rewarded for my quick thinking but was instead punished.

3. Infinite/Sandbox mode.
The story mode sucks, no offence meant. But there's nothing to it. Being forced to leave sectors quickly feels like it's taking away from the experience. There's simply not enough time to explore. Plus the boss is bullshit (which is fine, I can dig it.) But yeah the whole thing is just a bowl full of soggy wheatbix.

A sandbox exploration mode would be brilliant, allowing quests to be found and completed at a more relaxed pace. This also allows for an accrual of scrap so we can actually get a large chunk of the upgrades. Plus more bosses that are varied depending on the sector you encounter them in with harder bosses being able to be attempted as you get further into space. Along with such a mode though I suggest bringing extreme difficulty after the tenth sector or so with increased rewards and bigger, better weapons/systems/augments/drones etc. being available at stores every 5 sectors or so.

4. Non-lethal upgrades for crew v. crew fighting (Possibly a powered weapons-locker + Armor locker subsystems on board with upgrades). The ability to capture enemy crew members and a Hold to put them in.

5. More ways to disable ships and as i haven't seen one yet; an ion beam weapon.

6. Ability to retrieve lost crew members via quests. ie. When a ship FTL jumps with your crew on board a quest indicator is shown with a number of 'jumps till lost.' (2-3) To save them you must either teleport them back to your ship or eliminate the enemy crew.

7. High training for skills affects sabotage. Rather than wailing on the instruments if someone had the training they would shut down the systems via terminals. This should be faster to complete and take longer to repair (We've been locked out!)

8. The ability to hide while on the enemy ship.
ie. Cloaks or the ability to knock out their sensors.


I'll update this as I explore more of the game and develop more of an opinion.
(Heaven forbid I manage to take another break from the game.)

Tatsuri wrote:1. Airlocks - Suction! I really wanna be able to jettison invaders from my airlock for a swift kill if I'm able to kite them into it. On the other hand if your door control system gets damaged while the airlock was open you risk losing crew members to the abyss if they open depressurized rooms.

I have to disagree with this. Just opening an airlock won't space someone, the atmospheric pressure isn't enough to blast them out. Now, if you turn your O2 system to full, then you might have enough pressure to space the bastards.

Alternatively, rockmen and crystalmen who engage any lighter enemy in an open airlock should just be able to grab them and toss them out, Space Station 13 style.

2. Ship stealing. If you take out the enemy crew you should be given the choice to take it over.
Once while playing I was been left with only a fraction of my crew with my hull integrity failing, critical systems down but the teleporter was still functioning... My crew makes a last second escape to the enemy ship and takes out the enemy crew members, taking control of the ship as their last ship explodes in a hail of fiery glory. But then I get game over. The tension of it all made it felt like I should have been rewarded for my quick thinking but was instead punished.

I agree with this, but it would take a lot of work; and you'd need to bear in mind that most of the enemy ships are smaller, with less upgrade space, than your own ship. So it would be a steep downgrade, even if the enemy ship had some kind of near-unique feature you desperately wanted, such as the Zoltan's super-shields.

On the other hand, it would be an absolutely epic way to finish the Last Stand, by boarding and capturing the behemoth.

3. Infinite/Sandbox mode.
The story mode sucks, no offense meant. But there's nothing to it. Being forced to leave sectors quickly feels like it's taking away from the experience. There's simply not enough time to explore. Plus the boss is bullshit (which is fine, I can dig it.) But yeah the whole thing is just a bowl full of soggy wheatbix.

A sandbox exploration mode would be brilliant, allowing quests to be found and completed at a more relaxed pace. This also allows for an accrual of scrap so we can actually get a large chunk of the upgrades. Plus more bosses that are varied depending on the sector you encounter them in with harder bosses being able to be attempted as you get further into space. Along with such a mode though I suggest bringing extreme difficulty after the tenth sector or so with increased rewards and bigger, better weapons/systems/augments/drones etc. being available at stores every 5 sectors or so.

Can't agree with you more. I hate feeling rushed. I'm a completionist player, the kind who has to finish all my quests. I hate having to dash across the galaxy instead of being able to take my time and clear out the sector's points first.

Though, if you want to see what the game is like with all the upgrades, you can always use a memory editor like CheatEngine or ArtMoney SE to sniff out the numerical values (fuel, missiles, drones, scrap) and set them up high. It takes about 5,000 scrap to fully outfit your ship with enough left over that you should never have to worry about running bankrupt again.

(This also lets you power-train a gunner or two in gunnery and all of your crew in repair by fragging your own big-ticket systems (Engines, Shield Generator, Drone Control,) all to smeg and then sending in the repair crew. Just remember to unman the cockpit and depower the engines to get your evade rating to zilch.

4. Non-lethal upgrades for crew v. crew fighting (Possibly a powered weapons-locker + Armor locker subsystems on board with upgrades). The ability to capture enemy crew members and a Hold to put them in.

Going into the slavery business? While unsavory, slaver encounters would probably pay you well for prisoners. Or you could just wait for Stockholm Syndrome to set in and press-gang them into your crew.

5. More ways to disable ships and as i haven't seen one yet; an ion beam weapon.

Actually, yeah. I wonder why there isn't one in the game already. An ionizing beam would be nifty.

6. Ability to retrieve lost crew members via quests. ie. When a ship FTL jumps with your crew on board a quest indicator is shown with a number of 'jumps till lost.' (2-3) To save them you must either teleport them back to your ship or eliminate the enemy crew.

Oh god, yes. Especially when it's the friggin' ship the Engi want you to capture!

There was ONE enemy crewman left, my Rockman was tanking him, my Mantis was spanking him, he was at like, 1/5th or 1/10th health... And the ship frigging warped. If a ship escapes with your crewmen aboard, you should be able to chase it (if you chase it IMMEDIATELY) and continue the battle where you left off, minus a fuel.

7. High training for skills affects sabotage. Rather than wailing on the instruments if someone had the training they would shut down the systems via terminals. This should be faster to complete and take longer to repair (We've been locked out!)

That, or expert/technically inclined boarders could plant small charges that do a LOT of damage to the subsystems, without fragging the people in the compartment. It would give you a reason to want something other than Mantis/Rockmen/Crystalmen on your boarding party. An Engi should be able to dismantle systems in very short order; maybe a Zoltan would ionize it with their enemy powers, adding stacks of ionization the longer they're in the system room.

8. The ability to hide while on the enemy ship.
ie. Cloaks or the ability to knock out their sensors.

Even better: combat-cloaks where your crew have a 60% evasion rate for incoming attacks.




The big thing that I want to see is that crewmen don't all start off as absolute novices. I'd like to be able to assign points to my starting crew to give them some training, and the random crewmen you see in the galaxy should have more. Those you "hire" should be reasonably green, but they should at least have partial training in something, while those you get from slavers should be more skilled, and random event crew should be even more skilled (perhaps making the skill appropriate to the encounter; like the guy who's been stranded on a wild planet for a while should be really, really good in hand-to-hand combat.)

^ Dude knows what's up.

Something i forgot to mention was better O2 control such as when you have it fully upgraded you can instantly pump the air out to suffocate invaders or redistribute it to critical areas in emergencies.

Doors was a big one i didn't mention. The ability to breach them with training and to aim at doors from your ship to support a boarding team (At least let us slice them open with beam weapons). Also when you have improved blast doors I can't imagine even two rockmen being able to break it. In instances like this what about engi's hacking doors or at least a massive increase to the durability seeing as I can rarely pump the air out before they bust the doors down and even then it only helps if their low hp already.

I have to disagree with this. Just opening an airlock won't space someone, the atmospheric pressure isn't enough to blast them out. Now, if you turn your O2 system to full, then you might have enough pressure to space the bastards.

Alternatively, rockmen and crystalmen who engage any lighter enemy in an open airlock should just be able to grab them and toss them out, Space Station 13 style.

Speaking of airlock pressure, i think it should at least have it's own O2 controls and to make it a bit more viable how about an actual docking bay for those who don't want/can't afford a teleporter.

I love the idea of rockmen throwing people out, especially unruly prisoners. (hehehe)

I agree with this, but it would take a lot of work; and you'd need to bear in mind that most of the enemy ships are smaller, with less upgrade space, than your own ship. So it would be a steep downgrade, even if the enemy ship had some kind of near-unique feature you desperately wanted, such as the Zoltan's super-shields.

On the other hand, it would be an absolutely epic way to finish the Last Stand, by boarding and capturing the behemoth.

When i first got this game i figured you unlocked ships via take overs. If it was possible to steal enemy ships It would be nice to have shipyards where you can trade it in for something better. Moving upgrades to said shipyards would help in saving up scrap for the really lucrative upgrades and as you said it'd be nice to steal those special ships with their shiny weapons off the cocky bastards who turned them on you.

If stealing were possible i think it would be nice to keep the ships unbalanced so as to prevent you trying to steal every ship, it'd just be a last ditch effort for survival seeing as their ship might be in as bad a shape as yours.

Can't agree with you more. I hate feeling rushed. I'm a completionist player, the kind who has to finish all my quests. I hate having to dash across the galaxy instead of being able to take my time and clear out the sector's points first.

Though, if you want to see what the game is like with all the upgrades, you can always use a memory editor like CheatEngine or ArtMoney SE to sniff out the numerical values (fuel, missiles, drones, scrap) and set them up high. It takes about 5,000 scrap to fully outfit your ship with enough left over that you should never have to worry about running bankrupt again.

(This also lets you power-train a gunner or two in gunnery and all of your crew in repair by fragging your own big-ticket systems (Engines, Shield Generator, Drone Control,) all to smeg and then sending in the repair crew. Just remember to unman the cockpit and depower the engines to get your evade rating to zilch.

Exactly, it's an exploration game and i want to explore MORE.

Err... well it's not really about having all the upgrades it's more about being able to earn a fully upgraded ship over a long ship life of turmoil and adventure. I'm in it for the stories i make up for the crew as i play.

Plus I'd love if there were like a tonne more upgrades and ways to 'spec' your ship.

Going into the slavery business? While unsavory, slaver encounters would probably pay you well for prisoners. Or you could just wait for Stockholm Syndrome to set in and press-gang them into your crew.

Slavery is quite a lucrative business.

Actually, yeah. I wonder why there isn't one in the game already. An ionizing beam would be nifty.

And while they're at it more fire weapons or maybe some bioweapons, ie. virus', gas, more fire etc.

Oh god, yes. Especially when it's the friggin' ship the Engi want you to capture!

There was ONE enemy crewman left, my Rockman was tanking him, my Mantis was spanking him, he was at like, 1/5th or 1/10th health... And the ship frigging warped. If a ship escapes with your crewmen aboard, you should be able to chase it (if you chase it IMMEDIATELY) and continue the battle where you left off, minus a fuel.

As soon as i have the enemy's weapons down i take out their engines. If i can't find a way to keep the engines disabled i refuse to allow my crew to board. It's the only way to make sure they're safe o.o

That, or expert/technically inclined boarders could plant small charges that do a LOT of damage to the subsystems, without fragging the people in the compartment. It would give you a reason to want something other than Mantis/Rockmen/Crystalmen on your boarding party. An Engi should be able to dismantle systems in very short order; maybe a Zoltan would ionize it with their enemy powers, adding stacks of ionization the longer they're in the system room.

Brilliant, i'd love to have a reason to board with my engi or zoltan crews! While it's on my mind i'll add: WHY ARE THERE NO ROBOT CREW? It'd be ingenius, just make them fragile OR run on power that need to be recharged via a system. Add an augment that allows wireless recharging and boom you've got an OP combat robot crew that survives zero O2 but if the recharge station gets hit... well who's gonna fix it with an all robot crew?

Even better: combat-cloaks where your crew have a 60% evasion rate for incoming attacks.

I was aiming more at secret sabotage or kidnappings with the rest of the crew completely unaware ;D

well I just wanted to comment on 2 points.

the armory part I totally agree with, would be awesome to enhance your crew members, could also add in new event choices for like when we fight the giant spider, or bring in that crazy man that lived in a cave. less likly to lose a crew member when stuff goes bad. or help the odds when fighting enemies. and it doesnt even have to be a blue choice, it could just be the normal choice but with modified chances.

also I think the reason why theres no ion beam is because being able to shut down multiple systems with 1 weapon seems kinda op and unbalanced. not to mention if the enemy had it (cuz whatever we can use, they can use) would be annoying as hell. so yea no ion beam plz. even if its the size of the mini beam.

DarkenDragon wrote:well I just wanted to comment on 2 points.

the armory part I totally agree with, would be awesome to enhance your crew members, could also add in new event choices for like when we fight the giant spider, or bring in that crazy man that lived in a cave. less likly to lose a crew member when stuff goes bad. or help the odds when fighting enemies. and it doesnt even have to be a blue choice, it could just be the normal choice but with modified chances.

Maybe crew can grab weapon to gain advantage of attacking but reduce repair. or space suit to gain fire resistant to fight fire or before boarding enemy ship on fire.

I would like to see other ship in event since we get more option to react if we can see other ship. Like fighting giant spider, if we can pull out if thing get tough or sent well armed boarding crew, it would not feel too depend on luck.

I think just simply adding more skins (for your crew) would improve the game.

The ability to customize your ship in the hangar

I imagine the following improvements:

1) More systems. Armory is a really good one , because in the current state of the game , if you get boarded early game by 3x Mantis , and you don't have any door upgrades , you are most likely dead.
2) More systems should have Maned bonuses , or all of them.
3) Some more racial complexity. Not only +20 % speed -20 % HP. But something like "If put on engines gives extra 3% evade" , or maybe "receives 10% more XP". There are tons of options that could be put there.
4)When you Hire/Rescue crew members , they all come blank. Maybe when you hire them at stores there should be some that are already leveled up in some skill (like a pilot , gunner etc.) and that would make them cost a lot more then the regular blank crew members. Speaking of crew members , they should be hired at docks , or beacon hubs , or something else. there should be 2-3 kinds of stores.
5) More augments/items.
6) I'm very satisfied with the games ship variety (18 of them if you count layouts). Adding more wont hurt , but balancing them out a bit would be really nice.
7) As i see it the whole "Rebel fleet are chasing you , run trough the sector as fast as possible" mechanic , was kinda the idea to make the game light and casual , and I'm not sure if the creators of the game realize the potential of this game.It wont be X3 , but it cant be something awesome (look at Minecraft !) Making it more "open world" and "free roam" (maybe adding different modes?) would put the game on a higher level.
8) There is a big variety of events, but since the whole game is based on them , adding a bit more wont hurt. Some moral decisions that would have effect on the next encounter with the same race for example?
8) And even if you don't plan to do any changes , the game is awesome , different and its maybe one of the most addicting and fun games I played in years.

I hope you excuse my English , as you can imagine - its not my native language.