Cruiser Command

Hmm.. Dunno where to start, so l'll jump right into it

Cruiser Command has its pros and cons, and l'm working on a map similarish to it. My map is about boarding an enemy ship and doing your job. But that doesn't stop me from making this. l'd like to spark some ideas about how to combat what you guys find to be "Boring" in cruiser command. (Don't say nothing; and even if there is something, don't say it's meant to be that way.)

First of all, mining is boring. l found it boring. l bet you guys all find it boring. Siretu is taking the right direction with it l feel for how the game plays out, but here's how l'm handling it.
l removed it. Gone. Instead, you complete missions to get minerals. And then inbetween missions you can spend these minerals.

Second, refining. Refining is damn boring too, which is why you always stick a bot on it. But.. Just.. >.>
So again, l removed it.

Third.. Upgrading is generally pretty boring, waiting for the upgrades to finish and having to stay on the console..
Again, l removed and replaced it with something better. A loadout system.

Then there are other things that are good but could be improved on. Boarding combat uses default sc2 weapons? Why not use projectiles?
Space ship combat is pretty good, but what improvements could be made?

There are several aspects in cruiser command that could and should be improved to make the game an overall better experience. And possibly easier to follow. New players grabbing and suiciding small ships? l'm solving this by players come with their own ships in their loadout. The enemy is entirely an AI, so there won't actually be any combat unless you start shooting your guns. This'll give new players time to figure out how to pilot without being annoying for veterans.

The competetive stance in cruiser command is there for a reason, but l generally like coop games. Coop vs. AI. So does my brother, so do my friends. l don't think cruiser command should do this, though.

If anyone knows of anything that could be improved on, think about it and think of a possible solution.
New players not knowing what to do? Spawn them in a different area. Not working? Have them spawn on a console as designated by a captain - the highest reputation player.

l'd honestly like to see cruiser command be a better overall game, and like all games it has issues that need to be addressed to make it better. It may seem like nothing could be improved to a veteran of the game, but l personally think a lot of things could and should be.

l've been away for a while and still need to play a game to see what kind of more recent changes have been made to see if anythings already been addressed, but this is from what l know by reading changelogs and previous experiences.

1) i dont think there should be any changes (to early game) as it is the first thing that new players will start with, so we should keep it basic. Oddly enough, alot of veterans are taking roles as miners, probably because miner is kinda easy and relaxing and you dont really feel the competitiveness of the other roles (its like taking a break without leaving the game xD )
2) i think the distance should be shorter, but there is nothing to change, Drone can handle it like you said
3) it used to be where upgrades didnt take any time at all to upgrade, but was exploitable because a wraith v wraith, all of a sudden bam 8 hull upgrades! and one instantly has advantage over other. Although i do agree, they should have times reduced to like 2-4 seconds and big ones like boost and broads like 15 seconds, or the ability to leave upgrades console and still have it upgrading.

Ya, its hard to help a new player and not have em suicide, i just stay on weapons or science camera and help them out with maneuvering ("hit (X) to stop" "Hit (E) to mine" "hit (R) to return that ore you mined") that sort of thing.

Finishing the tutorial is also a possibility as some players do touch it, although unfortunately not alot, but usually those are the players willing to put an effort to learning the game.

l'm not here for minor changes, l'm trying to suggest overhauls. That may seem major, but it's true. l think a redesign of many systems is what should be done, but l doubt Siretu is going to do that. So simple solutions need to be present. l'm not necessarily here to argue, but you seem to be reading what l said the way l didn't intend. l honestly expected that, so l'm gonna clarify: The game has issues, l want them to be fixed to make the game better.

l'm for changes to early, late, and mid game if they benefit the game to be better.

For early game, l have no immediate suggestions. l personally think this should be very basic, a time when you are devising a strategy.

For the refining, l think something more drastic has to be done. An overhaul. l've seen suggestions, but it has to be intuitive than what's been suggested. While drones can do it, the whole entire refining process seems.. Tbh, stupid. Here's the best solution l can think of: Resources are always in the resource pool, which is in the storehouse. They can be moved around freely, by enemy or ally. Resources would be a real thing, then, if this happened. You'd see them and they'd be moveable. l think it'd be interesting. But for resource stacking, l'd have them all stack into piles of 100, with energy representing how much is in a stack. Hopefully Siretu can get what l'm saying there, to reduce lag.

And for upgrades and the console.. l'd say keep it the way it is, but allow players to exit the console. l understand it's there for a reason; but the solution to the reason is wrong. Forcing people to stay on a console and do nothing for 30 seconds for an upgrade? C'mon, we can do better than that..

And for new players, you are providing your own solution which not everyone follows. It needs to be easier to teach them, not keep it the way it is. l'd like to see simple things like when you launch a ship, it'll pop up a non-intrusive message like "Hold W to start up your ship" and when you get near an asteroid as a miner it'll say "Hit X to stop your ship and R to start mining."

I agree that some overhauls are needed to replace the boring bits with something more fun.
The problem is to achieve something all veterans are OK with but make the game more interesting for newbies. Replacing something complex not fun with something other complex very fun, without making the game play too dull.

A better visualization of the tutorial (and more dynamic) for miners or wraiths might be a good start without changing the meta.

The BC interior would require massive amounts of work to overhaul it but I think the BC map should be greatly changed to make boarding more fun (the corridors are very linear) and the hangar deck should be massively changed to actually show ships instead of beacons.
It would be cool if you would be able to see the actual ships in the hangar, right click on them to enter them and turn them leftwards or rightwards before clicking on "Launch" to launch them on the appriopriate BC side.

It would feel much more immersive and intuitive than those beacons for everyone, but especially for noobs to find the way to launch a ship and it would make launching from left or right side more intuitive. Using the left beacons to launch on the left side is simply veteran knowledge, no noob is ever going to think about that.

If you think that changing the interior is too much work (I agree it is), you could at least make 2 Launch buttons, one for each side.
The ship selection screen should also throw you into space view, I don't know why it keeps you on interior view, since you sometimes need the crucial information about which side to launch from.

Text tags are a possibility. Just putting the word "Launch" on all the beacons you can launch a ship from would be simple.

Gonna play a game of cruiser command to make sure everything l'm saying here is accurate, hopefully some people are in the CC chat..

Just thought I'd take a moment to offer thoughts on some of the suggested simplifications.

While I understand some of the roles are currently boring, I would highly suggest that the concept be nudged into a more 'interesting direction' rather than be 'outright removed.' One of the aspects I have come to appreciate about cruiser command is that there are certain 'processes' -- admittedly some of these processes are boring, but because the process exists it contributes to a few aspects of game play in my opinion:

Firstly, those working together in a process can achieve results far more quickly those who are not coordinating. Back before the patch that put up three more A.I.s, and humans had to refine, the refiner and miners would coordinate when mineral packets were being sent back. Because of this, the refiner did not simply 'sit around waiting for packets to return,' they would perform core aspects of preparation for combat such as preparing repair stations around the battlecruiser. The refiner's job wasn't to simply refine, but to optimize his time by coordinating the miner's packets and preparing equipment.

That being said, I'm not saying the old system or even the current system for refining is 'interesting,' especially considering it's considered core to have at least one A.I. on refining. However, certainly, what I wanted to illustrate is that the more you break down a process the more it opens up the concept to teamwork and how utilizing it can have a greater payoff.

Secondly, the more you define a process the more ways you offer to counter it. By example, consider that if you remove both the mining operations and the refining process, the only effective method of 'blocking economy' would be to 'fight head on.' Because of the current process for 'generation an economy' has steps to it, it also creates a number of effective countermeasures that could be thought of. Having a miner search for asteroid fields allows them to be picked off by wraiths. Having mineral packets be sent back forces miners to return to the battlecruiser to protect the packet or risk an enemy fighter sniping it. Having the minerals not appear as an immediately available resource means they could potentially be stolen. Making it so you must move the packets means it possible to block off the refining route via C4, killing the refiner, or by targeting the lower deck to fill it with debris. None of these can be performed without the 'steps' that currently exist for the collection, returning, and refining of resources.

Speaking frankly, if Cruiser Command was primarily about flying small ships around in space with the current system I would probably not play it. If I wanted to play a game about coordinating several high speed ships around an asteroid field I would probably just play Warships or Starwars Assault. to me, these smaller processes add an aspect to the game that few others have, and that interests me.

Again, I'm not saying 'No! Don't change these!' All I want to point out is that if changes are made, removing them outright does very little for the cause. Rather, I think it would be far better to polish these concepts instead.

l like the way you think, Whyte. l did point out, Siretu is taking the right direction with how the game plays out when l said mining was boring. l agree, aspects should take the more interesting route and not being outright removed.

(l will note, l removed these features on my map also partly because they don't fit the theme. You don't mine for minerals while you are robbing a starship's cargo! And more realistically, you don't perform upgrades to your ship during combat, you do it at a starport!)

The aspects cruiser command has l believe are there to serve a purpose. But they could serve this purpose better than they do. l don't know exactly what that means, but hopefully someone can figure that out.

Refining.. l suggested this already in this thread, and the more l think about it the more logical it seems to have resources be physical objects rather than being refined, and it is useable so long as it isn't in anyone's inventory and on your ship.

Or you could go back to the way it previously, but make it so the distance is much, much shorter and the location the resources land is closer to the top deck.

l don't know myself what should be done to make overall aspects more interesting and possibly complex/coop-heavy.

I got tons.

Miners - I have said in the past mining should be AI only. If you get a miner, it autolaunches with its own AI. Otherwise, yeah it's pretty boring. Plus, they can be rebalanced without turbo boost but with higher HP so that less binary fights can focus around them-- hunting miners that turbo away instantly is super annoying.

Refining - Generally not fun. I'm in favor of getting rid of it. Find something more interesting to replace it.

Minerals/Economy - Three of the mineral colors are pointless IMO. The most it adds to the gameplay is randomly being screwed out of a resource, hunting for asteroids across the map. Meh. On some level, I appreciate the coordination it requires to get the right colors, but from a strategic sense it's flat. Keep green and keep one of the other colors. Have a third, non-mining resource to manage in its stead. Suggestions-- biomass: self replicating creep that spreads across the map. Supply: build bases that periodically send supply drones to the BC. psi: gained by being close to your non-AI opponents.

Upgrades - You shouldn't need to sit on the upgrade console to upgrade things, waiting isn't fun. I'm not a fan of instant upgrades, rather I prefer if upgrades take a few minutes to finish researching. I don't like the upgrades which boost stats (e.g. +50 small ship hull upgrade), I think that would be better as items that you lose on death. Small ship fights early game are basically a proxy battle between the upgraders. I don't care how good of a wraith pilot you are, if your opponent gains +400 hp mid battle and your upgrader is snoozin, you're toast. But I don't like that dynamic, it feels cheesy. And upgrade imbalances are pretty brutal, but at least if they were items there would be some sort of tradeoff to being vastly superior to your opponent.

Also, blah blah blah metagame http://www.cruisercommand.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=682

Small Ships - Wraiths need to be retooled so that they're more viable late game IMO. Destroyers need more abilities, they're hugely important in BC fights but one dimensional overall. I think small ships need to be much cheaper overall as well. Right now, losing a small ship is a huge blow economically, ships are not cheap. It makes the loss of ship the most important victory in a fight, where I think it should instead be loss of opportunity. Such as in NS2, where dying is a big deal because whatever important thing you were doing is now lost, even though respawning is free. I think this would open up more room for cool stuff to happen during early and mid games.

BC Weapons - I don't like the weapon cap. It feels like it could be a lot more. I also don't like how many shots you need to fire in a BC fight, but that might be more of an issue with shields though. I don't like that the best option for a person on weapons against a BC with 15k shields is to hold fire, weapons should always have an answer to that. Where's the EM weapon :[

BC Power - I mostly don't like the UI here. If it were possible, I'd have power values be a number that you type in. But it does feel pretty bare a lot of the time. Putting power in weapons is mostly pointless. Power in engines is routine. Core stuff is pretty routine. If it weren't for shields, I'd probably put a drone on this console. Haven't had a lot of games where pro shield handling made the difference, wish it had more depth to it. I posted in the past about reworking this console to add overclocking and heat management. http://www.cruisercommand.com/forum/vie ... 5391#p5391

The BC - The BC is too powerful. Obviously it should beat any ship 1v1, but it's way too fast + tough + powerful. This ship needs a downside that's more than "you lose when this dies". I'd like to see BCs needing to be defended, rather than them broadsiding everything into paste and fleeing at 200 m/s with 9000 shields at the first sign of uh-oh.

Powerdocking - I like it and don't like it. I like it because it makes sense, I don't like brutally winning a fight because our team has 12 chompers.

Boarding - Tons of room for experimenting here IMO, as current boarding implementation is incomplete IMO. Where's hacking :[. I think allowing defenders to shape their BC with placable barriacades, turrets, mines, towers, etc would be interesting, along with giving attackers more in the way of infiltration tech.

I'll think about this more later.

DumbMarine wrote:Miners - I have said in the past mining should be AI only. If you get a miner, it autolaunches with its own AI. Otherwise, yeah it's pretty boring. Plus, they can be rebalanced without turbo boost but with higher HP so that less binary fights can focus around them-- hunting miners that turbo away instantly is super annoying.

A lot of veteran players have bean oddly enough, going miners. Miners are the ship to relax in, you dont really need to worry about the big decisions and fighting other then running away from a wraith. Miners are also the entry to Cruiser Command for new players, (although there are adjustments to try to make wraith entry level, it hasnt yet, veterans throw new players on miners and the next level from miners is wraith) I agree that Turbo is annoying, although there could be changes to it *such as Turbo makes you accelerate to top speed immedietly instead of waiting for that gauge to fill up*

DumbMarine wrote:Refining - Generally not fun. I'm in favor of getting rid of it. Find something more interesting to replace it.

yes but stealing minerals is very hilarious and evil, we need to change refining without giving up the idea of stealing minerals.

DumbMarine wrote:Minerals/Economy - Three of the mineral colors are pointless IMO. The most it adds to the gameplay is randomly being screwed out of a resource, hunting for asteroids across the map. Meh. On some level, I appreciate the coordination it requires to get the right colors, but from a strategic sense it's flat. Keep green and keep one of the other colors. Have a third, non-mining resource to manage in its stead. Suggestions-- biomass: self replicating creep that spreads across the map. Supply: build bases that periodically send supply drones to the BC. psi: gained by being close to your non-AI opponents.

getting different resources for different strategies early is important, and stockpiling them for missiles/hull upgrades later on can be very good. I like the 4 Resources "IMO" missing a resource makes you alter your upgrading strategy and you need to adapt to shortages ("WE NEED MORE RED!!")


with Upgrades i agree, reduce time amount by 1/2 and reduce amount of upgrades by 1/2 (small ship hull from 8 to 4, wraith upgrades from 4 to 2, etc...) And then maybe go with the idea of the T2 much later on.

Destroyers need more evilness =( but wraiths make good scouts late game and are great for taking destroyer shots away from BC.

DumbMarine wrote:BC Weapons - I don't like the weapon cap. It feels like it could be a lot more. I also don't like how many shots you need to fire in a BC fight, but that might be more of an issue with shields though. I don't like that the best option for a person on weapons against a BC with 15k shields is to hold fire, weapons should always have an answer to that. Where's the EM weapon :[

i like weapon cap. so its just a matter of opinion, it shows how well prepared you are. i prefer longer engagements in BC fights so more shots = more stuff can happen. Ya, we need more weapons, Kinetics used to be such a fun weapon (the high tracking tier, you could sit back and bombard them from long range)

DumbMarine wrote:BC Power - I mostly don't like the UI here. If it were possible, I'd have power values be a number that you type in. But it does feel pretty bare a lot of the time. Putting power in weapons is mostly pointless. Power in engines is routine. Core stuff is pretty routine. If it weren't for shields, I'd probably put a drone on this console. Haven't had a lot of games where pro shield handling made the difference, wish it had more depth to it.

You havent played actively in a long time, there are some pretty close games because of power console play. and the Skill level of pub lobbies has generally raised. Power console is very important at all times, and now with mass replicator being more viable power is much more used then just "wait for power to fill up, now go". Power is so important in the late game its almost like its own resource.

DumbMarine wrote:Powerdocking - I like it and don't like it. I like it because it makes sense, I don't like brutally winning a fight because our team has 12 chompers

I like it IMO, shows how prepared you are, and you havent played many CC games recently, there is a lot more small ship dominance and roles in BC fights these days (although that can still be greatly improved, but its gotten better)


And we all want more boarding


Srry if all this seems like im attacking your stuff and being very contradictory, there are some needed changes, it seems like your going extreme and trying to change the very fundamentals of Cruiser Command.

DumbMarine wrote:[Miners] Otherwise, yeah it's pretty boring. Plus, they can be rebalanced without turbo boost but with higher HP so that less binary fights can focus around them-- hunting miners that turbo away instantly is super annoying.

if you manage to get a miner to turbo away, then you did your job - it won't be able to mine for a while, and it also now has to save up energy for another turbo before it does the fast mining - anything easier to kill would not allow the punishing of greedy wraiths

DumbMarine wrote: Refining - Generally not fun. I'm in favor of getting rid of it. Find something more interesting to replace it.

I agree it's not fun to do on its own, but it is a perfect AI role - plus it adds a lot of dynamic to the infiltration and debris part of the game - also you would normally buy repair kits and spread them around in addition to refining

DumbMarine wrote: Minerals/Economy - Three of the mineral colors are pointless IMO. The most it adds to the gameplay is randomly being screwed out of a resource, hunting for asteroids across the map. Meh. On some level, I appreciate the coordination it requires to get the right colors, but from a strategic sense it's flat. Keep green and keep one of the other colors. Have a third, non-mining resource to manage in its stead. Suggestions-- biomass: self replicating creep that spreads across the map. Supply: build bases that periodically send supply drones to the BC. psi: gained by being close to your non-AI opponents.

nah - the different minerals makes it more interesting, makes mining by humans worth while, scanners useful, and it forces the captains to think on their feet and change their plans according to what resources they have - definitely a good thing to keep

DumbMarine wrote: Upgrades - You shouldn't need to sit on the upgrade console to upgrade things, waiting isn't fun. I'm not a fan of instant upgrades, rather I prefer if upgrades take a few minutes to finish researching. I don't like the upgrades which boost stats (e.g. +50 small ship hull upgrade), I think that would be better as items that you lose on death. Small ship fights early game are basically a proxy battle between the upgraders. I don't care how good of a wraith pilot you are, if your opponent gains +400 hp mid battle and your upgrader is snoozin, you're toast. But I don't like that dynamic, it feels cheesy. And upgrade imbalances are pretty brutal, but at least if they were items there would be some sort of tradeoff to being vastly superior to your opponent.

as far as items that the ships lose on death, those already exists - shields do basically what you just described, and for a single ship, as long as you don't die, they are more cost effective per HP anyways - and the wraiths aren't really an engagement ship, they are a harassment ship - fly away - if your opponents invested in hull, and you invest in something else, yet can tie up one of their wraiths with your own, that leaves you in a position to be ahead elsewhere

DumbMarine wrote: Small Ships - Wraiths need to be retooled so that they're more viable late game IMO. Destroyers need more abilities, they're hugely important in BC fights but one dimensional overall. I think small ships need to be much cheaper overall as well. Right now, losing a small ship is a huge blow economically, ships are not cheap. It makes the loss of ship the most important victory in a fight, where I think it should instead be loss of opportunity. Such as in NS2, where dying is a big deal because whatever important thing you were doing is now lost, even though respawning is free. I think this would open up more room for cool stuff to happen during early and mid games.

they are very viable late game already - they can harass the hell out of a destroyer - keep it from docking with EMP, or even suicide it with plasma transfer - and yes, losing a small ship (especially a miner) is meant to be a devastating blow, as it's also difficult to pull off

DumbMarine wrote: BC Weapons - I don't like the weapon cap. It feels like it could be a lot more. I also don't like how many shots you need to fire in a BC fight, but that might be more of an issue with shields though. I don't like that the best option for a person on weapons against a BC with 15k shields is to hold fire, weapons should always have an answer to that. Where's the EM weapon :[

again - your dumbing down the game - if a captain wants to put 15k into shields and burn energy, then the counter to that shouldn't be "shoot at them" because that's what you do anways - having a single right answer of "always shoot at them" dumbs down the game to where the person with more upgrades always wins, instead of giving the better captain a chance

DumbMarine wrote: BC Power - I mostly don't like the UI here. If it were possible, I'd have power values be a number that you type in. But it does feel pretty bare a lot of the time. Putting power in weapons is mostly pointless. Power in engines is routine. Core stuff is pretty routine. If it weren't for shields, I'd probably put a drone on this console. Haven't had a lot of games where pro shield handling made the difference, wish it had more depth to it.

power is very important.. you really wouldn't get anywhere with an AI on it

DumbMarine wrote: The BC - The BC is too powerful. Obviously it should beat any ship 1v1, but it's way too fast + tough + powerful. This ship needs a downside that's more than "you lose when this dies". I'd like to see BCs needing to be defended, rather than them broadsiding everything into paste and fleeing at 200 m/s with 9000 shields at the first sign of uh-oh.

the thing is the BC can't keep up 200 m/s and 9k shields very long, regardless of how many upgrades it has - it's just "bursty", like lots of other ships (corvette for example - at max energy, it's a potent threat, but without that, it's a slow target)

DumbMarine wrote: Powerdocking - I like it and don't like it. I like it because it makes sense, I don't like brutally winning a fight because our team has 12 chompers.

how about because you were 2k minerals ahead and the other team decided to engage - although I would like a "recycle ship" option to make room in the hanger

DumbMarine wrote: Boarding - Tons of room for experimenting here IMO, as current boarding implementation is incomplete IMO. Where's hacking :[. I think allowing defenders to shape their BC with placable barriacades, turrets, mines, towers, etc would be interesting, along with giving attackers more in the way of infiltration tech.

This I would agree with, but adding the upgrades slowly - perhaps an upgrade to the turrets so that they reveal vs nullifiers, and repairing/replacing the existing turrets as a start