Instead of a set of missions, I would prefer if there were pre-made themed missions that could be accessed independently from the metagame.



In one of the Twitter change logs (?) Data said something about making it so enemies are able to retaliate from longer distances without needing to see you if you fire at them. That might be why they are shooting at you from far away.

The mod forum needs a 1.0 icon.

I got 2-3 random brain explosions in a single meta game. Kinda frustrating. :/ Think I am still winning, though, haha. Seems digging related. Maybe am missing a pixel of dirt that is somehow gibbing me? No idea...

LOVE LOVE LOVE the new techion faction. They are hard to use since they seem even softer than dummies. :p But their tech is absolutely the funnest to use.

Nanorifle ftw!

The spontaneous gibbing happens when your actor crosses the seam of the map. Seems worse than ever though.
Data knows about the problem since 9 builds ago, but apparently seems too incompetent to deal with it.
He should spend some of his money on a bunch of arse-kicking programmers.

Sounds like the infamous seam gib bug. basically as far as we have been able to tell so far the actors spaz out whenever one foot is on either side of the point where the map wraps around. If you can identify these spots simply do not move the mouse while crossing through, as it seems to help alot.

I have never faced the seam bug. At least that's what I think.

Anyway I did notice that movement feels smoother and climbing in general (specially ladders) is easier, which has helped the AI on moving less retardedly, but still it might need some work.

And in an unrelated note, I like now how every faction work in a way that is clearly identifiable and looks in a way that matches. Now we just need more faction specific dropships/rockets and I'd say that content-wise the game is complete.

It does sound like it. But I thought that was fixed. :/

Will have to pay more attn to where it's happening.

THINGS I THINK WOULD BE COOL:

-Being able to edit the auto-built base schematic before it's actually built

-Setting the initial AI mode for dropped units. This could be added to the Buy menu, perhaps an icon next to each actor entry in the list that you can click to cycle between Sentry, Patrol, Brain Hunt, Gold Dig, etc.

-It would be great if actors placed in build mode were set to Sentry by default

-Clicking an actor with a gun in Build Mode automatically equips the gun instead of dropping it on top of/below him

-A Brain Defense AI mode, the opposite of Brain Hunt, your unit would move to your brain and then sit there and defend it


THINGS THAT WOULD PROBABLY TAKE A LOT OF WORK TO BE FEASIBLE:

-Some way to select multiple units. Not to all control at once, but to at least tell them to move somewhere or choose an AI mode. Perhaps left-clicking and dragging a box while holding Q or E?

-A dedicated Reload button, perhaps with the option of holding it to detonate Remote-GL explosives and the like

All of these would be great little things that either need fixing or would really help the polish of the game.

As for the multiple selection, it's really not ridiculously hard, in fact, it's already been done.
And this idea can be added on to do ai modes for all selected actors and stuff pretty easily too.

so basically i played the ♥♥♥♥ out of CC over the weekend and these are my final thoughts.

the game is far from finished. the only reason why valve put it on steam is because they've been following the game for a long time most likely (i mean a REALLY long time, remember all the hype back in the old days when people from the blastwave forum and facepunch were flooding the place? i bet valve was following you guys before that even).

as a long time follower i couldn't be more happy with the game's current state (except the broken follow, goto and digging AIs but more on that laters). but if you look at the game with the eyes of someone who just bought it off steam and had no idea about the game and just started playing they'd probably call it a quarter finished PoS.


it's still WAY to easy to kill invading AIs. sometimes leftover AA crabs will shoot down landing craft, other times i can simply drop one commando into the AI's "lair" and take him out with the single commando.

secondly ever since the addition of FF and anti friendly collision concentrated group fire has been the bread and butter of standard combat. the only problem is if you just get a single soldier to follow a soldier you're controlling they don't know their ass from yours when following. i even gave them a really big chance, waited 5 minutes for them to catch up to me. even though they were in sight they kept on doing this retarded little dance. in fact in the current build i don't think i've gotten one person to follow me properly.

third, the digging AI. it isn't broken but they take WAY to long to dig. i could dig a tunnel easy in a fifth of the time it takes the AI on a really good day.

fourth game needs more options and depth badly.


you guys probs already knew all that but something else caught my eye. and i like repeating myself...

one thing i noticed was really cool was looting. i've known about this ever since you were able to return things using drop ships. but in a battle it's a really easy and fast way to get cash. just get a soldier you're not going to use anymore (severely wounded but still mobile) to collect all the dropped guns and stuff. then get him to a safe place and extract. you can make good money doing this, and recalling things to tradestar is an actual gameplay mechanic.

the fact that "looting" is never advertised as a gameplay mechanic kinda ♥♥♥♥ over the noobs who don't even know how to change firing modes on their gun if it has one. i think the game needs in depth tutorials that cover basically everything from movement to combat to making money. i also think you guys need some focus testing with current builds and some devious genius focus testers with insane imaginations who can discover hidden gameplay mechanics like looting or unarmed melee combat.

basically you need to take how daunting and deep this game is and find a way to lay it all out for the noobs because the lack of short smart and precise proper instruction on everything at first will make most rage quit because they can't figure out how to do something or figure out something that was there from the beginning that could have helped them. then they delete CC and ignorantly hate it because its pacing can be insane and the learning curve of the game is so ♥♥♥♥ steep it starts off backwards (the metaphor being a noob rock climber having to scale a face that slants towards them. if you didn't already know that ♥♥♥♥ is insanely hard)


also you should probably relish in the game's engine. admit that it is pretty buggy, but that's the price you pay for everything you get from it.

I agree that invading AI should step up more, they tend to not perform well, however this can somewhat be countered with the addition of more CPU opponents either in a battle royale, or on the opposing team. It increases the pace of their invasion and they come in larger numbers.

Follow command does have some interesting bugs, fixing that is necessary.

After a battle in a campaign, I would suggest ridding the field of remaining actors (return the oz) so that there is no field advantage in the next battle in that area except for the base that was built. As neoseeker mentioned, remaining AA crabs can obliterate invaders before they even land, which is mostly unfair.

The dig AI is good enough for me, imropovements would be nice, but I understand the complications of AI. They can't comprehend things like we do, nor can they see anything they aren't facing. Sending 2 people to digging and occassionally controlling one yourself is enough for now.


More in depth tutorials are nice, but implimenting them in the actual game would be bad in my opinion. The point of a learning curve is to learn. Nobody told me how to play, I learned to play it myself. Those who truly appreciate the game for what it is will go to the forums or tell their friends to play. Either way will increase their knowledge (by reading from experienced players, or through practice with eachother).
I prefer the current tutorial as is. Changing firing modes is dependant on mods if it isn't obvious. Those in the vanilla have clear signs in the command menu.

This has been posted in various incarnations other places but I think it's worth repeating: for the campaign/metagame to really work there has to be way to launch more complex and customized initial waves of many units and multiple landing craft (and especially bombing/orbital weapon support) during the opening assault on a scene.

The 1 AA + 1 brain unit against a well developed base is essentially impossible for player vs player, let alone for AI vs player. Although I'm fairly new to the game I've been consistently winning 3v1 AI campaigns but I still find it difficult and risky to attempt an assault on a well built up AI scene, especially if they have a bunch of reasonably tough actors spread around.

A big problem with the current set-up is that the game mechanics favour spreading out skirmishers and a few actors here and there all across a scene surface rather than spending any money on building a deep base or defence in depth. You don't even need to spread AA acrabs all over, just some decent actors can wipe out any brain bot as it leaves the defenceless dropship.

I think simply adding more 1st wave options and decent orbital weapons support would totally change the paradigm as surface skirmish lines that dominate now would essentially get wiped out in the 1st wave, thereby forcing players to dig deep and protect their surface assets with bunkers as well.

That to me makes it the most logical fix.

-to andy

dude you need to look at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't been playing the game for over half a decade.

you couldn't even comprehend how steep the learning curve is because you're probably so good at the game now you'd make noobs who had a frustrated 30 minute go at this game gasping in awe at how you did that.

i can't even remember how hard it was, in fact really the only thing i remember about CC is i probably tried playing it and gave up like 10 times before i actually played a half decent game

and increasing the amount of teams doesn't help either. i can comfortably solo 3 AI opponents all on the same team.


there need to be at least a few in depth tutorials that are quick to finish. seriously the learning curve of this is like trying to learn how to ride a bike as a kid without training wheels. and that ♥♥♥♥ is ♥♥♥♥ hard. in a way it's like CC too. once you learn how to ride a bike you couldn't even imagine what it was like before.

I see your point Neoseeker (though I've been doing what I preached, I played with my friends and learned from the forums, and truth is that I only picked up CC from late build 26). PS.(I also got good at the game cause my computer was slow, playing CC 10% slower so I got the hang of things a bit faster XP)

I guess an in game tutorial with more advanced tutorials suggesting at things that are cool and possible in game would be helpful. I do remember the first few times I played the tutorial mission however, I took the single dummy upstairs, picked up an SMG, a light digger, and an AK-47 and I expected myself to plow through the tutorial bunker dummies with it alone

I kept trying out different things until I was able to beat the mission. Thats when I learned some of the unspoken basics of CC, but there are definately things like what to do when you've lost your weapon and how to melee (learned it by accident as my friend meleed the weapon out of my actor's hands. pretty intense shiz) and how to build effective and cost efficient bases (most of my early bases were gigantic L shapes).

So alongside the tutorial mission, there could be the tutorial mission (2), and then a recommendation to play the following missions (not necessarily in this order):
Exploration
Control Chip Hunt
new Base Assault thingy
Maginot Defense (only use vanilla, for a challenge)
Dummy Assault (vanilla for a challenge!)
One Man Army (vanilla or the Extended mod both are great)
then finally the Campaign and Brain vs. Brain with friends!

Thats basically how I learned everything. The tutorial mission (2) could help those people who haven't accidently discovered cool stuff (like "meleeing" or other interesting tactics and skills) learn it faster or serve as a catalyst for their discovery.

Muh...learning curve is really not that steep. It's not a very complicated game, it just has a lot of depth. Honestly the game eccentricities are what makes it hard to learn, not the game mechanics or design. I picked it up decently in a couple of hours.

I find it exceptionally rare that a game tutorial is necessary for anything other than a hard-core simulation where the game effectively needs to train you to operate a system with lots of meta and "sim world" controls and behaviour.

What's really needed is a more streamlined introduction to how stuff works broken down into:

1) Direct actor control (this game plays like any sidescroller where you can pick up weapons)

2) Using the command wheel (which is obvious really, that's why GUI design uses those wheel things, they are intuitive)

3) Deploying units (how rockets, pods and dropships work) and how to work the build screen and playing the RTS aspect (ie you aren't rambo)

4) building bases

A lot of the streamlining could be done with much better tooltips, not better tutorials. Most of the really cool stuff you can do in this game comes with mods anyway.