That was a lot of fun. I’m not sure if we broke even tonight (forgot to check) but there were plenty wins and they were well fought ones. I need to record some of those replays this week, so here’s a reminder for me to do that.
My Ships This Clan Battles Session:
Shimakaze
Satsuma
That’s it.
Those two are all I wound up playing tonight. It was a little weird this time around since the rules for this season are 1 battleship, no carriers, and a maximum of 2 superships. Duplicates were fine apparently.
Wargaming admitted they like to shake things up and they definitely did that this time. Thankfully, superships aren’t nearly as relevant in Clan Battles as they are in Randoms. Until I got used to how our team was playing, I was worried that Satsuma wasn’t going to be that good. Later on things got really good.
Right now I’d say the best Battleships to be using overall are Satsuma, Ohio, and Bourgogne. The former two for overmatch, and the latter for Bourgogne shenanigans. Since it’s the first night we’ve seen a lot of different battleships besides these, though: Kurfurst, Kremlin, Montana, Yamato, etc.
Also, neighbors is in the map rotation and though I don’t like playing it at this tier, we haven’t lost a match on that map so far. Whether I’m in a Shimakaze or the Satsuma, things tend to work out, with the enemy not utilizing their DDs and BBs properly, and their cruisers paying dearly for it.
Lastly, I’m only mentioning this because a clan mate brought it up, but some of us like to do pushups between games. Not a lot, just 10. But if you play in almost every game like I do you’ll quickly rack up well over a hundred in just a few hours. So my arms are sore and I need a shower. Anyway, just mentioning that.
It’s just a piece of a ship, albeit the most interesting part of said ship. The important thing is I get how the workshop works now and shouldn’t have too much trouble getting the full release of the Cosmo Messer done right the first time.
It wouldn’t hurt to get some feedback on the design, either. Plenty of people who play Space Engineers want to make a fully working Yamato and I think my carousel hangar concept is bringing us a bit closer to that goal.
I’m almost done stripping down and working the bugs out of the carousel hangar for that steam upload, but with my sleep schedule shifted around again and my still being tired I definitely won’t have this finished until tomorrow.
That said I’m glad I did some actual testing instead of just uploading it as is. While the blueprint’s not going to get updated after it goes up and is just provided ‘as is,’ it never hurts to work out as many issues as possible beforehand. That goes doubly so since the actual ship it was made for (the Admiral Hipper) isn’t quite ready for prime time, either.
Also, for no particular reason I’m attaching a recolored Cosmo Messer to the hangar to be broken off and copied for testing. I don’t know why I recolored it but I was going for a look similar to a large fighter I saw on the work shop about a month ago. It looked nice. We’ll call these the ‘Toyah’ colors after I tweak that some more.
I couldn’t help but smile when someone said they’d love to have a blueprint of the carousel hangar prototype. Not just because it shows a genuine interest in the design, but also because it means I’ve got the perfect excuse to do a test upload on the workshop while I figure out the ‘style’ I’m going to use for full ship uploads.
Basically it gives me more time to faff about, which while stupid should at least lead to a better upload in the long run.
(That thumbnail design is giving me a lot of trouble, I have to admit)
So either later today or tomorrow I’m going to hop on Space Engineers and give the man what he asked for, or rather a link to it. There are a few tweaks I’ll need to make to it after cutting it out to make it functionally independent. I’ll also need to upload some version of the Cosmo Messer, either attached to the blueprint or uploaded separately. Haven’t decided which yet.
As we’ve shown some tuning interface last week, a lot of questions regarding how they will work has been asked. We’d like to take this opportunity to explain and answer them here so enjoy the read!
And enjoy the read, I did. I’m glad they’re keeping the multiplayer interfaces simple in terms of their function.
Ace Combat Did It
This setup is actually fairly similar to what the developers of Ace Combat 7 did. Since AC7 has its own kind of parts tuning, they decided to have a PvE version for the campaign and free missions, and a PvP offshoot for multiplayer. Of course in AC7 it’s all just parts selection; it’s all one system. Instead of separating the parts into tabs AC7 just has multiplayer parts unavailable in PvE. It’s a bit clunky to look at, but it works. There’s not likely to be any confusion there.
M.A.S.S. Builder’s Take
As for M.A.S.S. Builder’s version of this, separating it by tabs looks and will probably feel a lot cleaner in practice. Not only will it keep some familiarity and make comparisons easier like Vermillion mentioned in that post, but it also makes navigation between PvE and PvP extremely quick. Change the tab and you’ve changed modes. Convenient~
Now, M.A.S.S. Builder has an issue with progression. Basically there doesn’t feel like there is any in a lot of cases. Since you play a lot of the same levels again and again to unlock parts and nodes rather than progressing the story or something similar to get them, there’s no endgame to speak of or aim for. We’re far from full release so that likely had to be the case.
Vermillion’s probably not going to go out of their way to address that, though. They mention right there in the post that nodes will start unlocked for multiplayer so people can jump right in and be competitive as long as they put in the work of setting up their nodes.
With a game like M.A.S.S. Builder, that’s probably for the best. It personally doesn’t bother me. (though the lack of a cutscene viewer certainly does) It’s not like Ace Combat 7’s multiplayer parts progression was all that interesting. The odd player in PvP tended to be so good at flying their planes that they could give people an 1,100mph paddling regardless of what combination of plane and parts the competition were using.
As for limitations, M.A.S.S. Builder’s multiplayer mode’s going to have a limit of 4 subunits for the engine, 4 for the OS, and 5 for Architecture (tech add-ons). That sounds pretty good. I’m looking forward to trying it out.
My M.A.S.S.
I’m still working on a few designs here and there. I’m trying to make something similar to a Gelgoog J, and another unit that I’ll eventually turn into the Bronze Bullet (a mech from my WIP Frame Ops series). The road’s going to be long and arduous for both, though. I’ll post more about them at some point.
