I would like to add my thoughts.

We need some kinda of 'fleet' manouvre thingie, as ships enter the system in a messy way, and bigger ships get just left behind.

Also as I mentioned earlier, I don't like the current way weapons are done.

Guns should shoot more rarly but do way more damage, it makes it look way more powerful and cool, instead of having machine guns weapons that somehow just bite away at the enemy.

Also, low calibre weapons should really do nothing against heavy armour, this is the folly of hitpoints anyway....

It's 'unrealistic' in ways, as I don't see a MG gun doing -anything- do an M1 tank today, even if you fire at it for a few days.

Janster

Thanks for sharing your ideas about these issues. Looks like you're the pseudo-moderator for the time being



I've had cap ships against a bunch of smaller ships reach 50%+ on this, but it was too fast to see what was really happening. The base value seems to be 20%. I would be interested to see techs that boost the base value or the rate of increase from damage taken. Perhaps also some weapon types should be shield-piercing?



I didn't get a chance to test it because I had won the game already. I built each ship type to see what its abilities are; I think you are refering to its targeting ability, and I don't know exactly what it does (multiple bonuses when using multiple Kodiaks?).



I noticed the autoplacement feature puts them at the right angle (facing the phase line) but too far back (I think). They really need to be right at the entry point for maximum effect. I know bombers are a pain; I started adding Kols into my fleets just for their flak ability (don't know how good the flak frigate is yet). I lost several cap ships once to a massive cluster of frigates with bombers and I don't know which weapons on cap ships can even touch them (autocannon?). The phase inhibitor makes sense if you have a heavily defended node which is a major chokepoint, or as a delay mechanism in weaker nodes for you defensive fleets. I usually add 1-2 repair stations to assist in keeping the defense automated (mainly anti-pirate). The planetary shield, to my surprise, blocks damage with a 50-70% chance. I think it should just be an added shield to the planet, so you have to destroy it first or spend twice as long taking down the shield (preventing immediate damage to the planet). I think people want to see it working more directly in that way (base shield, 3000 pts. upgraded, 5000 pts).



It's very hard to tell why constructors are being stalled sometimes (given some of their bugs). I think it's easy to forget what's "waiting" on something else too, so maybe the planet has 25/15 because I queued 25 tac points after queuing planet upgrades. I also thought I was recieving instant tech upgrades, but I think the devs already thought it all out. I think I was just confused because it's an unusual setup.



I guess I like the idea that a node can only have one player's buildings in it. If taking a planet would also take all defenses/buildings, reset cultural lines, and restore planet infrastructure, then a surgical strike at the planet becomes a tactic, and planetary shields are more important also. However, the static defenses need to be more capable of protecting the planet (you shouldn't be able to "run past" them and take out the planet). The planet should have its own short-range defenses as a backup to take out frigates or maybe one cap ship before falling, that fire only when being bombarded.



I think it spends too much on bounties that it could use for other purposes. I don't know if pirate strength is related to the amount of the bounty, but they seem to spawn at a star and find their way to targets. It's sort of like buying 3rd party attack ships for that target.



I think I was looking at that when I upgraded, and the recharge time was the same.



I see enemy planets where my culture line has hit, but nothing ever happens; sometimes, my own planets stop projecting new lines. I would like to see it in the infopanel for both (even if my intel on the enemy planet isn't current, I should still know if it's about to flip).



Weapons range should be the same for all basic weapons for a particular ship; that would eliminate any problems. I remember seeing beams and lazers on the same ship, thinking it was rather redundant. Weapon types need more differentiation. Is the autocannon a flak gun? There needs to be a specific siege weapon on the appropriate ships for clarity, not just "does 65 damage to planets" on the construction infocard.



I think it's best to limit the viewed range to one ship first of all (or it gets messy in a hurry). Basic weapons range is the main thing for tactics, and is shown when the ship is selected (if the option is on, better make it optional, a button, or toggled by a hotkey). Special ability ranges should be shown when hovering over the ability icon, making it context-sensitive in a way (because you want to know particularly at that time).



I would like to actually see it happening on the planet infocard. One potential problem is the fact that an asteroid can never broadcast as much as a planet (due to logistics limits). If they faceoff, the asteroid would lose unless it gets backup culture from planets behind it. I am curious how much culture is lost for each jump. The tug-of-war concept is intuitive, but it needs some work on the actual mechanic of it.

I think this is important: People want the option to use war or diplomacy. Here is one way: when planets are taken, all culture on its connected phase lines is lost. You can't change your capital planet (sorry, it didn't make sense to me anyway). The sum of all of your cultural sources is projected from your capital, losing a small value with each jump. This creates a "zone of control" around the capital, rather than local broadcasting spamming to take border worlds. Each planet produces a small amount of culture based on population, but the broadcasting center just provides a bonus "+xx%" for this. The effect of this new system is to make controlling the immediate area around the capital easy, while actually flipping enemies planets is hard unless your culture is much stronger or they are closer to your capital. For each jump closer to the enemy capital than yours, you would need for example 25% more culture than the last jump (it all depends on each player's culture though, and the rate of loss with each jump). If both have equal culture levels, then they would naturally control the same distance over time. If someone has 50% higher culture, they can perhaps flip one layer of planets closer to my capital, but not all of them. You get diminishing returns for higher culture because of the drop in effectiveness with distance. I hope that all makes sense, otherwise I will have to do it graphically.



I am zoomed out most of the time, so having the icons show construction will remind me that the planet I took a few minutes ago is NOT finished building defenses yet when there are pirates en route, for example.



As explained above, I think the cultural implications of distance from the capital are a more compelling game mechanic. The other penalties seem a bit harsh currently.



I still end up building them randomly with extra slots "just in case" I can get more out of it. I have no idea what the limitation is, but I think the trade center can be used more often (I can also buy the others with cash).

Culture is capped at 10% effect on worlds belonging to the same culture. You can get higher percentages on enemy worlds though, and in such a case you also steal an equivalent percentage of those planets' taxes.

Culture: Actually I was able to pull 0.2/0.3 culture (being produced, still capped at 10% in terms of effect) in my home system with 5-6 broadcast stations, and also in a foreign system. I am now playing the 100+ planet map with 10 stars. I discovered that culture only bounces off a location if you have a majority of the phaselines covered (so to bounce to other stars you need to cover the current star). Still have no idea how much I am affecting enemies until they actually flip, then I see it has bounced halfway to the next world.

AI Weakness: I am playing with the AI on medium now that I have an idea of the game. It is slow to expand into unowned stars, even when it is in the perfect position to do so. It scouts them, but never builds. In contrast, I did 2 star jumps and claimed all system resources within about 30 min using 1 Akkan (colonized and built another one in that system to speed it up).

Another random thing: I have pirates turned off, and they don't randomly attack me. However, I saw a squad of pirates phase jump from outside the map to attack someone's last world (they also had a high bounty). Since I have insurgency, is that what it does (random pirate attacks from nowhere)?

Game Balance: Even with a superior military, it's hard to take star systems that are culturally owned. Since you have to own a majority of the phase lines to a star to "get inside", it's difficult to "prepare" the planets for takeover (therefore, I have to destroy them all and not recolonize until the culture lines are gone, which is rather irritating, given that they can just recolonize them).

Ship Preference: I was using the Kol for a long time, thinking that its flak cannon ability would help protect me from the AI small carrier fleets (to which I lost the flagship). It turns out that it just costs too much antimatter to be effective against that many bombers. However, I have switched to the Dunov, whose superior magnetic ability can kill multiple fighters at once; when there are no fighters, the shield regen helps a lot. The Akkan of course allows me to colonize empty worlds quickly, and dominates pirates in unowned sectors; I always bring 1-2 with me.

Good Design: I like how sending 2 dozen scouts to "explore" sends them all to different places. They also give me "eyes" on enemy planets via probes. Someone has coded it very well.

Logistical: Typically, the map layout makes this effective; I build 1 capital ship factory and 5 broadcast stations on a planet. I build 1 refinery, 1 trade port, and 1 broadcast station or misc. building on an asteroid. That seems to even the distribution of resource gathering (I still have to see if traders crossing star systems get a large bonus for their time, but it works for me). My home world will normally be a research planet until I finish out the tech tree (and up to 3 other planets, if I have the cash to buy all techs, then I can replace them with broadcast stations).

Tactical: I have been prefering to use 1 phase jump inhibitor (on choke points and where it makes sense), 1 repair platform, the rest hangers, guass cannon for leftover points. I have not found the planetary shield to be of any value, but in multiplayer I think it will be more important. This setup works against most AI attacks, but if they bring in a cap ship and I know they're serious I will build or send in my own fleet.

Strategic: I tend to leave a fleet of 6-8 cap ships at each star after conquering a system (only scouts have come through so far). All systems are reasonable defended, so I don't worry about it. The other half of my fleet points are out pillaging nearby stars, and Akkans are sent solo to take empty star systems. My culture has projected to nearby stars, so at least I am even with my enemies culturally. We will see what happens.

I have to disagree with everyone else about static defense placement. When I place my structures, I keep them in a tight ring around the planet. This way I can easily cover everything with multiple gauss cannons. There isn't a point to building them really far out, they still can't hit ships that just enter the system. If all your defenses are too far out, then they aren't even protecting your planet from a siege frigate that manages to run past them all. The dead space around the planet isn't worth defending, the planet, with all the structures close to it, is.

Let me add another suggestion: When short both resources and tactical / logistics slots for a structure, make the "slots" alert a higher priority than the resource limit... as things stand, you have to have the resources needed in order to realize that the slots are all filled.

Also, when you highlight the logistics / tactical tab, it shows the slots total, and what is using how many slots, but it doesn't say how many slots are used / available, you need to do the math yourself, by hand. That could use a look at.

I reloaded the save game and there was considerable lag (15-20s) after the loading screen before the 3D items were loaded. I think that's because of the inefficient nature of the save files currently, but it probably won't be a major problem. It's a large map (because I like to push things to the limit hehe).

Reloading didn't fix the periodic lag, but I figured something out. The lag occurs when the game is updating my resource numbers, so whatever calculation is done there is becoming noticably long as the game progresses (more planets are owned now because the AI ignored systems that I colonized, at least 3 full systems).

Since I am playing as the Cylons, I suspect they have infiltrated my planetary defense system, and that may be the reason for the lag

I uploaded the save file (zipped) to my website: Save Game File.

Random: For people that were wondering, I discovered that shift-clicking allows multiple waypoints or targets.

Ah ha! My old post on having tabs in the empire window would work here
Not many were too fond of the idea though

You currently do have an alternative for this: selection based empire window (enable in options). Only problem with this is it shows ONLY what you have selected, nothing more


I like this idea
I also liked the beta 1 chat messages for cap ships leveling up - right now I often do not notice that they have leveled up until I actually look at their icon in the empire window

A bit of an oddity with the menus. If you select load game from the main menu, then you get an option of a saved game, offline (whatever that is) or recording. If you select load game from within the actual game it just gives you a list of save games, even if you were watching a recording at the time. At the least give a list of recordings when you're watching one and select "load".

I admit that the Kol is a superior battleship. In a cap ship battle a level 3 adaptive shield would help immensely. However, my preference is based on speed. Cap ships always stumble around planets (especially keeping large fleets together), and dealing with buildings and cleanup takes a long time. I was disappointed to observe that the Kol's flak gun doesn't seem to kill fighters, but simply injures them. In any case, it almost certainly doesn't kill more than one at a time, and at high antimatter cost.

The reason I use the Dunovs is because if there are a few bombers, my shield regen basically negates it. If there are many, then I rush toward buildings and cast magnetic field on them (usually killing several at a time, but more if they are clustered). This frees me up to build all bombers, which I target to hangers and other targets of my choosing. By the time I've bombed the planet (which of course I can't colonize normally You know why) and crossed the gravity well, they have cleaned up the area. Sadly, the bombers are much more efficient at dealing damage at specific targets than the fleet (at least for the time and effort spent).


Interface Issues:

* When I am zoomed out to planet mode, I would like to be able to easily select a subset of a planet's ships by clicking on the bar next to the planet, and choosing from a menu (like the one that pops up anyway with my ships, but that disappears as it's only for information). I almost never want to select all ships in the planet unless it's my main attack fleet (and even then, leaving a ship behind sometimes). I wouldn't need to group as much if I could easily select the ships I need in the proper context (that is, without searching the whole empire list for it). The game needs more context-sensitive lists like that, especially for combat (show me what's going on in the gravity well/planet I'm currently looking at automatically!).

* I start ignoring "you're under attack" messages because I get tired of moving all over when I'm doing something else. If the information was displayed at the top of the empire bar, or in some other convenient location, then I could quickly see "oh, it's just a few pirates or a scout". How about "a capital ship is attacking Planet X" or "enemies have arrived: 12 frigates and 2 capital ships" and flash a quicklink to that location near the top of the screen; that would get my attention. This is completely necessary for large multiplayer games; we can't be messing around with things that the static defenses can handle all the time.

* My only fast option for grouping cap ships is to select all from the planet bar, because their fighters are on top of them (I view straight down usually) and it's hard to single them out. Unfortunately, this always selects all the bombers (and other random ships) too; most people want those as a separate group, if grouped at all. Of course, the manual type selection above should resolve this problem.

* There are some general gameplay issues here; information, navigation, and unit control:

+ I physically have to zoom out and move over, then zoom back in to get from one star to another. It's slow, but it's faster than finding the star in the empire list. The quickest way is to have groups set in each star, so I can go there directly. It just doesn't feel right that the main interface is not very helpful for this purpose. I'd like a zoom key for "all the way out" as well, as I am using the solarsystem and planet zoom keys often, but moving across stars is harder.

+ I'm not getting empire-wide tactical information in a useful way. I need to know what's attacking me, where, and have an easy way to see the status of multiple battles without having to go to all those places (for instance, icons at the top of the screen representing battles; hover over them to see the unit health as you would when hovering over a planet's unit panels. I can use this to tell what's going on).

+ I need to select units or unit types at certain locations without finding them in the empire window or searching the gravity well. Suggest also a hotkey (if not already) to "select all of this type" then click on a unit.

Agreed, I've found cannons to be too weak to do any good. Perhaps there should be a long range missle launcher upgrade for the cannons? Or a anti-fighter flak upgrade?

The cannons need a bit more punch.



I think I noticed this too



Good idea - would be nice to see Gauss Cannon range too.



I thought the penalty was extreme as well.



Yes, these buildings need to show their quantifable gain. I build Trade Posts + Refineries only because I *think* they're doing something. Would be nice to see what the benefits are.

Could other things for me:

*Icons/ships are too small, hard to click
*Ship selection needs some work? I find the side bar impossible to understand/read.
*Certain themes are had to see against certain background (i.e. blue against black Orange against orange neubla... etc.)
*Ships seem to randomly target enemies during an attack. It would be nice to be able to set "focused" attack as one of the attack options
*Ships need more descriptions - especially Cruisers + Capital ships. The infocard should display the skills of each type of ship. This is useful for novice players - I'm a bit reluctant to spend 3K credits to find out the features of each ship Of course as one gets more experienced this is less of an issue...


How about a "reinforce" group option? If I have a group selected, perhaps the build menu will pop up? A ship will get queued for the group at the closest and least busy ship yard? This would allow someone to reinforce large attack groups without needed to set rally points etc. etc.

Here's an example of culture deadlock between star systems. I am blue, and I have eliminated all colonies in this system. The problem is, the culture lines from green and pink will never go away until I destroy their empires. Both have only a few colonies in the next star system, but I am certain that both orange and myself have more culture coming in (in fact, I have 4 consecutive systems pushing in). For some reason broadcasting into a star system isn't possible if someone's culture lines are there. This simply isn't fair as green most likely has only a few stations left.

I don't think culture deadlock can occur within a solar system, even if there were 100 planets (I'm going to test this next game), because superior broadcasting will push back the culture lines, but between systems is a problem.

Personally i'm fine with the current size of the cap ships, what I would like to see is the strikecraft, I mean does anybody know what they actually look like. Even at maximum zoom following the fighters, all they look like is black oblongs with maybe a few stubby things (Wings? Engines? Weapons?). Anyways, I know that strikecraft are supposed to be small, but i'd at least like to be able see them in something other than icon view.