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Loads of information about Starlink: Battle for Atlas
Hey all,
This is a general guide for anyone wanting to know more about the soon to be released (October 16th, 2018) Starlink: Battle for Atlas (as Ubisoft don’t seem to be giving too much away at present, although you can watch some great gameplay videos and I recommend the Nintendo Treehouse video about the game). All the information that I have is based on the various videos out there and may not be entirely accurate, since some of this might be misinterpreted by me or open to change before release. My reason for writing this is because I think people are focusing on this just being another toys to life game, with pretty space ships. From what I have seen I think this game could stand as a great title without all the toys and that people might be struggling to see past the curse of previous toys to life. I will split the information across a bunch of posts in this thread.
The Starlink: Battle for Atlas game might appear to be aimed at kids (it is) but they have chosen not to dumb things down (because kids aren’t dumb… well, not about games and stuff. They are crazy-dumb about things like the appropriateness of jam on furniture). This looks to be a really good in-depth story-led game with great character development (skill trees) and ship modification options (loads of different types of Mods that can be won in-game to upgrade and adapt various aspects of your ship and the weapons). This can be played in split-screen co-op mode (awesome, love this kind of feature). There is a difficulty selection option to make this accessible to a range of skill-levels (pretty standard, I know, but useful nonetheless. Sometimes I like a challenge and sometimes I just want an easy life while I get some more storyline). There is space combat as well as planet-exploration across 7 (I think) large planets. One of the things I liked was that there are alien creatures but you are supposed to scan them, not shoot them (the game won’t let you shoot them if I recall correctly). Don’t worry: there are loads of bad guys to shoot.
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First things first: this is a Toys to life game BUT it has been constantly stressed by the developers that this is NOT going to be a pay-to-win game: you can complete everything in the game with just the starter set. The additional ships, weapons and pilots are just for flavour.
Second: this game can be played without the toys. When you first attach the toys it will add a digital version of the item so you could forego changing around the physical ships, weapons and pilots and instead just use a menu system to swap stuff (which is the only way to do it when using the Switch in portable mode). There have been hints that it might be possible to buy digital-only versions and I assume for less money but none of this has been confirmed. Pretty sure that I saw something about digital version of ships, etc. only being available for limited time (like if you were playing co-op, sharing kit with a friend) but not sure how this would work, especially for your own stuff. I assume they will have worked around being able to get permanent digital-only gear just by linking a friends add-ons once only but who knows.
Okay, the toys are quite cool: this was actually what first drew me to the game because I figured my young son would enjoy playing with the ships and I would enjoy the game. All reports so far are that the physical toys are well-made, designed and decently sturdy. They also don’t appear to be console-specific. Only the Arwing and Fox McCloud pilot are tied to the Switch and won’t work on other consoles. I’m pretty sure that the other physical toys would work for any of the console versions (but obviously you need the game specific to the console, as well as the special ship mount that connects to that console’s controller).
The ship differences are NOT just cosmetic: this is a key question that people ask and I’m not sure why Ubisoft hasn’t released base ship stats, since if you are like me then you want to pick which ships are likely to suit your preference (I will list the stats that I found for each ship later but don’t take them as guaranteed). Each ship has 4 main stats: speed (how fast, duh), handling (how well it manoeuvres, mostly to avoid bad guys shooting you probably), defense (how much damage you take from hits) and energy (each shot from each weapon takes a different amount of energy to fire. This decides how many shots before recharging, although recharge is constantly happening and the weapons on each side seem to have isolated energy rather than shared, if that makes sense). Energy stat may also relate to a separate energy bar that can be used either for an acceleration boost thing or a short-duration shield that you can turn on to deflect attacks (but this drains very quickly so I guess you would time things well just for the shots coming at you). However, the base stats of a ship can be altered by various things, such as swapping wings (each wing adds +15 to a specific stat, differing for each ship and usually the secondary stat of the ship) or selecting different ship mods. The mods are won in-game and do not have to be purchased. However, I do not believe that it is possible to win any ships, pilots or weapons within the game.
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Each different pilot has a unique special ability. They also have a skill tree of things to upgrade that I believer relate to this special ability (I have only seen the skill tree of Judge, relating to his time-slowing ability). These can be triggered when required then take time to recharge (I think: might be combat related). I will list the pilots and skills further down.
Mods: The quote in-game is “Mods will make your fleet even more powerful. Here are some tips for obtaining them: Defeat legion forces, Help local outposts, Explore planets for hidden secrets”. It also looks like some mod slots (of which there are different types) come unlocked whereas others need to be unlocked, possibly by gaining experience or buying upgrades with in-game money? The Equinox mothership has 35 total upgrades available so looks like plenty of room for cool upgrade potential.
Weapons: Okay, a fair bunch of options and info here. First: you can only use the weapons that you have purchased (you can’t earn them in-game). The starter pack comes with 3 weapons: a kinetic-type rapid fire gatling, a fire-type flamethrower and an ice-type missile launcher. Each ship pack comes with one additional weapon or you can buy weapon packs with two weapons in. Whilst some puzzles need different element types, there are also items lying around that can be thrown or shot to trigger elemental effects (but more awkwardly than having that type of weapon). The weapon types are kinetic, fire, ice, gravity and I think a levitation/stasis(?) one. There are a variety of weapon styles, such as homing missiles (lock on if you keep the enemy on-screen, I believe), rapid fire, slow but powerful snipey weapons and close-range shotgunny blast weapons (not sure about this last but going on weapon descriptions). Each weapon has a few mod slots to add a variety of mods that you can find/win in-game to improve the weapons.
Quests and stuff-to-do: the quests seem to involve things like “go to this place and defeat these, collect this, etc”. Rewards are experience, money and mods. Across the planets and in space there seem to be various optional locations with things to find and people to help and get to join to your cause. Things like helping an observatory fight off bad-guys, which reveals a chunk of area on the map. Be careful not to shoot the people you are trying to help: friendly fire will quickly have them turning on you (not unreasonably). You can also scan the various wildlife, gaining experience for doing so. Scanning can only be done once per type of creature, I think, and involves holding the scan button and doing a complete 360 around the creature. Also various items around the place that can be collected and handed in to relevant people in exchange for experience, money and mods. Each planet has a bunch (3?) of harvesty collector towers that need to be destroyed to free the planet from the bad guys. Sort of boss type fights. Various boss and mini-boss fights throughout and puzzles to solve to unlock things.
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Ship stats: these are gleaned from watching videos and may not be 100% accurate. I might have missed that a ship had some extra or different wings attached, which would add stats, or maybe mods that subtly add stats (although I think these usually are shown in brackets after the base stats). Wings each add +15 to a stat, varying for each ship (listed below if known). So removing the two default wings for a ship will -30 from that stat but they can be added on to another ship to add those stats. You can even stack wings to boost stats but I believe this affects the weight and handling of the ship.
Zenith (default ship, comes with Starter pack, digital with Nintendo Switch Starter pack. Closest to an all-rounder)
Speed 100, Handling 125, Defense 170, Energy 185 (wings each add +15 defense, already included)
Neptune (heavy tanky ship)
Speed 100, Handling 100, Defense 230, Energy 155 (wings each add +15 energy, already included)
Nadir (fast tanky ship)
Speed 225, Handling 125, Defense 130, Energy 100 (not sure about wings but I think they add two different stats, rather than same stat for each. I think one is speed +15 and other is handling +15).
Pulse (fast manoeuvrable ship)
Speed 155, Handling 210, Defense 115, Energy 100 (wings each add +15 handling, already included)
Lance (fast manoeuvrable ship)
Speed 150, Handling 205, Defense 110, Energy 100 (not sure about wings)
Arwing (Comes with Nintendo Switch starter pack only. If no weapons attached then that wing uses Arwing rapid-fire laser cannons with a chargeable power-shot option)
Speed 150, Handling 205, Defense 100, Energy 100 (wings each add +15 handling, already included)
Yeah, bit confused by the last 3: all very similar stats. Would have thought that Pulse would be highest in speed, since the pilot is a racing driver character. Lance would then maybe be highest in handling and potentially have okay defense and energy, since it is a purpose-built fighter craft. Also you would think that the base ship stats on each ship would total the same but some are a bit less and the Neptune seems to be the highest. Take all with a pinch of salt. They might rebalance before launch. I have pre-ordered Neptune as that should stay as is and I like tanky and energyish (speed: Meh!). A bit gutted that you currently can’t buy the Zenith physical ship, since that is one of my favourites and on Switch you instead get physical Arwing and digital Zenith. Meh!
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Pilots (pilots have pilot abilities. These can be used then have to recharge (not sure about mechanism but probably either time or combat based):
Judge (purchased with Neptune ship, Time Shift (slow time): looks really useful. Everyone else slows but you can blast away and move around, making it easier to focus on weak spots, etc).
Mason Rana (comes with Starter Pack, Orbital Strike ability, powerful area strike attack)
Hunter Hakka (purchased with Lance ship)
Shaid (purchased with Nadir ship, Vanish ability)
Calisto Chase Da Silva (does any game or series NOT have a “Chase”?, purchased with Pulse ship)
Eli Arborwood (purchased in pilot pack, Gunslinger ability(?))
Levi McCray (purchased in pilot pack, Danger Zone ability, temporary invincibility)
Razor Lemay (purchased in pilot pack, Power Chord ability)
Kharl Zeon (purchased in pilot pack, Vortex Shield ability, return enemy fire)
Fox McCloud (comes with Nintendo Switch starter pack, Switch exclusive)
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Weapons (not much info on this and these may be tweaked by mods. Different enemies are more or less vulnerable to different weapon types). Weapon mod quote: “Supercharge attack power and firing rate, Imbue weapons with special effects, Find Ammo in ruins or by helping outposts”. As with the ships, you have a few mod slots (3 or 4, maybe?), some of which need to be unlocked. Weapon types can be combined for special “elemental combo” attacks:
Hailstorm (purchased in weapon pack, Rapid-fire frost-type)
Damage 21, Range 100, Fire Rate 23, Energy Cost 56, Status Effect: Frost
Shredder (comes with starter pack, Rapid-fire kinetic-type)
Damage 10, Range 74, Fire Rate 93, Energy Cost 13, Status Effect: Kinetic
Shockwave (purchased in weapon pack, close range kinetic-type)
Damage 18, Range 15, Fire Rate 15, Energy Cost 47, Status Effect: Kinetic
Flamethrower (comes with starter pack, medium range fire-type)
Damage 18, Range 43, Fire Rate 16, Energy Cost 74, Status Effect: Fire
Frost Barrage (comes with starter pack, missile launcher frost-type)
Damage 21, Range 100, Fire Rate 16, Energy Cost 41, Status Effect: Frost
Crusher (purchased in weapon pack, rapid-fire gravity-type)
Shredder Mk.2 (purchased in weapon pack, rapid-fire kinetic-type)
Meteor Mk.2 (purchased in weapon pack, strange fire-type weapon that turns your ship into a fireball weapon that shoots forward and crashes through opponents)
Iron Fist (purchased in weapon pack, short range kinetic-type)
Freeze Ray Mk.2 (purchased in weapon pack, long-range snipey laser frost-type)
Shockwave (purchased in weapon pack, kinetic-type)
Gauss Gun Mk.2 (purchased in weapon pack, long range snipey kinetic-type)
Imploder (purchased with Lance ship, gravity-type)
Nullifier (purchased with Nadir ship, missile launcher gravity-type)
Levitator (purchased with Neptune ship, missile launcher stasis-type(?))
Volcano (purchased with Pulse ship, rapid-fire fire-type)
Extra controller mount: in order to play two-player split-screen co-op with the ships you would need an additional controller mount (the first comes with the starter pack). Not sure whether you can play two-player without this if just using digital ships, pilots and weapons.
Combat: your ship can take a certain amount of damage before being put out of action. From watching in-game videos it looks as though your health bar fully recharges after a reasonable amount of time not taking any damage. If your ship is incapacitated and you have spare ships (because you purchased them) you can swap in one of these and carry on fighting. Otherwise I think you revert to a respawn or previous save. Incapacitated ships can be repaired at various locations by paying in-game money.
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Just found a great Reddit article about this that is much better than mine:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarlinkGam...e_information/