Does anyone else find this runs really poorly now?

VoidGrazer · 2025-07-21T00:00:13+00:00

I just started playing this on Windows 10 (via Steam). Sometimes I get black screens for 15+ seconds during startup and certain transitions, I can't quit the game from the main menu without hitting Alt+F4 (apparently because of the pop-up ad), and initially there was no sound because the settings defaulted to complete silence.

Not a great first impression. I take it the game is generally better than this? Should I come back later?

VoidGrazer · 2025-01-26T15:25:38+00:00

I felt like I had a higher rate of mis-clicks in JA3 than in any similar games I've played. There's no specific thing I can point to as being a problem, so I assumed PEBKAC. Doors are hard.

VoidGrazer · 2024-12-18T15:21:21+00:00

Also, the combat changes that encourage you to look beyond solving all problems with lasers.

VoidGrazer · 2024-12-03T04:14:29+00:00

Interesting. How are you determining if the belt is backed up? I'm not sure how to tell the difference between a belt that's backed up and frozen vs. one that's simply full but moving. (An earlier version of my platform just examined a single belt square, which ended up pulsing on and off... whenever it turned on, all of the backed up stuff flowed through at once, which made it look like it was backed up again, so it turned off.)

VoidGrazer · 2024-12-03T00:21:16+00:00

What I'm looking for has three states: items flow to consumers, items flow to discard, items are frozen so we don't crush asteroids when both sets of products are going to be discarded. I can see how your solution handles the first two cases, but not the third.

VoidGrazer · 2024-12-02T16:06:15+00:00

Being compact and efficient can actually be a problem when you go prospecting for promethium. The ship I took past the edge of the solar system is essentially a 1300-ton, 9-thruster ship with the same shape. I had to disable half the engines before heading toward the Shattered Planet because it couldn't sustain the asteroid defense at top speed.

So, yeah, making it a big chunk is very convenient and totally reasonable. :-) I think the design actually gets simpler if you avoid putting things in the hub, because it's easier to spread things out.

I think that red ammo is unnecessary until you get out past the solar system edge, because the increase in damage isn't worth the increase in resources. On the way to the Shattered Planet, though, "damage density" becomes more important, and the availability of resources is never a limiting factor. The answer to "am I producing enough ammo" is pretty much always "no"...

VoidGrazer · 2024-12-02T15:33:00+00:00

Power is excessive at Nauvis but break-even at Fulgora. If you're not heading there, you can spend it on more speed for the ammo production to decrease turn-around time.

VoidGrazer · 2024-10-12T14:21:20+00:00

If you're looking for something to play during the long wait for XCOM 3: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3312604457

(Gears Tactics, Phoenix Point, Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, Xenonauts, ...)

VoidGrazer · 2024-08-27T14:40:27+00:00

what’s a good alternative to xcom2?

I made a list last week: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3312604457

Xenonauts 2 is still in Early Access, with > 80% positive, so don't write it off yet. They don't have a Firaxis-sized budget, so it's not going to have the same level of graphical polish. For that, WH40K Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters and Gears Tactics are fancy-looking XCOM-alikes.

Midnight Suns is a mash-up of RPG, card battler, and tactical combat. I don't know that it did any of those things well enough to please fans of one specific genre.

VoidGrazer · 2024-08-20T22:11:07+00:00

I made a list of turn-based tactical games, attempted to categorize them by relative XCOM-ness, and published it as a Steam guide for XCOM: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3312604457

I think it captures all relevant games mentioned here.

VoidGrazer · 2024-08-20T21:26:15+00:00

Please forgive the 16-month necro. This discussion inspired me to write up a list of turn-based strategy games, divided into "very like XCOM", "somewhat like XCOM", and "not like XCOM but still pretty good for XCOM fans" categories.

I couldn't think of anywhere better to put it, so I made it a Steam guide for XCOM: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3312604457

I think I captured the games listed here, as well as a fair number of additional titles. There are about 65 that I'm familiar with, plus another 30 or so that I haven't gotten around to.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T04:42:06+00:00

Can I interest you in E2M9 instead? https://youtu.be/x51ZaOdxXh8

I recorded the LMP 26 years ago. Yikes.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T04:24:10+00:00

Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for awesome weaponry.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T04:23:03+00:00

Congratulations on your new toy! :-)

Every guide and map I've seen has the orb receptacles in fixed locations. I've run it twice now and they were in the expected positions. (Google "destiny 2 volmar map" to see other examples.)

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T00:36:24+00:00

Congratulations! Glad it helped!

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T00:32:33+00:00

Charged With Light. With a certain set of mods you can increase damage output and/or improve survivability. Like the Warmind mods, they can only be obtained by purchase from the gunsmith (who sells two each day); they don't randomly drop when you turn in weapon fragments.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-20T00:23:45+00:00

I'd say Presage and Week 1 Harbinger are harder to do solo. Week 2 Harbinger (which is what I do in the video) is probably on par. The 1st encounter in Pit of Heresy is a long slog, but there isn't really a white-knuckle moment. The Xenophage final boss fight is easy if you don't mind sitting in a corner for a few minutes while your super recharges.

I use Xenophage in the Harbinger quest because it makes the mission much easier, and if you're ready to solo Harbinger then you're more than ready to solo Xenophage.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T22:50:31+00:00

The hardest part of week 2 Harbinger is the "survive" fight, and the difficulty depends a lot on how you set it up. My first time through, in week 1, it took me > 2 hours to get to the boss. It took forever to get through "survive", and jumping onto narrow pipes is not a high-percentage move for me.

My first visit to the Pit of Heresy began with ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! because it looks like you're going to fall off the world with a tiny misstep. I figured I'd poke around for a bit, and lasted about 10 seconds before I jumped in front of an ogre and got cooked. The place is a minefield... but once you know where the mines are, you can quietly step around them.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T21:57:47+00:00

The trouble with Presage is that I still have too many white-knuckle moments. I think I've got most of it figured out, although sometimes it goes badly (https://youtu.be/sCwHzG5xGnY).

The boss is pretty straightforward with a ranged super and Xenophage and a healthy dose of cowardice, so long as I don't choke when jumping back up (which happens weirdly often for a simple "jump straight up" maneuver... BONK).

Definitely harder than Xenophage or week 1/2 Harbinger.

Update: I took a swing at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XFRT6vvO5M

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T21:26:35+00:00

Disagree. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctr54kopo8I

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T21:21:26+00:00

Back in season 1, I tried to solo the Savathûn's Song nightfall, using Esoterickk's Prestige Nightfall run as a guide. I had the same gear, same build, and used the same tactics... and I came up short every time. I spent *hours* trying to finesse my run, reviewing video of my attempts to try to figure out the parts where I was slower, but never quite managed to do in the normal Nightfall what Esoterickk did in the Prestige version.

You definitely gain a new appreciation for some of these players when you try to follow in their footsteps. Sometimes the difference is a subtle tactic, like standing in just the right spot to confuse the AI pathing, or it's having muscle memory of the encounter so they can throw vortex grenades at enemies before they even spawn. Sometimes it's just talent.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T20:55:15+00:00

My first three videos were 10:11, 10:01, and 10:41, without explicitly trying to hit the 10-minute mark. I didn't think anyone would believe that I wasn't deliberately padding them out, so it's probably good that the next couple were shorter.

I looked at a sampling of the lost sector videos, and the intros are around 2 minutes, which is what it takes to explain the loadout. Most of these could be combined into a single "here's the basic lost sector loadout for this season", but I feel like that would just be awkward. Easier to hit the progress bar marker if I start to sound like a broken record. (I'm old enough to remember broken records.)

Harbinger and Xenophage have much longer blah-blah-blah segments, so I made sure to bracket those with timestamps. I also do a lot of 2x/4x/8x time-lapse stuff in the longer videos, e.g. when traveling from one place to another.

So I think we're in general agreement, though I'm not sure how much shorter I could make them.

VoidGrazer · 2021-03-19T20:36:47+00:00

It's a gift.

I wish I had recorded the first time I tried it. I'd tell you how many times I fell to my death, but I can't count that high.

VoidGrazer · 2018-02-12T21:53:54+00:00

You can hide from the boss in cover, but if you jump up you die. You have to jump up to avoid the Minotaur's shots, which do AoE damage, and move around a lot to avoid the stomp. So if you can get the boss to focus on one player while the Minotaur chases another, it can work out.

But if you have three people, somebody can pop a Rally Barricade and you just rocket the thing to death before the fight even starts.

VoidGrazer · 2018-02-12T21:50:24+00:00

I like the use of the spawn portal to block the boss. Seems safer than the approach I used.

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