Review of Star Conflict
Hey everyone, this is my review of Star Conflict Beta! I picked it up almost 2 weeks ago, after a mate of mine urged me to try it out. I got 24hrs played, most of them with either of my currently playing friends.
The Game
Star Conflict is, as I explained it to my mates; World of tanks. In space. The game features spaceships fighting for controll of certain objectives, with large variety as far as weapons and customization options go. Most of the time you will be fighting other players in space, but there is also PvE multiplayer for those that prefer the AI over the players. The game modes are Arcade, Realistic and Scenario. And that order also seems to be the popularity of them from highest to lowest. The 3 factions in the game determine your passive bonus, and then there are contracts which determine which faction you gain experience with, in order to buy their ships. Contracts also reward you with cash and eventually unlocks some unique gear.
Arcade
Arcade is the most fast phased chaotic and forgiving experience of all the game modes. You can die and respawn in most of them, and there is allways action to be found.
Detonation: I like to think of this as pretty much American Football. You pick up the bomb, or the ball, and run like mad to the finishingline. In this case, you bomb the living hell out of three enemy outposts to win. The bomb seems to slow down the ship that holds it, and also drains energy faster if I am not mistaken. Extremely fast phased and fun mode, that ensures kills and deaths alike for the involved players! Win condition from highest to lowest priority: Bomb all 3 opposing bases OR Bomb more bases than the enemy team OR kill more players than the enemy team.
Domination: King of the Hill(s) game mode, capure and hold 3 outposts for the longest time possible to win. Allways a good game for hectic fights around contested points, and ideal for the strategic player that slips away from the heat of combat unnoticed to deliver swift death to unguarded outpost drones before capturing. Win condition from highest to lowest priority: Have more points than the enemy team.
Combat Recon: Defend and Destroy, you have a captain, they have the same. Kill theirs, don’t let your own die. The death of a captain means the stricken team will not be able to respawn, and makes for intense moments of “shiiiiiiit” as your captain goes down in a fireball of death. Win condition from highest to lowest priority: Kill all enemy players OR have more kills than enemy team when the time runs out.
The ships
As far as controversy goes, the ships are the biggest issue. Every single player at some point look over their shoulders and think “Hmmmm, maybe I should get friggates”, or “Interceptor, a lot like me! Quickly in, even faster out!” and thus it begins. The doubt, the hope, the desperation. The 3 main classes are Fighters, Interceptors and Friggates. And most of the time, you want to play the one you’re not playing at the moment. At least I do. I am weak.
Interceptor: The Interceptor is the fastest and weakest of the ships. It offers tremendous mobility, and has modules (abilities) that allow crowd controll and distruptive gameplay. They work best when paired with any other ship, as they have the lowest damage output of all ships (only 2 weps) and by far and away the lowest sustain. They can however be near impossible to nail into their coffins, as they offer massive escape utility. Strength: Speed and cunning. Weakness: Pretty much anything, don’t breath to hard around them or they might break.
Fighter: The dogfighter as I like to name them. They are made for going toe to toe with other ships, and have mediocre mobility, which they make up for by having substantialy larger hulls and shields than the incterceptors, and twice the firepower. Fighters makes the best use of missiles of all the ship classes, as they have large missile banks, and homing missiles to boot! So you basicly can’t miss! Except you can, because missile defences. And kiting. But at least its easier than the unguided and guided ones! Fighters have active modules that generally favour teamplay, auras that give dmg resist and shield boosts etc. The faction abilities vary from running-away skills to lets-do-this abilities. Strength: Damage and sustain. Weakness: Slow and kitable makes for an easier target than the interceptor.
Friggates: The motherships. These are massive boats of doom. 6 weapons means 3 times the damage of the interceptor with the same weps, add homing missiles, a massive hull and shield and deadly active modules and you got yourself a friggate. They have active modules for sniping, meaning either rockets or lazers that range over 10km and deal massive damage. They can be fitted with shield and hp regen for entired teams, or the dreaded pulsar which is basicly a 1km deathzone around them. This all comes with a prize tho. You are slow as a frigg. I mean really slow. Slow slow. Turning your head 180 degrees is an undertaking. In fact its harder to turn and respond to an attacker than it is to activate the pulsar and pick a more suited target. So thats the better way of it. Strength: Unmatched firepower both close and long range. Weakness: Snails outrun this colossus sleeping.
The experience
Now that we know what its all about, how does it play? Well, its fun! By far the most refreshing game experience in a long time. Flying around asteroids with interceptors on your heels and friggates moving in for the kill is an awe insipiring experience that I would not give away. It is a rewarding game in combat, and the idea the game is balanced around works to some extent: speed can counter firepower when wielded by the right hands. The customization options are massive, and every tier of ships you unlock brings more to the table. More weps, more wepmods, more modules, shields, CPU’s, ammo, rockets, passives, batteries and on and on. As long as you can keep the cash up, you will allways have ways to tweak your ship. Wanna be immortal to lasers? Sure, take these 2 heatsinks, plasma? We got something for that too! But you cannot take both at the same time, so know your strategy before buying. This becomes truer as the game progresses, and people become less a jack of all trades, and more focused on a single purpose.
Lets get it out of the way, shall we? Money. And by that I mean real life currency. As you start the game, you have a license for 1 week. This license gives you 50% money gain, 75% experience gain, 50% loyalty gain and 50% faction rep gain. It also gives you 5 loot chances when you have a win, up from the regular 3. Only pilots with a license can host a party over 2 players, which is sad, as the game’s best feature is teamplay. These licenses costs 3000 ingame currency a month, meaning you will be paying 11€ a month to play the full experience. Which is basicly WoW subscription (just checked) for a beta game. You might not think its all that necessary to have a license, but progress slows to a crawl without it. At T3, my next ship upgrade costs 2 100 000 ingame cash. A match without license yields between 35 and 60k, assuming an average of 48k and a 50% winrate with 2/3 hits on loot options giving 7k each we get the following amount of games needed for the next ship: 39 Games. Assuming an average of 20 minute games (which is on the high end to be honnest) that will take 13hrs of consecutive play. For one ship. For T4 ship nr 1 the number of hrs is 28hrs. So you better have either a lot of time to grind, or cash to keep you progressing.
The verdict
The good
Game is amazingly fun to play, and customize and plot around with. Absolute must be experienced! Star Conflict has a lot of potential, and is unlike any game I have played before!
The bad
If you are not willing to spend money on the game, T3 is pretty much as far as you will go, as everything becomes massively expensive after that, but your inncome stays pretty much the same.