I've gathered you all here to bear witness my ultimate triumph over Schem, once and all proving that my goodly goodness can defeat his evil nastiness blah blah blah.

Oh right, the review.

1. Pirates

Unlike Pirates of the Caribbeans, SoaSE pirates keep getting better as time goes on.

Pros:
-they are no longer magically created from nothingness, but are situated at their own bases.
-they have their own planet/base that can be captured
-they can be wiped out of a star system permanently if you capture their base

Cons:
-they still don't hunt trade ships around stars like sensible pirates would do
-they still are suicidal when attacking defended planets
-they still don't focus fire on targets. Instead they will split up and do their own things = no real threat to any of your ships/structures.
-they still don’t prioritize their targets well (they will chase a trade ship across the gravity well while your light carriers decimate them).

Suggestions:
-make pirates prowl the trade routes around stars. This will force players to come out and deal with the pirates instead of hiding behind their defenses.
-pirate ships should be of a ‘raider’ design concept. By that I mean they should be lightly armored/low hullpoints, but be faster than normal ships = bigger threat against trade/refinery ships.
-pirate fleets should get some light carriers and a few more flak frigates. This would allow them to better counter player carrier fleets, as well as help pursue trade/refinery ships
-pirates that get enough bounty should also be able to purchase Raider capital ships (faster than normal, but lower armor/hull points as well).
-pirate bases should have hangar/gauss defenses, especially if they collect a lot of bounty.
-might want to get rid of some of the pirate ‘flag’ effects on the pirate base, as they seems a bit overdone (as if the pirates are trying to compensate for something).

2. Planet Specials/Exploration

Pros:
-It adds a lot more depth to planets and empire building.
-I love it

Cons:
-The 2 levels of exploration might need to be reconsidered

Suggestions:
-As it is, if you find a special with the first level of exploration, you will never find anything with the second level. This needs to be fixed.

3. Military/Civilian Research Labs

Pros:
-players have to make hard choices in the early game that will greatly effect their overall strategy = Perfect!

Cons:
-as is, you can still only research 1 area at a time.

Suggestions:
-Now that they are totally separate, you should be allowed to research military and civilian projects at the same time (if you have the resources to do so, of course).

4. Capital Ship Limit

Pros:
-players are now forced to use non-capital ships, getting rid of the capital ship only fleet cheese.

Cons:
-Players on huge maps will find the 16 limit too low.
-the research tree presently is using awful names for the actual Capital Ship Limit research levels.

Suggestions
-is it possible to make the top level allow you 16 cap ships PLUS 1 per in game star? If not, then make it infinite instead of 16 for top level. If somebody wants to make a capital ship only fleet, they will get a beat down when they face the same fleet point equivalent of a couple of capital ships/light carriers/Kodiaks/flak frigates.
-names for the different levels of cap ship limit research should make more sense. Something like "Elite Naval Technology Training" or "Advanced Ship Systems Engineering".


Here follows a list of other suggestions I have that might improve the game.

-‘Any star to any star’ travel is high on my wish list. It makes more sense, it shortens games, and it opens strategic possibilities up without the dreaded ‘whack-a-mole effect’. I think this is already scheduled for implementation (Yay!)

-AI needs to become more interested in taking other star systems once they gain total control of their own (or are allied with the other factions in their system)

-we should be able to research more advanced models of fighters and bombers in the research tree. These fighters and bombers could be faster, better armed, have shields, and so on. They should however take longer to build. Once these new advanced fighters and bombers are researched, carriers/hangars should be given new strike craft icons to build.

-planet based income should be lowered a bit to increase importance of trade. This will make pirates more of a threat, as well as encourage player attacks on trade instead of standard head on military versus military engagements.

-Capital Ships should spread some tiny amount of culture. They could help you capture planets far behind enemy lines. Maybe you could give the Culture ability choice to the Dunov so it is a bit more useful.

-I am fine with the reduction in power of Phase Inhibitors. I still hope that there are ships that come equipped with phase interdiction, as they will be hugely powerful in defending star systems that are entirely owned by players (enemies won’t be able to jump to any of your planets without destroying your phase interdiction ship, since you own all the planets in that system).

-Logistics, Tactical and Fleet slots could all be combined into 1 pool. I really don’t like the present system where you can only use so many resources to sustain so many logistical structures, so many tactical structures and so many ships. I understand gameplay is more important than realism, but this is pushing it. Sure, some people might spend all their ‘supply’ points to build up one system into a super stronghold. However, that isn’t necessarily stalemate inducing unbalanced, as they will be weak everywhere else.

-ships traveling between stars reach a point where they suddenly floor it at one end, and then slam on the brakes at the other end. It would make a lot more sense and be less visually disturbing if ships gradually increased speed and then at the halfway point slowly reduced speed between stars.

-the AI needs to be more aggressive when it sees you are weak. Let’s say for example, the AI has a big fleet only one jump away from my newly captured planet. It happens to send in a scout and sees I am weak. It should then attack immediately and with everything it has to try and take me out before I can build up.

-Last Flagship Standing games can’t be played with the present ‘buy your own’ flagship system. So, maybe it would be easier to setup ‘Last Capital Planet Standing’ games, where if you lose your capital, you lose the game. Suicide bombing attacks on Capital Planets would suddenly become a possible game winning strategy.


The rest here is about Bugs I’ve found (nothing that hasn’t already been mentioned)


-game sometimes won’t allow you to scroll by placing the mouse at the edge of screen
-ships sometimes disappear right before exploding, usually they experience some weird liquid metal/mercury like shield effect before disappearing
-anybody notice that civilian ships get their hullpoint bonus before the civilian hull upgrade research is even done?
-pathfinding problems include ships slowing down when given new orders as well as having trouble navigating around obstacles (they often get caught on obstacles)
-AI ship ‘ping pong’ still occurs when the AI can’t decide whether to continue an attack or do something else with its fleet. The AI really needs to learn that sometimes it is better to make a less than optimal decision AND COMMIT than it is to make no decision at all.

That's it for now. Let me know what you think.