Beta 3 Feedback based on 1st AI game

On to my 2nd game now, and some more observations:

- When you 'right-mouse click' pan the camera angle, the cursor creeps in the direction you are viewing. This can be anhoying because as the cursor creeps towards the edge of the screen the view starts to slide in that direction and you lose focus on whatever object you were originally panning the camera angle around.

- The easy CPU AI is too easy it simply has no chance of winning unless you go afk or commit suicide. Specifically it wants to turtle around its homeworld instead of expanding to other planets.

- I've not played a multiplayer game yet but I must say at this point it worries me that it takes so long to complete. I know from playing CoH that in a 4 vs 4 game the dropout rate is awful once the game goes beyond 45mins. I could see 2 evenly matched players taking quite some time to turn a strong position or advantage into a victory.

- Love the graphical effects on damaged vessels, best I've seen anywhere.

There is a major bug in the AI of the current release, none of the AI's actually work. They all turtle their home world... if that!

On to my 3rd game now....

- Medium CPU AI was more aggressive, built more ships and fought battles better but it still turtled and opted for a bounty strategy which might have worked if the pirates had acted on it. It was still too easy I shouldn't really have been able to beat a medium AI so soon.

- Even though the game was quite easy going it still took a long time to finish, it took a bit too long and ended up going afk whilst I left 3 capships to finish off the AI's planet.

- One of my dreadnoughts refused to obey the context attack command to hold position, it was hell bent on charging down Gauss platforms which eventually killed it. I tried to cancel the orders and re-issue them but it made no dfference I had to order it to move back every 30s but left it to die in the end.

- Can't seem to select ships whilst they are in phase jump.

- Having a player colour which is similar to the solar background(s) is a problem as you cannot easily determine the unit type from the left hand side window.

On to my 4th game and:

- Hard CPU AI was tougher but no real challenge, this time the AI did colonize an adjacent asteroid system until I sent in 4 Kol Destroyers. It tried the same tactic of turtling or very slow expansion whilst increasing the bounty on me. Pirates did attack this game but they were more of a distraction than a real threat.

- Bandbox selecting objects can get a little tricky when other object are in view, for example I was trying to target a frigate flying past a planet in my field of view. I had to be very precise to get the target orders correct.

- I like the dark space backround image best the green & red backgrounds don't look quite right atm they are a little too strong in colour.

- I noticed the info cards on units does not include their speed?

- Kol Destroyer doesn't seem to have any engine activity effects yet unless I missed it.

- Game time was 1h 40mins which again is too long for a 1 vs 1 against the CPU, though Im sure with practice I will improve on this greatly.

We have a ticket in with the ATI driver team regarding Sins, but it's hard to tell when it'll be looked at.

Again, TFL, there is a major bug in the current generation of AI preventing it from being effective until the next patch. And by that I mean computer opponents generally don't leave their home system... at all.

They do. Just not on all maps. Certain maps prevent them from doing anything (ie. not leaving their homeworld), on other maps they work.

Which maps do they work on? I'd love to be able to play single player "bites" when I don't have time for a full up multiplayer game.

Did you click apply changes? None of the sound options change unless you do. FYI: I think the volume levels have been tweaked a little, let me know if it's not better next patch.

Dunno about the premade maps. But on the maps I did for myself, the AI does work (at least I see no difference between now and the AI from the last beta. Doesn't mean much, though. )

Edit: Fire and Ice works with the AI, for example.

I would think that perhaps it's because the x800 only supports SM2.0 versus the nvidia's 7xxx series and above all supporting SM3.0.

I would be happy to help out once ATi release a SoaSE update in their patch, naturally I will be using my NV-8800 rig but its easy enough for me to switch back for a short time and provide feedback.

I will try fire & ice next, tbh I expect a Hard AI to kich me senseless at this early stage.

@Ron Lugge : I read ur 1st reply Ron and was in complete agreement but I wanted to point out that the AI does colonize outside its capital planet eventually.

The problem I feel is that the AI just doesnt have the same urgency as a Human player to colonise as quickly as possible. In small maps where human players rush 2xciv stations just to get the ice and volcano research, you can see the difference.

I don't think I've ever seen AI research that.

If you look at the end of game economics you dont actually get great rewards for external expansion (human) vs. captial planet investment (AI).

Unless I am reading the stats wrong the AI seems to do 'not as bad as you might expect' on the economics & resource front.

Analysis of all our stats says the AI primarily loses by losing way too many ships (typically by throwing them up against walls of defense) despite typically outproducing a human early on and by mis-evaluating threats against his planets thereby causing ships on the offensive to waste time travelling back to deal with them and then back to the frontlines. The potential of what could have been gained by continuing the offensive momentum is completely lost.

(Note: this is ignoring obvious bugs like complete failure to expand and complete failure to do combat research).

Yep, that are the largest reason why the AI currently is no real challenge. But on a tactical level the AI also loses because of how it's uses special abilities and it's faulty target priority.

Btw. I do outcolonize and outproduce the AI, even early on. Although it's often better (against the AI since it's not as aggressive as a human player) to outresearch and outbuild it in infrastructure.

Btw. shouldn't you gals/guys be sleeping?

lol, we don't sleep much! Testing beta 3 patch 1 at the moment. Just had a big 3 v 3.

Game needs a 6 player map that is under 1.30 hours long. How long was that 6 player game?

1.25 hrs from start to the last planet nuked. We are testing the new game speed settings.