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- Even within the first few turns, I had to rethink exactly what I needed in order to get myself going. Slamming down factories mindlessly is a recipe for disaster early on, as you'll bottleneck quickly due to Metal shortages. This was really apparent as the Phidi, who start with a mineral-poor homeworld. I knew right away I needed to go use my starting colony ship to grab a world with good metal output or I'd be dead in the water fast.
- The overhaul where population factors into building output is a welcome change from the old system. I don't know if the ratios of four pop per factory and three per lab is where it should be as of yet, but it's head-and-shoulders above how the game used to function. I'm curious as to why mines, farms and markets don't use this system currently (balance?), and I'm also curious whether one point of population can count "twice" for factories and labs - if so, 12-pop is going to be a number I'd want on my worlds to reap the most from my facilities.
- I don't have solid proof yet, but I think when you queue a metal-heavy ship and run out of metal before it is done, you still get the ship anyways. However, the rest of the planet's production queue is wiped out in the process, which is annoying. I'm sure Sven has plans to put a resource-shortage pause feature in there at some point though.
- Similarly, you can't queue a ship unless you have the cost in metal on hand - another annoyance when you're making tons of metal/turn, but just spent it on something.
- I think my food stores are magically teleported to all my worlds to ensure an even balance. That being said, I've been more motivated than previously to shuttle population to get my new worlds rolling sooner.
- I just noticed for the first time that the interior textures (the blue bits) of Phidi ships are actually animated. Cool.
- Scrapping stuff currently doesn't yield metal. It really, really should - scrapping the starting space station when you put a starbase up might help mineral-poor starts like the Phidi have get over an early bottleneck should they not have any suitable mining worlds in range.
- Also noticed that once a ship is completed, it's metal expenditure is still shown on the Metal tooltip in the main screen.
- Phidi Tradeships are pretty awesome, given that they're simply better transports (for only ~80 extra production) and yield lots of cash when they're not doing anything else. I've been finding myself buying new structures everywhere with my strong income to give my empire the boost it needs during the early stages of the game. This is particularly noticeable when buying mines, farms or that first factory - you really get your money's worth when buying a new colony's first structure.
- However, Phidi destroyers are downright bad, and their frigate hull (the scout) is also lousy too. I know they're supposed to be peaceful and everything, but man - I'd be tempted to take Orthin hulls over these.
- Was the AI loosened from the grip of strategic range? I keep seeing AI scouts flying across the entirety of my territory without a care in the world, over and over. I've not even gotten my first range upgrade yet, and they're taking tours of the whole galaxy.
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EDIT: Game memory error'd out on me, but I got it running again, so here's some more: - Starvation hurts. I tied all my transports up shuttling captured Orthin around, and I learned food doesn't teleport about. I lost 5 population due to a 2 food shortfall. Drives home the point of 'have enough transports at all times'!
- Heavy Railguns are awesome. I think I mentioned that previously, but it needs repeating. The Orthin can lob missiles at me until I die of old age - watching the 4x planetary batteries retaliate with an insta-kill one of their heavy cruisers is a beautiful thing. It's to the point where they are probably somewhat OP, as it doesn't take a lot of research to obtain them and they are simply fantastic compared to other direct-fire weapons.
- I'll be honest: I haven't put much actual research investment into Bionomics yet. I haven't really felt the need to as the Phidi, as in this game I've needed better metal production (Industrial Automation) and better ships a lot more than more food/pop growth/pop cap. Having the better colonization abilities would've been more helpful early on, otherwise the RP investment feels a bit too steep when all I've got militarily is cruiser spam to defend myself with. Later on, I am up to my ears in metal/food/production, most notably after I captured a bunch of Orthin planets (who spread themselves hideously thin colonizing something like ten worlds without the oomph to defend it all).
- The Phidi have no big nasty capital ship hull. This makes me sad.
