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After playing for a while, I have to say that I absolutely LOVE this game! I played the heck out of MOO1 and MOO2 (never played MOO3 though), and it's really nice to see the series continue in such an excellent way.
However, I do have a couple of suggestions and requests that I think might improve the experience somewhat.
1. The ability to hire (and fire) spies similar to how leaders are currently done. The reason for this is that I'd like spies to have skills similar to leaders - that is, a spy may have a specialization in certain areas, and when they level up they may gain increased experience in that area. Here is a list of skills I'd like to see spies have:
- Defender - Gain a bonus to rooting out enemy spies.
- Infiltrator - Reduced time to complete missions, for example -1 turn per level. Does not affect the chances to successfully complete the mission, only time required. Applies to empire and colony infiltration (does not change the requirement to infiltrate the empire first).
- Martyr - Chance to complete the mission successfully even if captured (should be a very low percentage chance).
- Thief - Increased chance to successfully complete a Steal Charts or Steal Tech mission.
- Hacker - Increased chance to successfully complete a Hacking mission.
- Conspirator - Increased chance to successfully complete a Destabilize mission.
- Assassin - Increased chance to successfully complete an Assassination mission.
- Saboteur - Increased chance to successfully complete a Sabotage mission.
- Polluter - Increased chance to successfully complete a Contaminate mission.
- Inciter - Increased chance to successfully complete a Revolt mission.
I'm not sure about the names of the skills, though - there are probably better descriptors.
2. Fleets screen additions
It's really irritating to explore the entire galaxy with a half-dozen scouts, and then when it's done have to hunt them down individually and send them home. Also, I tend to send out several factory ships to build asteroid laboratories wherever I can, and it'd be nice to be able to get them back en masse when they're done.
So I'd really like to have the following buttons in the fleets screen:
- Recall Scouts - wherever scouts are in the galaxy, sets them to travel to the Capitol.
- Recall Factory Ships - same as scouts.
- Recall Military Ships - same thing.
- Recall Colony Ships - same thing.
- Recall All Ships - recalls all ships to the capitol.
I was originally going to suggest that these buttons be placed on the main screen next to the "move" button, but I think the screen might get a little crowded with that.
3. When starting a new game, we have the option to select specific races or select a random race. I'd like the option to select a random race while excluding certain ones. I really don't like playing against the Silicoid, but I'd like to keep the rest of the races randomized if possible.
4. Blueprints screen: I'd really like to be able to customize starbases, battlestations, star fortresses, military outposts, missile bases, and beam bases. One of my major complaints about MOO2 was the inability to customize my orbital defenses. Ideally this would be an empire-wide design, and not per colony.
5. Path to Victory screen: I'd really like an "tech" graph in addition to population, score, army, etc.
6. Diplomacy screen: When selecting a minor civilization, would it be possible to tell why I cannot invest further at this time? I'm at level 3 with a civilization and I don't know if I've just hit the cap or if I'm missing something.
Also, a button to "go to planet" when looking at a minor civilization would be very nice - I'd like to tell whether I have time to send out a colony ship to add them to my territory, or if they're too close to another race and will already be under someone else's protection by the time I get there.
7. Leaders screen - I don't know if this is the fault of my screen resolution or something, but... there are a maximum of ten leaders, but only nine can be shown on the screen at a time. There's still plenty of space for another slot. It seems a little odd to have to scroll just for one option. I'd suggest either adding in another slot and getting rid of the scroll bar, or (might not be such a good idea?) increasing the maximum number of hireable leaders.
EDIT: Looking at the yaml files, it's random. Never mind. 
8. I'd like to request the ability to put more than one jump gate in a single system. When my fleet is spread out across my entire empire, and the Antarans attack, taking extra turns moving from node to node to get to a jump gate can mean the difference between life and death. Being able to build multiple jump gates would, I think, reduce this problem somewhat.
9. I'd like the ability to build more than five military ships at once, if possible. It is rare that I ever need to, but there have been times when I've wanted to build lots of ships at once, let them produce for a while, and then buy them out all at once.
10. Is it possible to increase the size of the battlefield, and possibly add more hazards like asteroids? As it is, tactics are fairly straightforward and don't vary much between battles. A larger field and some more hazards, or even straight-up obstacles would add some real variety to combat.
- Magnetite asteroids - these asteroids tend to draw missiles off-course. Any missile that enters a small AOE around the asteroid is either deflected, or re-targets a random ship on the battlefield. I don't know if it would be a good idea or a bad idea to have them randomly target enemy and ally ships. Also, it might be interesting for smaller ships that enter the AOE to be pulled in their direction.
- Meteor shower - the battle is taking place as a swarm of micrometeorites are shooting through the field. Every few seconds an area of the map gets a warning caret or color on it, and a few seconds after that the area is bombarded, and any ships still in the area take damage.
- Strange nebula - these nebulae don't just cause shields to malfunction, they are composed of some strange particles or energy that disrupt beam weapon fire. Beam weapons fired in or through the nebula have an increased chance of missing completely.
- Huge asteroids - no real hazard, but it takes up a fair chunk of the battlefield and must be navigated around before ships can get into firing position. Alternately, there could be a moon in the battlefield if the battle is taking place around a colony with one.
Not every battle needs to have hazards, but having something like this happen more often would spice things up a bit.
11. Since we can currently only have one leader per system, it might help if when selecting where a leader can go to just display the system rather than all planets in the empire, reducing screen clutter.
12. When there are multiple fleets at a single node, and some of them are guarding, some with movement, and some without, repeated clicking on the fleet should scroll through the fleets there rather than just selecting the one "on top." It's a little irritating to have to go into the fleets screen every time I've got two or more fleets on a node or planet so I can select the one I want.
13. Is it possible to allow the player to zoom out further in the main screen before hitting the "full galaxy" view? I'd like to have just a little wider field of view but not see the entire galaxy. Maybe zooming all the way from zero to maximum?
Anyway, there's my list of requests. I don't know if any developer will ever read it, but I just feel better for posting them.
Edited by ContentConsumer, 21 December 2016 - 04:39 PM.
