Dreadnought’s closed beta is a good sign of things to come
When I first heard about Dreadnought, I got a little giddy at the prospect of being the captain of a huge spaceship. We’ve seen games where ships can be piloted and flown from one end of the map to another at breakneck speeds, relying more on twitchy fingers than tactical prowess, but we’ve never seen something quite like Dreadnought.
You pilot a hulking, gargantuan spaceship as it battles other enemies online. It’s 5 v 5 combat at its most visceral and engaging, feeling much like those moments in Battlestar Galactica when Adama would be barking orders out as the Cylons threatened his ship, using canons and missiles in an attempt to thwart their assault. Think chess in space -with explosions.
In its well-designed tutorial, you’ll be introduced to the majority of Dreadnought’s controls, which are pleasantly straightforward. You control the movement of your ship with WASD, with the space bar helping your ship to ascend and the shift button helping you to descend. The left mouse button fires your weapon whilst the right mouse button zooms in on your opponent allowing more precision when attacking.
If you want fast-paced battles, you won’t really find it in Dreadnought. Most of the ships move slowly and the focus is more on tactical combat. Imagine two galleons on the high seas going at it with canons: slow and steady wins the race. It’s still an engaging and exciting experience regardless of whether you fancy Fighter Squadron in Battlefront over this, so don’t be put off by its speed.
Before you go out into battle, you can amend the structure of your ship in your hangar, spending points in the market on new weapons, decals and modules. You’ll also be able to select the perks that come with levelling up in the progression area, and the higher the level the better the perk you unlock will be.
Each of the 5 main trader ships you start with has its own advantages and disadvantages, so experimenting with each one to work out which is best for you is vital. Not every ship will be to everyone’s taste; some are quicker than others, but some have better artillery or a stronger hull. The Zmey has a low speed with high armour, for example, and the heavy plasma canons are extremely powerful. I used this the most in my time with Dreadnought as I found it to be the most reliable, working best with how I played.
There are plenty of different tactics involved, and choosing how to engage other players depends on the ship you’ve selected. I often found attacking from a distance with the Zmey managed to wear down enemy ships; hiding in cover making myself a hard target to hit was most successful. Once an enemy was weak, I’d use my warp drive to get up close and fire everything I had at them, blowing them to kingdom come. There’s a huge satisfaction in winning in Dreadnought because it feels like a game of chess; you don’t win after a couple of minutes, you win after placing calculated shots and well thought out movements.
With new modes coming when the game gets an official release, Dreadnought has plenty of potential to be a really good online battler. The combat is fun, even though its speed won’t please everyone. The visuals are superb, with both the ships and maps looking gorgeous, especially the lighting and terrain on Kappa Base and Dry Dock. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the finished product will be like, but for now, the closed beta offers a lot of opportunities to have fun and make you feel like a smart and battle-savvy commander.
