Archive for June, 2014

The Engi Cruiser

Robotic Warfare – With the Engi Cruiser, have 3 drones functioning at the same time.

The Engi Cruiser first Achievement

Probably the easiest achievement of the game to obtain. Obtain three drones and activate all three of them to unlock this achievement. Repair drone and anti-drone drone work best since they only need one power.

I hardly lifted a finger – With the Engi Cruiser, destroy an enemy ship using only drones.

The Engi Cruiser second Achievement

This achievement can be done pretty quickly with the Torus in sector one if you encounter AI ship with no shield. Just let the “Anti-Ship Drone I” loose and he will get the job done for you.

If you’re not lucky enough to get a AI ship in the first few sectors, you can complete this achievement against a 1 shield ship in a asteroid field.

According to the wiki, you can use a boarding ship on a AI ship with doors connecting to every room. Since the ship will lose 1 hull each time a system is destroy, wait destroyed systems become activated again so you boarding drone take care of them. This might take awhile but will give you this achievement too.

The guns… They’ve stopped – Have 4 enemy systems or subsystems ionized at the same time while using the Engi Cruiser.

The Engi Cruiser third Achievement

This achievement can be easily complete when visiting a pulsar since system ionized by the pulsar count toward that achievement. Systems that have cool down periods such as cloaking, hacking, mind control and teleporters also count towards this achievement. So ionizing the missing system while these are recharging will get you this achievement.

If you are going to to it the hard way, which is only going with weapon, the Ion Blast II cannons with a  Ion Bomb or/and a Ion Blast I will get the job done to. You have to quickly switch between system while the shield are down, and you will get that achievement.

Nobility Rank

throne

Increasing your rank will allow you to assign your heroes to positions that increase their stats. More importantly it will allow your granaries to store more food, which is important if you plan to improve your resource fields to level 20. The easiest way to increase your nobility rank is to do duels in the faction camps. The more duels you do the better chances you have of getting a Court Quest item. You can only donate items up to a certain rank and then after that the Court Quest never asks for them again. To make the most of your items here is what you should be donating at each rank. Citizen– Wine, Salt, Silk Baron– Salt, Silk, Indigo Viscount– Silk, Indigo, Fur Marquis– Indigo, Fur, Horse Count– Fur, Horse, Spice Duke– Horse, Spice, Jade Infante– Spice, Jade, Pearl Lord-Jade, Pearl, Gold Save your Tribute Tokens for the later levels (Duke +) and only donate them during events that increase their value. How to get items to increase rank ? If you want to increase your nobility without gold the best way is to do faction quest and duel in the faction map. 1- Getting order arrows via Faction quest Order Arrows: Order Arrows are acquired through the Faction Quests. Only a few Faction Quests reward Order Arrows when you complete them. Once you have obtained Order Arrows through completing the Faction Quests, go to the Faction Map, then choose your Faction, then go to the Faction Reward page, and choose your reward. Not only are there Quest Items but there are armor, weapons, skill books, etc, so you may not wish to spend these versatile items on Quest Items. To spend Order Arrows follow these steps: order arrow 2- Dueling:When a player sends a hero to duel,if he wins the duel he may gain an item through the fight. Every once in awhile the item gained is a Quest Item. The Quest Items gained are usually Silk and Indigo, but very, very occasionally Fur and other higher Contribution Value Quest Items are gained through Dueling. Click the Faction Map button, then choose your Dueling Region, then pick your general to duel. I usually pick the highest level general to Duel, though if you lose most of your duels choose lower level generals to Duel. duel for nobility Source : http://forum.koramgame.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=16421&highlight=nobility Check this post on how to get to Generalissimo without gold : http://forum.koramgame.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=47520&highlight=nobility Do nobility rank increase rate of finding epic heroes ?¸ No, It will only affect the stats of normal heroes you found in the epic search. Nobility won’t affect the stats of epic heroes. Nobility rank have no effect on the probability of finding a epic hero. source : http://forum.koramgame.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=60963&highlight=nobility What the advantage of each rank

Rank Required Contribution Value Attack Bonus Defense Bonus Granary Size Increase
Baron 1200 1% 5% 0%
Viscount 10500 3% 10% 0%
Marquis 31500 5% 20% 10%
Count 101500 8% 30% 20%
Duke 241500 12% 40% 30%
Infante 451500 16% 50% 40%
Lord 696500 22% 50% 50%
Generalissimo 1396500 50% 50% 100%

The Kestrel first layout

Achievement :

The United Federation – Have six unique aliens on the Kestrel Cruiser simultaneously.

Kestrel first achievement

I though that this would be the easiest one to get but I never manage to get more than 5 different aliens. Your human count has one and you need to get 5 other from the eight different species in the game.

The Slug and the Crystal alien are the hardest to get. Slug can be recruited in store only in the slug home nebula or with particular event like Slocknog. Getting the cristal are even harder, you can only get them by receive the stasis pod from the Empty Ship in Asteroids quest, and then have the pod activated in the Zoltan Research Facility quest. You can get the achievement without these two race though. Here how to get other race:

Engi : They can be found through event, by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, zoltan sector/homeworld and even in the mantis sector/homeworld.

Zoltan: Like the Engi they can be found through some event like by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, zoltan sector/homeworld but less frequently elsewhere.

Mantis: Like the Engi they can be found through some event like by defeating slaver ship or paying for a slave from a slaver ship. you can get one in some occasion if you side with the mantis crew in a event in a engi controlled/homeworld sector The can be hired in shop, mostly in engi control sector/homeoworld, mantis sector/homeworld but rarely elsewhere.

Rock: They can be found too through the slaver and various event. They can be found in store too but mostly rock sector/homeworld but rarely elsewhere.

Lanius: You can get one when you encounter the “do you want our translator device ” event. It’s an event in abandoned sector that usually have Lanius there. You will encounter a Lanius ship that wants to trade scrap for fuel or drone or missile. There will be an option to inquire about their translator. Once you select it they will offer you 40 scrap for the “device” the device will end up being a Lanius name translator.
honestly I haven’t had the chance to find one except with that event or on the new Lanius ship or on a type C layout that sometime include Lanius crew member. However the wiki state that they can be found in store.

Note that This achievement is easier to complete using the Layout B (Red-Tail), as the starting crew includes three of the six required races.

Full Arsenal – Have every system and subsystem installed on the Kestrel Cruiser at one time.

Kestrel second achievement

This was the first achievement I manage to get on this ship and probably the easiest to accomplish of the three. You simply need to have all the system installed on the ship for the standard edition or 3 out of the 5 missing system in the advance edition. The missing system are : Teleporter, Drone Control,Cloaking, Hacking, and Mind Control, costing respectively 75, 85 (or 75, depending on which free drone it comes with), 150, 80, and 75 scrap. For the standard edition you need Teleporter, Drone Control,Cloaking.

The cheapest you can get this achievement in the advance edition is to get the Teleporter, Drone Control (if it 75) and Mind Control. Note your need the Battery subsystem too in the advance edition to get this achievement.

Tough Little Ship – As the Kestrel Cruiser, repair back to full health when it only has 1 HP remaining.

Kestrel third achievement

Probably one of the hardest achievement to pull off but here how you can do it.

Note (from the wiki): For the game to recognize this achievement as earned, the player must have the Kestrel Cruiser down to one hull point before jumping to a store beacon, and then the ship must be fully repaired all at once. If the ship is not repaired all at once or if the Hull Repair drone is used instead of a store, the achievement will not be earned.

I’ve added the note so you know that the Hull Repair drone won’t cut it and that you need to have 1 hp before going to a store.

They are several way to do this achievement but you probably know that having 1 hull is never a good situation to be and the risk of receiving more that 1 hull damage while fighting might throw off you calculation to get to  hull while fighting. And there always the problem that you need scrap to heal you ship full (usually 58 or 87 scrap).

There actually 2 somewhat safe way to do that achievement:

1- The first way is to find a asteroid field near a store, fight any hostile ship that are there. Once they are taken care of, power down your ship shield and watch it to go down to 1 hull while you repair any system or subsystem hit. Then warp to the store and repair it full.

2- You can use a weapon that can target your ship like the fire bomb. you need to have enough missile though (around 1 per point, note you can always lets the fire propagate). When you are near a store and you have enough scrap and missile, target your ship with the bomb until your at 1 hull point then extinguish the fire and jump to the store to repair your ship.

 

Final Fantasy Agito is a free-to-play RPG that sees you playing an elite member of a school.

The game launched in the Japanese App Store just last month. This week Square Enix  answered that it’s coming out worldwide on their blog. No specific date has been set, but they say the North American release is "soon" and have released a new trailer of the game.

I’ve haven’t had the chance to play the game but you can check the video promo and touch arcade review.

Final Fantasy Agito is a free-to-play RPG that sees you playing an elite member of a school. On weekdays you mill around and learn new skills from fellow students and teachers. On weekends you fight enormous boss battles with the entire Final Fantasy Agito community. Just like real life.

related

Check our friend at Touch arcade review

Final Fantasy: Agito coming on iOs and android (pocketgamer.co.uk)

We are doing a series of posts on FTL and  we hope you like them. If you want us to do more of this let us know in the comment or by mail at jack at onlinesgamestips.com

The Kestrel Cruiser is the starting ship of the game. It’s a pretty well balance ship that start with very powerful weapon. The burst laser II with 3 laser will take care of the early sector and the Artemis missile will help you remove those nasty shield. The burst laser II is so good that I never had to sell it or get rid of it in all my gameplay with this ship.

Layout A: The Kestrel Cruiser

The Kestrel first layout

Unlock: Unlocked by default

Starting weapons of that ship are some of the best in the game, you’ll probably will likely keep one or even both for the whole game. Burst Laser II is simply amazing, it’s only 2 power for 3 laser shot making it probably one of the best damage output for that amount of power. If you manage your way well this weapon should be to cruise through the early sector where enemy ship usually have 1 or no shield. The Artemis will help you to take out those shield, 1 power for 2 damage it’s quite good the only other missile using 1 power is the leto and it does only 1 damage.

One tactic with this ship is to add beam weapons, due to this ship’s high shield removal capabilities. Pike beam or halberd Beam will fit quite well on this ship. Another amazing setup I managed to get was to get two extra Burst Laser II (one found the other bought) and I cruised through the game with them. Weapon pre-igniter fit well on this ship, specially if you manage to get beam weapon, extra burst laser or better missile (Pegasu, etc)

Layout B: Red Tail

The Kestrel second layout

Unlock: Unlock that ship by earning two of the three Kestrel achievements.

The Basic Laser isn’t really good alone but four of them can make significant damage and will be very effective for early and even mid game. They are pretty good at leveling up your crewmember weapon skill. You will need replace these lasers with better lasers or support (bombs, missiles, beams). Already having a mantis might make it worthwhile to by a crew teleporter earlier than usual.

Layout C: The Swallow

The Kestrel Third layout

Unlock: Unlock that ship by surviving up to sector 8 with the Red tail (the kestrel layout B)

  • Default name: The Swallow
  • Starting Crew: 2 Human , 1 Lanius
  • Starting Weapons:
  • Starting Resources:
  • Slots: 4 Weapon, 2 Drone (requires system)

I haven’t had the chance to try this ship yet but it’s hacking system combine with the ion stunner make a good combo to prevent enemies from repairing their systems specially their shield, add the hacking stun augment and they won’t repair anything. It can be use to take down the Med bay or oxygen and prevent them from repairing them. I really like its layout, the oxygen system can be drain out of oxygen surrounding it forcing them to move elsewhere.

 

If you don’t have FTL: Faster Than Light on iPad click here and to buy it.

Source : The FTL Wiki Kestrel Page, The Wiki Ship Strategies and my tear and sweat trying to unlock those damn ship.

dragon quest 8 logo

Dragon Quest VIII is by far my favorite game on the PS2 and I’m trill to see it coming back on mobile device. Hundred of hours of story, fight and grinding in a beautiful and massive world.

Dragon Quest is well-known to have defined the JRPG genre so don’t be surprise by finding everything’s know from your beloved JRPG. DQ VIII battles reflect that more than anything else, the encounters are invisible and random, and the fights are turn-based. However DQVIII added an useful new thing called the tension meter, which allows you to use a character’s turn to charge up for a powerful attack. Tension actually makes this one of the easier Dragon Quest games, but you still have to remember to use buffs and debuffs to your advantage if you want you don’t want bad surprise.

Battle & Skills system
Unlike some the proceeding and following DQ game, there isn’t a job class system in Dragon Quest 8. Instead, when you level up, you get points that you can put towards any of five different categories. When a certain number of points are put into each category, your character will learns a new skill or ability.

Skill trees should be planned for the whole party. Thin air is a great move but getting it for three character is redundant. Not getting a critical hit move on just Hero or just Yangus is perfectly fine but getting critical hit skills for neither of them can cause trouble in the postgame, especially if Angelo did not get charming look. A staves build in which Jessica can use caduceus has more value if Angelo has gone down swords which has no focus on Angelo’s healing role. Your party is a team, not a sum of individuals.

Check out this post from gamefaq for more info on skills.

There much more than that, the classic casino is there, there a battle arena, a hand full of side quest and the Alchemy system to bang your head on.

Dragon Quest VIII is a solid game that will take probably 70 hour & more to complete and probably 100hr + if you want to complete all the post game quest. Some might say the game is a slightly strange fit on mobile devices, specially with to lost of voice acting and the hardware limitation, but it’s definitely worth playing.

Review of the PS2 Game by Clan of the Gray Wolf

Game Play Video by Touch Arcade

Related News:

Dragon Quest VIII (Touch arcade)

DQ VII: Journey of the Cursed King (Pocket Games)

DQVIII

I’ve talked about my love of Worms (not the one in the ground, the one in the game from Team 17) awhile ago and how DDTank poorly copied them.  Our favorite invertebrates are back and this time there fighting among themselves on mobile.

Another new feature is the card mode, which allows players to change the start and end of each of their turns by playing strategic cards dealt out at the beginning of the game.

Rewards are collected throughout the game enabling the in-game purchase of bronze, silver or gold cards.

It’s on special on the app store at the time of this writing, grab it while you can.

Itune Link

FTL

I’m a big fan of FTL and basically have the game since release.  I’ve got all the ship except the Cristal one and over 100 hr played on it. So I was quite happy when then announced the release of FTL on the IPad awhile ago. With the recent release on the IPad they updated the game with new content (ship, alien, mod, ship layout).

The game started has a Kickstarter campaign on February 27th, 2012 andthe campaign was a massive success.

Ok! We get it, you like this game but What the game about ?

FTL is roguelike space games, where you control a spaceship that needs to save the Federation from the Rebellion. Has you flee from the rebel force to the federation headquarter to be deliver critical information about the rebel force, you encounter alien race, hostile ship, event, store. You can unlock ship by going through certain event or be beating the rebel Flag ship with certain type of ship. What most notable and very common in the roguelike game is that each time you lose your ship, either no more crew or the whole ship is destroyed, you need to restart the game.

Expect to die a lot in this game, the easy mode is super hard and they manage to had a hard mode...

With made me look forward for more game in the space genre here 3 games that caught my attention recently. Please note that because of my love for FTL I’ll probably start a weekly or bi-weekly post on how to unlock ship and various achievement. If you can’t wait you can always check there wiki, its awesome source of FTL information.

P.S: I hope they will make it available on android too.

Cosmonautica

Cosmonautica look quite promising, it’s can be describe has The Sim in space meet FTL of some sort. . The player’s ship is the size of a large townhouse and various rooms can be bolted onto its empty compartments. Living quarters, vending machines, cargo bays, weapons, engines and, wait for it, toilets… At present, there’s not much to do beyond trading basic commodities, but ground missions and enhanced combat are due before release. Take a look.

 

Related

A life of space trading (indiesgames)

The cosmo-nautica Blog

Planet express simulator (Rock paper Shotgun)

Cosmo-Nautica (indiedb)

Shallow Space

From the look of it Shallow space is a Space 3D RTS game inspired from homeworld. Players will need to mine for resources, advance capital ships and engage in battle to improve your officers skills. You can even design your own weapon configurations and ship modules, and believe me there are plenty of ships to play with!

Related: Dominate the Shallow Space (Indieretronews)

SPAZ 2

I loved the first game even though I haven’t finished it yet. It doesn’t have the same vibe FTL does but I really liked how you upgrade your spaceships and how you can customize them. The game has a bit of grinding to it that can sometime be cumbersome.

SPAZ 1

SPAZ 1

SPAZ 2 come back with all these mechanic, new ones and with enhanced 3d graphics.

 

Official Site : http://minmax-games.com/SpacePiratesAndZombies/

Selling game in China

I’ve been reviewing game from China game corporation for a while (Koram, Gamebox, Youjoy, just to name a few) So made good game, some not.

But now the tide is turning, soon console will be available there and game maker will be allowed to sell game in the Chinese markets.

But Chinese authority are known to put some restriction on any one trying to do business there so.

Like the Pokémon we got them just for you, here are the top restriction from the biggest Asian country:

  • Gambling-related content or game features
  • Anything that violates China’s constitution
  • Anything that threatens China’s national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity.
  • Anything that harms the nation’s reputation, security, or interests.
  • Anything that instigates racial/ethnic hatred, or harms ethnic traditions and cultures.
  • Anything that violates China’s policy on religion by promoting cults or superstitions.
  • Anything that promotes or incites obscenity, drug use, violence, or gambling.
  • Anything that harms public ethics or China’s culture and traditions.
  • Anything that insults, slanders, or violates the rights of others.
  • Other content that violates the law.
  • Game characters wearing bikinis or shorts are prohibited.
  • Exposing sensitive parts of the body is not allowed.
  • Bodily touching between men and women in games is completely prohibited.

 

The last three points interesting since Chinese game makers are know to put bikini for no reason (Evony ads controversy, odin quest pics, zombie ate my pizza pinup has main female avatar.)

Related info & source :

China Details Copious Restrictions On Video Game Content (http://www.gamepolitics.com)

Bikinis, Shorts and Inter-Gender Touching Banned (http://www.gamepolitics.com)