Just a general statement.

Here's another random comment besides my bitch about the order of the savegames. I see at least on of the devs is a David Weber fan (re: star/planet names). Just noticed that, been re-reading his stuff so it rang a bell.

pek

I also noticed the niche Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim as a planet once, although in one word.

-----

A few feature request:

* This may just be me not knowing the key to press. I'd like to be able to cycle through all my planets while keeping the UI in its current state. An instance where I've missed this feature is when I need to build another lab, or expand the fleet support. I try this planet, which I find has maxed out its logistics slots/has maxed fleet support. So I zoom out and find another, possibly misclicking on the way, causing the previous planet to be deselected and the UI defaulting to the main menu of things to do on a planet. Repeat with lots of clicks until I find a planet that can support the thing in question. I'd like to press some key to quickly find one able to support it.

The same goes for capital ships. There is an option to cycle through the currently selected ships, which I use a lot when in battle to use their abilities, however I don't always notice when one of my caps has gained a level. I don't always keep all my caps in the same group either, and when I finally remember that they might have leveled I want to cycle through all my caps to assign their new abilities.

* Double-clicking an event in the bottom left UI should switch the view to where that is happening. Currently I have to hover over it, zoom out until I can see where it's happening, then zoom in on the place.

Basically a hotkey to jump (and keep cycling through) planet with free logistics? Someone suggested in another thread to 'light up' planets with free slots in the empire tree, essentially the same. One of the devs took notice and said it's a neat idea, I believe, so we might see it



The empire tree labels capitals that have leveled up with unspent points with a '+' symbol. If you use the selection based empire tree option, clicking on the planet where your fleet is will expand the tree on that planet and you'll be able to see all your capitals listed at the top of the fleet. While there's no hotkey to cycle through them, you can select them easily that way without having to zoom in and pick them out one by one. You can also make a control group of just your capitals (they'd still be assigned to their original groups as well) so you can keep an eye on all of them from the empire tree without having to do any zooming around.




Left clicking moves forward on events, right clicking (I believe) moves backward, and I believe pressing space bar moves your view to the event

I wonder if the drag box works with selection based tree if you are all zoomed out, so you can actually select ALL the forces of your armada across all planets, friendly, neutral and enemy. would be kinda cool, because you would have all the caps nicely arranged.

alternatively you could link the list of the fleet points used to the ships stats, so you can see there, what ships have upgrades, but that would probably take a whole lot of recoding I guess, since its something else entirely.

If it's just to see caps, it'd probably be easier to just throw them into their own control group, then you don't even have to zoom out to be able to see them

But having said that, I'd imagine drag selecting in zoomed out view works. I've never tried to do it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work

My experience with the space bar has been that it snaps the view to the unit or whatever I have selected currently, not the event in question.

Not necessarily free logistics. I want to be able to cycle through all planets with free capacity for whatever is opened in the UI currently (planet development, tactical- and logistics capacity, frigate/cruiser and capital ship production).

Yes, but, when you click on one of the 4 events buttons, it actually selects the event to jump to, no? I'll admit I usually don't look at most of the events, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.



Maybe I don't quite understand, but how exactly does that work? Since you need to select a planet with a shipyard to get into the production UI, and for everything else you still need to select a planet first. I guess you mean so that if you select one planet and say, hover over the logistics buildings button (or click it to get the build options) all the planets with free slots would light up? I don't see how you could make one hotkey to cycle for varying conditions though, you'd probably need a separate hotkey for each (logistics/tactical/improvements (and then each type of improvement..), shipyards)?

I tried it out today. while drag selecting in zoomed out view does work, it does not give you a compact oversight of your fleet (i.e. an empire vide version of selecting all ships in a grav well), because it selects your planets as well. so for all purposes when you do it, it just looks like the standard empire tree with only your planets displayed and your ships in enemy systems too.

which actually makes sense when you think of it.

still, should it work as I had thought/ hope it would, it might have served as a search function à la "where did I send that ship again?" and as a nice overview of your armada's status. sure, there is the fleet point oversight, but it doesnt give you the status of the ships i.e. its not interactive. maybe if there is time something in that direction could be implemented. and if possible in that view display int the description window where ships are along with the other stats.

I have several ideas for the game. First of all I think that because all the vessels are a military nature we should have the ability to put them in different formations rather them all lining up with small ships in front and capital ships behind. I also think that carrier capital ships should have the ability to hold more squadrons earlier on as that is their main purpose. I like the fact that minerals and metal no longer have limits in the asteroids, that makes collection a lot better as those are already time consuming resources to retrieve. I also think stances for the fleets would be good things. For instances having an aggressive stance, defensive, no action. This way if you come across other ships you don't necessarily want to attack you can set it so that you don't automatically start pummeling them. It is also annoying when you are trying to move your ships somewhere and someone appears in the system and all your ships automatically swarm toward it.

The stances already exist.

Its pretty much confirmed we won't have special formations.

The Sova carrier is already really good, I dont think it needs another wing, but you could tone other abilities down in exchange.

Im not sure what you mean by the resources being time consuming to retrieve? But I get that you like infinite resources?

To elaborate, right clicking on the 'attack' button (though I shouldn't call it that since that's not really its primary use) will toggle between Hold Stance (ships will only attack what's in weapons range and will not move), Local Area (ships will move a little bit but the area is obviously limited), and Grav Well (anything in the grav well can be autotargeted, depending on how AI decides to do it).



I'm not sure on the accuracy of this, we still don't really know what exactly will be in the fleet manager. I doubt we'll be able to order formations like Homeworld or something, but the fleet manager may allow us to set up a more customized deployment.

Perhaps. I sort of gave up on the space bar after getting undesired results the three times I did try. Maybe I was doing it the wrong way.


I hope this will make it easier to understand. I select a random planet. Then I click the UI button for planet development, hoping to expand the fleet capacity. Unfortunately, it's maxed out for that planet. My initial idea was then to be able to tap a key to cycle through the various planets that are able to do anything concerning planet development. But the extension using your misunderstanding is actually even better, that if I hover over the fleet capacity button and press the key in question it would cycle through the planets that had the ability to do precisely that.

Similarly, I wanted to click the logistics button with a random planet selected, and press the same key to cycle through all planets that have any available building in the logistics panel, be they mines, labs or whatever. This will not have as much advantage from a function sensitive to where I hover as the situation described for the planet development above. It would be the same key for cycling, based on whatever was selected at the time.

------

If a context-sensitive function requires too much time to implement, I would be happy enough with being able to press a key to select the "next" planet, regardless of whether they have the ability in the given submenu. I imagine that would take less programming to make.

Similarly, I want a key to select the "next" capital ship, as detailed in my previous post. I understand that I can work around this by adding all my caps to a group number I won't use for anything else and tab through them, so this is less important than for planets. I suppose I could do the same for the planets, not sure if the game supports putting lots of planets into a group. I'd prefer not having to spend two out of a limited number of groups for this however. I already spend many group assignments for the planets where I have ship building capability.

One thing I would like to see is queue-status indication in the icon level of a gravity well. When you queue up, say, 12 gauss cannons, they appear transparent in the graphics, but if you zoom out to view the gravity well, there is no way to see the difference between a 100% constructed gauss cannon, and a 0% constructed gauss cannon (though of course the building progress bar shows you the ones in between 0-100%).

This has actually had strategic implications in a game, I scared somebody off of an asteroid I had just taken because he reacted before checking the status of the cannons! And I would have ceded the planet back to him if he had not retreated!

Some comments:

- It's probable that hardcore gamers won't need that, but an Encyclopedia would be nice. Some thing really basic. I have in mind the Information or Intelligence Reports of Star Wars Rebellion. When you press the I icon, you get a list of all the ships, buildings, etc. with a small picture and a description: fire-power, armor, Good against, Weak against, Provide... etc. Would be nice to have that or something like this for people like me who don't have a lot of time to play don't remember all the techs and ships.

- Maybe it has been mentioned before, but I noticed that yesterday. When invading a world, even if I select all my ships and target a Lab for example, many of them will fire at something else. When I press ALT, I see the red lines indicating that they are supposed to target the LAB, but my ships are firing at something else, moving into formation to fire this something else and by doing so, getting far of the real target.

And a question. I always researched it but haven't noticed the effect so far. What is the purpose of the Long Range Jump tech??

Thanks.

I do know that any weapon will fire on anything in its firing arc if it can't bear on the "primary" target -- is that what your seeing? As far as manuevering to engage the wrong building, that sounds a lot more like the fact that pathfinding needs (a lot of!) improvement.



Enables interstellar jumps -- you need to be on a map with multiple stars for it to have any effect, though.

ships will fire on alternate targets until they come into range of the target you want them to attack. also, capital ships have more than one weapon and each weapon is generally located on a different side of the ship. because of this, you can have a capship attacking up to three targets at once (with the strongest weapon obviously attacking the targeted unit)

Thanks Ron.

Well, my capital ships did fire on multiple targets because of their weapons, but they were moving and orienting the nose of the ship towards another target. The most obvious were my skirmishers. They were litterally far form the target I did choose, oriented in another target direction and firing on it. But, with ALT, I was seeing red lines between them and the target I chose.

I had to click multiple times on my designated target to make the skirmishers move towards it.



Oh hehe. I never tried multiple star systems so far (don't have the time available to play lengthy games). Thanks for the info.

short version: sova is too powerful.

since its gameplay beta: judging from its occurrence and abilities, a slight reduction of the sova carrier might seem in order, I'd say it currently is the most useful and overall most powerful capital ship in the game. of course only in its particular situation and you have know how to use it, but we want a balanced after all, so I thought I just as well mention it (even though its probably a well know fact anyways).

I disagree that it's too powerful. It's powerful for a specific purpose and with a specific playstyle, not powerful all around, and that's what makes it balanced. Plus, fighters and flaks deny most of its firepower, leaving it only as a "sit at the edge of the grav well with embargo" ship.

And if you're going to call for a nerf, at least provide specific examples and suggestions on how to balance them. "I think it's too powerful, so nerf it" isn't going to win any awards

Some capitols -- for example, the sova -- want to be broadside-on to the target, is that the case?

Nah. I know how it works. Forget the Capitol ships. Let's say I had only Skirmishers. I clicked once on the LAB, no impact, they were still attacking a mine some distance away. No movement even after some time. Clicked again, same result. After a few clicks on the same LAB, they decided to turn around and move towards my target.

But you mentionned that the pathfinding needs to be tweaked a lot and it might be the problem here. I had a good amount of ships. My Caps were moving in different position and it looked like they were bothering each others way. This is how they were placed:

LAB --------- Caps --------- Skirmishers --------- Mine

So maybe the skirmishers were waiting for space to move towards the LAB, but because the Caps were moving like a blind man was behing the wheel, it needed a few clicks to provoke something.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can reproduce it in a game. I'm a fan of "concentrate all firepower on one target" so I always select all my ships and target something. Try this when you have 4 Caps and 5-10 frigates when you want to destroy Labs, mines, etc.

I haven't seen anything like that before... closest I've seen is the way certain special powers (like phase out) will "break" any orders given earlier, causing your ships to forget what they were doing during a retreat.

very well:

one thing is that the sova is about the only capital ship that can hurt an enemy planet (via embargo) and destroy structures (via bombers) while still sitting at the end of a grav well, ready to leave at a moment's notice. while the embargo rush is more of a strategy than an actual ship strengh, its fairly powerful. it comes with risks, but I'd say the potential benefits outweigh the risks, especially since you can get it out of the source grav well easy and don't have to bother with gauss canons. that means that even if the enemy retreats his capital to his hw, you can pull out nicely have siphoned off resources, maybe destroyed a structure and go back again. if the enemy uses his capship to attack your hw, you can also just start bombing him down. considering you take of his income, I'd say you are in the better position here.

second, the flaks you mention are lvl 2. its early, but it can be late enough in smaller games. I would even say the sova shines especially early on in smaller games. because right from the start the bombers cannot really be countered. its of course scouting work to determine what strategy the enemy employs, but I'd say it will take less time getting your flagship to the enemy hw that it does your opponent going straight for flaks and building them, which again assumes that he knows from the start what you are going to do, otherwise its a dangerous and harmful waste of ressources.

also, its direct power isn't that bad, if you take those missile batteries and the added mobility via fighters into consideration. I'd have to test it, would be interesting to see if a lvl 3 sova could take down a lvl 3 kol with a bit of maneuvering.

alright that was a lot on early game, now late game: again, you have the power to force your enemy into the (counter) offensive. if you have other capital ships you have to move in to destroy structures which may bring you into defensive range or split up your formation, and also cancels your ability to instantly jump out again. you can sit there and get money and at some point your enemy will just have to attack you. also, if you think of it, flaks are pretty easy targets. even if the enemy has some, you can still put your fighters on dock wait for the flaks to come and then use lrms other ships to take them out fast and use your bombers thereafter.

maybe get this a bit shorter again: what makes the sova powerful is its strong sieging abilites coupled with its nature to remain in jump-out distanance while still doing harm and its general flexility to counter a nice array of different threats, from bombers to frigates of other capships. and for all those benefits I'm not sure if there are enough drawbacks.

but its good you replied, I wanted to discuss, not demand. that said, I do not that the different cs have very varying roles, which is a very good thing.

would a distance factor be of any help? Like the Embargo ability would be more effective the closer to the planet you are, and less effective if you remain at the edge of the gravity well? Just a though.

For my problem (discussion with Ron), I'll try to record my next game and identify the moment I see what I'm describing, if I can reproduce it. I ask without having investigated in the game: how do I record a game?

Thanks.