First Impressions
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:55 am
I've played SiS for a little over a week now, and I thought it might be helpful to share some things I've observed as some of them don't appear to be mentioned anywhere else.
The artwork.
I don't think I have seen a single piece of artwork anywhere in the game which is less than 'impeccable'. All of it seems to have just the right amount of detail for it's size, and nothing looks wildly out of place.
I'm particularly impressed by the planets, and how they reflect thier attributes with the use of overlays. And especially by the nightside illuminations which seem to differ depending on what kind of habitation is currently on the planet. Orthin are easy to spot from space due to thier distinctive lighting patterns and drilling holes in ice.
And that the Phidi don't seem to have a different take on shipbuilding to everyone else by producing modular hulls and adapting them to a role rather than purpose build specific hulls.
I am a huge fan of little details like this.
The soundtrack is wonderful, and imo a perfect fit for the game as it gives just the right amount of 'bounce' without being overwhelming.
There's a very limited number of tracks though, and after a while it gets a little bit repetitive. If time and resources allow, adding a few more would reduce this greatly.
This is a future problem, and not really a priority at all.
The coding is all in plain LUA, nothing too remarkable. But every part of it is commented and annotated!
Reading through some of the notes in the various LUAs has been quite interesting, not only with regard to why things were done a certain way, but also in its own right. There's even a whole page of notes in there about calculating solar irradiance, which is just <3.
Its given me a great deal of confidence that this is something that's being done because those doing it actually care about it.
The game flows very smoothly, and has appropriate info given to the player to let them know if they should or shouldn't do something. It's not perfect and there's a few holes, but it covers almost eveything.
There are also a great many 'conveniences' built into the UI which reduce the amount of effort needed to do things. Again, it doesn't cover everything, but there is an impressive amount of streamlining.
Colony managment is fairly easy, and the tech tree is well laid out with automatic queuing of pre-requisites.
Conquest is straightforward with no underlying games dictating what you can and can't keep. (One of the reasons I bounced off every Paradox game super hard.)
I also like how the AI remembers which planets it had an interest in and will hassle you about them.
The combat UI looks great, and works really well for small scale battles. But starts to become cumbersome when there are a lot of ships present.
In particular the complete lack of the ability to select everything or cycle through ships has been a minor frustration.
I had also thought that being able to bandbox select ships would be a nice addition, but after some reading I discovered this was already present and available by holding <shift>. This could do with being communicated to the player in-game somehow.
One of the less good aspects of combat in general is the formations the opposing fleets start in.
I have been routinely frustrated by the insistence of whatever dictates the starting formation placing all the ships in something reminicent of the 'claw' formation from Homeworld. With the central elements at the back, and ships to the sides being progressivey further forward. With the foremost ships being essentially on thier own with zero PD coverage, and right next to their opponent who's fleet is arrayed the same.
What makes this even more frustrating is that incredibly valuable ships like carriers or missile artillery in frequently in this position and will be lost on the first turn often without getting to move at all.
If you have civilian ships in your fleet, they also appear in these positions and are frequently lost.
It would be nice if this could be looked at with view to giving the starting fleets a more linear starting formation, and/or giving the player the means to either use several preset formations or create thier own.
Not a huge fan of the way terraforming works. It's giving the player some confusing options with no feedback as to why those options are present.
In particular the ability to terraform worlds in a manner which will significanly negatively impact (ie; kill) a large number of the resident population. Why would the player ever do this?
Also the limitations with respect to small worlds, and those with a cold environment are.... Confusing given that the technology to overcome both these limitations (thin atmosphere and low temps.) are already in the tech tree. (Why is atmosphere condensation locked to Orthin anyway?)
Also, the description for the orbital mirrors tech is backwards, but there's already a note about that. Might be worth considering making mirrors and shades available earlier, but have them take up an orbital slot.
The upcoming changes look like they might resolve a lot of this.
The ship design UI is really neat, and the drag-and-drop of items onto a ship frame reminds me of Ascendancy.
All the icons are neat and easily recognisable, and the interface itself is fairly easy to use. But....
Once the player has accumulated a lot of equippable items, the UI starts to become a bit of a chore with an overabundance of scrolling.
One potential way to allieviate this could be to have the player right-click on a ship mounting in the list on the left, and from that create a popup list containing all the items that can be fitted there.
The player could also specify to 'obsolete' some items so they don't appear in the selections at all (why would you want to use lasers if you have turbolasers?) This might also need a checkbox adding so the player can access hidden items if they wanted.
Another part of the shipbuilder UI which could use a little bit of polish, is the distinction between turrets and hardpoints.
For most ships this is obvious as the weapon art changes to match so its fairly easy to see. But some ships have hidden mounts, and this has resulted in a few battles where I've been quite confused as to why my PD isn't working. Inadvertantly mounting PD weapons in a fixed hardpoint.
One way to get around this would be to have the right-most end of the weapon slots in the shipbuilder UI have little infocards on them to denote whether they are turreted or fixed mounts.
Just something simple like a filled circle for turret, and a hollow circle with the topmost 90deg filled for fixed. (Assuming all fixed hardpoints are facing forwards....)
Moving population between worlds could be a bit easier. Currently is requires clicking the source system, then clicking the transport button on the source planet and selcting the desired population from a box which cannot be moved.
Now the underlying galaxy must be scrolled so you can see your destination system in one of the edge gaps left by the box which cannot be moved, and then with your population cursor click on the destination system, (which may or may not drop the move operation at this point forcing you to start again) and then the destination planet.
Would it be possible to consider a MoO2 style planet 'ledger' as either a popup like the planet report or its own screen, where population can be moved around without quite so much effort.
After several games I've tried to find a reason to choose ion beams and disruptors over turbolasers, and I'm struggling to find a reason to not pick turbolasers every time.
For two reasons.
Firstly, the rapid fire mod is incredibly good. Doubling the potential damage output, and PD effectiveness is a huge deal.
Second, ion beams are simply not as good as RF turbolasers and have no secondary effects to make them useful in other ways.
Disruptors and neutron beams are more powerful individually than an equivalent turbolaser, but can't compete with the RF mod.
However, disruptors and neutron beams do have a secondary effect which can make them useful. But....
That effect is of incredibly limited use as it doesn't work through armour, which means the 'kills crew' aspect tends to be only accurate in a technical sense. As the crew is dead by virtue of the ship they're on being destroyed.
Maybe consider having the 'lethal' part of these weapons having some kind of bleedthrough when hitting armour, so you might not get the full effect but you do get some effect.
Speaking of....
Capturing ships is incredibly fun, and a huge part of why I preferred MoO2 over the original.
Including that in SiS is a huge plus for me.
One thing that's been mildly annoying though, is the seeming lack of any ability to save design templates for captured ships. Every single one has to be individually equipped, and anywhere past early game this is a bit of a chore with the current design UI.
Would you care to consider that if the player captures and integrates an enemy ship, that would allow a design template for that type of ship to be unlocked? This would be for refiting purposes only, the player would not gain the ability to build those ships.
Alternatively, for refiting any ships allow the template dropdown at the top-left to copy the design of any extant ships based on the same hull.
There's no espionage. That's kind of a good thing tbh.
Espionage is hard to do right, but incredibly easy to get wrong. If you ever think of adding this at some point, please be as careful as you can with how it works lest you fall into the trap Distant Worlds did and turn an excellent game into a moderately okay-ish game.
Regardless of how you go about it, it would be super nice if you took a page out of the Civ games book and included an option to turn off that aspect if desired.
Viscid. Why? Just, Why.
Overall: Suitably impressed.
This game isn't perfect, it has its flaws. But still feels like better quality than some 'professional' titles.
Very keen on seeing where the next updates take things.
The artwork.
I don't think I have seen a single piece of artwork anywhere in the game which is less than 'impeccable'. All of it seems to have just the right amount of detail for it's size, and nothing looks wildly out of place.
I'm particularly impressed by the planets, and how they reflect thier attributes with the use of overlays. And especially by the nightside illuminations which seem to differ depending on what kind of habitation is currently on the planet. Orthin are easy to spot from space due to thier distinctive lighting patterns and drilling holes in ice.
And that the Phidi don't seem to have a different take on shipbuilding to everyone else by producing modular hulls and adapting them to a role rather than purpose build specific hulls.
I am a huge fan of little details like this.
The soundtrack is wonderful, and imo a perfect fit for the game as it gives just the right amount of 'bounce' without being overwhelming.
There's a very limited number of tracks though, and after a while it gets a little bit repetitive. If time and resources allow, adding a few more would reduce this greatly.
This is a future problem, and not really a priority at all.
The coding is all in plain LUA, nothing too remarkable. But every part of it is commented and annotated!
Reading through some of the notes in the various LUAs has been quite interesting, not only with regard to why things were done a certain way, but also in its own right. There's even a whole page of notes in there about calculating solar irradiance, which is just <3.
Its given me a great deal of confidence that this is something that's being done because those doing it actually care about it.
The game flows very smoothly, and has appropriate info given to the player to let them know if they should or shouldn't do something. It's not perfect and there's a few holes, but it covers almost eveything.
There are also a great many 'conveniences' built into the UI which reduce the amount of effort needed to do things. Again, it doesn't cover everything, but there is an impressive amount of streamlining.
Colony managment is fairly easy, and the tech tree is well laid out with automatic queuing of pre-requisites.
Conquest is straightforward with no underlying games dictating what you can and can't keep. (One of the reasons I bounced off every Paradox game super hard.)
I also like how the AI remembers which planets it had an interest in and will hassle you about them.
The combat UI looks great, and works really well for small scale battles. But starts to become cumbersome when there are a lot of ships present.
In particular the complete lack of the ability to select everything or cycle through ships has been a minor frustration.
I had also thought that being able to bandbox select ships would be a nice addition, but after some reading I discovered this was already present and available by holding <shift>. This could do with being communicated to the player in-game somehow.
One of the less good aspects of combat in general is the formations the opposing fleets start in.
I have been routinely frustrated by the insistence of whatever dictates the starting formation placing all the ships in something reminicent of the 'claw' formation from Homeworld. With the central elements at the back, and ships to the sides being progressivey further forward. With the foremost ships being essentially on thier own with zero PD coverage, and right next to their opponent who's fleet is arrayed the same.
What makes this even more frustrating is that incredibly valuable ships like carriers or missile artillery in frequently in this position and will be lost on the first turn often without getting to move at all.
If you have civilian ships in your fleet, they also appear in these positions and are frequently lost.
It would be nice if this could be looked at with view to giving the starting fleets a more linear starting formation, and/or giving the player the means to either use several preset formations or create thier own.
Not a huge fan of the way terraforming works. It's giving the player some confusing options with no feedback as to why those options are present.
In particular the ability to terraform worlds in a manner which will significanly negatively impact (ie; kill) a large number of the resident population. Why would the player ever do this?
Also the limitations with respect to small worlds, and those with a cold environment are.... Confusing given that the technology to overcome both these limitations (thin atmosphere and low temps.) are already in the tech tree. (Why is atmosphere condensation locked to Orthin anyway?)
Also, the description for the orbital mirrors tech is backwards, but there's already a note about that. Might be worth considering making mirrors and shades available earlier, but have them take up an orbital slot.
The upcoming changes look like they might resolve a lot of this.
The ship design UI is really neat, and the drag-and-drop of items onto a ship frame reminds me of Ascendancy.
All the icons are neat and easily recognisable, and the interface itself is fairly easy to use. But....
Once the player has accumulated a lot of equippable items, the UI starts to become a bit of a chore with an overabundance of scrolling.
One potential way to allieviate this could be to have the player right-click on a ship mounting in the list on the left, and from that create a popup list containing all the items that can be fitted there.
The player could also specify to 'obsolete' some items so they don't appear in the selections at all (why would you want to use lasers if you have turbolasers?) This might also need a checkbox adding so the player can access hidden items if they wanted.
Another part of the shipbuilder UI which could use a little bit of polish, is the distinction between turrets and hardpoints.
For most ships this is obvious as the weapon art changes to match so its fairly easy to see. But some ships have hidden mounts, and this has resulted in a few battles where I've been quite confused as to why my PD isn't working. Inadvertantly mounting PD weapons in a fixed hardpoint.
One way to get around this would be to have the right-most end of the weapon slots in the shipbuilder UI have little infocards on them to denote whether they are turreted or fixed mounts.
Just something simple like a filled circle for turret, and a hollow circle with the topmost 90deg filled for fixed. (Assuming all fixed hardpoints are facing forwards....)
Moving population between worlds could be a bit easier. Currently is requires clicking the source system, then clicking the transport button on the source planet and selcting the desired population from a box which cannot be moved.
Now the underlying galaxy must be scrolled so you can see your destination system in one of the edge gaps left by the box which cannot be moved, and then with your population cursor click on the destination system, (which may or may not drop the move operation at this point forcing you to start again) and then the destination planet.
Would it be possible to consider a MoO2 style planet 'ledger' as either a popup like the planet report or its own screen, where population can be moved around without quite so much effort.
After several games I've tried to find a reason to choose ion beams and disruptors over turbolasers, and I'm struggling to find a reason to not pick turbolasers every time.
For two reasons.
Firstly, the rapid fire mod is incredibly good. Doubling the potential damage output, and PD effectiveness is a huge deal.
Second, ion beams are simply not as good as RF turbolasers and have no secondary effects to make them useful in other ways.
Disruptors and neutron beams are more powerful individually than an equivalent turbolaser, but can't compete with the RF mod.
However, disruptors and neutron beams do have a secondary effect which can make them useful. But....
That effect is of incredibly limited use as it doesn't work through armour, which means the 'kills crew' aspect tends to be only accurate in a technical sense. As the crew is dead by virtue of the ship they're on being destroyed.
Maybe consider having the 'lethal' part of these weapons having some kind of bleedthrough when hitting armour, so you might not get the full effect but you do get some effect.
Speaking of....
Capturing ships is incredibly fun, and a huge part of why I preferred MoO2 over the original.
Including that in SiS is a huge plus for me.
One thing that's been mildly annoying though, is the seeming lack of any ability to save design templates for captured ships. Every single one has to be individually equipped, and anywhere past early game this is a bit of a chore with the current design UI.
Would you care to consider that if the player captures and integrates an enemy ship, that would allow a design template for that type of ship to be unlocked? This would be for refiting purposes only, the player would not gain the ability to build those ships.
Alternatively, for refiting any ships allow the template dropdown at the top-left to copy the design of any extant ships based on the same hull.
There's no espionage. That's kind of a good thing tbh.
Espionage is hard to do right, but incredibly easy to get wrong. If you ever think of adding this at some point, please be as careful as you can with how it works lest you fall into the trap Distant Worlds did and turn an excellent game into a moderately okay-ish game.
Regardless of how you go about it, it would be super nice if you took a page out of the Civ games book and included an option to turn off that aspect if desired.
Viscid. Why? Just, Why.
Overall: Suitably impressed.
This game isn't perfect, it has its flaws. But still feels like better quality than some 'professional' titles.
Very keen on seeing where the next updates take things.
