Ok so I finally found some settings I like and have been pounding away at the game. Currently I am in the late stage of a game and two serious needs ahve arisen:
1.) SOME kind of cap. Its ridiculkous, I have fleets with 300+ ships and so does the AI and we are basically in a a manuf war just churning out ships at each other. I know my empire's economics can barely support this war effort and I have 6/7 of all the planets; the faction of AI I am fighting only has 3 (1 terran, 1 ast belt, 1 ice) planets and they can keep pace with my manuf and trade of 18 planets/asteroids?
We need a ship cap (make it a Toggle Option on game settings, this prevents things from getting silly imo without restricting those who insist of 1000+ ship fleets), eitehr a Hard Ship cap (flat number not to cross) or a Per Planet ship cap (eg, planets act as barracks for ships, each planet can only support 25 ships or some such).
Either that or killoff the AI's bonuses after a point; I lvoe a challenge but 6 vs 1 and they keep pace is too much (ive explored all planets and know the numebrs too be accurate).
2.) UI - WE NEED some way to set fleet priorities. In particular in larger battles, the isolate one ship strategy becomes very inefficient. The computer, however, when left ot its own devices, picks a diff target for every ship! Heck half the time it chooses non-defense targets; its aggravating watching the computer attack a mining module (that is gen 0 resources....) when there is a Gauss cannon next to it firiing away. WHich makes a hash out of my stategies - it splits up my ships and sends ships to the far side of a planet to engage Trade stations and mining colonies when I am fighting tooth and nail at a different arc of the planet.
Some way of setting the computer to focus on different kinds of defenses and targets is an absolute must; when you get past the 100 mark, using the Ctrl command keys for groups breaks down as far as macromanagement.
Eg, Focus On Ships or Stationary Defenses or Orbital Economics. I think this when combined with the local AI Defense posture would make the ships behave how they should.
3.) Some of the ship AIs need to be improved: my support cruises and my carriers LOVE to charge in ahead of everyone else in the fleet. Err, they are support ships and should be staying back. My Battleships on the other hand, love engaging froma distance...
Dreadnoughts btw, LOVE firing on planets auto, even when there is a Shield gen up. Altho this could be fixed with the Strategic Targets request up top.
Hehe
Perhaps switch the two AI routines? lol
My $0.02
