Suggest - Features and Improvements

[bjg]

Center view on planet after conquered instead of jumping to the next event, as the player will likely set production on the new planet

From the "planet is conquered" info panel (coming together with "after invasion" big screen right under it) click the "wrench" icon.

[zolobolo]

Center view on planet after conquered instead of jumping to the next event, as the player will likely set production on the new planet

From the "planet is conquered" info panel (coming together with "after invasion" big screen right under it) click the "wrench" icon.

What I meant is: do not take away the screen from the conquered planet right after it has been taken and is still awaiting orders. Why would you? The player is currently concentrating on this event and probably going to issue orders for the new planet.

I have been using the shortcuts for a while now and even on medium maps, there is a lot of unneeded clicking for these events:
1. Click on battle report (if automated combat)
2. Click on new planet to issue orders

And really, why would the planet not be selected after conquest? I know that we get shorter attention spam thanks to youtube and co, but also assume that most people finish off their planet conquering agenda before issuing another build order on the other side of the galaxy

[bjg]

... why would the planet not be selected after conquest?

For me it does exactly that. We are probably doing something differently here.

[zolobolo]

... why would the planet not be selected after conquest?

For me it does exactly that. We are probably doing something differently here.

You mean: If you issue the command to invade a planet, and it is taken, you get directed to the colony management screen to set the building order?

[bjg]

... why would the planet not be selected after conquest?

For me it does exactly that. We are probably doing something differently here.

You mean: If you issue the command to invade a planet, and it is taken, you get directed to the colony management screen to set the building order?

There is a "planet conquered" panel under "successful invasion screen" - it's a standard event panel, clicking on "wrench" icon brings the colony management screen. Or you can click ESC and see the system in question in the center of the screen.

[zolobolo]

There is a "planet conquered" panel under "successful invasion screen" - it's a standard event panel, clicking on "wrench" icon brings the colony management screen. Or you can click ESC and see the system in question in the center of the screen.

Tested this out:
ESC exits the screen but no event or planet is selected - player needs to select system + planet or tank icon + wrench to set production: 2 Clicks
Clicking any of the two buttons on the status screen result in the screen jumping to the next event - player needs to select planet to set production: 2 Clicks
Clicking on the wrench to set production does just that - player already needed to click to select the planet for production but still only 1 click

My question is why does the player need to issue an order to do this, isn't it the logical step to do? Why not 0 clicks?
Doesn't everyone set the production right after a successful invasion?

When a planet is attacked, the window to invade automatically opens up - this is the same scenario. Instead of bringing up the fleet combat report and then jumping to the next event, the game jumps to invasion- it even goes as far as not showing the combat report directly, that is how fast it wants to get to the invasion screen (no time to stop and bury the space dead ). After a successful invasion though it jumps to the next event, while the production reminder is still waiting.

I would even argue that showing up the tactical battle results after a planetary attack should be automatically shown before the invasion screen, to be consistent with how the report pops up after each battle and also to see how many losses were taken to the fleet before continuing with the assault but that is a smaller issue. Still +1 click for each battle

These events make for a lot of unnecessary clicking even on medium maps where there are at least 2-3 planetary invasion battles per turn from mid-game on, so why not create a wrench icon right after the battle (as the planet is waiting production order) and have this be the next event, to which the screen jumps to when the invasion summary is closed or dismissed?

[zolobolo]

Love the new robotic workers on derelict colonies!

Along this line, suggest for colonies to sometimes host hostile pop:
- Pirates/Smugglers/Rebels/Mercenaries/Aliens Monsters have settled these ruins. They need to be flushed out before a colony can safely be established

The goal of this of course would be to: 1. Slow down the expansion phase a bit (but not much and without causing a threat to the AI) and serve diversity of the game

Valuable planets can also be secured by such pops, but a derelict colony naturally lends itself for such narratives

Send it the colonial marines to wipe out the Aliens from the colony!

[zolobolo]

On AI Difficulty: As everyone has a different understanding of what constitutes a good AI, recommend to lend some ideas from Galciv 2 and segregate the different attributes of the AI and let the user define its bonuses directly.

The main logic behind the AI should always remain the same meaning: The AI will always play at its best. All other parameters can be pulled either to a negative or to a positive multiplier value from 0 (zero is no bonuses and no negatives)
- Aggressiveness
- Starting Resources
- Resource acquisition rate (food; minerals and income types)
- Research rate
- Population growth
- Production

This setup should be fairly easy to implement as it does not rely on new features, just to allow the parametisation of the above attributes of the AI scripts. This way, each player can tailor the AIs or some of them to any difficulty they like and it will never feel like the AI is cheating as the player has directly issued the bonus (if any). It also enables the configuration of AIs with some massive bonuses on one filed and some negative multipliers on others to balance it out.

e.g.:
- Aggressiveness multiplier set to 2X
- Starting Resources set to 100X
- Resource acquisition: 0.9 (no bonuses either way)
- Research rate: 0.5X
- Population growth: 0.3X
- Production: 1.5X
The above would enable the AI to get a jump on the player in the beginning and serve as a good battling partner right of the bat but its starting bonuses diminish fast and are equaled out by its negative multipliers.

And if someone really lives a challenge, just multiply everything with 100X for a single AI, and watch the galaxy crumble

[Arioch]

Love the new robotic workers on derelict colonies!

Along this line, suggest for colonies to sometimes host hostile pop:
- Pirates/Smugglers/Rebels/Mercenaries/Aliens Monsters have settled these ruins. They need to be flushed out before a colony can safely be established

The goal of this of course would be to: 1. Slow down the expansion phase a bit (but not much and without causing a threat to the AI) and serve diversity of the game

Valuable planets can also be secured by such pops, but a derelict colony naturally lends itself for such narratives

Send it the colonial marines to wipe out the Aliens from the colony!

Is this a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?

The hurdle in this case is that the current UI doesn't allow you to attack an uncolonized planet; if it did, you could easily exterminate Scavengers or Gaiads or other "undesirable" native population. We're reluctant to let players do that, for reasons I've discussed before.

What we can do (and which is already on my list of things to do) is to make more of these native planets into formal minor factions.

[zolobolo]

Is this a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?

The hurdle in this case is that the current UI doesn't allow you to attack an uncolonized planet; if it did, you could easily exterminate Scavengers or Gaiads or other "undesirable" native population. We're reluctant to let players do that, for reasons I've discussed before.

What we can do (and which is already on my list of things to do) is to make more of these native planets into formal minor factions.

As you might already have heard: The only good bug is a dead bug

Planets with hostile pops could be classified as under ownership of pirate faction. Like when Raiders "occupy" a planet and is marked black. That way, the game consideres these as under hostile ownership, they can be attacked, while neutral planets get spared

[nweismuller]

Speaking of minor races, Viscids should probably get the 'Pacifist' trait. As things stand, the amorphous glop-things that do nothing but steal food from the local colonists will help fight in the defense of their planet, which seems... a bit off.

[Arioch]

Speaking of minor races, Viscids should probably get the 'Pacifist' trait. As things stand, the amorphous glop-things that do nothing but steal food from the local colonists will help fight in the defense of their planet, which seems... a bit off.

Good point.

[bjg]

Than disembarking (from a planet screen) tanks or just losing them in the battle - could you make sure to empty simple transports first, and only than military ships. It's quite annoying to rearrange tanks after each battle (specially because you can't directly transfer them, embarking from a planet screen has unpredictable destination, embarking from ships menu grabs colonists instead of tanks - all that would be nice to fix, BTW).

[zolobolo]

Than disembarking (from a planet screen) tanks or just losing them in the battle - could you make sure to empty simple transports first, and only than military ships. It's quite annoying to rearrange tanks after each battle (specially because you can't directly transfer them, embarking from a planet screen has unpredictable destination, embarking from ships menu grabs colonists instead of tanks - all that would be nice to fix, BTW).

Agreed. Also prioritize embarking from any other ship compared to a ship which receives a boarding soldiers bonus by the battalion. This is as these ships get a bonus in ship-to-ship combat and should thus be the last ships that would disembark.

The same should be true in the other direction. Embarking battalions should target boarding capable ship first

[zolobolo]

Would it be possible to mass select all ships of the same type in a fleet when SHIFT or CTRL is held?
A simple double click on any ship could also trigger selection of all ships of the same type to easy the management of mid-late game fleets - usually need this to not move troop transports with the attack fleet.

Maybe this is blocked by the mechanic how ships are deselected from a fleet? As all the ships start in selected position maybe such a function is difficult to do?