Initial thoughts of Albion Prelude

Friday 23rd December, 2011 · Posted by Roguey · 1 comments

During the past few days ive been playing Albion Prelude on and off, for a few hours. So now I played it for alittle, I thought ill write a small round-up of X3AP so far. Please bare in-mind that I havnt spent tons of hours... yet

On the start screen there a couple of choices when starting a new game. Most will pick Argon or Terran, however there is a new mode called DiD (which im guessing means, if you die then its game-over). This time I went with Terran's because in X3TC I have always started as one of the main races.

After the loading (btw a nice load screen, although you could of added a few more), your back in the X-Universe. At first you may think im playing X3TC, however X3AP uses the X3TC engine. So this means there is only single core support - although single core should be fine, video drivers will make some use of multi-cores, 4Gb of ram should do (I'm feeling a bit over-kill with 16Gb).

The next thing I noticed was the increased size GUI display (very welcomed). Before if you ran X3TC in high resolutions, your map could become very small - and hard to read. However in X3AP this is much easier.

So im left in Terran space wondering what the heck to do. I quick check of my ship and its an M6 (nice) with 400MJ worth of shielding. Seems a bit too good as a starting ship, eh? well a few moments later im ask to join a battle. Heck I though ill give ago - why not? ive got an M6! I travel down there and enter the sector... oohh heck?! loads of capital ships are fighting it out!

hmmm... maybe I should stay at the back, see what I can salvage? So wait and notice a few things to pick-up - nothing to be too excited about although. Although I didnt kind-of expect to find much... heck its too early on!

So a few more hours wondering around in space until I find a captain who abandons his Nova. Great a quick million for me. Well.. not really, I had to escort it back to the Terran shipyard, as its a very dangerous place now. Argon ships are popping up now and then in Terran space. After following the Nova to the shipyard, my first million, yay!

A few upgrades later (although the Terran's wont sell me much); they dont like me too much! Back to see what can do. After call for help from the Terran as they are attacking another sector!

So I jump in, and ooh, another sector filled with capitals. Im now looking very small with just a little M6. Ive been warned to leave this space by the Argons, but ill just ignored him... "Warning, incoming missile".. er? what heck?! A few moments later "Warn..War ... War.. Warning.... Warning, incoming missile"..

An M7M in the sector has gone mad at me, launching every single missile at me (including Hammer Heavies and Flails). Well... not much I can do now. Each Hammer can do around 300k worth of damage. So with 400MJ worth of shielding, 2 missiles can kill me.

Ah screw it, lets shot them out - although in a large cluster could be hard to kill with my EMPC's. "Target is now in range".. firing away.. eh?! Hammer's are still coming... Uoooh *beep* *bang* game-over

Reload... okay screw this. I jump to another sector... Warning, incoming missile".. heck again? well its not from an M7M.. *bang*.. game over.. what the heck?!?

I could understand that missiles needed some adjustments from previous games (often one shot, and they are gone) but now they become too powerful. The M7M being a missile launcher is now wiping anything out, M1/2 with ease. Just dump enough missiles on it, and let it send them all out. Nothing stands in the way of an M7M now.

An M7M can target you across the whole sector, then launch a missile (or 100) at you where they travel the whole sector and hit you. Your defence? well not much: Hammer Heavies seem to be hard to hit now with some guns (especially with my starting EMPC's).

There's so many things I want to explore in this game, however atm im struggling to get past this massive barrage of missiles being sent at me in nearly every enemy sector I visit. And before any wisecrack says, yes ive tried 'Missile defence' on my turrets, just doesnt work too well for Hammer Heavies. Maybe another gun might help, but I cant buy them as the Terran's wont sell them to me, so got to hope one drops for me.

Oh, and btw I didnt find the story too well explained. All the recent events are summed up in a small trailer that plays at the start. In the trailer Saya Kho blows up the Earth Torus, in-which the Terran's declare war. However I didnt see a reason for Saya Kho for blowing up the Earth Torus in the first place - maybe I missed it? If I can find out why, I will write a page explaining the story. As im sure other people must of missed why she did that. Earth Torus was a huge station that orbited around the whole Earth.

War is definitely the theme for X3AP, and on the whole its done really well, with sector invasions and claiming. You can simply lay back and watch huge battle unfold, its stunning! Although if im honest I would of thought the Argon's and the Terran's would of join forces, and that either an Teladi, Split or even the Paranid committed the crime against Earth Torus. I thought Argons wanted to find the Terran's for peace, not war. Although egosoft must have a grand plan for for everything, because Rebirth will continue this story.

All ships have have more hull in X3AP; in some cases up-to 10 times more than X3TC! This is very welcomed, and means now when a ship loses its shields its not history in a few moments after! The ship hangs in there for 10-20 seconds longer.

X3AP has the potential of being one of the best X-Games yet, its just the missiles need a little re-balancing at this time - although I have no idea how. Make them slower (capital ships will hit them easier)? reduce the launcher speed (lowering damage output of an M7M, but still doesnt help vs M6/3)? lower the damage (cheaper missiles) but reduces the M7M role. Its an hard decision in any case, but doesnt feel correct when your in that M6/3. Every class of ship should have another that can kill it (ie. a weakness). However with anti-fighter and anti-capital, where is the M7M weakness? All I can suggest is to make Hammer's harder to kill by capital ships but easier in a fighters (M3/4/5/6).. (maybe M1's more useful then?) and much slower (100m/s or less. Hopefully egosoft will look into this and make the M7M not the highest damage output class that simply needs money (NPC ships have limitless money). The M7M doesnt seem to have a primary role, it can take down either fighters and capital ships with ease. Maybe it should do one role only?

There's a lot of good things in X3AP to look forward too, as only just started it.

Comments

To post comments you need to register and log-in.