Yesterday I played a game of SiS

It was in good shape for a beta development. Better than i thought. I really enjoyed the game (at least until the end game where it suddenly crashed) Nonetheless there are still some things I want to remark

1 - Boarding Combat - there should be a feedback (eg a window with showing the results of the fight like in Moo2) and some more informations about how boarding works and which tactic I can use for my marines. For examples how strong are my marines in comparision to the enemy marines? how does marine quarters work exactly? Are bigger ships better for boarding than smaller ones? Have the shields to be down? etc.

2 - tooltips - every element of the game should have the tooltips with the small "?"

3 - ship graphics - are great, but you should have the choice for more different shapes. Eg. I played the diamond shaped golden ships. It would be great if I could have not only diamond shaped light cruisers, cruisers, destroyers etc. but also other shapes in the same golden graphic style. (like a cruiser with wings or a katamaran)

4 - SiS pedia. You should consider to integrate a button with a SiS pedia like the info library in Firaxis Civilization which explains the basic concepts, how to play, tech list and more details of the game per simple mousclick. I always found this infos very essential in Civi.

5 - The technology. This is one of the few elements I didnt like in SiS. Its quite weak as far as I can see. Many techs dont have enough infos about what they do ingame. The tech system as is it now is not very transparent in terms of what comes next and which strategy I should choose and which techs I should skip if I want to go straight for a specific higher level tech.

Ok, the tech list works, but it is confusing for long term planning and not much fun to manage. I really prefer those tech systems from MOO2 or the beautiful tech trees from Civilization or Galciv which show all necessary details about the techs at the first glance.

6 - Planetary invasion. So far I really like the bombardment/invasion system. But you should consider to let not only the defenders but also some of the invading marines be killed so that I have to rebuild troop transport from time to time. Also again you should introduce a feedback window where the player can oversee the combat details and statistics.

7 - Ship sounds. you should introduce a sound when I click on a ship, when it moves and when it explodes. I really like the sounds of MOO2 when the creepy alarm sound came and the reactor exploded. You should also have more ship combat sounds.

8 - Ship list. I would love to have a list with all my ships on it.

9 - planet list. I would love to see a list with all planets I have detected on it, with short data. (eg. can I colonize it?, how many people does it support etc.)

10 - Rangeometer. It would be nice to have a rangeometer like those in MOO2 (pressing F7) which allows me to exactly measure the distance in parsecs between any systems on the board.


Next week I have time to play another game. maybe I can make the list longer. Thanks and keep on with the good work.

Boarding combat, in addition to needing some balance changes (it should be a requirement that you either disable a vessel or have some special enabling device, such as tractor beams or transporters, to be able to board it), definitely needs a more informative UI. It's currently a bit of a black box.

I agree that most UI elements should eventually have info tooltips, and these are being added as we go along. We are also in the process of adding some introductory messages with some basic gameplay information to help new players get started.

There are currently no sound effects, but that is something that we want to add sooner rather than later.

A Fleet Report, similar to the Planetary Report, which lists all of your ships, is already in the pipeline.

1. Boarding combat would be nice feature almost like in a tactical based games like ufo. I can imagine some animation when you board a ship and the forces begin the fighting for the ship.

2. Tooltips nice ideas but only if possible to turn off. Almost all game for me is easy to learn so don't get me for the basis.

3. Ship gaph. You mean the ship looks which is nice and looked good in moo2. I would like also to make more design for all different types and a further ship desing tool which able to you to make your ship by part. You have for example 100-1000 point to design and each ship type have limitations in design part and / ship slots like weapon hardpoints, armor hardpoints etc. This worked well in galciv 2 but for me always was buggy and a bit complicated to save those ships.

4. Sis pedia would be nice like in free orion have a freeorionpedia. Depend on this if you guys will improve this game for long time or release when finish then doesn't make major changes. If the game could be moddable then I suggest an option for the modders to write the pedia also.

5. Atm really not mean so much the research and there is no have so much explanation or variation with the techs and a technology tree with multiple usage in techs would be nice. I mean the multiple usage like laser tech then you can build laser weaponry and you can use in metalurgy or other ways. It makes more worth to choose better and racionalize your race what needs now more and what techs could be queneed.

6. Planetary invasions simply just copy paste the masters of orion 2 ground combat and we get the heaven.

7. Ship sounds like the badass weapons in orion. Oh yeah baby... I liked them so much but also there is a lot of variations from other games. This make the game a bit more arcade because in the space there is no way to make sounds unless you not have a geyger calcul when you face with a sun.

8. A ship list is good idea I agree this maybe enough for simplicity a mass list like 5 cruiser 11 destroyer etc and if you want to focus you can one by one check all.

9. A planet list could be nice in addition it would be nice more planet type/looks and more in number in each sun. I think that your concept the same like orion but it would be nice addition up to 10 planet max in a system.

This could be good and harsh also if you though forward because if randomly generate maybe you can colonize all of them and all could be "in luckily manner" 10 gaia type planet. That can fast forward the research and improves.

10. Simply just agree.