First beta report

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

Hey guys!

 

First of all gratz on the release of the beta! The change log is quite long!

Unfortunately my first impression was not that good. To be fair I didn't play long due to the following reasons:

 

UI

I don't know if anyone else has the problem but my menu is outside of the screen, hence I can't build everything.

On the right edge you can see a lighter area. This is already the background of my 2nd monitor. 

 

Strategic Screen

A nice idea but please tell me: how can you exit it?

There is no button, no key closes it (ESC opens the general game menu) and furthermore, when exiting the match and immediately starting a 

new one, the screen pops up as soon as the game is loaded.

 

greez,

Kuvick

 

edit: I have no idea why this post shows up in 2 forums xD

I swear I didnt post it twice! ;D

4,887 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

What resolution and UI scaling are you using? There might be an issue with your configuration file having a UI scale setting that is higher than the resolution can support. Set your UI scaling in the game options and restart AotS, if it is still outside the screen try decreasing the UI scale setting.

 

If I change from 1920x1080 resolution to 1366x768, then restart, the UI scale stays at 1 (100%), and all of the menus push out of the screen, and it is unplayable. However, if I go into the options menu, at the lower resolution 70% is the maximum scaling that this resolution allows setting, Restarting with 70% fixes the interface size.

 

The strategic map shows up when you hold down the space bar, and disappears when space bar is released. Are you running any macro or scripting software which sends key-presses.

 

The Stardock forums are one, so if you post in the AotS forums, they are visible on the AotS section in the Stardock, Galactic Civ etc forums.

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

You can also close the Strategic map/overview  by clicking on the name Strategic Map (or whatever it is) near the top right corner of the strategic map/overview. I found that out when space did not work to close it.

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

@Moomo: thanks for the hint with the option to scale the UI.

I didn't see it before. My current screen resolution is at 1680x1050. Scaling ro 90% solved that. Tbh I would expect the UI to fit my screen width when set to 100%.

 

The strategic map is working fine when using the space bar. But when using the button, I couldnt close it. Thanks to Ticktocs hint I looked where the close button was supposed to be and voila, it was displayed only partially and flickering, like some shady buildings in build queue do sometimes.

See picture below! 

 

In general I have a lot of UI refreshing issues when using the Direct X12 version. Especially when closing menus, the strategic map or similar.

I attached another screenshot to show it.

My hardware specs:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 635 
RAM 16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 1600MHz 
Motherboard: MSI 790FX-GD70(MS-7577) 
Graphics: 4096MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 380 Series (MSI)

aaa

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I played a few sessions with a friend yesterday and today and here are some more thoughts:

 

Substrate Anti Air

Since the Sky Cleanser is a tier 1 unit, it is far too weak to fight bigger amounts of PHC bombers (Hades) since those are quite tanky.

More than once I had a reasonable amount of Sky Cleansers but one fly by of like 6-8 bombers evaporated them and these bombers went ham on my army until air support arrived. 

Quick comparison: Hades 4500 HP for 3 bombers -> 1500 each

                        Sky Cleanser 60 HP, 28 DPS... 

 

Orbital Jamming facilities

In general a very good idea and a needed hing, considering the might of the offensive abilities. But it was fairly odd that I couldnt even use the scanner sweep on enemy territory. All of the territory controlled by the enemy was ability blocked and it didnt look like they spammed those buildings everywhere.

So the scanner sweep seems pretty useless to me now...

 

Engineer Drop Down 

Really cool to have this ability as PHC but I miss it when playing as Substrate. Especially on big maps it is annoying to build them back at your base and then wait till they arrive at the front.

Or maybe make them buildable in the production buildings? (maybe with a faster tier 2 builder? =) )

 

Health Upgrade

When you upgrade the health of your units, I would expect all my current units to gain HP both in the current and max HP. This is not the case, only the max health increases. Intrinsically this is no big deal. What really bugs me is that then even new units have not full health when being built! O.o

freshly built medic

 

Building prices

Since the Substrate builds all ground based unit in one building, this building is more expensive. Sounds reasonable. 

The imho big consequence is that the Substrate can't start as fast as the PHC. With PHC I build a factory, extractors, more builders and so on from scratch without running out of saved ressources.

Substrate can't do that since they run out of stashed metal faster, resulting in a slower start.

 

Build infos

When hovering over a unit, the build time and cost are displayed. Maybe add the impact on your ressource gain rate in braces?

Like

Build Time 90s

Metal: 400 (-5)

Radioactives: 250 (-3)

 

Idle production facilities and supporting workers

When I let a worker support a building, he does it forever. Even  if i stop producing in this factory because the front line is too far away.

Any supporting worker will still be busy "supporting" the idle factory and wont show up as idle. 

 

Extractor size & health

It has already been mentioned, that the extractors are too small. I totally agree.

What bugs me more is that the 10 HP they have is by far not enough. In the early game you can harass your enemy with rushed Pans (PHC scout).

Their weapons do 2 DPS but having like 3-5 of them is enough to kill a lot of extractors therefore massively slowing your enemy in the early game. Ofc this shouldn't work in midgame as AA should be present by then.

Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

It would make sense for players if 100% was scaled to each resolution (not as it would appear scaled to the original 1080p assets). The beta introduced several issues with the scaling particularly for screens higher than 1080p, I hope this is resolved in the next patch.

 

The sky cleanser does need a rebalance. It, looks like it would be better as a squad of 3 units instead of 1. Although I would expect that these units should not be the staple AA, and Dominators and Blossom launchers would likely be the main focus.

 

I think the jamming is fine, we have air scout units to fly over their bases for a suicide run in the late game.

 

I think new units should be built with full health, but for units in the field it seems fair that they would need to be healed/repaired.

 

It could be considered fair for substrate to have a more challenging start. Many RTS games have a cheaper/easier/weaker faction, and an expensive/harder/stronger faction.

I personally have not had issues with saturating the economy with substrate, I start by sending the first constructor on a walk to build the first assembler at the first node before the creeps spawn while constructor #2. This slows down the start game economy drain a little, but gives an earlier boost to resources.

 

Many RTS games which allow supporting workers leave them stuck like this. It would be nice if this was not the case with AotS at release.