July 14-16
Oddly busy weekend edition
Technical+ Camera -- Strange zoom issues after returning from alt-tab (
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after leaving the game (paused all the while) on in background for a while, i switched back in to check something, and then i couldn't zoom into most planets anymore.
that means, trying to zoom down on a planet resulted in a stop before or right at the point where the grav well was displayed instead of just the planet icon, some planets stayed iconised while for some i could get as far as seeing the structures as little icons.
+ Fleet Supply -- Displayed max supply does not truly represent the amount available (rounding-display issue?) (
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I am flustered by a rather annoying math error in the game. I currently have 158 fleet points with which to play, I have used up 156 of these points. I should be able to build another Arcova scout ship, however the game has decided that the 2 fleet points needed for an arcova do not fit into the two excess fleet points that i have available.
Edit:This happens whenever the ship being built would precisely fill the maximum fleet units
+ Opponent AI -- AI stops expanding early on (pics) (
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The AI really need to be more aggressive in colonizing. It perhaps should build a second Kol early on in large maps to colonize much faster.
To me it looked like the AI just stopped colonizing, after it's scouts have detected me.
+ Refinery -- Refiner ships inexplicably fail to do anything (IC) (
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In my current game, the refinery ships built do not do anything. After they are built they cluster around the refinery and never move. I exited the game and reloaded and they are still not moving.
When I built the orbital refineries, there were extractors on all asteroids. No enemy ships or structures in my territory. The refinery ships also had a clear path to about 5 of my other planets with no enemy between planets.
About 2 hours after I built the orbital refiners the ships started working
+ Tutorial -- Limitations in tutorials persist to regular games in same session (
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I was doing the first tutorial and I missed some key point in it somewhere - end result was that I was in a state that the ships were locked out from firing at each other. That was fine, I exited the tutorial. When I started up a real game, the lock out was still in effect. I had to exit the whole game and restart before it cleared up.
+ UI -- Infocard scaling issues in very large games (pics) (
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while playing a game on max size setting (100 stars, 10 suns, though i actually got 108 planets) i noticed some errors in the display of summary screens when you have alot of planets:
+ UI -- Player assignments can be changed at load, but it has no effect on the game (
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if you load up a game, you will see the player screen...
in that screen you can change the ais etc. (i.e. turn all ais off) though it doesn't seem to effect the game (i.e. all ais are still there)
the only thing it did seem to affect was the statistics when finishing the game though (i ended up with only my statistics displayed instead of all statistics)
Gameplay+ Discussion -- Ship differentiation, balancing, and counters (
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I have finally gotten XP installed again so i can play som sins. So now ive tried out beta2. I really think SINS needs a whole lot more rock/paper/siccor when it comes to combat. Right now all the different ships just dont seem all that different. Sure when you get to know em you will see they do have differencies but these are to small.
+ Gameplay -- AI makes illogical requests (
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Just wondering if the AI could be improved so that it doesn't ask me as an ally to go bomb an uninhabited planet or defend a planet that is not in fact under attack.
+ Gameplay -- Phase pathing needs to determine shortest paths better (
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Note in the bottom pic they are trying to go through 3 jumps when if they went down one, they could go directly to the planet they are tryin to reach.
+ Gameplay -- Autoexplore needs to search 'deeper' (
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I find the scout ships auto explore feature to not work the way I would like.
Currently, the scout ships (collectively, if you have more than one) make a very shallow pass around the galaxy. ie only going 1-2 planets away from the star. This works fine if I want a general layout of the star system, or if the star system is small.
+ Gameplay -- AI falls prey to insta-flipping of newly conquered worlds as well (
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So anyway, my issue? the planet was obviously well inside the enemies cultural influence, in fact, their influence was only just beginning to be pushed back from the planet next in line. So why did my ally colonise this planet that was so far into their cultural territory? Or do they not think that an important factor in their deliberations?
+ Gameplay -- Shouldn't ships be able to rotate in place? (
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The LRM's went to chase said ship, but to do so they had to turn around as the ship was almost behind them. To do this they had to move forward right into the gauss cannons range, and they got chewed up pretty bad (didn't lose any but a couple were close to dead).
Don't space ships have side thrusters so they can turn standing still?
+ Request -- Notify that remaining enemy structures at a just-captured planet still use up logistics slots (
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I was just noticing that after capturing a planet that players structures continue to take up logistics points from the planet, This is fine, but I would just like the logistics info (either from hovering over the logistics button or the planet) to tell me that x amount of logistics points is being used by another player's structures.
+ Request -- Some means of accelerating research (
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Research really needs to be speeded up a bit, or to have an option to speed it up a lot. Something to research, or maybe even have each research station reduce research times a bit. If I want to build ships faster, I can build more shipyards, but I can't do a thing to speed up research, and I've had so many techs in line to be researched that I can't see them all on the list (I like to research everything, so sue me).
+ Request -- Adjustable scroll speed and/or drag scrolling (
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Agree 100 percent, adjustable scroll definitely and possibly dragging scroll option, but I think at the very least you have to have the ability to speed up scrolling when the mouse is placed at the edge of the screen.
+ Request -- Vary resource deposits among planets of the same type (
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but still, I would like to see some asteroids with 2 metal, 2 crystal sometimes, or ice planets with 5 crystals, or maybe desert planets with nothing. point being that if I know the planet type, that doesnt nescessarily mean I should instantly know how many/what RuAs are there.
+ Request -- Need an overview indicator of which planets can be upgraded (
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One thing that has struck me when playing this game (particularly in my current large game) is the annoyance of having to go around each planet individually to find which ones you havn't yet upgraded the fleet capacity, or the population capacity on etc. I for one, found the galciv 2 colonies window very useful for managing my planet, and I think some sort of similar system allowing you to view one window listing all your planets and say numbers of the different structures, but I think, most importantly for me, the planetary improvement levels.
+ Request -- Add black market buy/sell hotkeys to save constant toggling of diplomacy screen (
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I think blackmarket controls need to be accessible from the main screen , or have instant keyboard shortcuts to buy and sell crystals and metal in any screen view.
Ive been playing a tough game...3 hard ai vs me on small galaxy, where im pretty much squeezing every penny and trying to get out cobalt ships asap and thus im literally back and forth from the diplomacy screen every 15 seconds to redirect crystals into funds and that is very micro intensive.
+ Request -- Add a countdown before recolonized worlds in strong culture flip back to the prior owner (
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I don't have a problem if you conquer a planet/asteroid and after colonizing it, it reverts back to its old owner. I do have a problem where it instantly reverts back to the old owner. Make it more realistic...like it yours, but the allegiance slowly falls to 20% and an uprising occurs and the planet reverts back to the more powerful culture, unless during that time you manage to destroy broadcasting stations in adjacent systems or build more broadcasting stations of your own.
+ Request -- Prune old autosaves to avoid wasting disk space (
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An option for the game to only keep a certain number of autosaves would also be nice. I just finished playing my first games today and came back to nearly 3GB of saves (I know you said you haven't bothered with compressing the saves yet, but even taking that into account, I certainly don't need my past 50 saves lying around. 2-5 are plenty, imo. )
+ Idea -- Add a 'contested planets' filter to the empire tree (
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Yes! That idea crossed my mind as I was playing my latest 100 planets game. I would love to have a filter, or something in the options/UI menu which would allow me to only have contested planets in the empire window.
Planets which have battles ongoing on the top, then planets which had battles in the last 5 minutes (allows me to repair/reinforce their defenses), planets in danger of being culture flipped, and enemy planets which will be culture flipped to my side.
+ Idea -- Give all remaining bounty on a faction to the player who lands the final blow (
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But one issue that I have found is that when you wipe out a player their bounty is still there and can still be increased. I think that the player who conquers the last planet of a race the conquerer should get the remaining balance of the bounty and reset to zero and blocked out.
+ Idea -- More depth in planet management (
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I know you cant make the game too micro intensive, but i think it would be nice to be able to direct what was being built on the planet, not too intensive, just maybe resource extractors from the planet or something like that, make them take a while to build, just something that makes planets less like eye candy and more like, well, planets.
+ Idea -- Ship scale adjustments (
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Just a few suggestions. I think the game should overall get scaled up. Frigates seem a little to small. Carriers seem small for carrying fighters and bombers. The capitals are way to small they need to be sized up a lot. Anyone else think so?
+ Idea -- Auto-build option to replace losses in defensive battles (IC) (
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One thing that would have helped was knowing that my ships were being replaced if lost in the battle. For example right-clicking on the build button for each ship turns on 'automatic replacement' or something - when a ship of that type is destroyed in the system a new one is added to the build Q.
Ongoing Discussions+ New empire tree mode to reduce clutter (
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+ Killing Pirates should reduce your bounty (
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+ 3 dimensional star maps (
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+ Conquering planet in enemy area gives it back to the enemy. (
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+ The new AI tactics (
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Unsorted+ Yet another first impression thread (IC) (
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+ Thoughts after playing 1 game (
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+ First 4 hours (
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+ Interface and Gameplay Suggestions (
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+ Beta 2--10 suggestions! (IC) (
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+ My thoughts on the game so far. (
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+ Some comments after my first game with the latest patch (
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+ Some ideas/suggestions (
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+ Finished first few games (
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