TECH
- Advanced Turbolasers has Rapid Fire Lasers as a requirement, which is already a requirement for Turbolasers.
- Hovertanks require shielding technology, which puts a lot of pressure on players to get shields above and beyond their space battle utility.
- Personally, it doesnt make sense to me that boarding (as an 'alternate combat strategy') is a mandatory research to access important military techs.
- Advanced Solar Panels doesn't provide enough benefit. IMO, give it a much higher number like +300 / +400 power (= a bonus system slot on starbases, still a very marginal benefit), or rework the tech. I'm actually not entirely sure of its purpose. If its to make tougher defenses, maybe some unique modules/techs like one that focuses more of a station's shielding towards the enemy and less towards the sides or rear.
SHIPS/COMBAT
- AI ships with boarding modules should probably Raid instead of Capture against extremely high crew targets such as Star Bases.
- AI lacks understanding of shield facings. I know this ain't easy - but it should probably understand rotating itself for self preservation.
- Missile weapons cost anomalously low amounts of labor. Missile cruisers can easily cost more metal than labor, even without a shipyard.
- Human missile cruiser art doesn't look noticably... missile-ey. Less forward tubes than the human Heavy Cruiser, and also its smaller than the Light Cruiser.
- Are Ion Beams supposed to be worse than regular lasers? Especially at PD. Rapid Fire is the culprit here. Actually, weapon mods in general seem very easy to apply, with very strong benefits... *shrug*
- I feel combat goes to melee range way too quickly. Coupled with the hefty damage attenuation at long range for energy weapons and the autofire mechanic, there's basically no reason to manually fire until you reach melee range.
- I feel starfighters (and tracking weapons?) suffer too heavily from main batteries used against them. Starfighters in particular. IMO, either make main batteries unable to hit small targets or reduce the accuracy enormously. It will be difficult to balance them while they have to be designed to resist main battery fire.
- Nuclear Missiles are really bad! You need 10 hits to breach a single shield facing on a light cruiser. Figuring 6x missiles from a early-mid game cruiser, and assuming only 50% of missiles are shot down... you run out of ammo first! With double the damage, fusion missiles are still only a decent weapon. Considering that there is already a primary defense against missiles (PD) I think that a munitions-limited weapon could stand to be shield penetrating. Or at least cause leaky damage. I'll try modding this to see how it plays out.
*EDIT*
- Just noticed the AI is conducting boarding attacks without the boarding module...
OTHER
- Gremak marauders joining a Gremak empire through exploration is probably too strong. If you stumble onto one mid-late game, that's like 10 starships plus an illegally overdeveloped world and a well armed starbase. I figure the overdeveloped planet is a bug, but the rest of it is more questionable. 2c: Marauders joining Gremak requires bumping their opinion through slave purchases, and maybe doing a side quest for them (acquire slaves? defend against angry lawmen?). And even then half the ships should desert to pirate independently.
-Starvation morale penalties from blockades are utterly crippling. And it paralyzes the AI - they have low morale, and their response seems to be to build ground units. I blockaded an Orthin system for numerous turns and (possibly coupled with other empires attacking them) at least 2/3 of their populace is rioting and they have 15-20 hovertanks on all of their major worlds. Suggestion: Only apply starvation morale penalties locally.
- Hard AI techs too fast. I commented out the 'Tech Discount' for hard and the resource bonus still seems to give the AI a decent tech advantage without railgun battleships destroying your face at stardate 1300. Well... or so it seems so far. Only one half-done test game so far.
-Suggestion: The diplomatic resource is awkward at best. Not a fan of getting diplomatically paralyzed by your best buddy deciding they want lebensraum while you have no diplomatic power left.
A simple fix version might be making in a fixed generation/turn (+2?) with a cap (100-200), meaning you have to develop relationships over time. Techs or even actions like integrating aliens into your society might give you more diplomacy generation.-Was thinking about assault shuttles; would love if they could launch remote invasions of through planet defenses, as long as there's no armed space station or ship defending it. This wouldn't have to happen in combat. It would provide a clear difference in capability between troopships and assault transports; it looks like there's a not-yet-implemented mechanic of troopships having an attack penalty, but even if they have a 50% penalty (say) it's still cheaper to build troopships.
-Rigil AND Rigel? Come on guys!
*EDIT*
-The AI doesn't count ships in refit for its magical estimate of military strength. Thus, as Humans, when I put my heavy cruiser into refit on stardate 1180 and thus had no ships, the Gremak instantly declared war.
- Threshers don't produce food on Garden worlds.
- Ashdar Haduir refugee colony displays Teros in the comms screen.
