Vega Conflict: From Zero to Hero

I’ve been playing this game for some years now. My base is mature; nothing needs upgrading or refitting, I have all ships and tech. Things have gotten a little slow; I am sort of in maintenance mode, except for the acquisition of new technology.

So, in the small hours of October 23rd , 2019, I created a second account – an “Alt”, in game parlance – to see how the game has changed for beginners in the past four years. To show my derision for the publishers, along with my talent for punnery, I gave this account the imaginative name of “KixArse”.

One thing that I did not see the first time round was that new players get a massive “Startup Bonus” for the first fifteen days:

The first couple of hours were spent playing tutorials and introductory missions. I had not intended to spend any money, but an introductory offer for 500 coins for $2 was too good to pass up. One thing to note here is that this offer is not available for long; this offer could be redeemed twice, but when I looked back a day later, it was gone, replaced by different offers. That’s a shame, as the second one would have given me a Commerce Module, which produces coins. Ah well…

The other big mistake that I made was to redeem the rewards for the initial missions, which included ship build, refit and repair tokens. These expired before I could use them, since the starting bonus made most of these operations instantaneous. Nevertheless, it was annoying to watch as scores of time tokens vanished in a puff of logic. Lesson learned…

Campaigns:

To help with the massive effort required to reach the higher tech in the game, Kixeye have designed a series of Campaigns.

• Each Campaign introduces the player to a new Faction: Rebel, Vega, VSec, Iron Star, Demon Corps, and Xeno Division.
• Each Campaign consists of four missions, which must be completed within 24 hours.
• Mission 1 gives you a resource fill-up, so it is best to start when you are low on resources. Sometimes it upgrades various modules in your base.
• Mission 2 gives you access to all of the ships in that faction.
• Mission 3 gives you a pre-built fleet of ships from that faction.
• Mission 4 gives you access to all of the tech in that faction.
• Missions 1-3 are relatively easy. Mission 4 is much harder than the other 3, but can be handily done with the fleet you got at the end of Mission 3.

Two months on, I have the following advice:

• Purchase both of the $2 introductory offers right away. They may not be there later. The coins will allow you to fill up storage which will save you farming times, along with unlocking the commerce module. This is probably the best value you will ever get for $4.
• Do the missions, but do NOT redeem the ones that reward you with Time Tokens until you need them. This will be after the introductory speed-up bonus wears off.
• Research basic Genesis Cruiser, Cargo V, Rancor Battleship, and Revelation Cruiser as soon as possible.
• Set up a farming fleet. A fleet of Ospreys with 3xCargo V can haul away 8M at a time. A fleet of Exterminators with 3x Armored Cargo Hold III can haul 40.4M. A “Cargo Peg” Pegasus with 5x Armored Cargo Hold III
• DO THE CAMPAIGNS! You will get massive rewards and shortcuts that will save you MONTHS of grinding.
• Be careful what ships you research and build. Because the campaigns catapult you all the way to Xeno Division, a lot of the lower-end ships will become obsolete very quickly indeed.

I was luckier than most; from time to time Kixeye gives away free ships, and I was fortunate enough to receive Five Manticore Battlecruisers, Five Trojan Cruisers, and one Gargoyle Carrier (all pre-fitted) which helped massively.

To coin, or not to coin?

In gaming parlance, a “coiner” is a player who has amassed a large number of coins from in-game purchases (or cheating), and uses those coins to dominate over by other players by instant-repairing their fleets and returning to battle. This is generally looked down upon by “free” players and, as a result, “coiner” is something of a derogatory term.

Having said that, game developers cannot survive without money, and any game that cannot attract dollars from the player community will ultimately fail. So my philosophy is to slip the developers of good games a few dollars when they offer good value, but don’t use coins to dominate over other players. My in-game purchases thus far have been as follows:

• Introductory $2 purchase of 600 coins (good value)
• $5 purchase of a ship upgrade (a mistake, as I could easily have farmed it)
• $10 “max-out” upgrade which saved me months of farming and upgrading, as well as giving me a fleet of six Bastion cruisers, which came in *very* useful for farming.

• 10 for a pre-fitted Manticore Mk III Battlecruiser (not really necessary, but a nice-to-have for completing my free fleet of five Mk I Manticores)
• $10 for a pre-fitted sovereign (Definitely worth the money in terms of time saved, as you only need one and do not need to farm to unlock the ship)
• $10 for two pre-fitted Paragons (useful but not necessary)
• $10 to upgrade the free Gargoyle to Mk V. (saves me having to build out a fleet of Ogres and upgrade them to Mk IV+, then farm the parts) — definitely worthwhile, though I wish they had included the Elite upgrade in this offer

Recommended ships:

It is not recommend that you build any Rebel, Vega, VSec, Iron Star, or Demon Corps ships, unless you need to build them to complete missions. The reason for this is because you are progressing through the game so fast that these ships will become obsolescent within a matter of days as better ships and tech are becoming available every couple of days. Even Xeno ships are of limited use once you have unlocked the equivalent AXIS hull. The one exception to this is the suppressor, which retains its usefulness as an anti-swarm/carrier-defense ship. Another is a fleet or two of Exterminators, but for combat they are outclassed by Liberators.

• Altairian: Get Bastions, Zeuses and a Sovereign Carrier. Not sure about Ajax.
• Umbra: You need Valrayvn, Ogres, Medusa, Wraiths, Gargoyle Carrier.
• Pharmakon: This is still in the air, as Pharmakon recently got nerfed, but I would recommend Operator, Daemon Battleships, Plexus Carrier and Omega.

The good news is that you can get deep into the game very very quickly. In a few short weeks I have been able to gain access to ships and tech that took years on my first account. The bad news is that you miss out on a lot of the enjoyment that came with taking the scenic route, such as Frigate fun (before the Great Rebalance™) and Co-op missions against Aliens using Manifold Missiles.

The future?

This account is for low-end fun; I do not see myself getting any dreadnoughts on this account; the amount of farming necessary to get one is prohibitive, let alone upgrading them to the point where they become useful. But who can tell?

See you out there in the Big Black™

IronThrone Rocks!

Once in a while an absolutely fantastic game comes along. A game that leaves you wondering how they managed to pack so much detail into the hardware and software at at heir disposal. Such games are known as “Megagames”.

About a month ago, I discovered IronThrone. I call it a MegaGame because it is actually severally several games cunningly lashed together so as to become greater than the sum of its parts.

• Castle Mode: You are the Lord of a Castle. Build and upgrading it. Train troops. Recruit heroes and dress them in the most fashionable armor you can lay your hands on.
• Town Mode: In front of your castle is a town which has some problems that you must solve. This is a simplified “Dungeon Siege” type hack-and-slash. Completing quests, which takes about fifteen minutes, gives you daily buffs that will help you elsewhere.
• World Mode: Outside of your castle is a big bad world full of monsters, NPC Strongholds, unclaimed resources, and, of course, other Lords. Are you ready?
• There are several other modes, such as Dimensional Combat, Team Deathmatch and Battle Royale

One personal observation: One thing that I find deeply amusing is that the female heroes are extraordinarily pretty, with supermodel figures, child-bearing hips, and world-class fighting skills.

This is not a complaint! Red-blooded men want to look at pretty girls; always have, always will. Before some of you ladies get all bent out of shape and demanding average (i.e., fat) women in videogames, remember that , and that the male fighters are all magnificent specimens of masculinity as well, and none of us guys feel inadequate, so please grow up.

While it is perfectly possible to play the game without spending a bean, this purchase is highly advisable If you are serious about this game. Besides, I like to reward good-quality programming. Purchases range from 99c mini-packs to huge $100 aliquots of golden goodness. The packs are well-price and give excellent value. So far I have spent about $20, in the form of five one-dollar packs, one five-dollar pack that gives a bonus chest every five levels up to 25, and one ten-dollar purchase that gave me a bunch of permanent buffs.

Like what you see? Head over to www.playironthrone.com and get your own castle. And yes, if you are worthy, you will get a dragon of your own.

One thing that impressed me about IronThrone (I’m still not sure if it is one word or two) is the level of attention to detail. Too many games are coded by folks for whom English is a second language, and it shows, in the form of poor spelling and grammar, but not Iron Throne. I did  find one typo though:

What can I say? It’s a gift. And a curse.

Planet Commander – Review

As anyone who has spent more than twenty seconds perusing this blog can tell, I like space combat games. I have been a fan of the genre since I discovered Elite, way back in 1981. Since then I have played literally dozens of these games, including StarLancer, Freespace I and II, The Homeworld series, Freelancer, and of course my two current faves, Vega Conflict and Dreadnought.

Planet Commander is the latest in this long line. I’ve been playing this for a couple of months now. You start with one ship, and can unlock and buy more as you progress through the game. Like Dreadnought, this is an online multiplayer game: you participate in online battles up to 4v4. You can only fly one ship at a time. If the ship is killed, you can move on to another of your ships until you win, leave the game, or all of your ships are destroyed. You then get points (which improve your ranking and level) and cash (Coins and Crystals). The ships come in different shapes and sizes, ranging from Frigates through Destroyers, Interdictors, Cruisers, Battleships, all the way up to the Dreadnoughts.

The game is a lot of fun and is well-balanced; my one most glaring criticism is the pricing structure. Things start off well enough; an introductory pack costs about $3, and a follow-up pack which unlocks a ship costs another $8 or so. They are decent enough value, and most players can have a lot of fun for $11. The following pack, which unlocks the Kingsword Cruiser (I find myself wondering whether that is pronounced “King Sword” or King’s Word“) is just under $17, which is a little expensive for me – but the ship alone costs $27 to unlock, so there you go.

Many of the ships automatically unlock when you reach a given level, but some ships – including the top ship in each tier – can only be unlocked with a liberal application of cold, hard cash.

• Wyrm Frigate $10.49
• Olympus Destroyer $12.49
• Reaper Interdictor $16.99
• Kingsword Cruiser $26.99
• Soul Catcher Battleship $42.99
• Nemesis Dreadnought $55.99
• Tyrant Dreadnought $112.49

That adds up to $278.43, which is way too high for a phone/tablet game.

In my opinion, such a game should not cost a player more than $100 in total… in which case those ships are overpriced by a factor of three.

Who are you calling an “Imperial Star-Destroyer”?

Bottom line: a fun game, especially if you have a tablet (I have three!). Decent value if you buy the first two packs, and you will get months of play out of that modest outlay. But the subsequent ships are overpriced, and if you play it long enough I am pretty sure that you will come up against a pay-to-win barrier.

Dreadnought!

Anyone who has spent more than a couple of minutes reading my blog can tell, I like games.

That is not to say that I consider myself a “Gamer”, I have never owned a gaming console of any kind. However, I have been playing computer games since the early 1980s, which, I suppose, makes me something of an expert on the subject.

I recently discovered a rather nice game called Dreadnought.

In it, you get to fly and fight in multiplayer battles over land and in space. with a variety of ship types, including:

• Corvette: Small, quick and fragile, but packs quite a wallop. A lot of fun to fly, once you have mastered the art of stealthy flying.
• Tactical Cruiser: Provides support and healing to your team. Often the most-appreciated member of your squad.
• Destroyer: Jack-of-all-trades. Fairly quick, Heavily-armed, but relatively fragile, and the ideal beginner ship.
• Artillery Cruiser: Long range sniper, which rains down electric death from afar. Easy to kill, hates Corvettes.
• Dreadnought: The big one. Heavy, slow, and bristling with offensive and defensive weaponry.

Battles take place in various space and planetary scenarios, and take place between two teams with eight players each.

There are several different types of battle, including:

• Team Deathmatch: You get points for killing enemies. They get points for killing yours. First team to 100 points or a time limit wins.
• Onslaught: Protect your Command ship from enemies while trying to take out theirs.
• Proving Grounds: This is basically Team Deathmatch against AI enemies, with seven other AI NPCs backing you up.

A typical game takes 10-20 minutes. Getting killed is a minor inconvenience; you are back in the game in less than thirty seconds, and have the option of changing ships during your short hiatus.

The nice thing about this game is that is free to play, but shelling out some shekels will give you some neat stuff, but won’t make the game too easy to win, which is a problem with certain games I could mention.

Check out the video. If you like what you see, I’ll see you on the battlefield.

Vega Conflict: Ship and Tech Guide, Middle Game

Tier 5: Iron Star and Demon Corps Ships and Technology.

The mid-game features the introduction of the heavy-hitters. They outclass their VSec counterparts, and paradoxically are often quicker to build and easier to mark up (which is why so many VSec ships are on the “avoid” list). ISC ships are generally more heavily-armored and durable, while DC hulls have less armor but pack more of a wallop, particularly when paired with the Infernal weapons (Gatling, Wave and Vector Torpedo) that are unique to Demon Corps.

As a general rule, ISC are better for farming and DC are better for PvP. As a general rule, you should outfit your DC ships with basic weapons (Nova/Manifold/Siege) initially, then upgrade to Infernal weapons on a piecemeal basis, as each level-III Infernal weapon takes 1-3 days to equip (exception: when you have a build discount, then you should build out as much as you possibly can).

From here on out, all of ships have high mass limits. From now on, you should only bother researching/farming the highest-caliber version of each technology (usually “III”), and don’t bother with I and II, unless you have leftover points or plan on retro-fitting them on your smaller ships.

Must-have ships:

• Vigilante: Tough and resilient, this is the best mid-level farming Battleship in the game. Equip it with Nova Rays or Manifold missiles, and add Skirmish Armor III for best results.
• Machete: While the stock “MaShitty” is no better than a Lance, marking up this baby gives you a shield and an extra weapon slot as well as a resistance slot. Once upgraded to Mk IV this is a very powerful and tough destroyer indeed. Siege Drivers and Binary Thrusters are best for basing, but Neutron Drivers are good all-rounders. Deflector shields are best for basing and farming.
• Hellfire: Not as tough as the Vigilante, but far more dangerous in battle when flown with care. Pair with Infernal Weapons for added killing power.
• Python: Since cutters are designed for close-in brawling, the ability to stay in the fight and soak up damage is paramount. If you are into cutters, this is the one. Equip with Nova Ray or Manifold Missiles, Metaphase III shielding… and as much Skirmish Armor as you can for survivability.
• Heretic: Most high-level Cruisers have two shield slots, but not the Heretic; the designers sacrificed one of the shield slots for two extra armor slots, resulting in an incredibly tough hull. The downside is insane repair times; a fully-upgraded Mk V Heretic maxed out with Skirmish Armor III requires nearly five hours to repair, which means more than a day of repairs for a fleet.
• Damocles: When equipped with iWaves and Iridium magnets, these are lethal against bases, and pretty good in PvP. Shame that this hull is so fragile when compared to the Machete.
• Dominion: Far better than the Freyja, this was the primo Carrier for the better part of a year until the Paladin showed up.

Ships to avoid:

• Basilisk: not as survivable as the Python cutter, and it is harder to mark-up.
• Legion: A poorly-thought-out design that does not seem to have any real-world use. Part under-powered battleship, part under-powered carrier, this hull excels at neither.
• Freyja: There is absolutely no reason to build one if you have the Dominion as the DC hull outclasses the Freyja in every way..
• Tornado: Ostensibly the best Frigate in the game. Build them only if you love frigates, otherwise the Hurricane is good enough.

Must-have Tech:

• Infernal weapons. Infernal Wave (iWave), Infernal Gatling(iGat) and Infernal Vector Torpedo (iVec) are amazing weapons. The downside is that they take ages to equip – up to three days for a iWave III. That’s twelve days to fully arm a Mk IV Damocles Destroyer.
• Skirmish Armor is useful for Iron Star Hulls.
• Armored Thrusters: Demon Corps ships have plenty of firepower, but sacrifice shielding. This helps to right that wrong.
• Volatile Fuel is useful on battleships when using explosive weapons.

Tech to avoid:

• Unstable Reactor: Also known as the “Suicide Drive”, this engine causes a massive explosion, equivalent to the ship’s armor when the ship is destroyed, which made it great for taking about enemy Bridges and Alien Harvesters. It was great when it first came out — particularly on Heretics, which carried an insane amount of armor and hence generated an equally insane explosion — then Kixeye nerfed it, reducing the power of the explosion… and it became a pointless waste of time:
• Raider Squadron: High damage, but short range makes it useless as a carrier weapon.
• Strike Shield: Recharging shields on cutters is a really bad idea unless you are really really good at micromanagement.
• Targeting Computer: This allows battleships to engage multiple targets simultaneously. Ostensibly useful as an anti-squadron measure, it requires the battleship to be upgraded to at least Mk IV unless you want to sacrifice the engine, which is a really bad idea.
• Electric Rails: Frigate only, Adds 40% weapon weight. Adds a stasis element. Of limited use.
• Blister Rounds – use Volatile Fuel where possible instead.

Vega Conflict: Ship and Tech Guide, Early Game

With the bewildering array of ships, armor, weapons and specials that are available to beginners, it is sometimes difficult to know where to start, and, more importantly, which technologies can be safely ignored. So I put together this short guide to help new players along the way. I have divided the guide into three parts. Early Game (Tier 1 to 4; Rebel/Vega/VSec), Mid-Game (Tier 5 ISC/DC) and Late-Game (Tier 6 Xeno/A.X.I.S.)

Part I: Early Game ships and Technologies

 Must-have Tech:

• Gladius Driver (I and II) Needed for Glad Rancs
• Fusion Thrusters (I and III): needed for all
• Binary Thrusters: Good on Destroyers and Frigates, where the ability to strafe is of paramount importance.
• Thermal Beam: The base-level laser weapon. Hard-hitting and to the point.
• Hydra Missile: The best low-level explosive weapon in the game.
  
• Impulse Beam II and III: The next step up from Thermal Beams, and a must-have for Insta-Broads and Cutters
• Aurora Ray (II and III) — All round, the most versatile weapon in the early game. Only Hydra missiles are better against squadrons in the early game.
• Metaphase Shields: The best all-round shields in the game, due to their being good against all three kinds of weapons. Put Meta I on Gladius Rancors and Impulse Broadswords. Put II on Venoms, and put III on all the big (Tier 4+) ships.
• Siege Driver: The primo Destroyer weapon for basing in early and mid-game. Longer range than anything else in the game (only Precision Gauss Driver has longer range, but it lacks the punch that the Siege Driver delivers)
• Vector Torpedo: Replaces Hydra missiles.
• Burst Ray: This “Energy Shotgun” works best at close range,m which makes it a great weapon for cutters, but pretty much useless for anything else. And don’t even think about putting Burst Ray Turrets on your base.
• Capacitive Plates: The best base armor until you unlock Talonite and Tungsten plates.
• Armored Hold

Tech to avoid:

The following items are less useful; research them if you have to, but bear in mind that they are of limited use. The weapons are of limited use, the specials became less useful when shields were nerfed and became mess significant in the game.

• Gemini Driver
• Bayonet Missile
• Brimstone Torpedo
• Arc Missile
• Phased Magnets
• Spectral Warheads
• Ionized Optics

Must-have ships:

• Genesis: Quick to build and upgrade, this is only useful as a combat vessel in the earliest stages of the game, after which they can be refitted as cargo haulers.
• Rancor: The early-game workhorse, and the first battleship in the game. “Glad Rancs”: with Gladius Driver I and II, Spectral shields (upgrade to Metaphase I when you can), Iridium Magnets and NO armor (for instant repair). This allows you to farm Vega and VSec up to about level 35. Can be refitted as a cargo carrier in later stages of the game.
• Broadsword: These are are the primary low-level glass-cannon heavy hitters.Cheap to build, easy to mark up, “Impulse-Broads”: Broadsword Mk III with Impulse Beam 3&2. A fleet of these can take down TWO Artillery 37 Crafting Fleets on auto with instant repair. This is important because this is the lowest-level fleet that drops Tier-4 patterns and parts.
• Venom: Lovely early farming ship, but don’t build too many, as they are of limited use in the later game.
• Dread: When it first came out, it was the most powerful ship in the game. After being nerfed in the great rebalance and supplanted by the Zeal, then outclassed by both the Vigilante and Hellfire battleships, this ship has been relegated to the mid-game. It is, however, a mandatory workhorse for the acquisition of all better technologies, so this ship is a must-have. Partner with Ragnarok Carrier.
• Lance: The primo early-game destroyer. Add recharging Repulsor shields, Binary thrusters and Siege Drivers for basing wonderfulness.
• Taipan: Quick to build and easy to mark-up, the “Tai-Spam” is an excellent idea for covering fleets, harassing enemies, and generally causing mayhem.. Equip it with Manifold Missiles or Nova Rays for best results.
• Gharial: Tougher than the Taipan, and more versatile. More of the same.
• Midgard:Not much use as a combat carrier, the Midgard comes equipped with the same Agility Support Field as the Ragnarok, but in a hull that only takes half the time to build and repair.
• Ragnarok: Generally regarded as the best all-round Carrier in the early game due to its agility Support Field as well as long-range drones. The Midgard has the same field, but only half the drone range. This ship is the difference between grinding your way through events to taking down high-level fleets for big points. Partner with Dread Battleships.
• Revelation and Apocrypha: Two excellent dual-shield workhorses, best used as tanks.

Ships to avoid:

Exodus, Trident, Corinthian, Fury, Zeal, Nexus, Rapture, Komodo, Valhalla, Valkyrie. Nothing wrong with these ships, but there are often better alternatives available, or they can be skipped. Research them if you must, build only what you need to. VEGA ships are generally almost as capable as their VSec counterparts, but are far easier to mark up. And in many case their  Tier-5 equivalents ships take about the same time to build.

This article is an excerpt from the forthcoming update to my Game Guide, over a hundred and ninety pages of hints, tips, tricks and tactics that will help you get to grips with the finer points of the game, all for a paltry $3.99. However, if you use this link, you can get it for $1 off. Make me smile – buy my book!

Part II: Mid-Game (Tier 5 ISC/DC) Coming soon!

Interstellar Pilot: Getting Started

Before starting a game proper, it is highly recommended that you do the tutorials. While woefully inadequate, they are a good starting point to learn the basics.

The next port of call is to do some combat missions. Even if you are conflict-averse, it is inevitable that you will encounter unfriendlies from time to time, so it is good to know how to handle your ship and weapons. These can be found in “Instant Action”, but a better choice is “New Game/Battles”, which will give you a progression of battles against increasingly stronger opponents, with better ships and weapons.

Once you has mastered the basics, It is finally time to enter the game proper.

Selecting “Universe”, then selecting one of the two options, gives you a bunch of options:

If you want to make some money,”Merchant” is the best start, as it gives you a Hauler-A with a 65-ton Cargo Hold and the largest possible amount of money – 10,000 credits. But to get you started, it is a good idea to raise as much extra cash as you can by selling the extras on your ship that you can do without:

• You begin outside of Gatopea Station. Dock there, select “Equipment”, and sell your Countermeasures, Mines, and all your weapons.
• Select “Trade” and sell any mines and ECM that you may have in the hold (this is a peaceful sector, and you’ll be upgrading soon enough).
• Select “Sector Intel, on the right hand menu. This will give you information on every station in the sector, including those all-important commodity prices.

Trading is not difficult to do manually, but It is easiest if you do it on autopilot.

• Select Orders/Special/Trade and allow your ship to trade on autopilot until your fortune rises to about 20,000 at it’s lowest (when your hold is full). This should take about fifteen minutes.
• Dock at a nearby Military Outpost, and install the best engine you can afford (Frigate Engine 16.0). This will raise your max speed from 24 to 31, speeding up your trading operations markedly.  The engine upgrade does not cost all that much, but you will need money in the bank to finance your trading operations.
• Set your ship to trading again. Once you have enough money, dock at a military outpost and buy a Cloaking Device – the Mk I will do; the only real difference between the cloaking devices is the amount of time they take to cloak and decloak.
• Select Orders/Fleet Settings/prefer to cloak. This will cause your ship to cloak while in flight between stations. Then select Stance, and uncheck both checkboxes and set the slider to zero. Now your ship will avoid engaging enemy ships.
• Select “Orders/Special/Trade” to send it on its way.

Let it trade for a while, and watch your fortune grow…

Astronest Review

While playing Vega Conflict, I saw an ad for another game – the oddly-named “Astronest: The Beginning“. That was before the brains behind Vega Conflict stopped offering coins in return for watching ads.. but that is another story.

I gave the game a whirl, and was delightfully surprised. While the initial concept looks similar to Vega Conflict, the execution is far different. For one thing, building ships and research are instantaneous, but use up a number of turns (called Access Points or AP), which accumulate over time. The player’s AP limit depends on the level of their “nation”.

Your Nation is a collection of colonized planets, Heroes (people that you recruit) and fleets. Each planet has facilities that generate Gold, Minerals, Research, Energy, Fleet Production and Cosments. Each facility can be upgraded for the requisite amounts of AP, Gold and Minerals. Upgrades are instantaneous, but AP takes time to accumulate, which amounts to the same thing. There is also one other currency – crystals – that cannot be mined, but may be received as a reward for missions or purchased.

Each planet may have a Minister – one of your heroes whose Governing skill gives the planet a bonus. Other heroes can be assigned to fleets (Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships or Motherships). A planet can be operated without a Minister, but a fleet cannot go into battle without a commander. All heroes level up with experience.

The Good: Compliments

• Boots fast – under twenty seconds, far quicker than Vega Conflict or Star trek timelines.
• Runs on lower-end hardware than VC, and does not require a persistent internet connection.

The Bad: Criticisms

• The game does a good job of explaining the basics of combat, but leaves the player floundering when it comes to Trons, training, LDs, cosments, colonizing other planets and lots of other stuff.
• All of the female heroes (heroines?) are slim and pretty. I am not sure how I feel about this. I despise political correctness as much as anyone, but when you say “female head of a planetary government”, I think Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel or Madelaine Albright, not some gorgeous Blonde babe. Having said that, I do not want to see old, unattractive women introduced to the game for the sake of political correctness, but at the same time I don’t want to see people who don’t look the part. There are some who may consider that attitude sexist; I don’t care – and that will be reflected in my purchasing decisions.
  

Hi. I’m Kayla. You can like, take me to bed, or, like, put me in charge of your planet. Like.

• On a similar note, half of the men look effeminate or gay. These are the less experienced officers. The other half, the most experienced S-class heroes – have the mature, grizzled look that one would normally associate with experienced fleet commanders.

My Gaydar is going off. And the guy in the middle looks like George Lucas.

The Ugly: Errors, mistakes, and Bugs

• Poor Grammar: e.g.: when fitting out a fleet, it says “Equipping” instead of “Equipped”.
• Spelling errors: Nuff said:

 

This. Should. Not. Happen.

• In the Heroes screen, a Planetary Governor is erroneously described as a Fleet Commander.

Bottom line: A highly enjoyable game that I will continue playing, at least for the foreseeable future. Whether it will supplant Vega Conflict is yet to be seen.

Vega Conflict – Alien Invasion

No folks, this is not yet another screed about Illegals crossing our southern border, rather a new quasi-faction in the game. They are not a true faction, as you cannot build any alien ships, nor is this expected at the current time.

• The Aliens first appeared in the “Incursion” event in September 2016. They were a total surprise, and were completely unexpected.
• Unstable (one-way) wormholes appeared in every sector, and started disgorging alien fleets at regular intervals. These fleets would then head to regular wormholes and disappear.
• Initially they would aggressively pursue and attack rebel fleets within ten levels of their own.
• They initially came in Level 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70 variants.
• After a couple of months, they modified their attack strategy to only pursue fleets in extra-solar space (i.e., they would not attack within solar systems).
• Soon after that, Level 40 and 45 variants started to appear, and it became possible for two players to engage one alien fleet
• Only alliance members and players you have designated as “friendly” may assist in engaging an alien fleet.
• As well as loot or intel, destroying an alien fleet yields “unknown objects”, which remain in the player’s inventory. Nobody knows what they are or what they are for.

Hunting for Aliens with my good buddy Crescent Wind

Rules of engagement

• An alien fleet typically consists of three carriers known as hives; usually one heavy and two light.
• They launch waves of drones at the player fleet. Originally armed with beam weapons, these drones are currently a mixture of beam and explosive weapons.
• Originally, the three carriers would spawn in different corners of the battlefield. Later variants spawned together, and later still they arrived in a tight formation, which made is difficult to engage them individually.

When the going gets tough…

Battle tactics

• Initially, Aurora rays did high damage to the aliens, but as they modified their weapons and tactics, explosive weapons, such as Creeper torpedoes with Volatile Fuel, became more effective. Currently the most effective weapon is the Manifold missile.
• Current combat wisdom is to use a heavy carrier such as Ragnarok, Valkyrie or Valhalla. Freyja works too, but has lower range.
• The carrier has to be protected. Heavy cruisers work well, but battleships appear to be best. Battleships in line formation protect each other and have the double-broadside ability to engage enemies on both sides simultaneously.
• When using battleships, they may be arranged in a line in front of the carrier, or the carrier may be in the middle of the line.
• Keep your ships in tight formation for mutual support; any ship that gets out of formation will be targeted and swiftly killed by the alien drones. “the nail that sticks out gets hammered”.
• If you group them together they will all move and turn at the same rate.
• When playing co-up, keep carriers together to double the damage.
• The initial maneuver should be diagonally off to one side, in order to engage one of the hives while minimizing exposure to the other two.
• You get the same number of points whether you engage a fleet solo or co-op with another player. However, two fleets deal out more damage than one, and take less damage. So co-op is generally better.
• Successful co-op engagements yield two “corpses” of resources, each of which may be freed up by one of the players.

This article is an excerpt from my recently-updated Game Guide, over a hundred and sixty pages of hints, tips, tricks and tactics that will help you get to grips with the finer points of the game, all for a paltry $3.99. However, if you use this link, you can get it for $1 off. Make me smile – buy my book!

Boldly Going… Nowhere.

I recently stumbled across a game called “Star Trek: Timelines:

Thanks to Q’s intervention, you have access to characters from all Star Trek series, from Kirk, Spock and McCoy in the original series, to Archer, Tucker, Reed and Maywether of “Enterprise”. It is an RPG, which means you have to equip and upgrade characters, as well as upgrading your ship. Upgrades and items can be earned by performing different types of missions, or they can be purchased at the time portal.

Unfortunately, this excellent idea was killed by a nasty, ugly little problem.

This error message makes it impossible to progress beyond “The Mad Vedek”, so my Captain is stuck at Level 9.

When I reported this problem to support, I got the following reply:

I’m sorry for this inconvenience in your gaming experience. We are aware of this issue and our technical team is working on a resolution.

In the meantime, I have added 100 Chronitons to your account to replay lost mission.

Again, thank you for reporting this and appreciate your patience as we resolve the issue.

That was two weeks ago. In spite of an upgrade of the client, There has been no resolution of this matter. This is unacceptable.

I’m done with this game