Anyone find that the missions have too much combat?

I, personally, find tha the exploration part of the game is greatly sacrificed in favour of combat.
While in EOB series, puzzles where also part of the game, here is mainly opening doors and combat.

Aggravating the whole is that combat is quite long and, I would say, tedious.

I generally like the game but is a bit too focues on combat.
Also the gear you loot is 95% of the times irrelevant.

I don't like puzzles, so I'm happy there aren't much.
But yes, there was already much combats, but with the added network combat it can makes too much and we may fear to plug in a console found in a ship run.
Moreover when a combat freezes and we must start again from the last save, if we had think about saving due to this buggy game...

When a combat "freezes", are you talking about not being able to perform any combat actions any more? I believe this mainly caused by using inventory items during battle (at least this consistently happened to me).

If that's the case, what I found works for me, is to actually alt-TAB out of the game, then back in again, and then magically the combat becomes responsive again!

There were other, odd occasions, usually for big bosses, where this happened as well - also in those cases, the alt-TAB trick fixed it.

On the combats: I agree that they can get pretty damn tedious. Enemies are massive bullet sponges, and it just gets worse and worse the more you level up.

The only way to (somewhat) mitigate this is to make sure you carefully check through all your looted weapons, and if you find something better than you currently have on a character, make sure to replace it. The only problem is there isn't a proper weapons shop for some strange reason, so we're relying on a combination of loot, random gambling at the smugglers, getting stuff for EON cubes, receiving rewards via auction, or receiving rewards via loyalty to companies. And of course all of those are random...

And yeah most loot sucks big-time. Annoyingly, a decent weapon will often have a specialisation for a certain character class that I don't field in my team. That said, it doesn't mean you can't use it - you just can't use the one or two special bonuses that are class-specific - so if it's still better than what you're fielding, it might still be worth using it.

Personally, I reckon the game would have made more sense if the stuff you looted was exclusively "loot", with the possible exception of certain really rare components/items/weapons/equipment on really rare occasions, and then just have a decent shop on the station that sells stuff you want to buy with the money you get from the loot. It's kind of strange that all your weapons and equipment come from the places you raid, though I do like the idea of the vending machines (but the problem is that these are so damn rare for some reason).

I also wish for more/better puzzles. There are SOME there, but they're pretty rare, which is a shame since the tutorial pretty much hinted that there'd be "secret" stuff all over the place. In practice, there are rarely "secret" things to click on (they DO exist, but each environment has different "secret" things, and I'm not sure all environments feature secrets). Some secrets seem to require certain character classes.

The thing that actually annoys the crap out of me in this game above all else: despite the fact that this game appears to be tile-based and turn-based, the fucking cameras don't follow those fucking rules! If the damn enemies can respect the turn-based nature of the game, why the fuck do cameras move in fucking real time!? It's really fucking annoying having to time those. On the plus side the consequences of getting caught aren't usually that high, but this begs the question of why they're like that to begin with. At least they can USUALLY be disabled.

The hacking is generally pretty crap too, I agree. The only good thing about it, is that if you've set off cameras or something previously, it's a good way to reduce the alarm level. Even better, it can be used to disable alarms and door locks. The real problem of course is that there's no way to know which network node controls which security system, which is a massive oversight IMO - there should be SOMETHING in the network that indicates this, so we (potentially) have something to work towards, instead of disabling everything in the network (or shutting down the core, which is usually worth doing if possible, as that instantly shuts down ALL security systems).

The biggest thing about the hacking that doesn't make sense: you don't need a hacker to do it. The second-biggest thing about the hacking that doesn't make sense: there's still other stuff to hack that doesn't use it, but that does require a hacker. It makes it really obvious that the hacking was tacked on as an after-thought and not really thought through properly, which is a shame as if it was less boring, had better indications of what each node does, and tied into hacker skills better, it would be a much better part of the game. As it stands, I usually just dive into networks to either see if I can grab some stuff from databases, or possibly map/shutdown the network, since that makes the run way easier if you can do that.

Actually while I'm on a massive rant here: I think the game missed a big opportunity with respect to the hacking of defensive systems. It would have been really cool to be able to get defence turrets to attack an enemy that's following you (e.g. giving you time to get away so you don't have to fight it), or possibly locking down doors (so the enemy may need to go around, or possibly re-hack the system, or break it down, or something), or possibly activating those radiation bots or poison traps on enemies so they're weakened by the time they get to you. Either the hacker, engineer or possibly even the prototype could have been used to circumvent these, which would have added a bit to the game while also reducing the amount of combat.

Despite all its flaws though, this is still my favourite blobber - possibly because I'm much more into sci-fi corporate dystopia than all the boring fantasy dungeon-crawling. There's another game that attempts a similar setting, Conglomerate 451, but it's apparently lacking in challenge and has many other issues. At least Starcrawlers has some interesting ideas with respect to classes and abilities, synergies between them, and the challenge seems to be pretty good just at the "Challenging" level. I also like that there's (usually) a lack of healing items, and that there is a very limited amount of in-combat healing one can do (it's still exploitable, in that it's possible to end up with more health after a combat than before, but nowhere near as retarded as other games).

Oh, and the faction reputation/reward system is pretty cool too, even though it takes a while to get going, I didn't find it TOO grindy in general.

Okay I'll try that, while waiting for the devs to remove the bugs. What? I really don't see any problem with this. I don't understand how it might bother. Countrary, I'm happy that the camera is free. Maybe you were used to other game which has fixed camera?

I wasn't talking about the camera you use to look around! I too like how it's free, and I spend a lot of time looking around. It's how to find the few secrets, also helps in deactivating lasers etc.

When I said "cameras" I meant SECURITY cameras - those annoying little bastards that shine their light on a tile looking for you, that fly around in the air, and if you happen to be there when it shines on you then the alarm goes off (sometimes triggers instant combat, usually just raises alarm level, sometimes puts those annoying damaging lasers in the way of things).

I probably should have made that more clear - didn't even think about the camera you control, since I don't consider that "the camera" but rather the POV of the team (or the ability of the team to look around, or the head of one of them).

But anyway, those security cameras constantly move/adjust where they look, even when you're stationary. Practically everything else respects the turn-based tile system (i.e. if there's an enemy chasing you, that enemy patiently waits in the tile it's in, until you move to another tile or choose to wait in place). It kind of sucks because it means the only way to avoid cameras (without hacking or otherwise disabling them) is to time it, which while not difficult is contrary to the rest of the game which is turn-based.

The hacking with the holodeck and things is such a crap.

I tried it and got stuck in a combat with three ICE that were so fast they could shot each of them 2 times before I could act.

This means that I could sit and wait between 3 and 6 shots before I had a chance to do 4 damage!

What the crap is that!
And there was NO WAY to escape the combat, surrender, suicide, blow your head off or anything just to stop that torture!
I had to endure the whole 40 minutes combat as they also did 1 damage to me, if not missing.
Did they even tested it?

This is a dead game to me.

Huh, never realised you couldn't escape the matrix-style combat - you can definitely escape the standard combat if you want.

The hacking combat definitely hasn't been tested properly, because it's balance is wonky at best. If you're hacking something that's at the right level, and you've upgraded your deck properly (e.g. from the hacking shop - strangely enough we can buy hacking upgrades, but we can't buy weapons or armour directly) - then the hacking segments are usually easy enough to do.

Usually clearing out all databases during every standard mission gives you enough random programs to stay well upgraded, or gives you enough cash to easily buy upgrades from the shop. I bought a bunch of upgrades at the start of the game, until I got to the point where the upgrades weren't necessary any more. Currently I can use a single program to wipe out all ICE in 90% of hacking battles in one hit, and when that doesn't work it only takes up to five rounds total to win.

During a normal mission, you don't ever need to hack anyway - but doing so can be useful, since you can locate your target, put enemies on the map (to avoid them for example), or even better: shut down security systems and/or reduce your alert level, even open some doors. And of course looting the databases for more hacking programs (or just more crap to sell).

I do wish they were less boring though - hacking battles seem tedious compared to the rest of the game, as the variety of enemies and their attacks doesn't compare to the rest of the game. Even the gimmick about the three different types of enemies and attacks (using a rock/paper/scissors approach) quickly becomes totally irrelevant, as it's usually easier to use your hardest-hitting attacks to finish them off quickly.

Don't forget to tick in Controls Options, FastCombatAnimations, it helps.

Good suggestions. It was also a surprise to me that the environment hacking tasks did not need a hacker, except for those random lootboxes that require a specific profession to open them. Otherwise just keep a couple of Omni security passcards, safecracker widgets and beam-trap deactivators. (There is a plot mission that penalizes the player if a hacker is present, afflicting the character with motion sickness.) You can escape the matrix combat.

Well, there is a reducing probability of successfully fleeing the encounter, just like normal combat —— look for the prompt in the context menu where one can access the inventory of the team member.