Not sure if this has been posted but.....
Make it so that completing missions isnt the only way to gain favor with AI. Make it so like if you give them some credits, then they improve their relationship with you, depending on amount of credits you give them.

P.S. This game rules!  

i dont know if this has been said, but in the betas you could collapse all the planets in one star system under the star symbol on the right menu, and it made it really easy to sort things out..ie once you conquer that particular stars planets, all the planets in that system, you collapse all the planets under the star symbol and move on, alot less clutter unlike now, i dont know why you ever took it out..

It also would be nice (if a bit pointless, like all achievement-type stuff) to have some sort of indication, if you have conquered a given map in easy, normal and hard "mode" (won a war against all easy, all normal or all hard opponents). Like - one star, two stars, three stars. It would give the single-player mode some sense of progression.

This will be my first post to the forums. Loving the game so far. I have a few suggestions for 1.03.

Let me be the next in a long line of folks to mention the PJI. In its current state it is worthless. Just add my voice to the deafening mass of other voices saying the same thing. Personally, I think a PJI that affects an entire gravity well and fully stops non-ally's phase jumping is not overpowered. They can be destroyed quickly anyway, so this would serve mostly to punish those who disobey a prime tenet of war and attack without scouting first (I do this myself, but only because in this game right now I can get away with it). I'm also a big fan of the "phasing cooldown" idea that has been mentioned in the past, so that moving ships right through enemy strongholds is time consuming and a little costly, even without PJI being present. The defenses should NOT be able to overpower offense - but as of right now you can't even THINK of defending your core worlds with "fortress" worlds on the front lines, because the opposing fleets can race past all defenses and hit your soft underbelly with impunity.

I do NOT think basing fleet supply limits on planets owned is a good idea. This will simply bring the game to a decisive close earlier in mid-game, resulting in a longer late game boring steamroll effect. Why? Because, especially on smaller maps, once on side has a decisive edge in planets, they will have both a decisive edge in economy and fleet supply. This is not always the case in real life anyway and should not be the case in a game. In other words, losing players should have at least some chance of a resurgence or why not call the game halfway through and quit? The Fleet supply "ladder" techs should be spread out less, though, with more tiers, perhaps leading all the way up to a huge fleet and 95% income reduction at the top end. Because the cost of ships and research doesn't change, 95% income reduction might be viable on HUGE maps for desperate players, and let's face it - huge maps are where the logistics techs seem to make no sense as is.

I'm not sure what the fuss is about regarding seige frigates. They made me scratch my head the first game I played, and now they are usually non-issues, except when an opponent ties my fleet up somewhere and then expertly smacks me from behind with seiges at a not yet fortified planet. When that happens though, it's only right that my planet gets destroyed - my opponent did something sneaky and I wasn't prepared!

There is also another aspect of logistics being ignored that may make the game much more tactical - and that is how many ships can be stacked in one system. Only allowing a limited number of ships to be stacked in a given system without some tech or support unit or structure would add another layer of logistical complexity and would make huge "victory fleets" less of an issue until late game It would make multiple fronts and hit-and-run strategies more viable, because making a hit-and-run somewhere wont necessarily mean your "giant blob o' ships" is now smaller than your enemy's "giant blob o' ships" at the main point of contention. It would also be a HUGE alteration to game play - so I don't expect it to be taken seriously.   

Thanks to Stardock and Ironclad for the great game, and taking such an interactive approach in working with the community on continuing to improve SoaSE!

for v1.03:
increase the delay imposed by the PJI, effect whole gravity well

add a toggle to remove diplomacy missions, or at least increase timeframe and reward or lower penalty. also, add the ability to impose missions on the other Ais. right now its simply a drain on relations, with AI often asking you to do things in ten minutes that are undoable.

AI use of extractors in neutral uncolonizable areas (asteroid belt, space junk)

limit superweapon range to several jumps away, but increase PJI delay amount and area of effect to whole gravity well (or toggle jump blocking option, or block all hostile outgoing traffic to friendly worlds)

increase squadrons on hanger defenses, defense turret range or damage, as a method of coping with unstopppable 100+ ships raids. the hanger and turret stations are bigger than most ships, but sometimes have less fighter/bombers and do less damage

tweak tendency for AI to break and run prematurely

tweak AI to build tactical defenses more

weaken siege frigate health/shield/armor to mediate siege frigate rushes.

superweapon quickbutton or empire tree item

tweak ship speed vs weapon speed. is sort of crazy to see a ship outrunning missiles across the gravity well, when the missiles don't normally have that range

option to toggle popcap based on map size or planets on map. option to have fleet cap vary by planets under control. toggle to scale amount of unit cap

focus fire toggle

In the longer term (past 1.03)
enabling ships with planet bombardment weapons to use them vs ships, albeit with a penalty to accuracy or damage. if you are being shot at, it makes sense to use everything you have to shoot back, and it would look more shooty

increase AI use of Z axis

increase use of Z axis between location of planets in map construction

boarding/capture units

planetary assault with troops - capture it immediately without having to recolonize, at a vastly increased cost and an allegience penalty to the newly taken planet

provided superweapons have a range limit, anti-superweapons that slightly outrange them, but are only good for destroying super weapons

corvette ship class, dreadnought/titan class a level above battleships, terror stars a level about that.

some forms of attacks have mass that pushes enemy ships around slightly

mines and minelayers

anonmalies like in Galciv 2

new factions or independents randomly appearing, or invading from outside the map

ramming

a weapon class (instead of an ability) that can eventually disable a ship, like the ion cannons in Star Wars

moons

bridge/cockpit camera view, direct control of ship plus shooting

destroying planets (terror star superweapons), building artificial planets from uncolonizable planets, defense outpost stations that can be placed in uncolonizable planets

planetary defense that fires from the surface or launchers fighters from the surface

bullets are bullets that keep going if they miss, like in homeworld, instead of gfx to represent damage from one ship automatically being applied to another ship

wreckage lasts long, provides a collision hazard (damage or slow movement), impedes weapon fire, and is salvagable

while I'm not modding myself, these would be nice to help put projects in progress:

mod support for multiple fighter and bomber models if it does not already exist.

option for animated turrets on ships at closest zoom LOD. both for eyecandy and for modders.

option to remove phase space jump nodes for open travel

enabling use of more build button rows in capship factory if this is not already doable

Another idea. Let us change each racial profile picture independently of the other and even let us import our own

Also, Bug Report: When a structure is in the research queue, the construction bar lets you select it. However, as the research is not complete, you are not allowed to place the structure. But, instead of saying the structure has not been researched yet, the game says a structure already occupies that space, even if you try to build in an empty spot. The error message needs to be fixed.

One simple suggestion I want to make: Fix the forge so that you can dictate who starts well. This would be I think easily done by the devs...instead of choosing which race to be, choose which faction to be as is dictated in the forge...

its nice in theory anyway!

Damn straight. 3 hour games make this a necessity.

Wouldnt it nice to have multiple fleets coordinate together like in supreme commander and a fix for random vista freezing games.

More victory conditions to reduce the end game.

yup..i also encountered that bug too...the first time i get it was when i tried to cancel building a station..well, it's some1 mention it..i totally forgot about it..

"Ramming"..dat's another great idea...my previous idea is that each ship has a weak point and the ships AI kept trying to attack the weak point (in the back) and on the same time..evading other ships that's trying to get his weak point, so it would kept them moving...but "ramming" when they're health is very low...and then explode to bring others with them....it'll be extremly cool..and i believe it's not that hard to implement..at least that's what i thought...

o, and debris? we really need that...it felt really strange when there was just a moajor gargantuan fight...and then the space just went back to normal..without nothing?
kinda odd ha? so a lot of debris would make it more believe able that we're at war man...just like in homeworld...where the debris are the proof of a battle was fought there....makes you wondering who against who..and who won...cool ha?

I would like it if it didnt freeze after an hour or so of play when I load the auto saves it freezed about the same point in the game if the last save was five mins before it froze it will freeze again when you load that save

I would definitely like to see an increase in fleet population caps. As it stands, it's fine for smaller maps, but on larger maps it's impossible to play with the default maximum. Increase the PJI range to the entire gravity well. Also, I liked the idea of making everyone neutral at the beginning of each game, like in most 4x games. I know you said diplomacy can't be overhauled in a short amount of time, but it would really be my #1 wish for future releases.

I would like to see better fighter physics, like what I have seen in Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. Banking, and maneuvering is all. EO

My biggest complaint at this point is the AI. Multiplayer is fun, but in a game that lasts this long, you really need a challenging AI opponent for people who like single player.
I know much/all of this has been said before, but I'll go ahead and put in my vote for changes: The AI retreats too easily, even from battles for worlds that are critical (its own home world, for instance). It needs a tweak for when it determines whether or not to retreat. I almost never see it use anything other than siege and light frigates and capital ships. It needs to research/make use of other ship types. The AI doesn't bypass heavily defended worlds - it either fights at the first world or retreats. When possible, it should do what a human would do - go around the fortress and hit the softer worlds behind. The AI doesn't expand quickly enough, and needs to be more aggressive overall (it tends to only be aggressive with siege frigate rushes, which are relatively easy to deal with once you know thats what the AI does). Overall, the AI isn't challenging enough. One easy way to fix this would be to allow the AI to cheat. I know a lot of people don't like cheating AIs, but I'd much prefer a challenging AI that cheats than one thats a total pushover (which it pretty much is now). Giving it a percent boost to its economy/build speed could help even the playing field between the AI and players a lot. Eventually, you'll want to make it challenging by having it act intelligently, but adding a difficulty level or setup option for increasing the AI economy would be nice, and probably much easier to implement than significant alterations to its behavior (so you could add it by the next patch).

Fix auto join. I think there should be an option when you select a shipyard as to whether ships built from that facility will auto join or not instead of all ships just auto joining as default.

The game could really use the ability to auto download maps and saved games in multiplayer. I've been playing with 3 other people on custom maps built using Galaxy forge and it's inconvenient to have to keep e-mailing the maps around. The saved games as well. If one player has issues and drops, we tend to save the game and exit until they can get back in. However, they won't have the save game because they were dropped so we have to send it. This transfer should really just be built in to the game.

This is a repost of my post above...the one above had some formatting problems:

My biggest complaint at this point is the AI. Multiplayer is fun, but in a game that lasts this long, you really need a challenging AI opponent for people who like single player.

I know much/all of this has been said before, but I'll go ahead and put in my vote for changes:

The AI retreats too easily, even from battles for worlds that are critical (its own home world, for instance). It needs a tweak for when it determines whether or not to retreat.

I almost never see it use anything other than siege and light frigates and capital ships. It needs to research/make use of other ship types.

The AI doesn't bypass heavily defended worlds - it either fights at the first world or retreats. When possible, it should do what a human would do - go around the fortress and hit the softer worlds behind.

The AI doesn't expand quickly enough, and needs to be more aggressive overall (it tends to only be aggressive with siege frigate rushes, which are relatively easy to deal with once you know thats what the AI does).

Overall, the AI isn't challenging enough. One easy way to fix this would be to allow the AI to cheat. I know a lot of people don't like cheating AIs, but I'd much prefer a challenging AI that cheats than one thats a total pushover (which it pretty much is now). Giving it a percent boost to its economy/build speed could help even the playing field between the AI and players a lot.

Eventually, you'll want to make it challenging by having it act intelligently, but adding a difficulty level or setup option for increasing the AI economy would be nice, and probably much easier to implement than significant alterations to its behavior (so you could add it by the next patch).

Great game

I would really like to see much more politics/Diplomacy/Trading between planets.

My idea is the following:

Each planet is different (duh) so each planet should have its own specialities when it comes to tradable commodities.

For example a large earth like planet could have commodities such as food, water, air, weapons etc. Where a desert like planet with a large research lab on it could sell certain research related items while they will need things such as water/air/food from other planets so trading between those two planets could become very profitble but also dangerous as your ships might be attacked by pirates or enemy players.

Two things that have been really bugging me tonight after trimming and juggling screenshots from my folder:

• An option for the screenshot key to remove the UI by default when hit. I like manual control over Cinematic vs Tactical, but the UI should either be a Cinematic option or togglable by default. I know I can hit Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Meta-Cokebottle-Z to turn it off but … awkward.

• A more compressed screen save format than BMP. To suggest file sizes are huge understates the case. A nice, svelte JPEG library certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings. At least the option, anyway.

• A somewhat more useful naming system wouldn’t hurt my feelings. [Date] - [Time] - [Race Name] - [Map Name] would make juggling things nicer there, anyway.

Unrelated to screenshot management:

• I really wish I could name fleets. I do.

While totally irrelevant to gameplay, I'd love to see scarring on planets as a graphical effects option. The bombing effects are great, but I think adding something to the planets to show that they're in bad shape (similar to how ships let off fire and smoke while damaged) would look really cool.

- Better AI players in some way; right now even the hard AIs are not even close to a match for a human player.
- Please, yes, make the PJIs not suck. Them sucking also makes the scout-ship-ignore-them research suck, which seems cool otherwise.
- Have AI relations reset to hostile with no agreements when the AI dies, so I don't end up having a peace treaty with a dead AI which prevents me from attacking their stuff until 90 seconds after I notice. Or better yet, just have all their stuff explode.
- Assuming I'm right in my guess that the little sword next to someone in the pirate screen means the pirates are after them, could it, also, go away when the player in question dies? It starts to get annoying when 3+ dead AIs have little irrelevant swords next to their entries.
- Some way, in any fashion whatsoever, to get a larger or preferably unlimited ship limit. I have an undying hatred of pop caps in games in general, and the fact that there's no way to get around it in this game makes me sad. An option somewhere, or a research somewhere else would be nice.
- Space ponies race.

It has been pointed out before, I'm sure, but the upkeep assosciated with increasing your maximum fleet size is not being implemented in a good way. Upkeep should logically be based on the size of the fleet you're fielding. Why would someone be paying 75% of their empire's resources into a non-existant fleet after a being routed? Upkeep puts people in irrecoverable situations. As early as the first 9% income being permanantly lost, getting a bad beating and continuing to lose resources can spell disaster and prevent you from coming back in a meaningful way, short of the enemy being a dunce (throwing themselves at static defenses/failing to react to your new counter) until they are weakened as well.

I really hope in 1.03 Upkeep is somehow made less harsh.

Since I seem to be unable to edit my post (weird, that): - Larger size distinctions between ships. Currently ships just aren't big enough to give that "HOLY CRAP THAT'S A BIG SHIP" feeling from Homeworld. Probably impractical in the relevant timeframe, though. - IMO, currently ships are obscenely tough; this is only compounded by how easy it is to flee and the multitude of things that increase durability (I'm looking at you, Guardians). Higher overall damage or lower overall health would be nice. - Naming fleets would be useful. And cool. - This. EDIT: Yet now the edit button is there. Maybe it's only allowed if it's the latest post? Hmm. In any case, I forgot something else: statistics. Globally, for your entire SoaSE career; similar to Advance Wars: Dual Strike or Days of Ruin. Stuff like total frigates killed, planets razed, damage dealt, crystal value of stuff destroyed, etc.