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Zaxsubaru -> My two cents.... (2/28/2003 12:36:28 PM)
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First of all, "hello" to everyone in the forum. It has been very informative reading the posts. I originally searched this site out because I have had problems with ships not responding to ANY commands at all (12 ships out of 13). They would acknowledge my instructions and then proceed to sit in the same spot for the rest of the game no matter how I tried to coax them with various missions. I hope this is the Attack/Capture bug that is on the list for V2.1. After reading many of the posts, I realized that many of you have experienced what I have suspected ( I'm only on my 3rd game, each increasing the difficulty to my current game which is "advanced")...mainly that the AI needs tweaking badly. I've had numerous wars declared on me and then waited in vain for years and years for any semblance of a threat. Opponents usually ask for peace before ever firing a shot. Well, I'm not going to repeat everything that has already been said. Just in case anyone cares, I'm having the same experience...namely endless pirate killing drudgery ( I swear I've killed 15 pirates for each alien ship I've ever fought), AI wasting all the artifacts on scout ships (once in a while is ok but I never see any artifact equipped ships larger than a gunboat), AI bluffing tactics (declaring war and then demanding money/techs when they are clearly way behind...again, less is more), Interface needs streamlining to be more intuitive (way too much mouse-clicking and the "hooking" system is confusing/can't see the purpose of it). Perhaps I should just start my own wish list instead of making this the worlds largest paragraph. Here goes...
Ships reach 100% combat too quickly. Granted, this game may have been designed to use many of your ships as fodder and simply replace them and retrain on pirates, but there is an opportunity here ( I think) to go farther. How about after a ship has learned all of the available combat manuevers, they could begin to learn fleet based attack manuevers that are coordinated with other ships, or (gasp) you could start to design your own manuevers. This would sure make fleet designation more compelling as ships that continued to work together could learn more complex and devastating moves. Or, they could just be "standard" fleet manuevers that ships retain as they are moved from fleet to fleet. I don't ever assign fleets because 1) It's a click-fest. 2)I've never been attacked by more than 1 ship at a time, even on advanced. 3)The only point in making a fleet (that I can discern) is so you can call the group up at once for world conquests, but I inevitably end up sending everyone their separate ways after each conquest anyway, which results in another click-fest to reassign. It seems to take about the same amount of clicking to simply give everyone individual tasks. Granted the keyboard shortcuts probably reduce the click-fests to click-getogethers, but I don't game enough to remember them...which brings me to my next item on the list. Wow, another huge paragraph for only one wish list item...(sigh)
The interface is great looking and I like the font (even though some of the caps letters look alike), but it just seems like I'm clicking all the time....here a click, there a click, everywhere a click, click...Old MacDonald had a starship...eeyi, eeyi, ZAAAP!! I'm not sure if it has something to do with the "hooking" utility, but I find myself clicking 4 or 5 times to select a star system or starship from the either the global or local screen. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on what the hook utility is for, because I don't understand its relevance. Although I don't have an alternative suggestion, it sure is annoying that the mission screen/unit list screen covers a major portion of the galactic map. Half the time the star systems that you need to select on are hidden underneath which = more clicking.
How about being able to tow disabled enemy ships to planets after they have been rendered immobile. Then they could be taken over. I realize that would mess up chances of being able to rescue your own ships that suffered such a fate, but it is just silly that you can tow your own stranded ships, but not the enemy's. Tractor beams are tractor beams. It worked against the Millenium Falcon, and she still had full power!!! If nothing else, it would give you impetus to launch a rescue mission before they got your ship back to a home world. I had a stranded scout sit just out of the range of an enemy's homeworld for years till I could muster a force big enough to take the world and THEN rescue the scout. The aliens should have had that ship immediately as they had starships flying by it the whole time (why didn't they just destroy it?). While we are on the subject, why is it that you have to get rid of all the threats in a star system before you can start towing? Towing doesn't seem to slow any of the ships down (even if it's a scout towing a cruiser) and it makes perfect sense to have snatch and run missions.
It surprised me that there are no orbital defense platforms/stations. Mines are great and all (actually I've never used them) but if you have a world to protect from aliens (providing you can get them to attack you), space station Mir would have been decked out, comrade!!!
Ammo based weapons seem to be continually sub-par when compared with the energy weapons. The "Double maximum weapon shots" artifact alleviates this a little, but really only for novelty's sake. Many of the weapons I have researched have only been to see how cool the different graphics are and have nothing to do with making them useful. Shields seem to be behind the curve as far as providing protection for similar tech level weapons. I almost exclusively use armor for this reason. They both take 2 slots to provide complete protection, and I've noticed that ships with armor simply last longer in battle even if it means replacing the armor after battles. What's the point of being able to regenerate/repair shields after/during a battle if the ship can't survive the attacks to get that far. Just my observation so far.
I think this one was mentioned in another post, but it doesn't make sense to me that you still have to research techs that are obsolete because of advanced techs you've been able to steal. At the same time, I could see the game getting very unbalanced if the undiscovered techs in between were automatically filled in. Hmmmm....not sure about this one.
When your starship explodes right next to the enemy, it should damage the other guy somehow. I've never seen a movie, story, etc. where people weren't concerned about being too close to the blast from the ship they just toasted. Blast area weapons (ie torpedoes, nukes, standoffs, etc.) should damage both parties. If it has been happening, I haven't noticed it.
Fighters are completely schitzo, flying everywhere except where the enemy is. and the 180 degree flip that they do in the middle of a fly by to get that second shot in is completely out of line with the HUGE arc they have to fly in order to do the next strafing run.
There is zero difference that I've been able to notice in AI difficulty levels.
Well, if you have continued to read this far, let me just say that this is the most fun I've had in space for a long time. Granted, I'm only in the middle of my 3rd game, so many of my "insights" may prove unfounded, but honestly in it's current form, the funnest part of the game is the race for the artifacts and finding/colonizing the best worlds that are within reach. After that, it's pirate genocide the rest of the game and waiting for the aliens to follow thru on their threats. It hasn't happened so far. I realize some of the items on this list (and future lists) are/will be more in line for an expansion or even full-fledged sequel. Despite all of my complaints, I'm still playing. Thanks for a good game that looks to become great with some tweaking.
Zax :D
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