more fleet capacity...??

what i'd like to see in 1.03 = same amount of ship capacity

but lower upkeep costs

making your fleets even larger wil ruin the game.... already had 4 crashes "minidumb???" which al happend during 2 big fleets fighting


also on the bigger maps if you know al the races touroughly everyone picks the vasari in long lasting games
returning armada gives free ships\

example on this : i was vasari when ny oponent was Advent

i beat him "ofcourse" looking at the scores i saw he spend olmost 12.5 x more on his entire fleet and al that that i as a vasari had ( and my fleet was 15 x larger????)


now something aint right there.... maybe a "slight" change in returning armada tech?

Please can you make more colour contrast between the Light Blue and normal Blue. Infact take one of the colours out and replace it with another colour

First off, GREAT GAME.

Second, here are a few suggestions

Fleets:

- Make fleets only available to capital ships, afterall, thats what they are for, to command other ships in battle.
- Make control groups (ctrl-x) on fleets mark all ships in the fleet, not just the ships that are now. if a ship leaves the fleet it leaves the control goup and if a new ship enters the fleet it is added to the control group.
- Make fleet presets (group jump, atack radius) global, if a new ship enters the fleet it assumes what the fleet has, instead of changing the fleet jump status to "some grouped".
- Make an "Add to fleet" button. the fleet menu is kind of empty, so one more button there shouldn't matter. just press this button and right click on a already formed fleet, and those ships get added to that fleet.
- Make a "change firing mode" buttom, to toggle focus firing. I want all my ships to attack the flagship target or to go and find their best targets.
- If a waypoint is designated to a fleet, all ships that are produced by that factory/planet should end up in that fleet. Not go to the waypoint/fleet, and then go and join another fleet in the same system.

Empire tree

- Make ships in phase jump appear in the bottom of the list, not top, it just makes everything jump around.
- Ships shouldn't appear more than once in the empire tree. If a ship bellongs to a fleet it shouldn't also appear in the planet's ship list, or else, seperate ships that are in fleets, to ships who are "single".

Diplomacy

- Besides the quick stats in the main window, make a detailed stat in the diplomacy screen. Who's number what in each of the categories (research, crystal, metal, culture, ...), and each race's relationship with each other.
- If an empire is completly destroyed, make it more obvious than a simple message in small letters on the main screen.

Scout frigates

- By mid game, there's an enemy scout frigate on your border worlds every few seconds, a human player can't compete with the AI in managing scouts. Add a special build option to scouts only, where one defines the amount of scouts there should be active in the entire map, and the shipyard should build new ones until the quota is reached (if enough resources and fleet capacity is available).
- Turn scouts "auto-explore" ability on by default.
- Turn off scouts "auto-join" off. (can't remember if it's off or not, if it is, disregard).
- Scouts should ignore designated waypoints and start exploring right away.

Defense turrets

- Right now defensive turrets, are very limited. Make a button allowing the turrets to change from close-range/high damage to long-range/lower damage/lower firing rate. Make it an ability with auto-cast (may need new reasearch) with x seconds to switch and a cooldown period. The goal is to be able to attack a target in the outer parts of the grav well if the turret is right at the contruction limit, but less eficiently, or attack closer targets with the current stats.

Everything else

- Fix AI's cowardice, PJI effects, fleet cap on bigger maps (all has been extensivly said).

Sorry for some english mistakes, not my primary language, enjoy this great game and
PLEASE COMMENT ON THESE SUGGESTIONS.

Shodan

Ship training should be based on the amount of experience earned(it's also a bit on the expensive side). You pay 1250 for 200 exp(6.25 ratio), 1500 for 300 exp(5 ratio) and 1750 for 400 exp(4.375 ratio), a constant ratio of 4 would be fine IMO. Training should also be faster if you have a small amount of exp needed for the next level and it should refund the experience gained killing enemy ships during training.

Siege frigates should do less damage, they are way better than the supposedly bombardment oriented capital ships.

Phase jumps should consume less antimater, but be slower if you don't have enough, that should make it easier to intercept enemy fleets running around between your planets and not actually fighting, as well as leaving most ships with any anti-matter to use when you're playing a map with 20+ planets.

In bigger battles capital ships are easily focus fired and destroyed, while in smaller battles they can always escape and repair/regenerate shields and are basically unkillable. Solutions to this would be to reduce repair/shield regeneration rates for them(especially at higher levels), but increase total hp/shields, as well as further increasing shield mitigation if they are being focus fired by a lot of ships.

Defensive turrets range is pathetic, you need at least 4 to cover the planet surface with just 1 attacking incoming enemy ships and they can't cover the outer regions of the gravitiy well, so massing them just means that the enemy will jump to your next planet(if his fleet is too weak to destroy them), there's basically no reason to build them at any stage of the game.

The upkeep system makes little sense, it should be based on the actual cost of your ships, while keeping the curret percentage tax(it's just going to be over 5-10 minutes and not every second, of course), because realistically bigger armies are not linearly harder to sustain, but closer to exponential progression, which doesn't really depend on your income.

Support cruisers shouldn't have the habit to charge the enemy ships, sometimes even before your other ships, they should also help your ships even if they are out of their range a bit, as well as use their support abilities when given another order, they should be repairing even if retreating or in a fleet, which is given an attack order, e.t.c.

Maximum allegiance should scale with your empire size or map size(the former is more realistic). It currently drops off with 10% the first 3 jumps and 15% the next 3(capping at 35%), this could be the standart for around 20-30 planet empire, while smaller could have each jump dropping 15% off the maximum(cap of 5 jumps and 35% again) and larger empires having more jumps reducing just 10% up to(depending on empire size) an 8 jump cap, with the last jump dropping just 5%(again resulting in 35% maximum allegiance at the planets furthest away from the capital).

Culture and the culture cannon are a very weak offensive, the culture rate cannot go lower than 0.05%(except if they change their capital to a planet further away from your target then their previous capital was, which ups the cap with 0.02%, but is unrelated to your actions), so "destroying" planets takes way too much time and the enemy can colonise them again and even with the minimum 25% starting allegiance they'll last for another 500 seconds(almost 10 minutes), not to mention capital ships and culture buildings of his own easily counter this and he has more than enough time to create them. You also can't benefit from several culture cannons firing at the same target, while that is not the same with the other superweapons. If I have 20 culture cannons firing at a single planet(I actually did that), it better have some very clear effect and not need almost 10 minutes just to remove the lowest base allegiance a planet can have. The cap should be removed, so you can actually use culture offensively and not need hours just to take several planets, which have their defences and everything else left intact, needing an actual offensive fleet on top of the investments in culture buildings.

Slide bar for pirate frequency ranging from random to every 30 minutes or so. Maybe a tweaking of pirate types instead of fleet taking areas but more along the lines of pirates raiding colonies, transports and stations to the highly dangerous types that do amass fleets and take over systems.

Some general ideas, in no particular order:

Patch:

1. Scale fleet points with map.

2. Switch back from large fleet supply if not needed - to decrease the resource drain.

3. AI surrender.

4. PJI buff.

5. Diplomacy - give missions to AI, swap technology (if research usable for another race).

The Future?

1. Moons.

2. Space stations.

3. Slow-firing, but powerful anti-capital ship gun. Either an orbital installation, or firing from the planet, like the ion cannon on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. Planets won't take it lying down!

4. Select and few "Ace" pilots for fighters or bombers. Adds another element of "caring" more about your units. With XP perhaps, and kill counts. Would remind me of Wing Commander / Star Wars, so a good thing.

5. Different types of orbital defence? What about missiles or mines? Mines would be sticky, and be "sucked" onto a ship in its proximity radius, thus possibly solving the Z-Axis issue.

6. Upgrades for light carriers. More squads? Also, should not be totally unarmed.

7. Space events. Meteorites?

8. Minor / neutral factions more fleshed out.

9. Espionage / sabotage?

10. Battle chatter. Total War gives you voice updates during battles, how you are doing etc.

Capital ship capturing should have it's bonus effect immediately, it's extremely annoying to have to sit there and wait for the % upgrade bonus. Also, the free mining facilities bonus can be abused against neutral planets by letting siee frigates raze the planet and colonise it again, it's first level where it has no bonus whatsoever is underpowered, too.

I think it would be a bad idea to increase the unit cap, because with more units planetary defences will be becoming much less useful, which is bad in my opinion.

Fix automatic scrolling of the empire tree.

Currently if your empire tree is big enough to need a scrollbar the game automatically sets the scrollbar to the middle position in many circumstances when it shouldn't. For instance if I scroll to the top of the empire tree and select a unit there, the scrollbar resets to the middle. This is clearly inappropriate as I can no longer see the unit I just selected. If nothing else changing it so the top rather than the middle scrollbar position is the default would be better, although clearly not changing the scrollbar position at all (unless the user is doing it) would be best.

Lol guys, remember they did say they wanted to be able to finish it by the end of the month guys, don't go crazy (some of you are asking for huge balance/gameplay changes). And no, we don't need more supply cap. For the love of god, defenses are insanely hard to place for their price as it is.

Personally, all I REALLY REALLY want is a little addition to the ship group/fleet infocard telling me how much supply that fleet is taking up...

AND...

PLEASE give us a little diplomacy infocard... or something, anything like in the bottom right or something we can cursor over... so we know who is allied with who. Thats it. Its impossible to follow in unlocked alliance mode with computers.

How about a tutorial explaining the following.
How to get more fighters/bombers
How to use special abilities
explaining how to increase unit caps properly.
and loads of other stuff that don’t make sense to a new player.

though i have played a few games and still learning, there is plenty that I still don’t understand. for example ill have captured say 3 planets and have 1 capitol ship and 12 frigates and some minor research. Only to find that another player has already captured 10 planets and has a fleet big enough to take me out by just looking at me and has an econemy up and running before ive even managed to reserch a trade station.

So how about a tutorial on how to balance the game out so new players understand a little better PLEASE

... how are fighters and bombers not easy? Capships have them and get more as they level up (mostly with the carrier), every race has a cruiser which can mount 1 squadron of fighters or bombers, and hanger defenses get 2 squadrons per hanger. Unit cap is in fleet research... but it also has a tax on all your resources. Like at the end you can have like 1200 unit cap.... but you lose 75% of your income to unkeep (cursor over your resources in the top right to see). Balancing the game out is pretty easy... you support as many defenses and ships as you can afford, and just because fast feels better for most doesn't mean you should play on it until you know what your doing and not taking your time with stuff

Dude Thats what im asking for a Tutorial. I dont fully understand the TAX thing, infact i dont understand it at all.

Its not alot to ask as this game has yet to be released in europe and im sure a tutorial explaining how balancing works would be greatly recived. anyway adding another tutorial would be simple process,

As you are aware the current tutorials explain basics and thats it. buy the time this game hits europe your going to have alot of new players that wont fully understand the game going up against usa players that have been playing it for months.

I'm glad to see the devs are so aware of the issues. The AI needs a tune-up so that they work as a team, build balanced fleets and maximized economies, capture asteroid fields and other non colonizable areas, and generally be harder to beat (I'm playing multiple Hard-mode AI's at the same time atm, and even that's way too easy). And yes, make them surrender! I hate spending 2 hours cleaning up AI opponents who are already doomed.

Also, I love the idea of adding more game speeds, like you said. There should be a game speed called "arcade" or something to that effect in which the ship speeds are a little faster than fast mode and the research times, antimatter cooldowns, and resource-gathering rates are drastically faster. That way, huge multiplayer matches can still take place in a reasonable time frame - say, like 2 hours.

And yes, add more logistics! I'm always at the fleet cap by like the middle of my games, and I can't spread my fleet wide enough to protect all my colonies by endgame, so the game really turns into a steamroll-fest with the small unit cap.

I would like to see more large maps for 8 and 10 players that only have 1 star, and large random maps with only 1 star.

bigger heavy cruisers
or a new cruiser that looks more than a flying crate =[

Everything I've come up with has already been mentioned, except this (if I hadn't missed it):
A toggle for pirate strength at map setup - just like research/game speed. With their current settings considered Moderate.

- more than 10 real players (about 16 would be nice)
- priority option for the research tree (on click and selected research is started even if 10 other research projects are still in the pipe)

(sorry for that bad english)

THX

timeout double post sorry

It could use a campaign mode and maybe a few more ships.

like medium assault ships, that are kinda in between the light frigates and the heavey corvetts.

All I want is the multiplayer crashing fixed. We can make our own fun from there-on in

how about giving all FFs an auto explore option. Also I would like to ability to set set a ship/fleet on recon (continually jumping between a selected group of planets.

The AI diplomacy system needs to be upgraded, and I second the idea of having all players start out at a ceasefire, not war. Also, the pirates can easily be fixed for everyone by having them be adjustible in strength, so if you like lots of pirates, turn them up to masochistic difficulty, or if you only want a few pirates who are a minor annoyance, set them to cakewalk. A more intricate solution would be to also have an option to adjust their AI behavior between having them be the suicidal mercenaries they are now and light raiders who only attack trade ships and resource asteroids, then retreat. Another good idea I heard mentioned somewhere was a proposal to prevent spamming of any given unit by giving an empire-wide bonus to attacks the same ship after destroying it. This bonus would simulate learning the weaknesses and attack patterns of the enemy and would decay over time.

I'd like to see some upgrades to the Research window:

* When I mouse over the Research button, it should tell me how many of each type of upgrade I have (for example, if I'm playing the Advent, it should tell me my empire has 2 Harmony and 3 Hostility constructed).

* When I'm in the Research window, I'd like it to display the icons differently depending on WHY I'm unable to research specific things at any given moment -- whether it's due to insufficient cash/metal/crystal, not having built prerequisite techs, or not having built enough Harmony/Hostility/whatever buildings.

Also, there should be an option to allow me to refuse all enemy "missions." Being constantly spammed by preposterous mission requests from AI players throughout the game is very distracting and confusing ... To top it off, many of the AI players are the same empire type as me, making it difficult for me to discern at first that the audio is actually coming from an opposing player instead of my own empire.

- When playing on a map with only one star, either remove the upgrade that allows you to jump to distant stars, or make it researched from the beginning.
- When playing on a map without Worm Holes, remove the worm hole upgrade, or make it researched from the beginning.