The Secret Fleet mobile game review.

Thought I should give an update.

I have completed all currently released missions (30 at time of writing) and so am reduced to farming for a chance of upgrades, and building up metal/plasma for buying items from the trade centers - and I am fast running out of those.

Mission 30 is the only one I cannot take on Hull Penetrator missiles alone - the weapon batteries on that ship are just too big and fast repairing.

I did not stick around in the lower area to farm for resources to buy the rarer components, so I do not have those. I have never had a better than rare drop, so all my purples are bought.

My officers currently cap at level 10 which is enough to fully upgrade Blue components, but only half way on Purple. I have no Orange components to test against.

My current load-out:
Bridge
Purple Metal Maker (Particulate Synthesier)
Blue Plasma Maker (Plasma Collider)
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III)
Purple More Upgrades (Upgrade Ventricle)
White Officer Trainer (BuTrain Simulator)
Green Upgrade Speed (Enhancement Matrix)
Green Thrusters (Gimballed Auto-Thrusters)

Sidewalls
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III) * 2
Green Sidewall Recharge (Induction Energizer)
Green Reduce BPL Damage (Phased Optic Armor)
Blue Sidewall Damage (Sidewall Penetrator)

Lasers
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III)
Purple Laser Damage (Prism-Cloud Disruptor)
Blue Laser Cooldown (Oscillating Laser Charger)
Green Increased Laser Damage (Oscillating Phaser)
Blue Damage Reduction (System Shield)

Counter Missiles
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III)
Green CM Cooldown (Ternary Tracking)
Green Damage Reduction (Inertial Harness)
Blue CM Damage (Ionic Missile Disruptor)
Blue CM Repair (Robotic CM Integrator)

ECM
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III)
Green ECM Coodown (Ternary ECM Processor)
White ECM Repair (ECM Integrator)
Green ECM Damage (ECM Wave Disruptor)
Blue Damage Reduction (System Shield)

Engineering
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III)
Blue Armor (500mm Alloy Armor)
Green Hull Repair (Recycling Replicator)
Blue Fire (Fire Mitigation Manifold)
White Damage Reduction (Tactical Processor)

Weapons
Blue Level Booster (Level Booster III) * 2
Blue Weapon Cooldown (Missile Tube Sequencer)
Blue Weapon Damage (Targeting Disruptor)
Blue Weapon Armor (Prismatic Ballistic Armor)
Purple Hull Damage (Gravitic Condenser)

I downloaded it this evening and have been trying it out. The difficulty seems to go way up at mission 10 and the optional missions that open up at the same time. Having 3 types of defenses to get through adds a lot of complexity.

Noticed a difficulty. Any upgrades made on one device does not immediately reflect or moves over and updates on the next device under the same Apple Gamecenter account. I've lost upgrades and items between devices

It all seems hit or miss on what moves. My money ( Metal and Plasma) definitely got debited and reflected on both devices whether or not I got what I payed for.

Working is getting in the way of my game time

I am liking that everyone is posting videos on Everyplay also. It felt lonely for awhile. Kinda felt like those dreams where you win the lottery and then you realize it's not real and wake up.

zzzzzz mmmbmmmbmm~ five more minutes Evergreen... I don't wanna go to work ~mmmmnnnbbnnnn zzzzzz

I hope you don’t mind all the feedback. I’m really enjoying and excited about the game!

Suggestions/Requests:

1. The notifications of when an upgrade completes are awesome. Could you add in indicator page for how many upgrades are in progress?
I mean, I suppose as Captain I should just walk around the decks and count, but if I’m just logging in to set up an upgrade it could be helpful. Maybe an indicator in the total ship page when a department has an upgrade in progress?

2. Have you considered changing the values for component improvements to display percent rather than ratios?
If I’m understanding correctly, the value for a property is being expressed as a ratio. (i.e. 1.000 = 100.0% of base) For example, the value for Laser recharge starts at 1.000, and when you install a level 4 Nuclear Pump Laser Charger, you reduce the cooldown time to 0.930 (93%) Maybe you did it this way to seem more science fiction-y, but I think the improvements would feel more important if they were expressed as percent. Especially in the bonuses, +5% to penetrator damage feels more significant than 0.050 increase.

3. Similarly, could the system info tab for a department include the current values for the power, cooldown, repair rate properties, so you can experiment with different loadouts and see the forecast?

4. How about a way to sell/recycle missiles and conduit?
I’m trying to following Yow’s and Agoetz’s suggestions about saving resources by using penetrators. Even when I don’t, the only missiles I really choose to buy are the laser heads and Hellfires. Unless I make a focused effort to shoot them off, I accumulate dozens of Red’s, Greens, Yellows and Blues. Could you add a way to scrap or sell them?

5. The app appears to be really sucking down battery life.
I am running an Iphone 5 using ios 7. Granted, the battery isn’t what it was a few years ago, but I’ve noticed that when I’m playing the app and plugged into a USB port, the charging rate can’t keep up. It’s still slow also while the app isn’t up but running in the background. Once I terminate the app, my charge can go up again, even as I’m using other applications. I haven’t experimented using a 2W or 5W charger to see how it keeps up.

Again, thanks for the game! It’s really capturing a lot of what I enjoy about the books.

Norm.bone wrote:I hope you don’t mind all the feedback. I’m really enjoying and excited about the game!

Suggestions/Requests:

1. The notifications of when an upgrade completes are awesome. Could you add in indicator page for how many upgrades are in progress?
I mean, I suppose as Captain I should just walk around the decks and count, but if I’m just logging in to set up an upgrade it could be helpful. Maybe an indicator in the total ship page when a department has an upgrade in progress?

2. Have you considered changing the values for component improvements to display percent rather than ratios?
If I’m understanding correctly, the value for a property is being expressed as a ratio. (i.e. 1.000 = 100.0% of base) For example, the value for Laser recharge starts at 1.000, and when you install a level 4 Nuclear Pump Laser Charger, you reduce the cooldown time to 0.930 (93%) Maybe you did it this way to seem more science fiction-y, but I think the improvements would feel more important if they were expressed as percent. Especially in the bonuses, +5% to penetrator damage feels more significant than 0.050 increase.

3. Similarly, could the system info tab for a department include the current values for the power, cooldown, repair rate properties, so you can experiment with different loadouts and see the forecast?

4. How about a way to sell/recycle missiles and conduit?
I’m trying to following Yow’s and Agoetz’s suggestions about saving resources by using penetrators. Even when I don’t, the only missiles I really choose to buy are the laser heads and Hellfires. Unless I make a focused effort to shoot them off, I accumulate dozens of Red’s, Greens, Yellows and Blues. Could you add a way to scrap or sell them?

5. The app appears to be really sucking down battery life.
I am running an Iphone 5 using ios 7. Granted, the battery isn’t what it was a few years ago, but I’ve noticed that when I’m playing the app and plugged into a USB port, the charging rate can’t keep up. It’s still slow also while the app isn’t up but running in the background. Once I terminate the app, my charge can go up again, even as I’m using other applications. I haven’t experimented using a 2W or 5W charger to see how it keeps up.

Again, thanks for the game! It’s really capturing a lot of what I enjoy about the books.

That, or at least 1-3. I would really like a set of tech manuals that lay out what stacks and what doesn't, how to interpret the numbers and such. Lots of the effects/impacts of various improvements are not explicitly presented, even though we get the delta from the improvement. BuShips knows what it's sending us out with! The alternative is for us to guess and experiment ... A lot. Studying the manuals, learning your equipment, was a rite of passage in the books, and this is an opportunity to add that.

Evergreen, I might have missed it somewhere but what is Tales of Honor The Secret Fleet rated. Some of the ship's names made me wonder. Mind now, I'm a sailor so you're not necessarily gonna get my goat but I just wonder about everyone else.

I must be the only one who didn't see there was an email in the support section to report game issues until just now.

Yow wrote::oops: I must be the only one who didn't see there was an email in the support section to report game issues until just now.

Yep. I reported a bug with it. They got back within 4 hours.

I figured suggestions might be worth discussing publicly, though.

Hi all

I've got the game and am now in the Sachsen sector. I used to be getting lots of different levels of drops, but for the last 20 or so main missions and random missions I've done I've only been got common drops as a result, even when the random mission was rated legendary/orange. Do you think I'm seeing a bug, or just a fluke?

JimHacker wrote:Hi all

I've got the game and am now in the Sachsen sector. I used to be getting lots of different levels of drops, but for the last 20 or so main missions and random missions I've done I've only been got common drops as a result, even when the random mission was rated legendary/orange. Do you think I'm seeing a bug, or just a fluke?

Same here, could be only so many non-common drops per sector or it might be a legit bug. I didn't post it cause I thought it was the former