Science Station + Captain's Map = Nerfed Science Station
I spent all day playing Artemis today with five of my friends. It was great! We played without a captain's map at first, and the captain's position felt a little opaque and difficult. I wanted the captain's map and when I got it, I found that it helped a lot with the information I needed to give course corrections, identify ships that needed targeting, etc. However, I rarely had to ask the science officer for anything, because it was all at the tips of my fingers. Later, when I played as the science officer while the captain had the captain's map, I was pretty bored. All I had to do was make sure everything was scanned.
Here's my suggestion: make the scans more static. Once I had fully scanned something, we knew everything about it into perpetuity. If we only knew the changeable things, like shield strength and frequencies, for the time we had our scanners locked on them, that would give more work for the science officer to do again and more coordination with the other positions, including the captain. The scans would probably have happen a bit quicker to make this adjustment reasonable.
On an unrelated note: I've read on here that a number of people have trouble making comms a challenging or interesting position. It took us nearly all day to learn to take advantage of all the things comms does, but once we did, it quickly became one of the more popular positions. I rather enjoyed it.
Here's my suggestion: make the scans more static. Once I had fully scanned something, we knew everything about it into perpetuity. If we only knew the changeable things, like shield strength and frequencies, for the time we had our scanners locked on them, that would give more work for the science officer to do again and more coordination with the other positions, including the captain. The scans would probably have happen a bit quicker to make this adjustment reasonable.
On an unrelated note: I've read on here that a number of people have trouble making comms a challenging or interesting position. It took us nearly all day to learn to take advantage of all the things comms does, but once we did, it quickly became one of the more popular positions. I rather enjoyed it.
page
1
9 replies
Yeah, I cringe every time I hear a captain give Helm a bearing.
I don't play with a Captain's Map, but if I could, I would very much consider taking LRS off the main-screen options.
I don't play with a Captain's Map, but if I could, I would very much consider taking LRS off the main-screen options.
I really enjoyed captaining with the captains map, simply because it let me actually give orders, instead of telling them to ready a jump vaguely. Part of that might be because we played the whole time with jump drive, which makes giving exact coordinates a bit more important, but I know that science ended up with little to do. I tried to make Science my XO by asking his tactical opinion, etc, to give him something to do, but the captains' map really did limit the usefulness of Science.
And when there is a captains' map, there was little incentive to change the main screen to anything but the visual - which was pretty neat to watch all the time what was happening to the ship.
And when there is a captains' map, there was little incentive to change the main screen to anything but the visual - which was pretty neat to watch all the time what was happening to the ship.
These are some good points and I hope Thom reads this thread soon. I know in Artemis 2.0 he plans to make a lot more detailed information available to the Science Officer. Perhaps he should make the new fields invisible to the Captain's Map so the captain will still need to ask the Science Officer for some information.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton!"
(Likely actual words of Admiral David Farragut, USN, at the battle of Mobile Bay. Four bells was the signal for the engine room to make full steam ahead).
(Likely actual words of Admiral David Farragut, USN, at the battle of Mobile Bay. Four bells was the signal for the engine room to make full steam ahead).
The big thing I saw wrong with the Captain's Map is that it had more/better information than the science officer and wasn't subject to any damage/interference effect like the science station was.
It was basically a perfect view of the game state machine, instead of a view of the info available to the captain.
After I tried it, I don't use it anymore. It's like cheating.
I wouldn't mind a screen that lets me see what science has seen, but it has to follow the same constraints at least.
It was basically a perfect view of the game state machine, instead of a view of the info available to the captain.
After I tried it, I don't use it anymore. It's like cheating.
I wouldn't mind a screen that lets me see what science has seen, but it has to follow the same constraints at least.
It was basically a perfect view of the game state machine, instead of a view of the info available to the captain.
I didn't have that happen, but I was using the android app as the captain's map, so maybe that is different. The ships didn't show anything until science scanned them.
I did notice that we could make science completely irrelevant after they did the double scan for frequency, we could turn sensors to 0% and the captain's map could still be used to track everything. Here's what I'd love to see:
- Science scans being "static" and giving the ship's information at the time of scanning. Combine this with ships actually switching their frequency so science having recent scans would matter.
- Captain's map showing only a larger view of the area around the ship - say the equivalent of a Zoom level 5/6 if you were on the helm or weapon's consoles.
What I'm worried about with 2.0 is that Comms will be nerfed, since they won't have to direct NPC ships around minefields to keep them safe since they'll be able to path. Comms is very situational in its usefulness and I'm worried that it won't find much to do outside of relaying the frequent missions.
Brian, I got to see a beta of Artemis 2.0 over the weekend. Both Science and Communications have a LOT more to do, and those two players especially need to interact efficiently.
I did not look at the Captain's Map, though. I should have.
I did not look at the Captain's Map, though. I should have.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton!"
(Likely actual words of Admiral David Farragut, USN, at the battle of Mobile Bay. Four bells was the signal for the engine room to make full steam ahead).
(Likely actual words of Admiral David Farragut, USN, at the battle of Mobile Bay. Four bells was the signal for the engine room to make full steam ahead).
That sounds wonderful - I'm excited to see 2.0.
I have used science in the current game with a captain who has captains map. If yes right with the captain focused more on handling all the enemy's science will still have plenty to do. If the captain can take the time to give headings and read off frequencies up the level.
To Mankind
And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all
Isaac Asimov
And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all
Isaac Asimov
As long as I used this place to talk about how our game went, I did notice that the missions got really "samey". Launch ECM (or whatever it's called), launch nuke, walk through with beams to take out the stragglers. We brought the difficulty up to 7 by the time we finished for the night (not enough time to go higher), but the gameplay didn't change from 1 to 7, it just took more energy to do things and there were more ships with high amounts of shields. That didn't change the basic strategy, just that we might need to use some homing missles after the nuke, or make 2-3 passes. I don't know what could be done, I just wanted to bring that to the attention of people if it hadn't before.
We only lost stations early in the day when we didn't know what we were doing, we weren't losing anything as we were putting the difficulty up. Between the missions coming from the stations to increase our abilities to the ease we could take out groups on the edge of the map, there was almost never any real danger unless we did it to ourselves by jumping into a minefield/singularity/etc.
We only lost stations early in the day when we didn't know what we were doing, we weren't losing anything as we were putting the difficulty up. Between the missions coming from the stations to increase our abilities to the ease we could take out groups on the edge of the map, there was almost never any real danger unless we did it to ourselves by jumping into a minefield/singularity/etc.
Login below to reply:
