Since I can't seem to find a single thread to report random issues in.... I'll just make one and update it as I find new stuff.
Sensor related issues
Summary: the universe should be a much more unknown place for longer, and there should be costs associated with maintaining good vision coverage.
- It should NOT be so easy to map out the galaxy. Sensor rage should be limited in information that can be gleaned about remote systems.
- A player should not be able to see within the border of another civilization without making an investment toward mapping their interior. Gives more of a reason for closed borders.
- As their border expands new systems that are colonized should not automatically be updated.
- Making first contact with a civilization should not reveal their location on the map. You can know that they are out there, and perhaps a general marker, but NOT an exact border outline, unless that was traded for specifically.
- Wormhole travel factions scout the intervening space when a jump is made JUST as if they traveled through it? It is a point 2 point jump, The in between star-systems should have no information revealed.
Diplomacy
Summary: Diplomatic actions need to both have MORE information presented and LESS information automatically given. (as confusing as that sounds)
- Relative power levels should be hidden unless the player invests into that.
- Some sort of regular trading interaction between races should be required before gaining "automatic" information about their capabilities and strengths.
- There should basically be a governmental research/investment tab somewhere where you can choose to focus some resources toward information collection capacity on a few empires at a time (usually your rivals or other civilizations that are of immediate interest). There needs to be some sort of maintenance cost toward keeping tabs on your neighbors. Obviously allies should have more automatic information sharing. However it would make sense to have some policies that could be implemented in secret that might be put into place if you were planning to break from the alliances (or attack your overlord). Ways to conduct a buildup in secret. There would be % chances to have these plots discovered and then appropriate action could be under-taken preemptively.
- There needs to be a way to see what your allies goals are. So that you have an idea when they might be interested in a war. It seems arbitrary why an ally will sometimes agree to a war, and sometimes won't. (THIS may no longer apply after the federation changes in 1.3 hit)
- There should be some point to the different options upon first contact. As far as I can tell there is no difference at the moment between insulting them, or welcoming them with open arms.
Administration
Summary: Sectors need a lot of work, but everyone already knows that
- The bonus for construction speed spread by a governor to everything in a sector is SOOO much better than a governor on a planet itself. Should not a governors influence and capabilities be divided amongst so many worlds?
- Makes an interesting choice between setting a governor for a single planet to maximize its effect, vs a whole sector getting marginal bonuses. It also encourages creating multiple sectors instead of lumping everything into a few really large ones.
- Core worlds should be in their own sector automatically.... OR the faction leader should grant the bonuses of a sector governor to all directly administered sectors. Otherwise sector construction is given a bonus not enjoyed by core worlds.
- If we're going to be allowed to queue starport construction within sectors, we need a better way to quickly cycle through starports within sectors. Perhaps there could be a tab just below planets that lists all starbases NOT in core worlds.
Combat
Summary: balance changes
- End game weapons need to be in specialized mounts instead of large mounts. That way they are not unbalanced by destroyers with large mounts. (I think the developers highlighted that they were thinking of adding another class of weapons so that 4 ship sizes= 4 weapon mount sizes).
- To reduce the likely hood of doom fleets I believe there should be some limits imposed on fleet size. Number of ships that can be managed at a time. This would increase as the game progresses similar to how overall Fleet capacity increases as you build more starports etc.
- However, I'm not sure how to stop the player from just sending in 5 smaller fleets instead of 1 larger fleet.
- Why use missiles when you can use torpedoes? Torpedoes are ALWAYS BETTER. More range, more damage, higher dps, shield penetration.
IF THERE IS some difference, (projectile travel speed, projectile hit-points or evasion chance) it is NOT listed anywhere.
- If a fleet is engaged against multiple fleets orders should still be issue-able. For example, if there are multiple small fleets engaged, I should be able to tell my fleet which one to target first (among those in range). So that I could perhaps Kill something before retreating rather than.... damage some shields and otherwise accomplish nothing.
- Fleets should be able to "retreat" without using the emergency FTL option. For example, if my fleet is faster than my opponent. I should be able to just break off and run away. It is silly that once combat has begun it can ONLY end if either side is destroyed OR emergency FTL is used.
- Ship pathing is stupid. Sometimes I'll get a message "evading hostile fleet" and my construction ship is pathing to the edge of the gravity well..... DIRECTLY PAST THE ENEMY that they are trying to evade. Good job guys?
- It is REALLY difficult to tell which ships are being targeted and taking damage within the fleet combat UI. Especially in LARGE fleets. I may want to issue the E-FTL order if my capital ship is taking critical damage, but I have to scroll through 100 corvettes before I know that.
- Ships target other ships kinda randomly. Or at the very least there is no clear pattern. Sometimes they target destroyers and blow those up quick, other times they target the battle ships and destroy those first. I don't necessarily need control over this, but revealing how the logic works would be helpful for designing fleets.
Construction UI
Summary: Needs to be streamlined with more useful information presented
The stats in the hover popup for ships listed in the starport construction window are half useless.
I care much more about what TYPE of weapons the ship is outfitted with than things like:
- fleet capacity cost (that is obvious based on class of the ship)
- size and cost and build time (these are already listed in the main build menu, they are redundant here)
- Maintenance costs (I can't think of any times where I would choose which ship to build based on how much it costs to maintain)
- surplus power (completely worthless)
- shield recharge rate (I can't think of a time where this would be useful on its own, maybe paired with the shields stat?)
INSTEAD:
- Weapon load-out (just the icons is probably ok) <<<<----- REQUIRED! I don't want to have to name my ships based on what weapon roles they have.
- any special features (like warp suppression, repair fields etc)
- Pair hp regeneration rate with hit-points (similar to shields with shield-regen)
- Sensor Range
- Ship upgrading is broken. Copy the way it worked in Sword of the Stars 2 where you can retrofit fleets only within the same type of weapon.
- So lasers -> better lasers, NOT lasers -> missiles -> kinetic on a whim.
- The ship design UI needs a lot of work. Its too hard to find things, scrolling through a gigantic list.
- There should be an "auto generate" name button. Without needing to auto-generate a complete ship design.
Science
Summary: lots of problems with debris
- Science projects for debris if they only yield 5-10 society points (approximately) are more or less worthless. This may be OK early game, but mid-late when multi hundred points of research happen per month, adding a dozen here and there from debris is just clutter on my screen and situation log.
- This is especially bad when for some reason my regular industrial research is "paused" while the debris is being analyzed. It wouldn't be so bad if the engineering points at least banked while paused, but nope, not the case.
- I would say that basic debris survey should be fairly quick (a few days) but mostly completely empty. Rarely something useful might be found that would then spawn a FULL research project. One that might take months to complete, as a reward though you get 10% toward some tech.
- Debris should not last in a system for very long. Just due to drift from being exploded off of a ship, within a few months the debris should have drifted over such a wide area as to be impractical to collect it ever again. (this would help with "special project" spam after a lot of combat)
- Perhaps a construction ship could be dispatched to "collect" the debris from a system and then a scientist could analyze it properly later back in the safety of a lab planet side.
Misc
- There needs to be a way to sort ships or move ships into a reserve section rather than cluttering up a single combat ships tab (or civilian ships tab)
For example, If I deploy a bunch of "purely" sensor ships along my border to give early warning about approaching hostile fleets.... I don't really care about them MOST of the time. There is no reason to have to visually scan through the FULL list of fleets to find the few combat worthy fleets, or reinforcement fleets, or recently constructed ships.
- Xenomorph robot army...... what the?
- Pythereen scourge invaded my planet, started purging population. I landed my own reinforcement troops to attempt to halt the purge. Their army's HP was approximately half gone when the purge completed. Suddenly the planet became infested, and both my army and theirs was gone. This makes no sense. At a minimum the purge timer should be halted while ground combat is ongoing (since the purging armies would be diverted toward fending off the invaders)
- I have an immortal general. he is at age 185. I think his death chance per month is at 70% now. Clearly bugged.
- When shift pathing multiple star systems the "end point" in the final destination star system may not be on the same side as the previous intermediate step was. So if I path in a V shape from system A -> B -> C my fleet will appear in system C as if it came directly from A.
- There should be a purpose to multiple wormhole generators within the same system other than redundancy. Perhaps allowing multiple fleets to jump out (or jump in) simultaneously? Additionally, combine this with more intelligent pathing. If a ship jumps into a system with multiple wormhole points, it should use whichever one is closest to its destination within the system. Right now I think it uses whichever station was constructed first.
Sensor related issues
Summary: the universe should be a much more unknown place for longer, and there should be costs associated with maintaining good vision coverage.
- It should NOT be so easy to map out the galaxy. Sensor rage should be limited in information that can be gleaned about remote systems.
- A player should not be able to see within the border of another civilization without making an investment toward mapping their interior. Gives more of a reason for closed borders.
- As their border expands new systems that are colonized should not automatically be updated.
- Making first contact with a civilization should not reveal their location on the map. You can know that they are out there, and perhaps a general marker, but NOT an exact border outline, unless that was traded for specifically.
- Wormhole travel factions scout the intervening space when a jump is made JUST as if they traveled through it? It is a point 2 point jump, The in between star-systems should have no information revealed.
Diplomacy
Summary: Diplomatic actions need to both have MORE information presented and LESS information automatically given. (as confusing as that sounds)
- Relative power levels should be hidden unless the player invests into that.
- Some sort of regular trading interaction between races should be required before gaining "automatic" information about their capabilities and strengths.
- There should basically be a governmental research/investment tab somewhere where you can choose to focus some resources toward information collection capacity on a few empires at a time (usually your rivals or other civilizations that are of immediate interest). There needs to be some sort of maintenance cost toward keeping tabs on your neighbors. Obviously allies should have more automatic information sharing. However it would make sense to have some policies that could be implemented in secret that might be put into place if you were planning to break from the alliances (or attack your overlord). Ways to conduct a buildup in secret. There would be % chances to have these plots discovered and then appropriate action could be under-taken preemptively.
- There needs to be a way to see what your allies goals are. So that you have an idea when they might be interested in a war. It seems arbitrary why an ally will sometimes agree to a war, and sometimes won't. (THIS may no longer apply after the federation changes in 1.3 hit)
- There should be some point to the different options upon first contact. As far as I can tell there is no difference at the moment between insulting them, or welcoming them with open arms.
Administration
Summary: Sectors need a lot of work, but everyone already knows that
- The bonus for construction speed spread by a governor to everything in a sector is SOOO much better than a governor on a planet itself. Should not a governors influence and capabilities be divided amongst so many worlds?
- Makes an interesting choice between setting a governor for a single planet to maximize its effect, vs a whole sector getting marginal bonuses. It also encourages creating multiple sectors instead of lumping everything into a few really large ones.
- Core worlds should be in their own sector automatically.... OR the faction leader should grant the bonuses of a sector governor to all directly administered sectors. Otherwise sector construction is given a bonus not enjoyed by core worlds.
- If we're going to be allowed to queue starport construction within sectors, we need a better way to quickly cycle through starports within sectors. Perhaps there could be a tab just below planets that lists all starbases NOT in core worlds.
Combat
Summary: balance changes
- End game weapons need to be in specialized mounts instead of large mounts. That way they are not unbalanced by destroyers with large mounts. (I think the developers highlighted that they were thinking of adding another class of weapons so that 4 ship sizes= 4 weapon mount sizes).
- To reduce the likely hood of doom fleets I believe there should be some limits imposed on fleet size. Number of ships that can be managed at a time. This would increase as the game progresses similar to how overall Fleet capacity increases as you build more starports etc.
- However, I'm not sure how to stop the player from just sending in 5 smaller fleets instead of 1 larger fleet.
- Why use missiles when you can use torpedoes? Torpedoes are ALWAYS BETTER. More range, more damage, higher dps, shield penetration.
IF THERE IS some difference, (projectile travel speed, projectile hit-points or evasion chance) it is NOT listed anywhere.
- If a fleet is engaged against multiple fleets orders should still be issue-able. For example, if there are multiple small fleets engaged, I should be able to tell my fleet which one to target first (among those in range). So that I could perhaps Kill something before retreating rather than.... damage some shields and otherwise accomplish nothing.
- Fleets should be able to "retreat" without using the emergency FTL option. For example, if my fleet is faster than my opponent. I should be able to just break off and run away. It is silly that once combat has begun it can ONLY end if either side is destroyed OR emergency FTL is used.
- Ship pathing is stupid. Sometimes I'll get a message "evading hostile fleet" and my construction ship is pathing to the edge of the gravity well..... DIRECTLY PAST THE ENEMY that they are trying to evade. Good job guys?
- It is REALLY difficult to tell which ships are being targeted and taking damage within the fleet combat UI. Especially in LARGE fleets. I may want to issue the E-FTL order if my capital ship is taking critical damage, but I have to scroll through 100 corvettes before I know that.
- Ships target other ships kinda randomly. Or at the very least there is no clear pattern. Sometimes they target destroyers and blow those up quick, other times they target the battle ships and destroy those first. I don't necessarily need control over this, but revealing how the logic works would be helpful for designing fleets.
Construction UI
Summary: Needs to be streamlined with more useful information presented
The stats in the hover popup for ships listed in the starport construction window are half useless.
I care much more about what TYPE of weapons the ship is outfitted with than things like:
- fleet capacity cost (that is obvious based on class of the ship)
- size and cost and build time (these are already listed in the main build menu, they are redundant here)
- Maintenance costs (I can't think of any times where I would choose which ship to build based on how much it costs to maintain)
- surplus power (completely worthless)
- shield recharge rate (I can't think of a time where this would be useful on its own, maybe paired with the shields stat?)
INSTEAD:
- Weapon load-out (just the icons is probably ok) <<<<----- REQUIRED! I don't want to have to name my ships based on what weapon roles they have.
- any special features (like warp suppression, repair fields etc)
- Pair hp regeneration rate with hit-points (similar to shields with shield-regen)
- Sensor Range
- Ship upgrading is broken. Copy the way it worked in Sword of the Stars 2 where you can retrofit fleets only within the same type of weapon.
- So lasers -> better lasers, NOT lasers -> missiles -> kinetic on a whim.
- The ship design UI needs a lot of work. Its too hard to find things, scrolling through a gigantic list.
- There should be an "auto generate" name button. Without needing to auto-generate a complete ship design.
Science
Summary: lots of problems with debris
- Science projects for debris if they only yield 5-10 society points (approximately) are more or less worthless. This may be OK early game, but mid-late when multi hundred points of research happen per month, adding a dozen here and there from debris is just clutter on my screen and situation log.
- This is especially bad when for some reason my regular industrial research is "paused" while the debris is being analyzed. It wouldn't be so bad if the engineering points at least banked while paused, but nope, not the case.
- I would say that basic debris survey should be fairly quick (a few days) but mostly completely empty. Rarely something useful might be found that would then spawn a FULL research project. One that might take months to complete, as a reward though you get 10% toward some tech.
- Debris should not last in a system for very long. Just due to drift from being exploded off of a ship, within a few months the debris should have drifted over such a wide area as to be impractical to collect it ever again. (this would help with "special project" spam after a lot of combat)
- Perhaps a construction ship could be dispatched to "collect" the debris from a system and then a scientist could analyze it properly later back in the safety of a lab planet side.
Misc
- There needs to be a way to sort ships or move ships into a reserve section rather than cluttering up a single combat ships tab (or civilian ships tab)
For example, If I deploy a bunch of "purely" sensor ships along my border to give early warning about approaching hostile fleets.... I don't really care about them MOST of the time. There is no reason to have to visually scan through the FULL list of fleets to find the few combat worthy fleets, or reinforcement fleets, or recently constructed ships.
- Xenomorph robot army...... what the?
- Pythereen scourge invaded my planet, started purging population. I landed my own reinforcement troops to attempt to halt the purge. Their army's HP was approximately half gone when the purge completed. Suddenly the planet became infested, and both my army and theirs was gone. This makes no sense. At a minimum the purge timer should be halted while ground combat is ongoing (since the purging armies would be diverted toward fending off the invaders)
- I have an immortal general. he is at age 185. I think his death chance per month is at 70% now. Clearly bugged.
- When shift pathing multiple star systems the "end point" in the final destination star system may not be on the same side as the previous intermediate step was. So if I path in a V shape from system A -> B -> C my fleet will appear in system C as if it came directly from A.
- There should be a purpose to multiple wormhole generators within the same system other than redundancy. Perhaps allowing multiple fleets to jump out (or jump in) simultaneously? Additionally, combine this with more intelligent pathing. If a ship jumps into a system with multiple wormhole points, it should use whichever one is closest to its destination within the system. Right now I think it uses whichever station was constructed first.
- 2
XD