Suggest - Features and Improvements

[orvarth]

Make the human pirate variant faction playable :

you can rp your game with evil pirate , more in tone with the human play style .

you can choose the number of active (human) pirate faction (for now they just do anything) .

Perhaps with a different start , two distants stars with human refugies you have to "convinve" to work for you .

[zolobolo]

The most redundant elements of the game are pirates, Marauders and Space Harpies
The first one is practically gone for quite a while now and the other two luckily have a good roster of ships, still these two factions are encountered in each game throughout the galaxy

To combat redundancy: Would it be possible to have the basic unit of the Harpies level up via engagement?
They could win extra health or just weapon modifiers depending on what has been used against them: this way, the basic Harpy unit could level up if sit urvivest he engagement and offer variety and more challenge when acountered again or the first time

They could even slightly alter their appearance to refect this by getting some read paint on their hull to differentiate them from "fresh" Harpy units and motivate the player to select them and check their stats besides adding again to the variety

Gaining only modifications would have a great affect: Ac, Ap would enhance them somewhat while Rf and Env could turn them into killing machines that could even develop into higher priority targets as the larger units - though these are already very powerfull and should not get any bonuses unless they get nerfed beforehand

[zolobolo]

Tinkers ships are somewhat OP at this time due to Tinker forge munition regeneration rate

A Missile Cruiser utilizing torps, rockets and anti missiles only, cannot practically run out of munition even during full utilization every turn
I agree that it fits the Tinkes to regenerate munition on the go, but the rate of this should be nerfed in a way that their ships would need to make a decision wether to focus on offensive or defensive weapons once their initial munition storage runs out (already extended due to regen every turn)

This way, the player can also still have meaningful decisions to make when playing this race as currently there is no need to consider munition when playing Tinkers. This in turn means that only using antimisiles, rockets and torpedoes is the single best approach when using them as these weapons typciall trump other weapon options of the same tier. Still having at least some limit to this gamestyle (strong initial force but halved efficiency later on) will still give them an edge in early battle, but would lead to other weapon configurations still being valid for them aka: would still make sense to use heavy weapons, medium guns or PD guns as well as these would provide meaningfull force from mid-battle on where munition is running low

[zolobolo]

Planetary defense positioning is suboptimal for the defender for a few reasons:
1. Commercial stations are in the center sorrounded by fleet, defense stations and planetary defenses - in practice this should be located between defensive stations and the planet itself and not in line with defense stations and up in front ot the enemy
2. Ships are positioned way forward almost outside of the range of defensive stations and planetary defenses making the later two almost useless in a typical defensive battle

This logically results in the player turning the defending ships around and positioning them between the defense stations and the planet or at least close by the station itself. This leads to a lot of micro for the player and a weakness for the AI as it will additionally rush ahead of its defensive position

Suggest instead to:
1. Place civil stations either on the top of the battle (so that it is not in the way), or between planet and defense stations
2. Place defending fleet directly in front (or around) defense starbases. This way they are fully covered by the station and largely by the planet itself: even if the AI rushes ahead, its slower ships should remain in range of at least the stations

The below proposal shows the suggested positioning: civil stations are partially covering the planet but this should not have gameplay effect (and it seems they do not intrude more than ships are able to). The point of changing civil station position is not that of lore but simply to get them out of the way of the actual battle and allow defending ships to start next to starbases and fortresses

[zolobolo]

Show intercept warnings during target selection of Assault Shuttles, and other small crafts in order for the player to see what will engage them on their way just like in case of moving ships

[zolobolo]

Suggestion for diplomacy changes:
Wehn giving peace treaty a deadline, it should be arond 5 turns per default: this would allow the initiator (playr or AI) to reorganise the fleets, do some upgrade and rusch some defenses and broker some defense teraties if possible.

It is necessery to have this be a short time guarantee so that it cannot be exploited by the player nor should it be tedious for the player when used against them by the AI. This could also effectively serve to prevent player rushes against AI

I find the cost of peace treaties to be in a right playe now that both the AI and player are spending influence on alliances. If merc are also bought by the AI, influence is in a perfect balance (currently there is some unused surplus bildup from mid-game on)

[zolobolo]

Human faction is currently destined to a slow start (unless gets very lucky with derelict colonies) in normal and default settings
The faction cannot get to the juicy early empire fleets production phase within the first 100 Turns which makes the experience much slower compared to other factions and is cause of an especially hard time for the AI controlling them

Suggest any one of the below to adress the above:
1. Make Human pop reproduction higher then that of other races per default or when City Planning active (also reinforces their cockroaches of the Galaxy status and makes them viable additions to a planet when playing with other races especially during wartime on contested planets). The current moral bonus during city building is a nice touch but does not effect much as the player is rarely facing moral issues
2. Human Factories to have higher wrench output
3. Have them start with Boarding tech already reearched and at least one ship with boarding module on it. This way, the faction can take ships from surrounding pirates which could even be built into the lore as the human empires consolidate their power and merge small pirate factions within themselfes. This change is simple to implement (starting tech and ship change) and gives the player more options, and extra resources in to jump-start the economy in the early phase

[zolobolo]

Question: shouldn't Ion cannons have the Env modifier?

And I do not just mean from popular culture, if we look at the tech tree, we see that there are distinct classical 3 weapon types but energy weapons are broken up into furhter subcategories (just like missiles):
1. Laser/Turbolaser/Primary Beam (base energy weapon with the most modifiers available)
2. Ion Cannons
3. Disruptor/Neutron Beam (Lth modifier)
4. Plasma Cannon/Helbores (Env modifier)

You can instantly notice that the Ion cannons are directly competing with the basic laser branch but at the same time is the pre-reuisite for the plasma tech branch from where Disruptor and Plasma bases guns originate

So why not have Ion cannons be directy in the Plasma branch and be the ones that start it off?
Technically this would make sense as plasma is nothing more than atoms having their number of default electrons modified this of course including the stripping of all electrons which results into plasma (plasma is mostly just ionized gas)

By having Ion cannons be part of the plasma branch, they could also logically recieve the Env modifier per default
This would have numerous game-benefits:
1. Ion cannons would not need to compete with Laser weapons (to which they quickly become inferior before the player even has time to produce a ship with them)
2. They would be a perfect solution for countering early to mid-game shield spam making shields less OP and thus less of an obvious choice (more armor could in some cases be more effective when facing off Ion guns).
3. Currently where are no Light and Medium mount options for Env weaponry unless we count Leech missiles but these are only available much later in the game. There is the option of coilguns but these merely bypass shields, they do not help any other fleet assets to take down the target faster. Having small vessels with this modifier can greatly increase their usefulness against mid and large ships and offer more tactical options during battle
4. The current plasma tech branch would be expanded and progression made logical for players who are not intimately familiar with the tree and or are just looking at the list instead of the tree as plasma=Env (should use these against shield )
5. By having Env weapons be more common on the battlefield, the shield rotation exploit would naturally loose most of its applicability

It makes sense for new tech to override the old and offer a more effective weapon outclassing the old version but Ion cannons are obviously meant as a separate branch of the tree and should not have to compete directly with another branch to which they are almost always inferior to

Another alternative would be to give Ion cannons the EMP modifier.
This would of course also validate their existence and is in line with pop-culture stereotpyes but would have a somewhat different effect of gameplay then the above.
It would ceartanly benefit marauder tactics and make the weapon much more effective against unshielded weapons (making the tech a huge priority during early game) but would not affect the current shield mechanic in any way which in my opinion is OP mostly due to the way firing direction matter (rotation exploit also feeds from this mechanic)

Overall I think that Ion Cannons would ceartanly benefit from a reclassification from laser to plasma tech, and would serve the game mechanics better with an additional Env modifier then an EMP mod, though the later would also be benefitial over the current state overall

[Arioch]

Ion cannons were originally intended to be a different damage type (Charged), but this was never implemented. Charged weapons would do extra internal damage, but might be less effective against shields. Hopefully someday we'll be able to add this damage type.

But no, I don't think Enveloping is an appropriate modifier for ion cannons. Ion cannons and plasma weapons are very different.

[zolobolo]

Ion cannons were originally intended to be a different damage type (Charged), but this was never implemented. Charged weapons would do extra internal damage, but might be less effective against shields. Hopefully someday we'll be able to add this damage type.

But no, I don't think Enveloping is an appropriate modifier for ion cannons. Ion cannons and plasma weapons are very different.

You have recently implemented charged functionality for Orthin busbar modules - this would then be the same just that charging would increase with each turn instead of during damage consumption right?

So if Env does not match your idea of an ion cannon how abouth EMP instead? It would still differentiate them from "other" plasma weapons while still giving them a nieche that was not covered before (EMP rockets are the only ones that specifically do system damage) - smacking this effect to the ion cannons also go in the direction where you have envisioned originally, except for the effect being automatically there, which in itself is also a good thing as less micro the better

[Dragar]

I think that's just what Airoch said. Ion cannons were supposed to do system damage.

[zolobolo]

I think that's just what Airoch said. Ion cannons were supposed to do system damage.

I see what you mean: I was associating "charged weapons" to the Orthin busbar "charge"

What I was getting at though is that there is already a system damage weapon the EMP missile: took a quick peek into the weapons.lua and couldn't find the reference though for ABBRVS so it may have been implemented in some other clever way that is not applicable to the cannon...

Still, EMP Missiles are simply referencing this special like this, so it might still be directly utilizied for Ion cannons as well?:
specials = set("EMP"),

According to special desc:
["EMP"] = {
desc= df[[
These weapons cause a system damage roll
that bypasses armor. EMP damage is temporary, however, and will
be restored at the end of the target's next turn.
<br><br>
If a ship's main reactor is disabled due to EMP damage, it may not self destruct.
<br><br>
EMP weapons are able to fire on an enemy with critically damaged systems without
destroying it, allowing them to make crippling attacks in situations where no other
weapon type can.
]]
},

Maybe the problem is the lack of control for scaling to the EMP effect itself: the missile should do more damage then a direct hit from the gun but less then Heavy Ion canon: still: the same effect is better then no effect

[lmgava]

When a victory condition is met, the game shows a popup summing it up and informing you race X has won.
Then you can continue the game.
But the popup is repeated over and over every turn, which I found really annoying and distracting.
Please show it once.

I like the game very much overall. Very good job.

Thanks.

Still there, any hope ? Every turn I have to dismiss it by clicking on it.

[AMX]

When a victory condition is met, the game shows a popup summing it up and informing you race X has won.
Then you can continue the game.
But the popup is repeated over and over every turn, which I found really annoying and distracting.
Please show it once.

I like the game very much overall. Very good job.

Thanks.

Still there, any hope ? Every turn I have to dismiss it by clicking on it.

Well, there's this comment from yesterday...

We need to add a "Win" UI element that gives the player the opportunity to stop playing after a win, to avoid the feeling that the game never ends. Hopefully that will be in the next update.

Presumably that'll include not repeating the win message if you do choose to keep playing.

[zolobolo]

Raiding:
1. Would it be possible to display the chance of capturing slaves during the raid like in case of invasion? If I have a 85% chance of succesfull invasion how much chance is there for raiding and what is the expected range of slave units captured?
2. When already raided in last turn, the amount of captured slaves then is displayed as if they were newly captured slaves in the raid result window
3. When both slave and Assault MArine unit is found in transport there is a number 2 below the slave unit (altough there is only one present in the transport)
4. When disembarking slave unit from transport, the Assault Marine cannot be disembarked (limitation of action per transport)

Also already mentioned before but really suggest ignoring ground troops during raid - it leads to awkward situations where two tanks and Assault Marine cannot caputre a single slave for 2 turns even though they have a 85% chance of conquering the planet itself. If only raiders and milita would be used during Raiding:
1. Player would be motivated to bring along more then one Raiding unit as the amount of raiders is the actual raiding force while currently a single raider unit lends its function to the whole invasion force
2. Make Milita tech much more interesting
3. Ignoring ground units when raiding would open up interesting tactics agains well defended planets
In-game rational is that full blown planetary invasions take much more time and thus the attacker does not have time to mobilise regular military units + raiders move faster and in smaller groups. Same goes for defneders: they might have 10 battalions on the planet but are not able to transport them quickly enought to the place where the raiders abduct the populace

Ground troops could still decrease the amount of possible slaves captured by the raiders due to their coverage of the planet surface but would not be able to defend everyone