I have found that Nebulous makes me feel like I am playing a Tom Clancy book if that makes any sense. It has made me feel like I am commanding actual warships in a way that I don't get out of Homeworld or Empire at war, without getting lost in the weeds when it comes to all the "Realistic details". I admit it looks like conquest is going to have more details but you also are allowing us to share the load and simplify things, the more I see of Conquest the more excited I become.
Yes, and I really wondering, why devs are so stick with this dumb "18th century space" setting. Make it underwater world, this be much more natural and exciting - with addition of sea fauna, thermal layer, deep scattering layers and a lot of more. Also with difference in maximum depth for different ships and even weapons. This can also remain in space - but in real space. Make this occur in Titan's ocean, for example. Or Venus atmosphere.
@@mkapaceb98 Those are some really good ideas. I never understood why the dev didn't opt for a regular blue water naval game, it's clear that a space game is not really what he intends to make. The underwater idea is really good as you would still have 3d movement.
@@mkapaceb98 just because the liners have broadsides doesn’t mean it’s the 18th century. Nebulous is a eclectic mix of the postwar naval combat from the gun artillery of the 50s onto laser point defense systems that aren’t even in service today.
Love this, and love the officer system. It seems like it will really feel like a big tragedy to lose one of your main admirals who you've taken from the start and developed over time. Will we be able to capture enemy officers by scooping up life boats and maybe ransom them back to the enemy? :D
as per the official concept document, yes you can capture them for interrogation, not sure about ransom though :P docs.google.com/document/d/1Pv0jSMwneQzJ_7o2vx0QB_NSVup5N-t_N6TvlLCcICs/edit
100% love what you said about the ships in the game, and how they were made to matter, feel real and not just some random fodder you throw at some resource system like any other RTS. I definitely will care even more when I know I have crew on board with names & faces. Awesome dev log. Happy New Year everyone!
Man, there is a LOT to unpack here. This will be adding way more depth to the game for sure. While it seems like it'd make for a grand single player campaign, it has so much complexity that I'm concerned about how multiplayer will function. The crew system as well as the in-depth logistics system is going to scare a lot of the more casual players. UI is going to need to be on point if we hope to manage it all. Looks fun, thanks for the devlog and great job as always!
Multiplayer is likely not going to be 1v1. I think the idea is to have teams of several players to balance the load. One person focuses on supplies, one on repairs and maintenance, one on tactics, one on designs, etc.)
Multiplayer is going to be multiple players on each team. IE 1 player handles logistics, 1 handles fleets, etc. and when it’s time for a battle, all the players on a side can pick ships to control.
Being a prior service guy I really appreciate the officer system. When I play games like Combat Mission I have a lot of head cannon for my troops and seeing things like this really get me into the roleplay of it all. Especially with the really good art style you picked for the portraits. This game really gives me vibes of the Frontline books by Marko Kloos. Sci-fi with an injection of realism. Keep up the amazing work!
If you can personalize the officers names, community events will have the actual community in them. Looking good, can't wait for the release. Edit: Also, speaking of officers, maybe officers that are trained on a ship gain the bonuses but for that ship class, and when you switch them to a different ship class (not hull, as the same hull can have a lot of different class ships in the same fleet) those are partially "nerfed" until a few levels are reached. That way, even if you can somehow get a very skilled officer with the academy, the lack of "field experience" can avoid them being too OP, or swapping officers becomes a decision that can have real consecuences, as in, do you keep them in the same ship they have been even if it's outdated? or switch to a newer ship, at the cost of one or two command levels so they can get their foothold?
Very cool! About the retreat mechanics at the end, it will also be interesting to see situations where the losers might want to stick around and the winners try to escape. Sometimes you lose the cap game while winning fights (deathballs) and the winners may just want to take their win and peace out.
Great update and +1 for what you said about games and art. Feels like this lesson has been forgotten somewhat in favour of business with the popularity of gaming in general now and it's great to see a game like this emulating that arthouse committment and attention to detail that was more common back in the 90s and 00s. I'm really happy that a game like this exists and is being done well and done right.
13:54 I'm loving this! This is exactly what I think a lot of people are looking for in a procedural campaign, to craft their own story. The freedom of customization to make an officer feel unique and impactful, and the ability for them to grow during the campaign is what makes them feel important!
May I recommend for the next faction? I’ve noticed on a dubiously cannon map that there are other groups, potentially a faction that goes really (and I mean REALLY) heavy into armored and PD warships that are so slow and bulky, it’s hard to even get close. Yet because they are so slow and bulky, the guns they mount are no pushover weapons. They wouldn’t believe in anything smaller than a Torpedo so small missiles (beyond chaff and A-A-Ms of course) would be scoffed at, their destroyers would be absolute bricks with 2 single barreled 250s on top and bottom, then coated in PD and armor. Unfortunately even their lightest clipper would be cripplingly slow! Fastest speeds might see 38 m/s! But it is the price they pay for 30cm on a frigate equivalent. They would go all in on armor, PD, largest of guns, and heavy Torpedos. But they lack mobility to maneuver and could easily be disabled by smaller, faster craft armed with higher pen missiles (I’m looking at you OSPN) or massive amounts of plasma/railgun fire. Do not forget even just their frigates carry guns capable of crippling Axfords and outright destroying the rag-tag navy. A lumbering beast with sharp claws is not to be trifled with unless prepared
I'd highly suggest adding spaces between rank names which have multiple words to enhance readability. E.g: VADM --> V. ADM CHENG --> Ch. ENG LCDR --> L. CDR This would help those who are not as familiar with navy ranks IRL.
While this is almost certainly out of scope for this game, it makes me think of a thought I had about eventually having to deal with fleet politics and the various deplorable excesses of personality and raging egos under your command to run an effective fleet.
Looks amazing, but I have to admit I'm kind of worried about all those stacking bonuses. Already modules and compartments can dramatically change the behavior of any weapons, but with officers and admiral bonuses on top? That's a lot of balancing levers that are moot.
Good point, but I'd assume that in the current state of things, if something gets too crazy it'll get caught by the testers and changed before release. Or I'd hope so at least. Besides it also depends on how those bonuses are applied - I doubt 5% of your already quite reduced reload time (from modules) will be THAT strong. Neat to have, but still.
On the flip side of this argument, ship stat bonuses are great and all, but there’s nothing a good volley of size 3 torpedoes can’t fix, and I can imagine it will be immensely satisfying to knock out an enemy flagship with a stacked crew that’s been causing you problems for a few encounters by that point. Maybe the warcrime score in that situation will be worth it….
Just my experiance working prevenative maintaince on a production line: people do absolutely make a huge difference between a line running well and not so well (private sector experience only). I would like to see a couple of things implemented just from what I see here: 1) Building of new ships with different templates ( overtime when a fight occurs you are going to adapt your fleet to what works and what does not). 2) Rotation of officers to send to the acdemy to train new officers ( in WW2 the USA recovered their down pilots and after so long on deployment. Those experienced pilots were sent them home to train the new pilots)
Finally, officers and command structure. Fundamental parts of warfare for thousands of years. Yet for some reason so many games calling themselves hardcore, realistic, simulation etc ignore those fundamental parts. Back when the game launched, I suggested these features. I was immediately harassed by other community members for suggesting "unnecessary meaningless things" and given clown awards. Now I expect those same people are going to pretend how they always wanted these"brilliant" features.
I really like the humanized officers and ships. A lot of skirmish games end up with half or more of the "victorious" side knocked out. Calling that a victory gets a lot harder when you're looking at named ships and people rather than numbers.
Games and other media have a big tendency to dramatically over-exaggerate combat losses - especially so in recreating historical battles, where more than a 5ish% rate of casualty was unusual, and 10% utterly shocking.
I didn't know this was in the works. Looking at the concept document, this is going to be crazy in depth. It's going to be like a strategy-war simulator. I'm excited to see it!
The officer system sounds super cool! I 100% agree that having your ship crew be as much of an important part of your army as the ships themselves makes for more engaging gameplay, and adds a whole new layer of strategies and considerations when deciding how to engage in battles. Super excited to get my hands on this game mode, as someone who loves the idea of this game but is not too much into random death matches as it's currently playable. Keep up the good work! And also, happy new year to everyone.
What a phenomenal game this has become and will continue to become! The team should be immensely proud of what they have created. Can't wait to see what the future holds:)
14:44 This is one of the main reasons why I'm excited about playing this game. Each ship forming its own identity with crew that grow with it over time and the very real threat of losing it all. It sounds like the perfect game to me honestly.
I would really love to see a mechanic where a player can run over to life pods, capture them, and run off with them, or auto-capture those pods if they win the fight... Likewise, a friendly or allied player can rescue their own life pods to prevent their capture... Enemy players who do capture a lifepod and the officers inside could be able to interrogate them, revealing orders from other fleets, locations of bases and stationary installations, e.g... Or ransomed or exchanged to the enemy for resources, or one of your officers the other team captured... This could make for some really in-depth information warfare, and exemplifies the value of rescuing a ship and its crew, or, better yet, doing all you can to ensure you never lose a ship in the first place...
My opinions matter not, but I have never wanted or cared to "get gud" at a game before. But here I am. Thanks Mazer and all the rest of y'all for doing this wonderful niche thing. Happy New Year's.
With the new officer system it would be cool if a ship could surrender in the withdrawal phase and crew be captured, then a prisoner exchange could be made to regain the captured crew. Successful prisoner exchanges could also add to the war progress based on how many crew was gained. Something for the future anyway.
Really loving the looks of this. It's clear that you're taking a lot of concepts into account, and making an effort to make cheesing less attractive. Obviously the cheesing is not a big deal for singleplayer, but multi will always be an uphill battle against mechanic exploitation. Looking forward to future updates!
Love the officer system, really ingenious and a great way to simulate skills and personnel. One idea could be command skills relating to the strategic layer and then only being able to be applied when filling an admiral's billet, and tie them in with the officer's experiences before becoming an admiral. So a lvl 15 navigator admiral gets the perk "Master Navigator" which gives his task force better fuel efficiency, a lvl 15 Ops admiral gets a "Logistician Ties" perk that increases berth operations, etc.
I know how you mentioned that ships will have a history that is viewable. Is there any chance that you will implement a history section for each officer? Just something like a tab that shows stuff like what ships/positions that officer has been on or battles they have been a part of etc. Feel like it would add more to the personal element of the officers and the creation of a story with each campaign.
absolutely love all that you said about Nebulous's mission statement, on showing the brutality of naval combat, getting you invested in your ships just to throw them into the grinder. It really sets NFC apart from other SF strategy games like Stellaris, Empire at War, SOASE, etc. I can't say how many times I've gotten attached to the ships in one of my fleet and been viscerally frustrated when they got ambushed by well-placed railguns or a hidden beam flotilla. Super excited about Conquest! Y'all's Devlogs are such a fantastic way of keeping the community engaged and informed.
with this new system of officers, could you capture enemy officers? because if so, you could have things like prisoner exchanges as well or have an officer of the enemy switch sides.
Thank you for your amazing work. I've never guessed that the Strategic part would get that deep. Amazing. Take your time to complete. And also I would like to support the development, so how about a cosmetic's "support-the-development"-dlc ?
Looks great. Though it makes me wonder if it will be possible to customise the officers in skirmish fleets as well. Even if they don´t provide mechanical bonuses, it would be good to know what unfortunate got assigned to the rocket shuttle / torpedo sprinter.
The department head buffs should not be completely random. Shuffling officers around after each battle to get the right randomly assigned bonuses on the right ships isn't engaging or interesting gameplay where you have to make meaningful choices, it's just mobile game tier tedium that you have to do because if you don't you're going into your next fight weaker than you otherwise would have been. Some degree of randomness could be fine for variety's sake, but when an officer levels up the skill that is increased should be heavily weighted toward what the officer's ship actually did to get that XP. Like, if I have a beam destroyer that just fried three times its point value in enemy ships and the weapons officer levels up four times in casemate traverse rate, and I have to watch for something like that happening every single time any officer on any ship levels up anywhere, I'm gonna go insane.
I have an idea to maybe spice things up with how the maps could work when a battle is started. Add dozens of small asteroid clusters throughout the campaign overview screen. If your fleet is going to be intercepted by a superior force they could head towards one of these asteroid clusters to give them a fighting chance at outsmarting a larger force that would easily defeat them on the direct confrontations youd have on abysal. Just a thought that could spice up the gameplay
Just a thought on the portraits. If they have to fit inside of a space suit it would make sense for them to have as little extra hair as possible They would likely have short hair and little to no facial hair.
I hope they include a capture/POW system as well, ransoming and interrogation of crew and officers for intel and resources. Population (War Support) and Crew should be a resource. Could even separate the crews into boatswains(general), maintenance(technicians), and specialists(support). And I will still say no future war is realistic without nukes, but I guess that will have to be modded in.
Are we going to have it to where only admirals can command fleets? Seems to me like smaller units could do with one of the ships CO's commandong the task force, like a small destroyer or frigate squadron.
I really like this, it's good bones for the system. I am really onboard with the effort made to make the ships feel like characters. I've already had times where I pictured it was the people on my ship coming up with the ideas instead of me. One concern I'm on the fence about is how when a officer levels up, it'll affect a random skill that might not be applicable to the ship they are on. For example, if the weapons officer for my gun battleship gets a skill that benefits laser weapons. I'm on the fence because I can see the benefits of gaining a random skill as well as if you limited the skill gains to systems that are on the ship they leveled up in. I can't say I know the answer either, so I'm going to be patient and see what happens.
20:39 I wonder how ships can be destroyed like that when they didn’t cross the withdrawal line. Like what if there’s ships that are barely damaged? Does something happen, like a huge asteroid exploding the map? 🤷🤷
What about the Ground attrition? will there be terrestrial forces, or deployable "Marine" forces you can send on stations (or even moons and planets) to capture them? Can't wait to have -1000 on "Warcrimes" because i decided to test my Solomon Class on a civilian space station :)
the fighting in nebulous rly kinda reminds me of a lot of the fleet combat in older gundam series. would be neat to see some lil space use mechs as a replacement for something like a fighter squadron. I've been rly enjoying the game and can't wait to see its future.
I don't understand why logistic ships are in the battle space. Unless it's an ambush, I feel like any half decent commander would have them as far away from the combat zone.
id wager that its exactly what they are going to be it will be fun to just see (LINE SHIP) on radar and you jump in to attack some logistics ships only to get blasted into the void by 450 bulks
@@roboticrebel4092 I don’t think the ANS logistic ships will be fitted the same way as the OSP. If that’s the option. Also, the’s a reason why (Oil) Tankers are not in OSP.
Are logistic ships/auxiliaries going to be new hulls? As for how the evacuation system works... why would you bring the logistics ship into the battle. You could just have it decelerate early and arrive late (or, if you lose, turn around). It seems like a problem you shouldn't have to worry about. So, if that's going to be a thing you want to do, maybe have it actually do something? Mid-battle replenishment is probably a bit unrealistic, but... could be an option. Or if they could be given *some* armament, they could be used to hold capture points against One Sneaky Corvette, which would encourage sticking them on your 'natural' VP and only running if you're retreating the whole force. ... as to the option to abandon retreat, that gives me a further idea: Recovering abandoned ships, both yours and the enemy's. Obviously you can't recover a ship that evaporated due to reactor explosion, but if you could occasionally get the ability to recover and repair a damaged hull... Normally this would be not particularly worthwhile, but could be especially interesting as OSP.
Will stations carry limited amounts of fuel or will you be able to refuel your vessels at any station at any time assuming an open berth. (sorry if this was covered I've been watching this in a loud area)
Awesome dev diary, cannot wait to see all my poor shipmates die, hopefully they will be listed in the AAR of a battle and maybe let us hand out (even if just cosmetic / posthumously) medals based on what these officers did! And a quick record of service, what ships they served on, what systems/planets they traveled to and what battles they fought in? Would be super cool imo
Oh yeah finally getting some meat on the bones of the game. I swear conquest mode elevates Nebulous so far beyond your typical rts or vehicular combat game, in a way this kinda reminds me of how Myth used to work with experience and the human element of the models on the screen.
The only way I've really enjoyed Nebulous is through campaigns - I've made my own and played some that others have made. Conquest is going to make this game even more insanely fun.
It would also be cool to have the admiral have logictics point to give buff to logicstics. As I have read a true story of a british aircraft carrier task force in WWII been sent to the Pacific and the admiral was task to organise his own logistics as they went. Where they were going to get fuel, food, ammo and how to get it to them. So when not in battle the admiral has to keep the fleet togeather, organized and operational. Then work on strategies and combat after. I also read similar things in scif book like the lost fleet. Where the admiral had to work very closely to logistics and intel all the time then battle on top the man awas busy 😆😆
I love the human element that's been baked into Nebulous since I started playing. Even the tutorial missions do a great job at just humanizing the ships and crew. THAT SAID You do realize that now that there is a scoreboard for it that some players- Not me! (he lied as easily as he breathed) but some players are going to try and get the high score for warcrimes, yes? Not saying thats a good/bad thing, but it is a thing you should expect. EDIT: Actually with the addition of the Withdrawal and retreat timers, what happens to life-pods of the losing team? How do they get out? Can they be intercepted by the victorious faction? Can prisoners of war be a thing? Could we embark upon daring raids to rescue our admiral from an enemy prison? Please say yes.
Would really love if the ranks were changable or at least had different options, wish I could have RN style ranks instead of this ensign and LTJG business. Otherwise, this new operational level stuff looks awesome and as true to managing a real navy as is possible for a game. Looking forward to being able to mission kill task forces and have more in depth objectives than just blowing up enemy ships
So melting lifeboats is a warcrime (obviously) but how about capturing them? If you take a ship and make it go out of its way to lifeboats and take them as pows that would be cool :3 (idk how it would work but still, and capturing a known warcriminal who beams lifeboats could be interesting)
I'm interested in buying the game but there are complaints about faction balance. Also, as a casual, do I get to play against bots in bot-only games? Do you have a colorblind mode for the players who are impaired?
Oh my god the warcrime system, that’s fucking great. I wonder if you could include picking up lifepods as well in order to capture enemy officers without causing warcrimes (maybe that would require carriers though!). I think it could also be interesting if the officers also had even more in depth character. Eg. one of your best officers has been through so many very close battles where their ship is hit (and crew dies), and at some point they get PTSD… this means debuffs, or maybe even the character disappearing completely (being too messed up to continue working, or something else). So in essence lowering the stress of your officers by giving them off time, and making sure your losses aren’t so great. I suppose that could just cause a snowball effect, which I am not a huge fan of personally…
"the ships are characters in their own right, theyre not these anonymous swarms that you can just send at the enemy"
My 20 tug 3K fleet:
if you dont have cute names for each and you dont kiss them on the forehead every night then you are a monster.
*Opens story book*
“Once upon a time…”
I have found that Nebulous makes me feel like I am playing a Tom Clancy book if that makes any sense. It has made me feel like I am commanding actual warships in a way that I don't get out of Homeworld or Empire at war, without getting lost in the weeds when it comes to all the "Realistic details". I admit it looks like conquest is going to have more details but you also are allowing us to share the load and simplify things, the more I see of Conquest the more excited I become.
The “Tom Clancy” of science fiction strategy games(and not a shooter game, for once…)
Yes, and I really wondering, why devs are so stick with this dumb "18th century space" setting. Make it underwater world, this be much more natural and exciting - with addition of sea fauna, thermal layer, deep scattering layers and a lot of more.
Also with difference in maximum depth for different ships and even weapons.
This can also remain in space - but in real space. Make this occur in Titan's ocean, for example. Or Venus atmosphere.
Agreed I adore his books and its a large part of why this is my favourite game on steam
@@mkapaceb98 Those are some really good ideas. I never understood why the dev didn't opt for a regular blue water naval game, it's clear that a space game is not really what he intends to make. The underwater idea is really good as you would still have 3d movement.
@@mkapaceb98 just because the liners have broadsides doesn’t mean it’s the 18th century. Nebulous is a eclectic mix of the postwar naval combat from the gun artillery of the 50s onto laser point defense systems that aren’t even in service today.
"Quiet! The admiral's on the line!"
Love this, and love the officer system. It seems like it will really feel like a big tragedy to lose one of your main admirals who you've taken from the start and developed over time. Will we be able to capture enemy officers by scooping up life boats and maybe ransom them back to the enemy? :D
as per the official concept document, yes you can capture them for interrogation, not sure about ransom though :P
docs.google.com/document/d/1Pv0jSMwneQzJ_7o2vx0QB_NSVup5N-t_N6TvlLCcICs/edit
@@PackedWolf cool thanks
100% love what you said about the ships in the game, and how they were made to matter, feel real and not just some random fodder you throw at some resource system like any other RTS. I definitely will care even more when I know I have crew on board with names & faces. Awesome dev log. Happy New Year everyone!
Man, there is a LOT to unpack here. This will be adding way more depth to the game for sure. While it seems like it'd make for a grand single player campaign, it has so much complexity that I'm concerned about how multiplayer will function. The crew system as well as the in-depth logistics system is going to scare a lot of the more casual players. UI is going to need to be on point if we hope to manage it all.
Looks fun, thanks for the devlog and great job as always!
Multiplayer is likely not going to be 1v1. I think the idea is to have teams of several players to balance the load. One person focuses on supplies, one on repairs and maintenance, one on tactics, one on designs, etc.)
Multiplayer is going to be multiple players on each team. IE 1 player handles logistics, 1 handles fleets, etc. and when it’s time for a battle, all the players on a side can pick ships to control.
Being a prior service guy I really appreciate the officer system. When I play games like Combat Mission I have a lot of head cannon for my troops and seeing things like this really get me into the roleplay of it all. Especially with the really good art style you picked for the portraits. This game really gives me vibes of the Frontline books by Marko Kloos. Sci-fi with an injection of realism. Keep up the amazing work!
If you can personalize the officers names, community events will have the actual community in them. Looking good, can't wait for the release.
Edit: Also, speaking of officers, maybe officers that are trained on a ship gain the bonuses but for that ship class, and when you switch them to a different ship class (not hull, as the same hull can have a lot of different class ships in the same fleet) those are partially "nerfed" until a few levels are reached. That way, even if you can somehow get a very skilled officer with the academy, the lack of "field experience" can avoid them being too OP, or swapping officers becomes a decision that can have real consecuences, as in, do you keep them in the same ship they have been even if it's outdated? or switch to a newer ship, at the cost of one or two command levels so they can get their foothold?
Very cool! About the retreat mechanics at the end, it will also be interesting to see situations where the losers might want to stick around and the winners try to escape. Sometimes you lose the cap game while winning fights (deathballs) and the winners may just want to take their win and peace out.
It might make deathballs useful, to just keep forcing battle at a strategic location and attrition enemy forces down to combat ineffectiveness.
You'll always be our most shipman Mazer
Great update and +1 for what you said about games and art. Feels like this lesson has been forgotten somewhat in favour of business with the popularity of gaming in general now and it's great to see a game like this emulating that arthouse committment and attention to detail that was more common back in the 90s and 00s. I'm really happy that a game like this exists and is being done well and done right.
13:54 I'm loving this! This is exactly what I think a lot of people are looking for in a procedural campaign, to craft their own story. The freedom of customization to make an officer feel unique and impactful, and the ability for them to grow during the campaign is what makes them feel important!
May I recommend for the next faction?
I’ve noticed on a dubiously cannon map that there are other groups, potentially a faction that goes really (and I mean REALLY) heavy into armored and PD warships that are so slow and bulky, it’s hard to even get close.
Yet because they are so slow and bulky, the guns they mount are no pushover weapons. They wouldn’t believe in anything smaller than a Torpedo so small missiles (beyond chaff and A-A-Ms of course) would be scoffed at, their destroyers would be absolute bricks with 2 single barreled 250s on top and bottom, then coated in PD and armor. Unfortunately even their lightest clipper would be cripplingly slow! Fastest speeds might see 38 m/s! But it is the price they pay for 30cm on a frigate equivalent.
They would go all in on armor, PD, largest of guns, and heavy Torpedos. But they lack mobility to maneuver and could easily be disabled by smaller, faster craft armed with higher pen missiles (I’m looking at you OSPN) or massive amounts of plasma/railgun fire.
Do not forget even just their frigates carry guns capable of crippling Axfords and outright destroying the rag-tag navy. A lumbering beast with sharp claws is not to be trifled with unless prepared
babe wake up, new nebulous devlog
How do the officers get back from the escape pods? Will we need to rescue them or will they come back after a set time?
I'd highly suggest adding spaces between rank names which have multiple words to enhance readability. E.g:
VADM --> V. ADM
CHENG --> Ch. ENG
LCDR --> L. CDR
This would help those who are not as familiar with navy ranks IRL.
While this is almost certainly out of scope for this game, it makes me think of a thought I had about eventually having to deal with fleet politics and the various deplorable excesses of personality and raging egos under your command to run an effective fleet.
Well, that is where other players in the conquest multiplayer come in i guess XD.
@@velbloudnic9152 lol exactly
Crusader Kings, but scifi navy professional bickering.
Damn this is exciting, happy new year!
Looks amazing, but I have to admit I'm kind of worried about all those stacking bonuses. Already modules and compartments can dramatically change the behavior of any weapons, but with officers and admiral bonuses on top? That's a lot of balancing levers that are moot.
Good point, but I'd assume that in the current state of things, if something gets too crazy it'll get caught by the testers and changed before release. Or I'd hope so at least.
Besides it also depends on how those bonuses are applied - I doubt 5% of your already quite reduced reload time (from modules) will be THAT strong. Neat to have, but still.
On the flip side of this argument, ship stat bonuses are great and all, but there’s nothing a good volley of size 3 torpedoes can’t fix, and I can imagine it will be immensely satisfying to knock out an enemy flagship with a stacked crew that’s been causing you problems for a few encounters by that point. Maybe the warcrime score in that situation will be worth it….
Things are getting REAL now, this is looking sicker and sicker mazer! Rooting for you over here
Just my experiance working prevenative maintaince on a production line: people do absolutely make a huge difference between a line running well and not so well (private sector experience only). I would like to see a couple of things implemented just from what I see here:
1) Building of new ships with different templates ( overtime when a fight occurs you are going to adapt your fleet to what works and what does not).
2) Rotation of officers to send to the acdemy to train new officers ( in WW2 the USA recovered their down pilots and after so long on deployment. Those experienced pilots were sent them home to train the new pilots)
Finally, officers and command structure. Fundamental parts of warfare for thousands of years. Yet for some reason so many games calling themselves hardcore, realistic, simulation etc ignore those fundamental parts.
Back when the game launched, I suggested these features. I was immediately harassed by other community members for suggesting "unnecessary meaningless things" and given clown awards. Now I expect those same people are going to pretend how they always wanted these"brilliant" features.
I really like the humanized officers and ships. A lot of skirmish games end up with half or more of the "victorious" side knocked out. Calling that a victory gets a lot harder when you're looking at named ships and people rather than numbers.
Games and other media have a big tendency to dramatically over-exaggerate combat losses - especially so in recreating historical battles, where more than a 5ish% rate of casualty was unusual, and 10% utterly shocking.
I love the small details like crews being on leave/training due to ship waiting maintenance.
I didn't know this was in the works. Looking at the concept document, this is going to be crazy in depth. It's going to be like a strategy-war simulator. I'm excited to see it!
Always love nebulous devlogs, keep up the good work
The officer system sounds super cool! I 100% agree that having your ship crew be as much of an important part of your army as the ships themselves makes for more engaging gameplay, and adds a whole new layer of strategies and considerations when deciding how to engage in battles. Super excited to get my hands on this game mode, as someone who loves the idea of this game but is not too much into random death matches as it's currently playable. Keep up the good work! And also, happy new year to everyone.
I am incredibly excited for this!
Oh hey another Devlog! I was just thinking about Nebulous and what's been going on. I'm so glad things are chugging along!
What a phenomenal game this has become and will continue to become! The team should be immensely proud of what they have created. Can't wait to see what the future holds:)
I check in with this game about once a month for major changes. This dev log has me PUMPED!
14:44 This is one of the main reasons why I'm excited about playing this game. Each ship forming its own identity with crew that grow with it over time and the very real threat of losing it all. It sounds like the perfect game to me honestly.
Looking forward to 2024 and your great work . Keep it up and thank you so much for your commitment and hard work thus far !
I would really love to see a mechanic where a player can run over to life pods, capture them, and run off with them, or auto-capture those pods if they win the fight... Likewise, a friendly or allied player can rescue their own life pods to prevent their capture... Enemy players who do capture a lifepod and the officers inside could be able to interrogate them, revealing orders from other fleets, locations of bases and stationary installations, e.g... Or ransomed or exchanged to the enemy for resources, or one of your officers the other team captured... This could make for some really in-depth information warfare, and exemplifies the value of rescuing a ship and its crew, or, better yet, doing all you can to ensure you never lose a ship in the first place...
The officer portraits fit the game design perfectly! Thank you for giving us an update.
My opinions matter not, but I have never wanted or cared to "get gud" at a game before. But here I am. Thanks Mazer and all the rest of y'all for doing this wonderful niche thing. Happy New Year's.
Loving the staff management and officer info and perks! Can’t wait to play the campaign!
Good plans. Great work by the artist, too. Good luck!
This is amazing work! Super excited for conquest!
With the new officer system it would be cool if a ship could surrender in the withdrawal phase and crew be captured, then a prisoner exchange could be made to regain the captured crew. Successful prisoner exchanges could also add to the war progress based on how many crew was gained. Something for the future anyway.
So excited for what's to come in this game!
I think this is a cool detail, traits using values and on top of that the use of officers on ships, so that a ship can specialize in something.
This is looking absolutely awesome, as usual! I can't wait!
The Lifeboats will not make it through the night
Really loving the looks of this. It's clear that you're taking a lot of concepts into account, and making an effort to make cheesing less attractive. Obviously the cheesing is not a big deal for singleplayer, but multi will always be an uphill battle against mechanic exploitation. Looking forward to future updates!
Love the officer system, really ingenious and a great way to simulate skills and personnel. One idea could be command skills relating to the strategic layer and then only being able to be applied when filling an admiral's billet, and tie them in with the officer's experiences before becoming an admiral. So a lvl 15 navigator admiral gets the perk "Master Navigator" which gives his task force better fuel efficiency, a lvl 15 Ops admiral gets a "Logistician Ties" perk that increases berth operations, etc.
I know how you mentioned that ships will have a history that is viewable. Is there any chance that you will implement a history section for each officer? Just something like a tab that shows stuff like what ships/positions that officer has been on or battles they have been a part of etc. Feel like it would add more to the personal element of the officers and the creation of a story with each campaign.
absolutely love all that you said about Nebulous's mission statement, on showing the brutality of naval combat, getting you invested in your ships just to throw them into the grinder. It really sets NFC apart from other SF strategy games like Stellaris, Empire at War, SOASE, etc. I can't say how many times I've gotten attached to the ships in one of my fleet and been viscerally frustrated when they got ambushed by well-placed railguns or a hidden beam flotilla.
Super excited about Conquest! Y'all's Devlogs are such a fantastic way of keeping the community engaged and informed.
One day we will get carriers and possibly even a third faction,conquest is gonna make the wait much more worth
with this new system of officers, could you capture enemy officers? because if so, you could have things like prisoner exchanges as well or have an officer of the enemy switch sides.
Thank you for your amazing work. I've never guessed that the Strategic part would get that deep. Amazing.
Take your time to complete. And also I would like to support the development, so how about a cosmetic's "support-the-development"-dlc ?
Looks great. Though it makes me wonder if it will be possible to customise the officers in skirmish fleets as well. Even if they don´t provide mechanical bonuses, it would be good to know what unfortunate got assigned to the rocket shuttle / torpedo sprinter.
"Ensign Kennedy, you are instructed to take your shuttle and engage that enemy Keystone."
"But sir--"
"No buts, get to it."
The department head buffs should not be completely random. Shuffling officers around after each battle to get the right randomly assigned bonuses on the right ships isn't engaging or interesting gameplay where you have to make meaningful choices, it's just mobile game tier tedium that you have to do because if you don't you're going into your next fight weaker than you otherwise would have been.
Some degree of randomness could be fine for variety's sake, but when an officer levels up the skill that is increased should be heavily weighted toward what the officer's ship actually did to get that XP. Like, if I have a beam destroyer that just fried three times its point value in enemy ships and the weapons officer levels up four times in casemate traverse rate, and I have to watch for something like that happening every single time any officer on any ship levels up anywhere, I'm gonna go insane.
I have an idea to maybe spice things up with how the maps could work when a battle is started. Add dozens of small asteroid clusters throughout the campaign overview screen. If your fleet is going to be intercepted by a superior force they could head towards one of these asteroid clusters to give them a fighting chance at outsmarting a larger force that would easily defeat them on the direct confrontations youd have on abysal. Just a thought that could spice up the gameplay
Just a thought on the portraits. If they have to fit inside of a space suit it would make sense for them to have as little extra hair as possible They would likely have short hair and little to no facial hair.
This game is art. The realism is something lacking in almost all games. Super excited
I hope they include a capture/POW system as well, ransoming and interrogation of crew and officers for intel and resources. Population (War Support) and Crew should be a resource. Could even separate the crews into boatswains(general), maintenance(technicians), and specialists(support).
And I will still say no future war is realistic without nukes, but I guess that will have to be modded in.
VERY cool! Super excited to play this myself :D
Are we going to have it to where only admirals can command fleets? Seems to me like smaller units could do with one of the ships CO's commandong the task force, like a small destroyer or frigate squadron.
I really like this, it's good bones for the system. I am really onboard with the effort made to make the ships feel like characters. I've already had times where I pictured it was the people on my ship coming up with the ideas instead of me.
One concern I'm on the fence about is how when a officer levels up, it'll affect a random skill that might not be applicable to the ship they are on. For example, if the weapons officer for my gun battleship gets a skill that benefits laser weapons. I'm on the fence because I can see the benefits of gaining a random skill as well as if you limited the skill gains to systems that are on the ship they leveled up in. I can't say I know the answer either, so I'm going to be patient and see what happens.
20:39 I wonder how ships can be destroyed like that when they didn’t cross the withdrawal line. Like what if there’s ships that are barely damaged? Does something happen, like a huge asteroid exploding the map? 🤷🤷
hey! for how long and how many of you are working on this game? thx for your answer
What about the Ground attrition? will there be terrestrial forces, or deployable "Marine" forces you can send on stations (or even moons and planets) to capture them?
Can't wait to have -1000 on "Warcrimes" because i decided to test my Solomon Class on a civilian space station :)
the fighting in nebulous rly kinda reminds me of a lot of the fleet combat in older gundam series. would be neat to see some lil space use mechs as a replacement for something like a fighter squadron. I've been rly enjoying the game and can't wait to see its future.
I don't understand why logistic ships are in the battle space. Unless it's an ambush, I feel like any half decent commander would have them as far away from the combat zone.
Imagine that some of the logistics ships could be those (Oil) Tankers cut from the OSP faction
id wager that its exactly what they are going to be
it will be fun to just see (LINE SHIP) on radar and you jump in to attack some logistics ships only to get blasted into the void by 450 bulks
@@roboticrebel4092 I don’t think the ANS logistic ships will be fitted the same way as the OSP. If that’s the option. Also, the’s a reason why (Oil) Tankers are not in OSP.
i think the game need a medal system as well, my crew that survive in my suicide atack boats are getting preference in promotions
This is actually incredible
It's a shame that I enter the fleet designer and forget about everything else when I play this game :c
You can read the 'The lost Fleet' by J Chamble...Very realistic space battle...This game reminds me lots of battles from yhe book...
Idk if it would clash with the supply ships
But why cant battleship's share fuel they got enough. Maybe with a special modulel?
I feelsome cargo resupply/fuel tankers would be neccesary in this mode. So you csn refuel your ships on the flu and rearm them mid flight
That’s the logistics ships he mentioned a few times
Sir we need to include punishment and medals for RPG purposes, including animation when you "spaced" incompetent officers for their mistakes!
Aaaand I have lots of questions... XD
THIS IS AWESOME.
this looks awesome, great job!!
I feel we'll need more ship hulls for each faction, even hulls for the transport ships too
Are logistic ships/auxiliaries going to be new hulls?
As for how the evacuation system works... why would you bring the logistics ship into the battle. You could just have it decelerate early and arrive late (or, if you lose, turn around). It seems like a problem you shouldn't have to worry about.
So, if that's going to be a thing you want to do, maybe have it actually do something? Mid-battle replenishment is probably a bit unrealistic, but... could be an option. Or if they could be given *some* armament, they could be used to hold capture points against One Sneaky Corvette, which would encourage sticking them on your 'natural' VP and only running if you're retreating the whole force.
... as to the option to abandon retreat, that gives me a further idea: Recovering abandoned ships, both yours and the enemy's. Obviously you can't recover a ship that evaporated due to reactor explosion, but if you could occasionally get the ability to recover and repair a damaged hull... Normally this would be not particularly worthwhile, but could be especially interesting as OSP.
end of the year devlog yaii :D
Would we have the ability to add custom fleet commanders?
this could be hilarious, uploading a personal portrait of yourself for an admiral lol. will likely be available at least in mod form I expect!
Will stations carry limited amounts of fuel or will you be able to refuel your vessels at any station at any time assuming an open berth. (sorry if this was covered I've been watching this in a loud area)
Awesome dev diary, cannot wait to see all my poor shipmates die, hopefully they will be listed in the AAR of a battle and maybe let us hand out (even if just cosmetic / posthumously) medals based on what these officers did! And a quick record of service, what ships they served on, what systems/planets they traveled to and what battles they fought in? Would be super cool imo
Very impressive !
Can’t wait to try this, shame I don’t have friends who are interested in this kind of games
So how long is the conquest mode planned to be?
I watched this and instantly bought the game
Im confused why would taking worlds and Rocks away not give you points?
Oh yeah finally getting some meat on the bones of the game. I swear conquest mode elevates Nebulous so far beyond your typical rts or vehicular combat game, in a way this kinda reminds me of how Myth used to work with experience and the human element of the models on the screen.
Do you plan on adding AI to the large scale conquest? Or will it be multiplayer only?
Yes, I believe ai is planned for conquest
Fabulous...Nebulous !!! 🤩
Will the be another "officer" role for like a CMC or COB
The only way I've really enjoyed Nebulous is through campaigns - I've made my own and played some that others have made. Conquest is going to make this game even more insanely fun.
It would also be cool to have the admiral have logictics point to give buff to logicstics. As I have read a true story of a british aircraft carrier task force in WWII been sent to the Pacific and the admiral was task to organise his own logistics as they went. Where they were going to get fuel, food, ammo and how to get it to them. So when not in battle the admiral has to keep the fleet togeather, organized and operational. Then work on strategies and combat after.
I also read similar things in scif book like the lost fleet. Where the admiral had to work very closely to logistics and intel all the time then battle on top the man awas busy 😆😆
Expert maintainers and battle hardened seem op in the long run
Mind. Blown. So. Cool. 🤯
I love the human element that's been baked into Nebulous since I started playing. Even the tutorial missions do a great job at just humanizing the ships and crew.
THAT SAID
You do realize that now that there is a scoreboard for it that some players- Not me! (he lied as easily as he breathed) but some players are going to try and get the high score for warcrimes, yes?
Not saying thats a good/bad thing, but it is a thing you should expect.
EDIT: Actually with the addition of the Withdrawal and retreat timers, what happens to life-pods of the losing team? How do they get out? Can they be intercepted by the victorious faction? Can prisoners of war be a thing? Could we embark upon daring raids to rescue our admiral from an enemy prison? Please say yes.
-Geneva Convention-
*_G E N E V A C H E C K L I S T_*
Would really love if the ranks were changable or at least had different options, wish I could have RN style ranks instead of this ensign and LTJG business. Otherwise, this new operational level stuff looks awesome and as true to managing a real navy as is possible for a game. Looking forward to being able to mission kill task forces and have more in depth objectives than just blowing up enemy ships
So melting lifeboats is a warcrime (obviously) but how about capturing them? If you take a ship and make it go out of its way to lifeboats and take them as pows that would be cool :3 (idk how it would work but still, and capturing a known warcriminal who beams lifeboats could be interesting)
I'm interested in buying the game but there are complaints about faction balance. Also, as a casual, do I get to play against bots in bot-only games? Do you have a colorblind mode for the players who are impaired?
Yes to both questions
please tell me it comes out within the month
Oh my god the warcrime system, that’s fucking great. I wonder if you could include picking up lifepods as well in order to capture enemy officers without causing warcrimes (maybe that would require carriers though!).
I think it could also be interesting if the officers also had even more in depth character. Eg. one of your best officers has been through so many very close battles where their ship is hit (and crew dies), and at some point they get PTSD… this means debuffs, or maybe even the character disappearing completely (being too messed up to continue working, or something else). So in essence lowering the stress of your officers by giving them off time, and making sure your losses aren’t so great. I suppose that could just cause a snowball effect, which I am not a huge fan of personally…
Will Conquest mode be available vs AI? lol
oh i can feel anime mod will came second after this relased