Great game. Having alot of fun with it, just started my first huge random v 9 comps. A few things to note:
First: When there are 5 star and 10 players, can it be 2 players per star, not 5 per stars, with 3 empty? It means they will most likely never be used. At all. While maybe much later, I'll expand into them, but by the time I'm doing that, I'll probably have a solar system, which is more then enough resources to field a full sized fleet.
Second: PJIs need tweaking. I know making them shut jumps down in and out of a given planet is borked when you really think about it. (you send your fleet in, start destroying stuff, a fleet double the size shows up and you can't leave.. and because the PJI is on -their- edge and they just jumped in atop it, you get to watch your fleet get sliced and diced...). Whoever had that brilliant idea about 'cannot jump from an enemy planet with a PJI to another enemy planet with a PJI' is, well, brilliant! Seriously, look into this. As the nice gentle-commander said, it means you'll have to really fight over every floating desert and Ice cube. This will also stop the AI (and possibly players too.) From doing their favorite 'running their fleet around in my backfield' tactic, the one where they jump in, nuke my planet to death, then jump away - to another one of my planets mind you - at the first sign of something nasty.
Speaking of the AI jumping away at the first sign of something nasty: Why does breaching the core of one Capital ship cause the entire AI fleet to turn tail and flee? Are they worth that much to them tactically? As the Vasari, it takes 10-15 seconds to phase missile -anything- down. Boom, running fleet. Catch them in a PJI, and a good half of it can just melt away. Hell, give them a random chance to fight to the bitter end!
On the subject of chance, more unexpectedness! Comp fleets refusing the flee, fighting to the bitter end, or jumping in, blasting something, and before you even react, vanishing away. Just once I'd like to see two enemy fleets fighting over blowing up my planet. Make them sometimes really really like a planet! Cultural artifacts alongside technological ones! (I mean something that makes all the ships in orbit fight extra hard to defend it, and makes the AI never EVER give it up. Down to the last man, woman, or scout ship.)
You could also take the pirate timer off, and do an internal, randomized timer. Remove the 'intel states pirates are getting ready to piss people off' only have the 'a raid is being launched' that way, people don't know when its coming, and do their damnedest to keep their bounty off.
While we cover the topic of working our damnedest... scaling supply. Please. Per planet colonized works, with each rank of the tech giving more per planet. You could even have caps or diminishing returns on them. So fully teched, one planet is 500, two, 900, 3, 1400, and so on, or less, if thats too much. But yeah, being able to support over 2k population cap off one planet makes no sense. Or 16 capital ship crews. You could do the same, where you need atleast one planet per capital ship, to have the #'s to choose from to find those best of the best to keep them running. This way I have incentive to not build a 2000+ population, 16 capital ship fleet on a... 7 planet map. It was fun, though.
finally, if there is one thing I'd like to see in this game, its planetary defenses that weren't a joke. The best ones are the repair bays. Let them be somewhat equal to a capital ship, or at the very least, a cruiser. The fact that two cobalts can drop a gause cannon fills me with sadness. As a dedicated late-game bloomer, and economical tyrant, I'd like a better choice for defense then 'fleets that could be expanding instead.'
although you may not be able to play with the PJI's that much this release, simply resetting the AI to break less easily, randomizing or removing the pirates timer, and the change of the start locations to the huge random (And pirate-less versions! they only get in the way....) seem quite do-able. But then, I only play games, not make them.
~The Unifed Storm Corporation.
