f13.net

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0022.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0024.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0026.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0030.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-04-0002.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0006.jpg)

(http://content.perpetuum-online.com/images/content/shots-2009-09-0015.jpg)

Main website. (http://www.perpetuum-online.com/Main)

Looks like Eve with robots.

It's a Hungarian MMO.  I went to Hungary once.  I didn't like it.  It was scary.  I'm pretty sure they didn't like me, either.  Stupid Iron Curtain.

I live in Hungary. It's scary.  :ye_gods:

I actually haven't heard about this game before, and yeah, it looks very EVE-y. Should be interesting to witness Hungarian incompetence in a MMOG setting at last!


edit: http://www.gamekapocs.hu/cikk/4208/1248/Perpetuum is an article [in Hungarian] about visiting the studio, with pix. A choice quote: "The studio currently has five members, along with a lot of contributors from all over the country".

These guys look legit!  :why_so_serious: (or maybe I'm too damn jaded...)

Does it look actually like EVE, or does the  "docked" interface just look like a rip off?

This is a problem?

Not hardly.  Who doesn't like robots?  Are you trying to trick me?

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/963220/Bite_My_Shiny_Metal_Ass_by_roflwaffle07.jpg)

I don't want to look at spreadsheets to blow up shit with robots...

Gasp. Is this Chromehounds online?

Assumption. Just become they use the same font, or color or even the same .JPG does not a clone make. Maybe a UI cone..but even that is a simplification as i am sure controlling a robot is different that EVE's ships.

No disassemble number five!  :why_so_serious:

Videos..... (http://www.perpetuum-online.com/Media:Videos)

Man that UI is *really* close to Eve's. They should have stolen Auto Assault's instead, nobody would have noticed.

Yes, the influence is very thick.

Hmm i'm looking forward to the feature list.

Other than the one I posted?

I hope they put elves and orcs in so I can shoot the living sh*t our of em

meh that doesn't tell me much besides there is going to be crafting and mining. 2 reasons to not play a game...

At least one of the devs is ex-BoB, so they probably figured it'd be easier to write a whole new game where they are the devs on speed-dial.  :awesome_for_real:

I wonder if they will allow botting....see what I did there?  :hulk_rock:

Nah, they'll have humaning.

Why in gods name would they lift the UI from the MMO that has arguably the worst UI out of any ever made?

This is not the worst UI in the world, no! This is just a tribute!

Well done.

Needs more bloom. :ye_gods:

Hungarian women are hawt.

I signed up for the robot combat.

Also, I appreciate that the majority of personal information isn't a compulsory field and that they don't need to know my blood type before I can register.  

EDIT: Looked through the beta blog and some more info on the site. Looks very much like an EVE clone and the highest number of players they've been able to keep online at once is 52.

The concept alone is worth a spin.

That's a gypsy not a Hungarian.  You've got the right idea though, they don't age well.  Yeech.

It is actually one of the best UIs in an MMO.  It just does not work well for any game except Eve. Much of Eve is data and nothing compares to what can be displayed in that game with two or three mouse clicks.

Do not let the fact that eve is a lot better than it use to be confuse you on the fact that Eve has a very very shitty UI.

The EVE UI is a lot like the weather in that everyone complains about it but no one does anything about it.

Then don't.

I like the Eve UI, however it would not work for any other game I have ever played.

"Realtime asychronous" combat sounds like an oxymoron.

There's no reason to use the Eve UI outside of Eve. I imagine these guys has a bunch of Eve-loving players though, kinda like the PotBS guys except at least they didn't make their UI all gray and microgramma.

Overall this one sounds like Mechwarrior crash landed on Atriarch.

CCP should just buy this out if it's done competently and merge it into Dust.

Looks way too shiny to be set in Eve space :-)

/neckcrow

I dont believe there's an NDA for this and they are accepting new testers as of late in anticipation of a large patch today.  (I just got in)  It intrigued me... we shall see.  I like mechs, bots, and things that go bleep and blip and are teh shinay.  I liked EVE notsomuch, but this seems more visceral.

Here's more info. via tuts:
http://perpetuumzone.com/node/44

A GM's blog:
http://gremrod.wordpress.com/

There was an interview with them on Massively's podcast a few weeks ago.
http://www.massively.com/2010/04/28/massively-speaking-episode-97-perpetuum-online/

It is very like Eve and influenced by it. They acknowledge that. On the other hand just using robots instead of spaceships makes it more of a departure from the original than many WoW-clones have managed.

I think there probably is a market for an Eve where you don't start 5 years worth of skills behind the elite. I also think that playing a clone of a sandbox game should allow for a more different experience than playing a clone of a theme park.

Personally I'm enjoying Eve too much to want to play another version. If I had burned out on Eve I'd be tempted by this though.

Afterthought: I'm almost tempted to get an account just for skill training. So if I ever do want to play it I'll have an advanced character. My more sensible side thinks that's a terrible thing to admit.

I signed up.  I remember looking at this when the thread started.  Looks pretty cool.

I think that you're correct.  The only problem that I see is one that alienates new players.  I played EvE fairly early on.  While I could still participate in the pvp and the economy, I was always reminded that by coming in late I was already behind.  You got this same feeling in Atitd.  While sandboxes are a wonderful departure from games on rails, I don't know how you can effectively create them without newcomers immediately recognizing their disadvantage. 

I'm definitely going to keep my eye on this though.  While I'm not a fan of the backdrop, I am willing to support their effort to be derivative in a different way. 

I've never understood that mentality in EVE.  Sure, you're "behind" but you can easily participate in just about every possible activity in the game in just a couple months, and in many case straight from day 1.  It just never really bothered me that I'd never have as many skill points as the guy who had 50 million when I started.  I think the system in place is fine.  You can get plenty good at things really quickly, and if you play for years and years you eventually are spending huge amounts of time for small % upgrades.   

This flies in the face of the point of pvp and is the reason why MMO's and pvp largely don't mix.  PvP is supposed to be about the better player winning the greatest majority of the time.  If you're going to handicap a player, it should be the established player facing a penalty to equalize the fight.  In MMO's it's the other way around.  

One of the primary reasons that WoW pvp is so terrible is precisely because of this.  If the level/power disparity isn't enough, good gear can turn a shitty player into a God.  Levels and equipment should offer a wider variety of options in PvP, not the ability to faceroll-to-victory.  

Only in 1v1 PvP.  EVE PvP is about who brings the best group, has the best intel, has the best position, and a host of other things.  You can participate in "end game" PvP on day 1-2 with a tackling ship.   This isn't a property of just EVE either, you see it in pretty much every team game out there.  Sure, better players help your cause, but we see "inferior" players winning games in every sport every year because they had a better plan to deal with the opposing team.  No, you aren't going to win 1v1 on your first day of EVE agianst a guy who has been playing for 5 years, but you sure as hell can be on a winning side in a battle. 

Obviously if purely skill based 1v1 deathmatch PvP is what you want, EVE isn't your game, but that isn't really the point.  If thats what you want Football isn't your game either.

My current complaint is, actually, that it takes longer than the 4-or-so months it takes in WoW to get to "the average" gear level of other players (which, currently, is T2 guns on battleships, or T2 guns on T2 ships, or dreads/carriers).  I might be wrong in my calculations, but it seems to be about 6 months to shore up support skills and the T2 guns of choice, and another 2-3 months to train up the prerequisites for flying your (sub-capital) ship of choice.

It's not really about being able to participate, it's about the perception that you're behind because of the skills, and the perception that it takes longer than the other MMO's to catch up, sort of.

But anyway, back to Perpetuum, sorry about the tangent.

Many MMOG players want to get into a game and be the best, or at least compete to be among the best.  Whether they can or not, they want to think that if they just try hard enough they have the opportunity to do so.  With EVE's system it's impossible, so most players think, "Fuck it, why bother."

Everyone here knows they can have fun day 1 on EVE and participate.  However that requires you know people, or you know what you're doing.  If you take my experience as an example,  I have had access to join many corps through F13 and other message boards that are very active.  So I know people.  But I didn't know what to do to get to the fun unless someone took the time to take me under their wing and show me/tell me exactly what to do.

If you don't have that support structure and that person to get you kick started these games can be incredibly difficult to start with once the game is established.

Edit to add:
As far as time to catch up to "average players", I don't know about EVE, but in WOW you can do it in a month if you play a lot.  A week or two to level to 80 then two to four weeks to gear up.

Hay guys. This game has robots.

I love robots.

[There is no NDA]

I'll talk to the GMs (who are always in-game) and see if I cant get a beta block for f13 people.  It's a fairly hands-on, smallish beta.   I think there were like 50 of us online last night (unless there were people I couldnt see, which if it's like Eve is quite likely).  I played until I passed out last night, so... the game doesnt suck outright.  :awesome_for_real:      

I joked in chat that they should've bought a BattleTech license and just called it InnerSphere Online or some such.  They very well could've, but unfortunately now the lore and design are pretty well wrapped up in an original IP, which isnt half bad btw.  Sci-fi is an acquired taste as always.

At the core of their design is their skill point system.  It differs with Eve's in that you ALWAYS generate skill points regardless of if you use them or not, i.e. you dont actually train anything until you're online.  While offline or online you generate 1 EP (extension point) per minute.  Then spend as you will on any of your characters, whenever you feel like it.   It's flat out an awesome skill point system and alleviates the retarded skill-game meta that Eve's system created.  They also did away with learning abilities... so EVERYONE generates the same EP regardless and no skill's EP can be changed.

Let's see, the "feel" of the game is of course much like Eve's only in 2 dimensions (yes, you feel restricted, but this is good in some ways).  Even the music is similar, very soothing.  There's click2move and WASD.   Most actions can be done w/o ever pushing the keyboard.  Indeed, there's something relaxing about just Ratting bots or mining plants 'n stuff.  That being said, it's definitely more visceral than Eve.  You need to pay more attention as the game is much deadlier...  resources, ammo, energy and the like are at a premium so you can't just macro it up - Like Eve though, this probably becomes less of a problem later on.   Also, there's foliage and terrain restrictions to movement/combat:  if you've got foliage in your LOS your to-hit is penalized and terrain limits your movement depending on which spark/bot you have.  Hit % is simply based on the size of the target/dispersion lvl of your weapon (so rate of fire is very important).  Speed or "signature" does not factor in, however there is ECM and such in the game along with targeting abilities.

Chargen is more complex than Eve's in that you have a few more Corp./school choices at the beginning which creates a few more "tiers" of possible builds.  Also, you're given a few thousand EP of the bat, so you must know from day 1 where to put them.  The avatar generator also has a few more choices, so it's easier to create someone/thing different...  more like ChampO in this regard.  That being said, you rarely SEE your avatar since he's locked in an orbital control station. :awesome_for_real:

Back to "learning."  There are these funky Energon-cube lookin things you farm off of other bots that you can either sell or imbibe.  If you imbibe them you will learn something.  What that something is only Fate knows.  So basically, if you want to focus on making small kinetic bullets, you need that particular piece of knowledge up to 100%.  This involves using these cubes and hoping it's for that particular skill.  Obviously, if you loot laser-oriented bots though it's more likely you'll get the kernel that shows you how to make lasers.  THEN when you want to make something you have to reverse engineer the components, which means you need the component first along with a "Decoder" that allows you to understand the tech.  If you dont want to go through this trouble you can use a Prototype Facility to make a one-off, but it's prohibitively costly.

There's recycling, refining, factory production runs... yada yada.  Same as Eve.  The Market though isnt as complex...  no fancy bar-graphs or market analyses.  It's just buy/sell.  Currently, it's fairly sparse of items because the beta is small... which also means things are relatively expensive.

Also, this game is starting out similarly to Eve.  Small foreign indy studio.  Not a lot of money.  Sleak, simple design with the potential to easily add a lot of bells and whistles.  Since it's an Eve-clone it's also a fairly extensible game... meaning 3rd party progs. and add-ons.  I'm assuming it's coded in Python, which is also nice.

I'll talk more on it later, but so far I like it as a casual spreadsheet MMO.  It's tighter than Eve, not as mindnumbingly large and political and you see the fruits of your labors a bit better with a bot as opposed to a ship.  The zones are sharded, so no real one-world... kinda like Eve sectors.  It's basically a mecha dollhouse made with the Eve engine.  OH!  And they'll be adding jumpjets at some point.   :drill:

edit:
Graphically, the game is fairly nice and stylized... Eve influence again.  They've been playing with them lately though, instituting fog and weather effects... so it's a bit touch a go.  (they need to do away with the fog, badly)  Also, there is brown.  At least in the starter zone.  We'll see how brownish it stays.

I'd really like to get in and check it out tonight.  Can you get me in?  :grin:  If you can PM me and I'll give you the email address attached to my reg.

Sounds pretty nifty.  Still waiting for them to accept my beta app, so I can play robots.

I sent mails to a DEV and a GM, so we'll see.  Would be nice to fire up a corp in here and I think these guys could use some quality input.  Maybe one of them will join f13 as well.
Oh, I'm ingame as "PhantomPhreak".  Asintec corporate elitist with a penchant for shooting things and getting paid for it.

I watched the agent creation tutorial and had definite Eve flashbacks. Ton of skills divided into three groups leaving you to wonder whether to specialize or hybrid with no way to know whether you're making a tank-mage or a gimp. Have they said anything about respecs or is it just wait for more points and use those to fix your mistakes?

The King of Nynex?

Seriously though, I'm in if we get an F13 beta invite.  I've been looking for something MMOwise lately because I've been trundling around in WoW waiting for something worth while to come along, and this seems to have serious potential based on what you have to say about it.

Better get me in before Malakili  I don't want him to have an advantage!   :why_so_serious:

:heartbreak:

There will probably be no EP respecs.  And it'd be somewhat counterintuitive if they did.
Firstly, you get EVERY skill available to you at the start, they just have to be unlocked via NIC (money) and certain pre-requisites (so there is no sifting through countless skill books to make sure you're doing the right thing), it's just "this costs 10k NIC and you need Industry 5" and that's it.  And since you generate EP regardless, there's no need for a respec.  Just wait and pump what you need.

One thing I'd recommend is taking your time in the beginning and looking everything over before spending your EP.

Okay, I have a beta block for 5 people (I will send in the request once we have 5 worthy bot operators).  Those interested, pm me with your email addresses and you'll be patched into the game.  Note: this is for constructive TESTING, not "review" purposes.  Dont bother if you just want to have a look-see.  The goal is to put the game on its knees (in true f13 fashion) and then beg for a fix.

Oh, and try to sign up ahead of time and have your account ready to go.  Then gimme that email addy.
And oh oh, I'd prefer it if you at least used vent or TS in some capacity... (I believe there are channels setup for the testers somewhere)

I sent you a PM.  Let me know where to hook up on vent later tonight.  I should be home around 7PM Est or so.  I'm already registered with the email I PMd you.

I'll set you guys up a channel in vent, if you want.

Also, this looks neat, but I don't think i'm quite ready to hop in during the constructive criticism phase. I'll wait it out.

I'm very interested but as I'm in a rather different timezone from you I'll apply to the beta separately. I think it would be a waste to snag one of your 5 spots for someone who's hardly ever on at the same time as anyone else.

If I get in I'll be in touch. I quite fancy getting heavily into trade and industry so hopefully I'll be able to make you some toys.

This is good timing for me too.  I'm not playing any other MMOGs at the moment, or any other games either.  So I can put most of my gaming time towards it assuming the game works and isn't annoying to play.

Give a shout out when it's in preview mode. Would love to try this out but not enough free time right now to do real testing.

Need 2 more.

I'm downloading the client now.  Which vent are we using?

Edit:
Any idea when the accounts will be confirmed?

Need 5 people b4 I can send him the list.  We have 4.  Need 1 more.  Also, it's most likely they wont be added until tomorrow afternoon because the DEV I was working with seems to be a "day person."

I'd THOUGHT that they had a beta channel, but for the life of me I cant find the info. on it.  Otherwise, we can play in the f13 vent if you have access.  Not a huge issue I guess at this point.

Note: game IS mostly feature complete... any testing at this point is mostly polish and debug (client seems perfectly stable also)

I was hoping to get in tonight.  Just send them the 4 names and tell them you'll send another at a later date.  Someone would of posted already I would imagine.

I'm kind of surprised that only 4 people have replied.  I'd have figured there'd be more than 5 people interested.

Most folks just want to play the game to have a look-see instead of "testing."  I can understand that, but it doesnt hurt to just jot down ideas and bugs on your secondary monitor while you play and then submit them.  If it was a huge beta for a huge game that's another thing, but this is rather "niche."

OK, if we're short then count me in. PM sent.

How is EvE not a numbers game like every other mmo? You spend 2/3 of your time checking to see if your opponent can faceroll you, and 1/3 of the time attempting to minimize your loses assuming you fight at all. If it wasn't for the death penalty no one would bother fighting without a capitol. oh and football analogy is fail.

I have a corp we can join if we dont make our own.  
I assume since we've only got 5 it'll probably be smart to join a more established one.  Also, the alliance system isnt in place yet - so there's that. PM me ingame for the name.  Beta invites should be going out tomorrow midday.

I played this game a little bit a month ago. It's EVE with mechs, and I'm saddened over how unexciting that turned out to be for me.

Woot 37,000 EP to spend

Thanks for putting this shindig together Ghambit.

Looks like my reg has been accepted.  I'll be firing this baby up around 6pmEST tonight.

Damn. Let me know if you get any more keys, Ghambit.

I played for a little while when I had the chance earlier.  This game has a TON in common with EVE, so if you like that sort of thing, I think you have a good chance of liking this.  I made a mining character just to get a feel for it and it seems pretty good so far, though there is a lot I still need to learn about what the heck I'm doing.  Hopefully we can get a few people on at the same time later and talk through somet things. 

Someone shoot me vent info so I'll have it for later.

There's a 24hr period after chargen b4 you can join a corp btw, to prevent corp-jumping.
If you've had your fill testing, one could always loan out the account for someone else to try.  Stabs' acct. I made a "floater."

a) there will be a wipe fairly soon
b) you can have up to 3 chars.
c) since EP is gained regardless between characters, just stop applying to 1 and put it on the other

In relation to how it's like Eve.  You must preface that by saying it's like Eve@RELEASE.  It by no means has the depth Eve currently has.  It also doesn not have Eve's breadth, obviously.  Sectors are big, but not THAT big.

*TS3 (not vent) info. will be later tonite when the corp. CEO is online.

Got my acceptance email, will be on around 6 PM CST tonight.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=17758.0

It's buried in the League of Legends forum.

We have corp. Teamspeak3 already from an existing corp.  (see post above)
Obviously though, not gonna give that info. out in this forum.
(i'll probably be in both though)

Thanks, I haven't been in that subforum in a while.


What is this corp and where did it come from?

Subbed to beta, I didn't get one of your keys ghambit because of aus timezone and limited time. I like robots.

I flipped through the lore on their webpage. So it's a planet with a race of sentient robots who have 3 factions, and humans are secretly hacking some of their combat mech bodies from a hidden space station?

Yup, it's sci-fi.  The crazier the better.
From what I can gather, the datastream is quantum teleported (through a rip in the fabric of space) to each bot, hacking it real-time.  These bots are what you control.  You're essentially strip-mining the bots' planet through their own bodies, whilst fighting them off.   :awesome_for_real:

I kinda wish they'd show more internal spaces though, like the station you work from and so on.  Or even the huge terminals you hack into.  For now, everything is spreadsheet 'cept the outdoor areas.

Pretty much useless mining-wise unless you've got an Indy, so you're better off ratting until you get the coin (there's definitely a technique to this until you can afford a tank build).  Corp. might be able to get you one if you catch us.  Me and Draegan were on most of last night, saw no one else...  and we got tricked-out pretty nice.  Myself a light 4-turret laser bot, Draegan a missile bot.  (gonna take a while to say "bot" instead of "boat")

The skill extensions are 'sploding our brains.
The itemization likewise, but since it's player driven the market is only a shadow of what it will become.

There was a shitty bug where you couldn't reload your missile launchers out in the field.   :oh_i_see:  When I bugged it on the forums they said they took care of it in today's patch.  I'll see tonight.

But yeah there is a HUGE difference between pewpew'ing with the noob bot and the cheapest upgrade.  Shooting four missle salvos is pretty fun.

I enjoyed the combat micromanagement.  Bit more hands-on than Eve.  Typical thought-process is loadout a sensor upgrade, long-range lasers, armor rep., and out-target the missile drones one by one (kiting)... being careful not to back into terrain and get trapped, manage reactor, etc.  All of this seems to tone down later in the game though, since most people are running Destroyer mechs... which can farm indefinitely. (dunno if they'll balance this)  Same shit happened in Eve though.

Interestingly, the assignments reward non-craftable ammo that wtfpwns everything - so there's incentive to do them, along with the rep. grind.  Also, repairs and ammo are pricey- so just going balls out into the fray isnt very cost-effective. (at least not in the beginning)  You've gotta be careful how much dmg. u sustain and how much ammo u use.

More importantly:  there is NO Insurance.  If you blow up, you lose your bot.  There's no skill setback though, obviously... since you're just a man in a terminal controlling the bot remotely.   :oh_i_see:
Wouldn't be too hard for a 3rd party to start their own insurance company though.

I should have an industrial by tomorrow and then I'll start laying field containers.  I'm afraid to venture outer-island, but now that there's outposts it might be worth checking out.

I wasn't feeling all that well yesterday, so I was only on for about an hour.  Should be on longer today, and now that I can tell my ass from a hole in the ground, I should be able to get somewhere with the game.

Characters name is Vanja Trask.

I don't plan on doing any industrial stuff.  I got a full blown killer bot.  We'll see.

In as Stabs. I'm specialised in Heavy Industry and Research and have spent my first extension points on a couple of levels of Mining.

Did a little prospecting. Running across the landscape scanning the terrain for high ore concentrations took me back to Galaxies. I'm going to enjoy this!

Yah, they supposedly designed the game to be terrain-reactable like SWG.  I havent fooled with mining enough to test this though and nearby the newb spawns the game is totally different (high spawn rates, low value ore/plants).  I think I'll wander around the map a bit tonite instead, running xport missions...  in a cheap bot.

Btw, it's well worth the effort to join the corp. TS3 server, even if you dont plan on speaking.  It's a pretty badass server (you'll see what I mean).

update:
"Terraforming" is in-game, but not available to players at this point.  So yah, you can literally deform the landscape.
Also, there will be territorial FvF, but likely after live.

Tried to do a mining mission, but it won't complete the objective. I could be doing it wrong.

I am interested in trying this out, will have to reg for the beta...

I hope the combat is not as meh as Eve though, I really quite liked Eve except for the snoringly terrible combat.

What's your screename?

I'm in as Vaiti.

Ran into Bloodworth in the f13 channel and joined the corp, he loaned me some cash to get myself out of the horrible starting robot and into something with a little more killing power.

Missions/Assignments are abit rough to try at first, even with an upgraded bot, but I'm getting the hang of it.
I tried mining. I have no idea what is going on there. Or I do, but it sounds like something I don't want to touch at all.
Terraforming is going to be hilarious.

tip: when you get into the next bot after the one you start with, go find some Rookie Mantis's and blow them up, they seem to drop lightweight frames alot, put those on the starting bot and you have yourself a fast transport.

Nixel

I feel important now.  I'm being mistakened for Bloodworth.   :grin:

Sad bit is I really should have mistaken you as Malakili.  :awesome_for_real:
Was abit tired, during our challenge and response I was thinking, who the fuck is PhantomPreak, so searched the userlist.  :grin:

In as Sephit. I hope I figure out how to make it not take 20 minutes to do anything.

Getting started has been a little tricky. I looked into making something then realised I'd need money first. I thought about mining for the market but then realised I didn't even have money to place a sell order.

I took a mining mission and went off to survey but couldn't get it to complete. Eventually I realised that it's not a simple matter of loading area-based rather than tile-based but I needed area-based ammo for a particular type of ore. My ammo was for the wrong ore and I didn't have any money to buy the right type.

I decided to try a combat mission. I fitted a second gun and beetled confidently out to my waypoint only to realise that I'd forgotten how to lock targets and for some reason the little combat window that had the target lock button in before didn't have it now. I died.

I went back out in a replacement robot and got creamed in a one on one but then realised I hadn't turned my armour repairer on.

I went out in a second replacement robot and this time turned my armour repairer on. Still got creamed, one of the robots in the level 1 mission is more than a match for my starter robot.

I did put in an application for the corp so hopefully I'll be able to tag along behind someone who knows what they're doing rather than start out alone.

I appreciate the desire to emulate the Eve experience but I'm not sure brutal learning cliff is quite the best idea to take forward.

The lvl 1 assignments arent very descriptive for newbies.  There are only 2 assignments you can run to pop your cherry, they'll say "suitable for rookie pilots" or something.  Any other lvl 1 assignments you'll get wiped clean w/o next tier bot and more guns, along with improved sensing or targeting.  Even with a loaded Prometheus I still have to out-kite and out-range any of the other drones beyond those 2 missions.
It's definitely not a very "tanky" game in the beginning, put it that way.  You gotta do a bit more.

Use the help channel religiously.  VERY good GMs in there who will come out and help you if necessary.

I got lucky enough to find a big buy order for titan ore so I made most of the money to buy a better robot just by mining that. It's brainless but you can do it while browsing the web or whatever, so it beats blowing up the little arkhes outside the bases. I'm not sure if there are any permanent NPC buy orders for minerals though, so make sure you have someone to sell to before trying this.

And you're in good company about the ammo mistake; I can't count the number of times I walked all the way to a mission spot and then realized I had the wrong scanner charges, had the wrong miner charges, or had left my equipment in private storage instead of loading it into my 'bot.

I kinda wished I started an industry bot.  Running around killing things isn't fun playing solo.  At least with industry you're making things.

Yah, the crafting premise is kinda neat.  I sell every cube and fragment I find right now though, since I dont build... make beaucoup NIC that way.

Getting an industry bot isnt really the probem inasmuch as getting the EP needed.  I'm a corporate soldier, so any indy and engi. stuff is weak for me.  'Spose I could roll another toon though.

Anyways, I'm stuck working a few days so I probably wont be back ingame until tomorrow night.

And honestly, the game is interesting to check out.  But, the "fun" right now doesnt exist beyond the newness of it due to lack of population and a few other things not turned on yet.

Finding it somewhat hard to get started with industry. I did a combat mission to get enough isk to buy mining ammo and got rather sidetracked, upgraded my guns to some lasers I found bought 400 ammo for them (blowing all the cash I'd got for completing a mission) then the server crashed while I was fighting and I woke up in the clone bay minus my lovely laser-armed bot with its cargo of laser beams.

Will give it another go tonight and this time focus on survey missions.

I'm still puzzled as to how to actually make something. I guess it's to do with those little black balls - I have to scrunch a load of them, right?

My in game char is Rambrant.  If you see me online I'll give you a few 100k.

Thanks for the offer but I think it's more useful testing if I struggle on without donations. I'd like to be able to write a reasonable summary of what it's like to start out as an industrialist. I think they need to change it if they want a reasonable retention rate.

Figures, the last few weeks been itching for something new and Aion's 1.9 patch comes out tomorrow finally.  Naturally today I get a beta invite to this lol

They were saying unofficially that they are targeting the end of the month for open beta.  But the DEVs/GMs were just guessing at this point.

Just to clarify, this isnt under NDA is it?  I didnt see anything on their site and the forums are public so Im guessing it is not?

I didn't sign an NDA.  I downloaded and installed the client before being accepted.

Re: industrialists.  The way to easy money is the transport quests.  There is one for ICS Alpha, one for Trund Murchan(or whatever it's called), and one for AscinTech(or whatever it's called).  18k NIC to deliver one doodad to one of the other 2 places.  Just a bit away from each building is a teleporter that takes you just a bit outside the one you need to go to.  You can run them in a circle, essentially.  Boring as all hell, but I made 400k in pretty short order.

As for the drone kernels, you gather them up, and research them.  This basically allows you to build single items at any time, but for more resources.  You can also reverse engineer items to create a blueprint called a CT.  With the CT, you can basically set up a production run.

I'm at work, so I'm off on the names.  I'll update it or whatever once I get home.  If you have any specific questions, just shoot me a mail in game.  My indie character is Brujah.

In order to make ANYTHING, you're required to reverse engineer the item you want along with obtaining the necessary knowledge through Kernels and supplying the decoder.  Once that's done, you have your blueprints.  Then do your prod. run with mats.

The key here is the decoder, 'cause if you use a higher lvl one than required you get nifty bonuses.  (I made +1 ammo this way)

You can also prototype if you dont have all that stuff available.  But, it's a ludicrous amount of mats.

Btw, transport runs are better done with a stripped down starter bot. and a lightweight frame module.  You'll go 80+ kph.  There's a stealth bot. you can buy also that STARTS at like 70+ kph... once you get the coin.  This is assuming the cargo will fit - most of the time it'd require more than one run even with an indy.

I'm finding that the game definitely caters to those who are willing to experiment with their builds and min-max a bit.  You really cant get by with anything "vanilla."  You have to work some.

Yes, and no.  If you want to do a production run, then yes, you need to get a decoder, and reverse engineer the item to make a CT, which can then be used to make multiple items, though the CT degrades over time, and thus the end product becomes lower quality, I guess.  I am in the process of trying this right now, so I'll know in just under 2 hours what the specifics are.

There is a second option, which is the Prototype facility.  This allows you to build a one shot item, from whatever items you've learned from researching kernels.  However, it costs more materials, as well as NIC, and probably takes longer per unit than a Factory run.  However, from the help files, you need some extra stuff for a Factory run vs a Prototype.  Namely alien fragments, and a previous generation version of the item.  This might be old info, however.  Once my CT for the Standard Light Autocannon finishes, I'll be able to tell what all I need to have to make a run of them vs the prototype, and so on.

Edit:  To make a Standard Light Autocannon in the Prototype facility would run me 4307 titanium, 1077 plastioscene, and 538 phlobotil.  Also 99k NIC, and takes  a hair over 9 hours to make.  This is just with a starter character with almost all Industrial choices made during creation

Ok, Factory run with Std Light Autocannon.  I have a max of 2 that I can make from the 1 CT.  Total time for the 2 is 3 hours, 57 mins.  42, 708 NIC, and 100 titanium, 384 plasteosine, and 192 phlobotil.  No weird alien artifacts, or previous gen autocannons needed.

So that'd be your different crafting options.

What's with the prototype? Will it be a sort of investment for you to make subsequent runs cheaper?

Wow, when it's referred to as an EVE-alike they're not kidding.

I'm assuming if you dont actually find an existing model to make a CT from, you can just prototype one and then reverse engineer it for a production run.



Yah, at its core it's pretty much Eve.  Beyond that, it's its own game.
Interestingly, I betaed Eve and this game is going through much of the same growing pains (the learning curves, borked player markets, lack of meaningful pvp, useless stats, etc.).  It's tough to really put your finger on a future for something like this because the game relies so much on player input.  Not only that, but just like Eve in the beginning, not everything is working or turned on...  really just the perfection of a "template" for now.

For me, I just want my own outpost, terraformable terrain, and FvF or corp. ownership of territory... and I'll be happy.  Especially the terraforming, where there's a synergy with bot design, since only certain bots can traverse certain types of terrain.  You could essentially create an outpost only reachable by small Arkhes, so impervious to large assaults.  Or, create chokepoints and so on.

I walked to the edge of the planet the other day btw.  Needless to say, for an 80kph bot it's not very far, largely due to the transport stations.  When you account for the way the islands are built though, the land area is vast and you could see the 1 world sandbox potential.  I wanna say the scale feels like Planetside.

I havn't played much in the last few days.  But right now there isn't much to do for me other than gain EPs and make money for future upgrades.  I'm now reaching for my assault mech, the work on my missile damage/reload time.

I like the idea of industry, outposts, and terraforming.  I look forward to that potential.

Yah, that's the crux of it right now.  "Not much to do" besides make NIC and EP.
Same deal with Eve really until you organize ops with your corp.

One more thing I'm fuzzy on though is if they're gonna have any kind of instanced missions or at least large respawning "boss"-drones at some point.  That's one thing in Eve that empire-people at least had an option to do if they didnt want any part of the 0.0 space wankery.  Also, upon walking around I noticed there really is a serious lack of buildings and such around.  For a mechanized-bot game, you'd think there'd be a lot of non-organic junk layin around.

Right now, it's like these bots are just wandering around aimlessly.

At its core, nothing. I was referring to the fact that the UI is an exact replica of EVE's. Same font, same color boxes, everything. It was weird.

Gave up on starting as a pure industrialist after failing a courier mission. I'd managed to turn off all the placenames so I was hopelessly unable to navigate. Also I wasn't able to see the whole map, even at maximum zoom. Eventually I discovered that to see the whole map you need to both max zoom and drag the map size out to fill most of your screen. By the time I'd sorted all that out I'd wasted so much time that I failed the humble newbie fedex as I made my second trip (because 2 floppy disks are bigger than my cargohold - who knew?).

I'm playing an alt called Starve now. I've applied to the corp and spent a fun couple of hours shooting things. Shooting stuff is very enjoyable after the headache of trying to start an industrialist.

I'll use my original character as an ammo reseller. The market is seeded with infinite sell orders for the basic equipment and with infinite buy orders at 4 times the sell price. Newbie combat people pick up ammo for the wrong weapon type so there should be lots of missile users selling laser charges and laser users selling bullets. Time for a little 0.01 isk undercutting

I can ride mechs now.  I just need 5 million to buy one.  Ho-hum.

got an invite to closed beta - anyone playing in this?

Hay, man. Looks like this beast launched. Anyone try it out? They've got a 15 day trial.

I have to go beddie-bye. Might give it a peek tomorrow.

Huh, I was trying to remember the name of this just a week or two ago. Should be fun to see how far it's come, if I get around to it.

Free trial? Don't mind if I do... Little leery on the 300k client file opening to a ~430meg download? Will see...

Wow. It is Eve with robots. Not that I didn't believe anyone, but goddamn.

I'm... wondering what makes this more appealing than Eve, if I were to decide to pay teh moneys.

I got bored with it after one session. No interest in firing it up again.

Im playing it, but mainly because I was snatched up immediately into a pretty active corp. They have been helpful with bots and info and ammo, and organized hunting parties. The big NIC is taking four or five guys in light bots and camping a t3 spawn. Made like a million NIC in less than an hour. This scratches my EVE type itch for five less bucks a month and I don't have to subscribe to eve...

THe mining system was pretty fun when I played about a year ago.  However it just turned into running around a bunch of ugly looking terrain.

At least space environments are cheap to make.

Mining is what I tried first, since I dig tradeskilling type stuff.

After farting around for a while, I kind of figured out that there's 3 different things to do before you can pull up ore, and then you make the thing go wuzzle wuzzle to dig it up, and then the ore node ran out... I think, and I couldn't get anymore ore from any of the other nodes. I don't know why. At that point, I could have tried to take my ore to "town" and sold it, and tried the combat tutorial, but I was too confused by the mining, and knew it would be Eve style combat, and said "Fuck it, Starcraft!"

I dunno what they're trying to accomplish with the game, but I really think that making it as obscure as Eve is really unnecessary. There's got to be a simpler way to accomplish whatever it is they're trying to do.

I made a character and chose all of the economic options.

Trial accounts can't see other players' market listings.

Guess I'll try a pew pew character instead. :oh_i_see:

Massively has an article stating that this game is gaining many disgruntled Eve players, so many that it is experiencing server load issues.

Where is the f13 place to read disgruntled Eve players on CCP's foray into megatransactions?  (I looked in the Eve thread but saw little disgruntlement).

The Incarna thread in the Eve subforum is the most up to date about the current clusterfuck situation.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20841.msg943894#msg943894 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=20841.msg943894#msg943894)

That would be the start of the failcascade I think

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.  I started reading the thread but my eyes too quickly glazed over, I guess.

Well they may not all be disgruntled.  Just the situation was enough to get a lot of people looking at this game.

Vanguard II : Sci-fi  Sandbox Boogaloo

There's not that much of a game there as far as I can see. It has the potential of Eve and developers who, unlike CCP, seem really focused, earnest and innocent about growing the game over time. Then I remembered Eve pretty much sucks as a game and only the politics makes it interesting and it's too early for that to crystallize in perpeptuum I think since territory control is so basic.

Is this game free?

Nope, it's a subscription game.  Though, it is cheaper than most.