Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

I have been playing Solitary games for a week to get familiar with the game and build up a team with some experience but I have some observations/problems with the game play.

1. Inferior teams fight too well. It is not uncommon for inferior teams to score hits up to 10 hexes away. Within 5 hexes the hit rate is over 50%.

2. I have (had) a 'normal' ranked team that I was playing against an inferior team at 50% weight so I could try out some different strategies. It was beating me so handly that I exited out of the game in frustration and now have the team stranded with no way to recover them. There is no way that I expected those battle options to produce an opposing team with that skill.

3. Once battle has started I notice that if I give a titan a move order, that titan may not move for up to 3 combat cycles. This doesn't happen always but enough to mess up my fire/move formations.

4. It might be me, but it seems opposing teams lock on and fire first much more often than I can.

jruffolo wrote:Hi,

I have been playing Solitary games for a week to get familiar with the game and build up a team with some experience but I have some observations/problems with the game play.

1. Inferior teams fight too well. It is not uncommon for inferior teams to score hits up to 10 hexes away. Within 5 hexes the hit rate is over 50%.

2. I have (had) a 'normal' ranked team that I was playing against an inferior team at 50% weight so I could try out some different strategies. It was beating me so handly that I exited out of the game in frustration and now have the team stranded with no way to recover them. There is no way that I expected those battle options to produce an opposing team with that skill.

3. Once battle has started I notice that if I give a titan a move order, that titan may not move for up to 3 combat cycles. This doesn't happen always but enough to mess up my fire/move formations.

4. It might be me, but it seems opposing teams lock on and fire first much more often than I can.

Really, these problems are no bugs at all. Inferior AI teams have bad skills and the computer doesn't cheat in passing skill checks. To check just start a hotseat game and select an inferior team for you. Did you read the turn system guide ? What is a combat cycle ?

jruffolo wrote:Hi,



I have been playing Solitary games for a week to get familiar with the game and build up a team with some experience but I have some observations/problems with the game play.

Welcome! As Larkin said these aren't bugs.. but some of them can appear as problems to the newer players while your still in the learning curve.

1. Inferior teams fight too well. It is not uncommon for inferior teams to score hits up to 10 hexes away. Within 5 hexes the hit rate is over 50%.

There are ALOT of factors here, The weapon involved, the battle computer on the AI titans, whether the AI has a successful scan, terrian and movement modifiers, the AI jocks skill score, as well as LOTS of luck. 50% is well within reason with the right combination of factors. Your rookie jocks (same as AI inferior) should be able to get >50% to hit at 5 hex range in the same circumstances. Best way to stop it, is to change the circumstances whether that means dodging, running for heavier cover, getting inside/outside optimal range of the AI's weapons, creating smokescreens to break enemy line of sight, etc...

2. I have (had) a 'normal' ranked team that I was playing against an inferior team at 50% weight so I could try out some different strategies. It was beating me so handly that I exited out of the game in frustration and now have the team stranded with no way to recover them. There is no way that I expected those battle options to produce an opposing team with that skill.

Use what I mentioned above it will help, your tactics will improve and this will not happen as often, but remember the AI can still get lucky.(nothing like the 1st shot being an AC20 to the head... well.. maybe an airdroped telsa bolt ) It happens to all of us occasionally. When everything starts going south, don't be afraid of pretending your French and RUNNING AWAY either by running off the edge of the map or ejecting.

If you exit the battle and the team is MIA, either pay to retrieve the team (if you have the money) or finish the fight from the autosave preferably by running away. You can't just play Gung-ho style when things go bad.... you'll die.... dead. You have to spot things going horrible wrong early enough to hopefully leave yourself an out.

3. Once battle has started I notice that if I give a titan a move order, that titan may not move for up to 3 combat cycles. This doesn't happen always but enough to mess up my fire/move formations.

You've not quite got the grasp of the 'turn' system.. it can take a while to catch on as there are no other games out there that uses this style of turn system. There are several thread and at least 1 'sticky' that goes over the 'turn' system in detail to help clarify it and make the light bulb click on.

4. It might be me, but it seems opposing teams lock on and fire first much more often than I can.

Depends on your scanner and electronic warfare skills as well as which Battle computer your titans are equipped with as well as your Reaction ability score. the AI algorythm for determining the AIs jocks skills reguarding this sorta thing are probably giving them more 'weight' then you are. Not that that's nessasarly bad, early on my squads tend to be a little slow on the draw as I don't pump the abilities in question as much as the AI does.


Keep playing knowing that at least these things aren't broke, once you get a better feel of the game and the tactics these 'bumps' in the road will iron themselves out. Hope that helped a bit.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, for playing 1 week I an still inferior But I started noticing the items I mentioned in the original post.

What I mean by combat cycle is a combination of actions move/shoot/scan, etc. What has made it confusing for me and what contributed to my last disaster of a match is I tried to combine moving and shooting once contact was made. Very quickly I found this was a mistake as my titans I ordered to move not only didn't move, they never even had the opportunity to shoot, scan or anything else. By the time they did move my 2 titans had fired 3 times and were shreded by the opposing 4 titians who shot and moved 3 times also. Also the accuracy of the opposing force and my sudden lack of accuracy was also amazing

So my conclusion was something was wrong, either with me (probably) or something in the game (possible).

Any help understanding the game would be appreciated. I player Mechwar for years and beta tested and played Mechcommander 1 and 2 and would like to transfer that experience into this game.

Thanks in advance.

So I also discovered something very bad... I had created a new squad but did not dismiss the original squad. I played 1 match with that new squad. The autosave overwrote the autosave game for my squad in trouble and now I really have no way to bring that squad back do I Or is there a work around for an oops like this.

Here is a suggestions for a patch. Don't autosave in the same slot every time. Maybe alternate between 2 or 3 slots.

jruffolo wrote: So my conclusion was something was wrong, either with me (probably) or something in the game (possible).

Any help understanding the game would be appreciated. I player Mechwar for years and beta tested and played Mechcommander 1 and 2 and would like to transfer that experience into this game.

Thanks in advance.

Please read and try to understand the turn system by studying the guide which is a sticky thread here. Use a random team for testing. Its most likely that you haven't grasped the turn system yet.