Hello.
I was playing some time(mostly as Humans) and I wish to share some of my experience with this game.
Game play nice I didn't notice any bugs other than a some artefacts on blue stars.
Art look really nice and I really like the Germak ships although I don't really like the race. Other than that human ships looks little trashy but I suppose that was planned. Space Sea Horses have similar ship designs to SotS Space Dolphins - ships full of water tanks.
The game could use more starting options like:
-more/less hostile planets
-more/less organic life planets
-more/less mineral rich planets
-more/less poor planets
It could also use to have some options affecting science progress:
-either by increasing/lowering cost of research for slow/fast teching
-and by having possibility to choose starting era and max era tech like in Starship Unlimited(and Distant Worlds)
Options affecting pirates/minor factions also would be nice to see.
Game play nice but there is some things that could used improvements:
-freshly build colony ships could start with no population so player can choose what population will be loaded from the planet(no more free pop)
-there could be option to build Trade Ship(Transports) that go automaticly into Trade Pool - as I find tiresome to send Transports one by one - unless there is a actual option in game to do that
-the leftovers population unit(less than 1mil) could be taken and transported as full
-population could grow to full pop limits only(so no partial pops), so no more partial populations mixed on fully filled planets
-possibility to abandon planet and evacuate populations if there is enough fleet capacity
I will also support improvements proposed by other people in this thread like refitting to exist design and more polished design ship UI(with different categories colour coded).
The combat feels really unbalanced.
Kinetics with Shield Piercing trash everything as they ignore shields and have long range. Missiles and torpedoes feel useless compared to them, especially that PD counter them hard and have short range and limited ammunition.
Fighters/Bombers feel weak and out of place.
The ship movement in battle is slow and they tend to hug one to another. Ships could be smaller compared to movement and weapon range so battles feel more space than melee.
There could be more ships hulls. The amount now feel very limited especially with pre designed weapon and system slots. Art is great. How they look is a strong point.
Are you plan to change a auto improvement and free of charge units and buildings with the new tech acquisition? I know that it will be probably pain in the ass to improve this manually but it feel as a miss not having manual(and costing something) upgrades. Especially with units as the new ones cost more but the old ones get promoted for free.
Also do you plan to have some more use of outpost?
There could be possibility to build a research outpost that generate some research or mining outpost that mine some minerals. Also shipyards could add some bonus production when building ships(as it make sense).
Some ideas.
The teching speed feel really fast after getting some pop and building some research stations.
Making Science 2 steps like Production but instead minerals research need money could be interesting idea as a money are mostly non issue. Although it probably need slider for money use as it would be global.
Other means to use Production when not build planetary improvements, ships or troops - like Producing Trade goods - Turning Minerals(small amount) into cash. So there could be actually use or free factories.
There could be also focus on mining and food growing but with lesser impact(maybe some +1 per factory/farm influenced by planet ratings?)
Space stations(the defensive ones) could be system's and actually block hostile access into a system(it need to be destroyed before planets could be harassed). It would actually help defend the system.
Planetary defence could be stop taking parts in ship combat and could be take part in ground combat. The idea is for Planetary defence to be first target for bombardments(as more dangerous to the enemy invasion force) and for them to disable enemy(bombardment potential). The Planetary batteries could be destroyed or suppressed(for one turn) by bombardment from the orbit but they can also damage ships and reduce amount of bombs that invasion force has. If Planetary batteries are not destroyed or suppressed they could shoot and destroy landing invading brigades. Also they could be destroyed by ground troops if some of them landed. Also do you plan to make some weapons(missile or bombs) more effective as a bombardment tool compared to beam and ballistic weapons?
There is also diplomacy matter. Do plan to implement it more as a MoO I where there could be skirmishes or limited/cold war state where AI try to probe or take weak colonies without declaring war and small scale conflict is possible or are you gonna go the Civ route where even small hostilities turn into total war? I ask because it would make more sense(and better gameplay) to go MoO route - so shooting down enemy scout over my home world would not start total war(sure sometimes it could as some race could just looking for a fight but I feel MoO diplomacy was clearly superior in this aspect. Recently I replayed old MoO and have many amusing situations where AI accuse me(rightly) on many things9stealing tech or destroying their fleets) but was to afraid to declare war as I was much more stronger or they were busy somewhere else. Relations suffer though.
There is also a issue about lack or info on system screen. I let myself to prepare some mock up. I hope you would find it helpful. It allow easy access to all system informations without need to check all planet one by one. System name, planet name, Types of populations, military garrison, planetary buildings, planetary mineral ratings etc.
- sis 001.png (1.81 MiB) Viewed 22867 times
Also it would be helpful if there could be possibility to sort or rearrange planets in planetary report tab.
Sorry for my English and if I make some unclear comments. Game look solid even if unpolished but I hope it will go into the right directions. Did I mention that art is great? Thanks for reading.