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[friken]

Hi All,

I would love to get some feedback on controls and AI. Please note this is a combat only build, not the full game, and still quite early.

Gif to give an idea of what the game looks like.


To change controls.
(default controls are setup for a game controller)
F1 (Alt F1 for IE browsers) for keyboard only (wasd and >?)
F2 Mouse and Keyboard (ship rotates to mouse cursor. arrow keys or wasd to thrust/strafe

Since this is out of context and in the full game you would learn to pilot ships slowly, the difficultly will likely seem quite high. The AI in this build is in difficuly mode, and is a faily difficult ship. If you die just refresh the browser page to retry.

Controls of your ship. Movement w/ left stick of controller (or mouse/kb as noted above). Button 1 will fire 3 side flak cannons. Hold that fire button down until you want to detonate the warheads. Steer the warheads during flight with the left stick. Button 2 fires a forward pulse weapon. It will repel the enemy and do a good bit of damage. It can also be used to deflect enemy lighting attacks. Strafe with the top shoulder buttons. Engine boost with bottom shoulder buttons (drains energy very quickly).

http://gravityride.com/builds/Krex_vs_BenevAI/Krex_BenevAI.html

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can give

[friken]

For those that have low-end hardware, try this build (lower total rez, lesser fx, 1/2 rez textures)

http://gravityride.com/builds/Krex_vs_BenevAI_Lowrez/Krex_BenevAI_Lowrez.html

[Quicksand-S]

I played once, got confused by my weapons and eventually obliterated, and then couldn't play again. Refreshing didn't work. It just gave me a "Failed to download data file" error every time. Maybe you just started uploading a new build or something?

On a related note, having to refresh to restart the game, even in a test build, isn't ideal.

The game looks good and I mostly liked how the ship controlled.

I didn't like how far the camera zoomed out. I understand wanting to see the target ship, but at a certain point my own ship becomes too small to really see properly and that's not great. This camera style also made me unsure which ship was mine at first.

I never understood the weapons. One seemed to fire sideways and have incredibly short range, so it was useless against an enemy I could never get close to. The other weapon slowed down time for some reason, and I wasn't sure if that was just what it did or if it was actually doing damage.

It was pretty obvious that I was just not understanding how to use the first weapon. The projectiles just exploded instantly, but I'm guessing there's a way to extend their range somehow.

There was no feedback from damage to the enemy or my own ship, so I was surprised when pieces broke off when I hadn't seen the enemy actually hit me. Hits just weren't noticeable at all.

The info about the ships never stood out to me on the HUD. I never looked over there and would've probably preferred some sort of circular power meter around my ship or something. That's just personal preference, though.

I like the look of it quite a bit and the ship felt decent to control. I think the main thing that's really needed at the moment is a little bit of text to explain how the weapon controls work.

[friken]

Maybe you just started uploading a new build or something? On a related note, having to refresh to restart the game, even in a test build, isn't ideal.

Thanks for taking a look. Nope, nothing I'm doing to make it not load.... odd. Not sure what the issue there is. I know I need a reset command or something ingame. It's coming, just been focusing on AI code more than doing the UI stuff I need to.

The game looks good and I mostly liked how the ship controlled.

I didn't like how far the camera zoomed out. I understand wanting to see the target ship, but at a certain point my own ship becomes too small to really see properly and that's not great. This camera style also made me unsure which ship was mine at first.

I'm glad you liked the looks and control. The camera may zoom too far out even fullscreen, but I did notice it a lot more when running in a browser. Browser isn't the target for the game (xbox1/ps4/steam target), but it makes it easy for people to look at a quick dev build. Out of curiosity, what is your desktop rez? I would imagine on a 4k monitor it would look really micro

I never understood the weapons. One seemed to fire sideways and have incredibly short range, so it was useless against an enemy I could never get close to.

I was worried about this being so out of context for the game. The full game is an RPG which will ease you into it w really easy ship, controls, tutorial popups etc. I posted the controls, but I'm just like you and would always skip right to the demo link

The primary side flak cannons, hold down fire and they will keep traveling forward until you release fire and they will detonate. During that time you can steer the projectiles. The other weapon is a forward pulse. Hold down fire to ready it and release to launch it.The hold down and release mechanic will be taught to the player in the beginning and reused for lots of control systems. But I can easily see how a difficult battle in which you have 1-2 seconds before the AI is nailing you isn't the best time to learn it, lol.

Thanks for looking at it. I do appreciate the feedback.

[Quicksand-S]

Browser isn't the target for the game (xbox1/ps4/steam target), but it makes it easy for people to look at a quick dev build. Out of curiosity, what is your desktop rez? I would imagine on a 4k monitor it would look really micro

Nah, it's just 1920x1080 and I wasn't playing full-screen. With it in a browser plugin, I actually didn't even think of that option.

I posted the controls, but I'm just like you and would always skip right to the demo link

Lol. Wow. You did post them. You know, I saw the "how to change controls" section and then just skipped over the rest because it looked like it was just some normal description stuff as opposed to required info.

Anyway, yeah, most of the time I do skip to the link because it's important for games to teach things within the game itself. With this being a control/AI test, though, it seems is a special case and I probably should've read everything first.

The primary side flak cannons, hold down fire and they will keep traveling forward until you release fire and they will detonate.

Ah. I figured out the other weapon, so I thought maybe I had to do the same for the cannons (hold the button to increase their range and then release to fire). When that didn't work, I stopped trying things.

Why is the left stick used for both the ship and steering the cannon projectiles? It seems like the right stick would be great for steering projectiles while you maneuver your ship out of harm's way.

Why does the forward pulse slow down time? I found it distracting and not particularly helpful, but maybe there's a good reason for it.

[friken]

Browser isn't the target for the game (xbox1/ps4/steam target), but it makes it easy for people to look at a quick dev build. Out of curiosity, what is your desktop rez? I would imagine on a 4k monitor it would look really micro

Nah, it's just 1920x1080 and I wasn't playing full-screen. With it in a browser plugin, I actually didn't even think of that option.

I posted the controls, but I'm just like you and would always skip right to the demo link

Lol. Wow. You did post them. You know, I saw the "how to change controls" section and then just skipped over the rest because it looked like it was just some normal description stuff as opposed to required info.

Anyway, yeah, most of the time I do skip to the link because it's important for games to teach things within the game itself. With this being a control/AI test, though, it seems is a special case and I probably should've read everything first.

The primary side flak cannons, hold down fire and they will keep traveling forward until you release fire and they will detonate.

Ah. I figured out the other weapon, so I thought maybe I had to do the same for the cannons (hold the button to increase their range and then release to fire). When that didn't work, I stopped trying things.

Why is the left stick used for both the ship and steering the cannon projectiles? It seems like the right stick would be great for steering projectiles while you maneuver your ship out of harm's way.

Why does the forward pulse slow down time? I found it distracting and not particularly helpful, but maybe there's a good reason for it.

I've toyed with using dual thumb sticks, but w multiple weapon types per ship it was wierd to fire w a button then move thumb over to steer it. Also, it would then kill pc builds mouse/kb control options.

The time slowdown is supposed to be a subtle effect only on hard big hits. I appreciate the feedback. I think it is getting over used as every pulse hit is a hard hit and most flak hits. Maybe I should only use slow motion when a ship part gets knocked off to highlight that hey you destroyed a system (or one of yours is gone).

[friken]

If anyone wants to have a go at controlling the Benev against the Krex AI ship:

http://gravityride.com/builds/Benev_vs_KrexAI/Benev_KrexAI.html

Same control scheme. Info here if you didn't see the other link: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=47730.0

For added fun, I left on the planet procedural debug mode. hit f12 (or ALT f12 in IE) to randomly generate a new planet. If you are playing the last build w/ a gas giant F11 randomly generates a new gas giant.