Are humans now impossable to play?

[evil713]

im just waiting on the superdreadnought research to work now.

[blissauthority]

I definitely think the humans need some sort of advantage.

Right now, the human's really have 2 significant advantages, which might arguably offset their otherwise terrible starting position.

The first is their starting heavy cruiser. It's sometimes enough to clear a fairly nice system -- or even to rush one of the AIs or a marauder base. That's a huge advantage, if you can scramble to make it work. Even if you can't pull off a fast CA-lead conquest -- the cruiser can give you a bit of breathing room in the early game.

The 6 starting transports also have the potential to be pretty useful for early income, and/or shifting around useful population types, if you happen across a species with good racial perks.

It's also worth noting that humans, unlike any other race, have a colony ship hull that they can build without any orbital infrastructure -- which makes quickly expanding to 4 or 5 planets that much more viable.

I had a VERY SATISFYING game where I cleared out a Maurader base very early on with the heavy cruiser. They're playable, but they're very swingy - if you haven't got any good worlds around, or the good worlds are defended by pirates with anything better than a couple of destroyers, you're going to have to settle marginal worlds and pray.

Also, is it at all possible to have that one starting heavy cruiser come with a particularly badass name or is that an engine limitation? Because boy howdy did I want to name it the Hammer of Justice after it took out those slavers in that game.

[sven]

Also, is it at all possible to have that one starting heavy cruiser come with a particularly badass name or is that an engine limitation? Because boy howdy did I want to name it the Hammer of Justice after it took out those slavers in that game.

Giving players the ability to rename individual ships and planets is a feature that's been lurking on my TODO list for almost a year now. I'll get around to it eventually

Both Arioch and I feel that world-building is important -- so smaller features that can help players create cool stories for themselves are very much worth adding in. The main reason the renaming features aren't in the game right now is that they interact with our plans to revamp the ship refit system -- and that revamp is going to be a bit of job.

[blissauthority]

Also, is it at all possible to have that one starting heavy cruiser come with a particularly badass name or is that an engine limitation? Because boy howdy did I want to name it the Hammer of Justice after it took out those slavers in that game.

Giving players the ability to rename individual ships and planets is a feature that's been lurking on my TODO list for almost a year now. I'll get around to it eventually

Both Arioch and I feel that world-building is important -- so smaller features that can help players create cool stories for themselves are very much worth adding in. The main reason the renaming features aren't in the game right now is that they interact with our plans to revamp the ship refit system -- and that revamp is going to be a bit of job.

Understood. Likewise, the ability to rename ship classes would be welcome - as would appropriate default class names for a given faction. The Gremak Ambush class of scout versus the Phidi Herald, for example.

[halftea]

Would this be different from just renaming the ship type to create a new class name?
I currently do this all the time to be able to distinguish between different Carrier load outs for example, since they use the same visual graphic.

[sven]

Would this be different from just renaming the ship type to create a new class name?
I currently do this all the time to be able to distinguish between different Carrier load outs for example, since they use the same visual graphic.

This is where the refit/renaming features start to become entwined. I think we're going to need to start distinguishing between ship /names/, which are essentially just optional fluff, and ship /classes/. In the system we're currently imagining, you should be able to refit ships to any compatible /class/ for either a flat coins + metal cost, or via the construction menus, more or less as is currently possible. You'll also be able to change ship names, but, that will be a cosmetic change, and won't require any resource costs or shipyard time.