20 replies to this topic

[Harper73]

First off I want to say this is a well made, fun game, keep me up all night playing. My wife had to come out at 1:30 am to check on me because I had not come to bed yet. ​ Thank you guys.

 

WELL DONE.

 

 

Its a lot better then what I was expecting. Does have that "NEXT TURN" feeling. Star Lanes make it REALLY hard to defend because there are so many star lanes to defend. Combat is pretty but needs some work.

 

Here are a few items that need improvement

 

Ship Building

1. Give me a clear all button. Right now I have to clear out each item before I can add anything new.

2. Start out the ship design section with the max amount of templates. When I scrap a template it  should not remove the template just leave it as EMPTY

3. Give me a MAX OUT button when adding weapons. Also let me know ahead of time how many of that weapon I can add to MAX out.

4. When adding specials I did not see any added bonus to added the same item additional times. If adding additional Battle pods or Battle Scanner does not give me a bonus then once I add one, I should not have the option to add additional battle scanners.

5. I have not tested this yet but it would be nice to have some indication. Does adding the same weapon to different weapon slots does that mean the ship will target multiple ships in combat or will the weapons fire at one ship?

6. When editing a template, should I not have the ability to change the HULL TYPE?

7. Suggestion: Maybe have a way to FLAG planets as Ship building planets and then have the ability from the template or ship design section to have that new ship build at those planets

8. Able to design star bases and battlestations and Military outpost. (military outpost don't show a combat rating)

9. I did not see any space changes to having weapons set to all arcs. why not just have all weapons set to fire at all arcs

 

 

Map suggestions

1. make it easier to click on stacked units. This is an issue when fleets are stacked with military outpost.

2. Some way to track the incoming enemy fleets. There is a notification but some other indicator of where that fleet is at all times. Maybe a way for the player to MARK that fleet to track

3. someway to see what a planet is producing instead of having to click on the plant.

4. Maybe a better zoom option between fully expanded out and the next level down. Maybe the next level down should be the territory you own. The second highest zoom is to close. This would help with spotting enemy fleets.

5. I know you should know who your enemy is but have some indicator around the approaching enemy fleets that shows they are hostile.

6. Have a way to FLAG special planets that will show up on the left side of your screen so you can quickly go to those planets.

 

Planet development screen.

1. Don't know why you need a SHOW QUEUE option. I cant think of a reason to not have the queue not show.

2. Planets don't show the star bases or any weapon platforms moving around the planet. Only way to know if a star base is built is to look in the production area.

3. Over the next colony and Previous colony put the name of the colony that you are going to be going to.

4. When a ship is set to GUARD when an enemy moves into your solar system the guarding fleet should intercept that fleet. Ships to auto ask you if you want to do combat with an enemy fleet. I have had enemy fleets move into my solar system with my own fleet at warp point and I had to remember to go to the fleet to attack.

6. The name of the solar systems that you have colonized when fully expanded out are not highlighted with your race color. They are Gray with the dots colored in to show how many planets you own.

7. When fully zoomed out you cant click on the solar system to go to it. You have to zoom in and then click on the solar system you want.

 

Technology

1. Very confusing when you get a new ship tech and you upgrade the ship. I designed a carrier with fighter bays on it. I researched a new weapon and it asked me to upgrade my ships. I said yes. NOW my carrier was fully upgrade with those weapons an no longer had fighter bays. I think this feature could be left out. I think this causes more issues then benefits.

2. Pace of technology. I think this has been talked about but it seems like not enough hard choices and each race gets to many technologies.

 

Combat:

1. Some way of knowing the recharge indicator of  when your ships weapons are going to fire again.

2. When you select a ship  it should tell you what ship its firing at.

3. Ship movement seem more like balloons flying around then ships moving. I can understand the smaller ships moving around like that but the larger ships should move different or have to slow down to turn. Please don't have large ships move sideways.

4. If each weapons slot can target different ships. When I hover over that weapon It should let me know what ship its targeting. Let me know its recharging and when I can fire it again.

5. Let me pick formation of my fleets BEFORE I enter into battle.

6. Defending fleets should start in front of my space stations not behind.

7. More combat options like Fire from max range. Or for carriers some sort of launch fighter and stay back.

8. control of your fighters. I could not see where they went or who they attacked or control them in anyway.

 

I know I have more but I think this is a good list to start with.

 

Overall its a well made game and a lot of fun to play. Nice work guys.

 

 

 

 

[Harper73]

One other item

The pace of construction and technology.

 

Technology comes at you WAY faster then you can build anything. It seems like you are upgrading your ships about 3 or 4 times even before you build one ship.

[Solidarious]

Very much agree so far. I was supposed to head to the pub for some drinks, and four hours later I managed to walk the 10 minutes to actually get there. Wonderful game so far.

 

Combat I was pleasantly surprised with even after everyones complaints. A few tweaks perhaps and I mostly agree with Harper here. A few thoughts myself

 

 

Ship Building:

#8 & #9 Not knowing the military strength of outposts is really odd, and I am sure everyone is wondering about the arc (glitch?) does it actually cut the weapons damage and we don't see it?

 

Planets:

#2 & #6 Showing starbases is very useful, sometimes you just think you've built one, not to mention is looks cool. The colored dots in a system do work for figuring out which faction owns which system, and I'm not to sure what the intensity of the colors surrounding systems is supposed to mean. Some of my systems have bright lines connecting them, others don't. Not having my own system's names colored as my faction is a bit odd when zoomed out.

 

Technology:

#1 The upgrade feature, should probably only upgrade ships if it doesn't affect the amount of systems they have in a negative way. If you lose a neutron blaster, or a fighter bay, shouldn't be fixed, but if one additional can be added, then it should be considered an upgrade.

 

Diplomacy:

#1 When exchanging systems with another race, the outposts in that system should also exchange hands, or get dismantled. I demanded a system, was given it, but I had to declare war anyways because the system was blocked in by outposts, which I couldn't kill without it being an act of war. No nonaggression pact either, so can usually kill ships regardless in your territory.

[Cowboy101]

Agreed on all of these especially how fast your research...good grief...Makes me wonder how fast the Psilon's research!!  Need a research slider as well, to slow it down.  I looked for XML's and didnt find any, so im a bit concerned about modding.  Also agree with you on this game being fun.  

 

I would also like to be able to build up the Starbases and asteroid/gas planet mines as well.  Make them better and better.  So far, i dont see the starbases's updating with new wps systems.

[Solidarious]

I've been playing Sakkra, and mostly moving my researchers to production, because I still seem to research things every two turns, very much agree, a bit to easy for tech. 

[Harper73]

One other item with TECH.

 

The tech for ships size goes pretty slow in the start. You get to cruisers and then its a while until you get battleships. THEN you get titans and then DOOM stars pretty fast.

 

 

[Vahouth]

Has anyone else notice that your empire colors aren't shown while zoomed out? The other races are but not mine.

Edited by Vahouth, 26 February 2016 - 06:39 PM.

[Solidarious]

A tool bar to stop certain messages from popping up would be nice as well. Population growth in later stages of the game isn't so important. And if you could set a points value for what you consider a "threatening" fleet. Stationary Monsters and scout ships keep causing me a bit of mischief.

[NinjaLA]

Came here this morning to post almost exactly this.. the only place I'd disagree is with turning large vessels.   I noticed last night that if I brought my battleships to a broadside close to the engagement zone they'd fire about twice as many weapons (so fire arcs are a real thing)   you need to at least have the option to make them turn sideways    and I think that the current 'normal' speed should be 2x speed and the new normal should be what is now .5

[ElderMoo]

Another note on technology pace....

 

I was not focused on maxing out research but at 5 hours in it felt like tech was coming just a bit too quickly. At a guess, cutting research generated by 20% or so would probably feel right. As is now it feels like before you can really put a tech to use you are at its successor.

 

Neutronium Armor comes before the weaker Zortrium Armor in the tree too.

 

Aldo, it's very annoying every time you go to the tech tree to have to drag it left to get to nodes you have not researched. It would be better if it auto opened to the first unpurchased node in the tree.

 

 

[Solidarious]

Few questions/thoughts:

 

1) Has anyone noticed why making planets a Gaia planet is worth it? No additional population bonus, at least for the Sakkra, but I might of needed to do their jungle terraforming instead. 

2) Upgrading outposts is done well, you can keep your first version while your space yard upgrades it to the next version.

3) Jumpgates are fantastic, they kinda help to bypass systems, but I wish they were displayed in system not just in planets, hard to notice at a glance who has them. 

4) Is there a way to tell which colonists are 'upset conquered citizens', besides seeing that they don't produce as much as others? Different icons? Not sure why a newly conquered planet that has high morale, would have discontent citizens.

 5) Please tell me the Sakkra leaders belt is going to be fixed, it doesn't line up and is very distracting!

6) Does Deep core mining, auto get rid of other pollution reducing buildings that are already built? Seems like it may

7) Should you be able to build an interplanetary administration building in systems that can only ever have one planet?

8) Anyway we can have it so civilian transport ships don't unload colonists into research? Probably not something a colony needs if you are bringing in more colonists, every time I unload colonists I have to go into the planet and move them around. Also, there should probably be a mass unload button, to unload all the civilian transports at a planet all at once. Unloading 15 onto Orion one at a time, is pretty annoying.

9) Can there be or is there an easier way to transfer colonists between planets in a system, instead of building transports for one small hop? ( have planets/asteroids in background on planet screen, where colonists can be dropped into, like MoO2?)

Edited by Solidarious, 27 February 2016 - 12:16 AM.

[tad10]

Vahouth, on 26 February 2016 - 06:38 PM, said:

Has anyone else notice that your empire colors aren't shown while zoomed out? The other races are but not mine.

 

Y​es, player defaults to white.  I'd prefer to see my color.

 

Regarding Research.  Tech needs to be much more selective, and, in particular any time there is a Research Tech and Non-Research Tech, that needs to be an either/or choice not all-of-the-above option.  Same thing with Pollution and Weapon techs.

[DaSqurlyOne]

Great thoughts, following

[Knightlyfrog]

Harper73, on 26 February 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

First off I want to say this is a well made, fun game, keep me up all night playing. My wife had to come out at 1:30 am to check on me because I had not come to bed yet. ​ Thank you guys.

 

WELL DONE.

 

 

Its a lot better then what I was expecting. Does have that "NEXT TURN" feeling. Star Lanes make it REALLY hard to defend because there are so many star lanes to defend. Combat is pretty but needs some work.

 

Here are a few items that need improvement

 

Ship Building

1. Give me a clear all button. Right now I have to clear out each item before I can add anything new.

2. Start out the ship design section with the max amount of templates. When I scrap a template it  should not remove the template just leave it as EMPTY

3. Give me a MAX OUT button when adding weapons. Also let me know ahead of time how many of that weapon I can add to MAX out.

4. When adding specials I did not see any added bonus to added the same item additional times. If adding additional Battle pods or Battle Scanner does not give me a bonus then once I add one, I should not have the option to add additional battle scanners.

5. I have not tested this yet but it would be nice to have some indication. Does adding the same weapon to different weapon slots does that mean the ship will target multiple ships in combat or will the weapons fire at one ship?

6. When editing a template, should I not have the ability to change the HULL TYPE?

7. Suggestion: Maybe have a way to FLAG planets as Ship building planets and then have the ability from the template or ship design section to have that new ship build at those planets

8. Able to design star bases and battlestations and Military outpost. (military outpost don't show a combat rating)

9. I did not see any space changes to having weapons set to all arcs. why not just have all weapons set to fire at all arcs

 

 

Map suggestions

1. make it easier to click on stacked units. This is an issue when fleets are stacked with military outpost.

2. Some way to track the incoming enemy fleets. There is a notification but some other indicator of where that fleet is at all times. Maybe a way for the player to MARK that fleet to track

3. someway to see what a planet is producing instead of having to click on the plant.

4. Maybe a better zoom option between fully expanded out and the next level down. Maybe the next level down should be the territory you own. The second highest zoom is to close. This would help with spotting enemy fleets.

5. I know you should know who your enemy is but have some indicator around the approaching enemy fleets that shows they are hostile.

6. Have a way to FLAG special planets that will show up on the left side of your screen so you can quickly go to those planets.

 

Planet development screen.

1. Don't know why you need a SHOW QUEUE option. I cant think of a reason to not have the queue not show.

2. Planets don't show the star bases or any weapon platforms moving around the planet. Only way to know if a star base is built is to look in the production area.

3. Over the next colony and Previous colony put the name of the colony that you are going to be going to.

4. When a ship is set to GUARD when an enemy moves into your solar system the guarding fleet should intercept that fleet. Ships to auto ask you if you want to do combat with an enemy fleet. I have had enemy fleets move into my solar system with my own fleet at warp point and I had to remember to go to the fleet to attack.

6. The name of the solar systems that you have colonized when fully expanded out are not highlighted with your race color. They are Gray with the dots colored in to show how many planets you own.

7. When fully zoomed out you cant click on the solar system to go to it. You have to zoom in and then click on the solar system you want.

 

Technology

1. Very confusing when you get a new ship tech and you upgrade the ship. I designed a carrier with fighter bays on it. I researched a new weapon and it asked me to upgrade my ships. I said yes. NOW my carrier was fully upgrade with those weapons an no longer had fighter bays. I think this feature could be left out. I think this causes more issues then benefits.

2. Pace of technology. I think this has been talked about but it seems like not enough hard choices and each race gets to many technologies.

 

Combat:

1. Some way of knowing the recharge indicator of  when your ships weapons are going to fire again.

2. When you select a ship  it should tell you what ship its firing at.

3. Ship movement seem more like balloons flying around then ships moving. I can understand the smaller ships moving around like that but the larger ships should move different or have to slow down to turn. Please don't have large ships move sideways.

4. If each weapons slot can target different ships. When I hover over that weapon It should let me know what ship its targeting. Let me know its recharging and when I can fire it again.

5. Let me pick formation of my fleets BEFORE I enter into battle.

6. Defending fleets should start in front of my space stations not behind.

7. More combat options like Fire from max range. Or for carriers some sort of launch fighter and stay back.

8. control of your fighters. I could not see where they went or who they attacked or control them in anyway.

 

I know I have more but I think this is a good list to start with.

 

Overall its a well made game and a lot of fun to play. Nice work guys.

 

 

 

 

 

Also; why can't I name my ships? I feel nothing when I lose a ship but in MOO2 My ships could be named and have Captains and then I would care if they died.

 

Also; The ship "upgrade" function is a real pest. Did you take the time to make your own custom ship load-out? Well that's too bad because its all getting wiped and set to whatever the game thinks is most optimal at your next tech research completion. I know the "upgrade" button is avoidable but it still seems kinda dumb.

 

Also; The ship design names have an oddly short character limit. Why keep ship design names set to a reduced length? Some limitation I can understand but the current limit could probably stand to be doubled.

 

One last thing; Workers on strike number on the empire screen appears to give false information. 3 gold per citizen tax I have 9 pop on strike. 4 GPC i have "1" pop on strike. I assume this means I have hit double digits but for some reason the second number isn't showing up.

[Burnsey601]

Knightlyfrog that might have hit double digits, but am I the only one who noticed that if you sort any of your colonies in any category, it ranks 1, 11, 12, 13, etc, then 2, 21,22,23, etc and on up?  This is for food, for turns remaining until something is produced on the planet, research, etc

​I though this was only for one category and I've only noticed it in the Empire screen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in other ones.  It's not that hard to work around, most of the times I'm sorting this information, I'm just looking for the ones that are about to produce next turn, but I did find that odd.  You might be correct about only the first digit being shown/emphasized in these areas.

[Peo01]

Solidarious, on 27 February 2016 - 12:11 AM, said:

Few questions/thoughts:

 

1) Has anyone noticed why making planets a Gaia planet is worth it? No additional population bonus, at least for the Sakkra, but I might of needed to do their jungle terraforming instead. 

 

Nothing for humans either.

I think right now only planet size influences the population size of gaia planets, which is weird cause terra planets 

should still have inhabitable places.

 

---

 

Now for some of my points.

 

1.) Defensive Structures

I think we all know by now that all defensive structure save for maybe planetary shields are useless.

I'm assuming that we'll see changes in this regard sooner rather than later, but I'd also like to see some additions

to our current arsenal.

 

Military Outposts right now are little more than lightly armed checkpoints capable of dealing 

with a frigate equipped with 2 pd lasers.

What I would like to see is a differentiation between several types of outposts.

 

For example:

Checkpoint

This small station is run by your empires police forces.

It's main tasks are monitoring trade traffic and catching a smuggler or two.

As such the station is only lightly armed and will be easily destroyed by attacking forces.

 

It's benefit is that the enemy has to destroy it to clear a path into the system

without costing command points.

Maintenance should also be fairly low, since it's part of the general police force budget.

 

Military Outpost

This medium sized station is decently armed and can also be 

commanded by one of your military advisors/admirals. (Whenever those are added anyway)

It's capable of dealing with most pirate threats or small invading forces, 

however it lacks the survivability and firepower to deal with larger enemy forces.

 

This is basically a slightly improved version of the standart outpost currently in-game.

It should have the combat performance to deal with a single cruiser or a small flotilla of frigates (2-4).

The upgraded version should be capable of taking out a single battleship despite being under attack by several ships.

 

To further improve the combat capabilities I'd like to see additional defenses for construction, like the good old mine fields, defensi e satellites, etc.

All of course requiring research (Should be a pick between technology), construction and adding to the outpost's

maintenance.

 

The emphasise should be on stations that can, especially when fully upgraded, deal considerable damage to attackers without being able to deal critical losses.

 

For that, I suggest another... larger station.

 

The Deep Space Starbase

Think Babylon V, Deep Space Nine, Unity Spacestation, Starbases in Sins of a Solar Empire, etc.

They're basically small military colonies, hence instead of being build at one of the  starlanes, they'll move around the sun just like a planet, or can orbit a planet.

However even if build in orbit, or send there (wink wink nodge nodge) they're still entities of their own and don't interfere with the planet's construction.

 

In terms of firepower you're looking at a starbase larger and stronger than a Starfortress, capable of dealing considerable losses to an large attacking fleet.

 

Similiarly to starbases in Sins of a Solar Empire these ones will also feature general and race specific upgrades and functionality.

Some potential upgrades being trade, shipyard and espionage sectors, with each starbase being capable of

housing a set amount of sectors unless your race specialises in construction.

 

There are however several downsides to Deep Space Starbases.

They're late tech, they cost a fortune and another for maintenance and each race can only

construct one (2? Maybe 2 or more weaker ones for a race where it fits? Like Darlokks only having weaker, espionage focused Deep Space Starbases?) At a time.

 

Due to this limitation the Deep Space Starbase should be considered somewhat of a prestige project that

gives benefits to one's policy according to what has been researched and upgraded.

For example build it close to the borders of other races and deck it out for diplomacy and trade to gain huge diplomatic benefits.

Quite literally turning it into your version of Babylon V.

 

Or equip it with all the firepower and defenses to keep your arch nemesis at bay.

Rename the system to Cardia and hold those gates against the heretics and xenos!

 

Well, turns out my tablet's about to run out of juice, time to load her up again.

That's basically all I have for static defenses right now, outside of the already known issue

of defenses currently being way too weak.

 

I'll reply on this subject once this thing's battery is charged. 

Or I'll  share my thoughts on ground combat next...

Edited by Peo01, 28 February 2016 - 10:28 AM.

[Upana2016]

Hi,

 

11 hours done here. 3 playthroughs, on medium, large and small galaxy sizes. Just want to pitch in. All of the below are, obviously, opinions :-)

 

First off; large is sort of pointless right now. Need all of the races in for that galaxy size to make sense. I won the game (tech) before I even explored one third of it. I know more races are coming, so just going to ignore that for now.

 

First impressions. Too. Much. Tech. Farms that add +2 food, Domes that add +1 food and +1 research, factories, orbital stations, orbital this and thats, space elevators. The tech is coming in so fast, every 6 turns or so, it very quickly becomes a tedious blur. I stopped caring, I stopped designing blueprints and I stopped min/maxing my colonies. Auto, Auto Upgrade, Click, Done. And the problem is, there's not so much left of the game, if you auto it all. I feel it needs some work. Either a good old slimming down, or perhaps better "branching" of the research choices one makes. I made exactly none, just cleared everything in a column, before moving on to the next.

 

The main reason for that, I think, has to do with the fact that you're not prioritising anything in particular. Each research leaf gives you a couple of bonuses - and admittedly, in real life science this is always the case - it's not like one can make a choice and only do research that e.g. allows you to build massive ships, or a choice that focuses on peaceful terraforming.

 

Oh, and what's up with the either/or choices?   "You can either get Fusion Beam or Fusion Bombs"?    It goes directly against the norm in other parts of the tech tree, where researching a technology unlocks both better production tech and... I don't remember, targeting computers perhaps.

 

Anyway, enough about research for now.

 

I don't care about the new combat system. In the previous 3, I auto'ed the combat anyway except for the few cases where it was close to an even fight, and outsmarting the AI became a necessity. Now these particular fights are the ones I remember, particularly from MoO2 - and I suspect that is why so many people want the turn based system back. Me, personally, I'm not so sure. Again, I guess this relates to the technology tree. With so much tech and seemingly minor differences between one tech over another, the impact of the technology on your particular fight becomes even more obscure. And for me, this means I just don't care about it and feel happy outsourcing the entire fight to the AI.

 

Lastly; a few bugs. I played a lot with diplomacy, swaying alliance partners to co-declare war against an enemy. Definitely something funky going on in those dialog interfaces. At one time, I asked "Declare war on" and then it's supposed to pop up a list of races. But it popped up a "Give Technology" dialog instead. At other times, it would just come up with an empty dialog and nothing in the dropdown box selector.

 

Anyway. Just some opinions based on 11 hours of play. While it may not seem clear; I actually love the game so far. I feel it is very well done, and I can't wait for all the little issues to get ironed out. My only real worry is the tech tree and creating a "connect" with what goes on there, and ones ship designs and ultimately combat results. It doesn't feel quite right at this stage.

 

[Upana2016]

Oh, I forgot to mention something that has been bothering me.

 

The dropdown on a colony, that tells it what to focus on (science, production and so on) - doesn't seem to influence the automated build queue whatsoever. I feel it should. If I want it to focus on food and population growth, the first choice on a new planet should not be Military Barracks followed by a Missile Defense battery.

 

Overall, these defensive structures seem way too weak. I get that Military Outposts should not be massively strong fortification structures. But the planetary defenses should be stronger, if they are to make any sense against anything but the weakling pirates roaming about.

 

I often used nothing more than a Cruiser to blast through a planets defenses when attacking, even if the opponent had all the systems in place.

 

[HsojVvad]

How do you play on small galaxy settings? I only have options for medium and large.

[tad10]

You have spiral galaxy selected (Medium, Large only).  Select Circle type galaxy for Small.