Thought on general balance of the game

[jaworeq]

So I saw few people posted about having problem with going through inception maps and some of the exchange ones. And I just blasted through most of them on my first try.
Another thing I saw, back when only Virgil posted videos, was how attached he was to every single ship, which was a bit odd for me.
I'm a simple guy, I approach KC games from CW3 approach, where everything (except for heavily customized maps) could be rebuilt after it died. And I'm taking the same approach with PF.
So every heavily defended emitter, I just brute force - might take a couple of tries, but so far all worked out. Just putting lathe(s) in range (sometimes with amp gem to boost range), and throwing all of my ships, one by one to create a buffer/soaking spot for red particles. My ships explode a lot - I didn't actually look at the statistics, but I guess red can destroy a hundred of my ships on bigger maps before I'm done with it...and that's fine with me.

That was supposed to bring me back to topic of the thread, which is balance, but I'm not really sure how to summarize it all.
Can't say that game is too hard, since so far I cleared all maps I played (given that I only completed 8 Inception maps, but then again - people call them hard). If it was RTS, I guess it'd be impossible, but with tactical pause (and I pause a lot!) it all seems doable.
Can't say that game is easy - maps I played were doable, but definitely challenging. Most of the time it felt just a bit random though. Sometime it felt like emitter didn't put too much of a fight, other times it looked like closer I get - more particles started spawning right in front of my ships. Sometimes I can run a C-class through emitter, it will soak but live, other times it blows up as soon as its CN touches emitter - I guess it's just bad timing on when the shields drop.

All in all I'm very much enjoying the game and challenges.

[GoodMorning]

The reason that you are getting "closer means harder" is that the emitters have a particle cap. So when you first attack, some particles may have drifted away. When you attack, these particles will gradually dissipate.  So an untouched Emitter is effectively weaker than an attacked one, for a time. This does not always apply, but is a surprisingly useful observation.

My default game speed is up from 0.5x to 1x, with a little 4x. Still much pausing, but I must be improving.

The campaign is interesting to get to grips with following CW3, though Inception has felt more familiar. I can't tell if this is due to knowing PF better now, or because it plays more like CW3.

[chwooly]

I thought the balance was a little lopsided to expert players however once I found sandbox ship mode it became more friendly, I do still think the omni's need to be buffed as most times I lose at a min 8-10 whenever I try to mire land that is already red. That could be by design so maybe they don't need it haha.

[jaworeq]

A single Omni can survive landing on red land, as long as this land isn't strongly resupplied. If you land 4-5 omnis on mildly resupplied land, I would guess 2-3 of them should survive miring under them (while other 2 mire land + supplies).
If piece of land is heavily resupplied, I just avoid it until I clear out near emitters.

[ShadeOfRed]

That was supposed to bring me back to topic of the thread, which is balance, but I'm not really sure how to summarize it all.
Can't say that game is too hard, since so far I cleared all maps I played (given that I only completed 8 Inception maps, but then again - people call them hard). If it was RTS, I guess it'd be impossible, but with tactical pause (and I pause a lot!) it all seems doable.

My experience with the 'extra maps,' the non-story mission maps has been that story is like Virgil has stated, taking you from beginner up to about intermediate.  The Inception maps are like a small step above that, and the Exchange maps...

Well Exchange can be a little bit of a mixed bag.  But in there are some really really hard ones.  (might possibly be me not 'getting' those maps...but still)  I found in Exchange they are much more difficult at times.

Inception are, from what I understand, basically some test maps.  They usually only have like one real trick to them, or one new object or enemy or what have you.  The tough Exchange maps are just straight up higher difficulty.  Or sneakily difficult.  (I'm looking at you tooters)

[Tjgalon]

A single Omni can survive landing on red land, as long as this land isn't strongly resupplied. If you land 4-5 omnis on mildly resupplied land, I would guess 2-3 of them should survive miring under them (while other 2 mire land + supplies).
If piece of land is heavily resupplied, I just avoid it until I clear out near emitters.

While smart, I sometime use a bunch of omi to help clear out the particle to capture the point, by forcing it to resupply the land.

[Karsten75]

Note that emitters under attack will "call for help" and attract  nearby particles.

[ShadeOfRed]

A single Omni can survive landing on red land, as long as this land isn't strongly resupplied. If you land 4-5 omnis on mildly resupplied land, I would guess 2-3 of them should survive miring under them (while other 2 mire land + supplies).
If piece of land is heavily resupplied, I just avoid it until I clear out near emitters.

While smart, I sometime use a bunch of omi to help clear out the particle to capture the point, by forcing it to resupply the land.

I do that a lot...slip over the top of the island, attract the particles real good and flee back over it again to let them smash against the land.

[Tjgalon]

Note that emitters under attack will "call for help" and attract  nearby particles.

It this feature that makes it way different from CW3, and causes me to rethink how to play too, lol.