Drox Operative

[Huw the Poo]

*sigh*

Another one to add to The List.  I never got around to buying Din's Curse, but Depths of Peril was absolutely brilliant, and this one is set in space! \o/

I'm massively tempted to buy into the beta this weekend but I really shouldn't be spending money right now.

How does it actually play?  I assume it's real time, but how do you move - point and click, or press buttons to thrust, or what?  What's combat like and how twitchy is it?  Etc.

[Nefaro]

Do you know if you can buy new-bigger-better ships? Or is it just about adding more stuff to your existing ship?

According to folks on the Quarter to Three thread, you increase your command skill and can get bigger (but slower) ships, however once you upgrade you can't go back!

Yeah.. "Command" is one of the Stats you put points into.  At certain points, you get a bigger ship along with a stack of your races given stat bonus set.   In a few ways such as this, Space Rangers 2 has more depth.  That one has a variety of ships you can purchase, with varying strengths & weaknesses (&slots).  It also has an economy of sorts so you can also do some trading on the side to make more creds.  SR2 is just a deeper game in the RPG sense.  Drox Op is more action-y, especially since SR2 is turn-based and DoxOp is real-time.  Lots more loot drops in DO, too, so it's definitely more a Diablo-ish ARPG than a big space rogue sandbox.  That's not to say it doesn't have some sandbox, though, as you get to help/hinder the various races while blowing stuff up.

Poo:

The controls took me some getting used to (and some option adjustments to find my sweet spot).  I've made some suggestions for another option, too, as I'm still not quite comfortable with the two main options right now

The biggest option difference is turning "Thruster Toggle" on or off.  The problem with the toggle is that it only works for the W key and you have to hit S to turn it off.  So it's not a traditional single key 'toggle'.  By default your ship flies towards the mouse cursor (which I like) but that can be turned off too.  Left mouse button is click & hold to thrust and click on target to fire slot 1 weapon.  This control scheme tends to be easiest for me by using the mouse & left mouse button to fly and use my left hand to fire the hotkeys.  The problem here is that the 'Thrust Toggle' option does not turn the left mouse button (thrust command) into an On/Off toggle, so you end up having to either hold down the LMB for long periods or jockey the W & S keys.  That might not be so bad, but when you have more than one weapon/system slotted, you gotta be constantly hitting the hotkeys to fire stuff in combat and it's more hotkey workload than necessary.  As I said, a simple on/off toggle for the left mouse button would free up the keyboard for exclusively weapons firing.

As you can see, the controls are one of the things I think need further tweaking.

[Huw the Poo]

Nefaro, thanks for the explanation.  I'll be watching this thread with great interest; the game looks fantastic.

[Huw the Poo]

I just found this gameplay video.  The player is French but the game's in English.

[Nefaro]

It has some sound issues right now.

And the early part of the game is pretty boring.  This still needs some content/feature additions, too, IMO.  Right now, I'd rather play Space Rangers 2 Reboot even despite the lower fixed resolution not using my screen space.

I hope to see Drox get some additions, and it's fairly likely with Soldak developing it.

[spelk]

Patch available now
http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Patches.html

[Nefaro]

Patch available now
http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Patches.html

Thanks!

0.901
-----

    added Win7 to manual/website
    fixed some anomaly text grammer (Roswitha)
    fixed Planned Rumor text (Valgor)
    fixed background shift on beta screen
    now solving a quest at the planet doesn't close the window (Lyranaar)
    increased BaseThrust from 40 to 50, will make player ships faster (just about everyone)
    increased MaxSpeedTurnMult from 0.25 to 0.3, will make player ship a bit more manueverable
    improve some goods wording and spacing (Lyranaar)
    increased turn speed on new ship screen and shipyard (Mivo/Aganazer)
    improved no active quests line to give hint of where to get quests (Mivo)
    increased default miniMapAlpha from 0.5 to 0.9 (Steve/Eduardo X/Valgor)
    added a quick tip about talking to races directly to get and solve quests (Castruccio)
    fixed Prepare typo (Roswitha)
    fixed thruster disengage option working even when thruster toggle option was off (NefariousKoel/kerzain)
    added relations line to screens help topic and manual (Aganazer)
    added a quick tip about starlanes and wormholes being along the edges of the star systems
    now if thruster toggle is on, W will start and stop thrusters (NefariousKoel)
    changed npcs to NPCs in one of the tool tips (Valgor)
    removed reference to earthquakes in can shake screen tool tip (Valgor)
    added an option to disable the intro movie (Valgor)
    added a button to replay the intro movie on the main opening screen
    fixed an Expansionist typo (DeathKnight1728)
    fixed some Space Junk wording (Puce Moose)
    added a player thrusters volume slider to options (Castruccio)
    fixed lose time going negative (desophos)
    fixed lose menu to fit everything correctly (desophos)
    fixed technology being hidden when the hide crappy loot option was on (snow)
    added wealth line to race rumor, propaganda, espionage, and sabotage screens (kerzain)
    fixed If you're on the run typo (Roswitha)
    fixed Stop by an ancient recharge station missing word (Roswitha)
    fixed patience spelling (Roswitha)
    fixed Space cradles great treasures typo (Roswitha)
    fixed stranded crew sound
    decreased SpawnChance of teleport anomaly from 10.0 to 5.0 (gornova)
    doubled ballistic energy use to be comparable to beam weapons energy use over time
    tripled missile, bomb, and mine energy use to be comparable to beam weapons energy use over time
    decreased mine damage to 75% of missiles
    decreased bomb damage to 50% of missiles
    quests that start from delivery quests now use the correct planet (Valgor)
    changed pay and sell price to 0 if crew has left
    improved propaganda and sabotage complete failure text
    decreased MaxShipGuards and MaxPlanetGuards by 1 each
    increased MAX_ENTITIES from 3000 to 4000, should help running out of entities
    relaxed entity purging rules, less likely to run out of entity slots (Krippakrull/Brian Rubin)
    made text a little more clear can't use shared stash in semi-hardcore (transigent8)

Yay!  Quick Progress!