Thanks for this first ea patch. the changes look promising.
i would like to draw your attention on some game routines, regarding the formations, and the range at which the groups engage the enemies. please forgive my approximative English.
i'm sure that those things will be taken care of and improved with time. particularly :
- formations :
First lines with armored/heavy T1 or T2 units, artys and AA behind, dreadnoughts and maybe Healing units at the center. maybe smoother the way the whole formation move, or specially turn, or U-turn to face a new direction, or an enemy.
after that, i'm glad to see that the "meta-units" kinda work already pretty well, mutual cover, Healing, and the shared buffs are great. keep improving those routines with squared mechanics, and it will be a blast.
- Firing range, rules of engagement :
We build multiple groups, with many kind of units. a good composition of the meta units bring the good buffs. for example, if i want to have a "long range" group, i take the siege dreadnought, AA or arty units, and some healers (for energy regen i think?). at the opposite, we may want to build a "frontline" group, with a dreadnought killer or an area supremacy dreadnought, armored T1 or T2s, and healers...etc. So to say, more specialized groups, and buffs.
Or we simply build a "multi-purpose" group, with all kind of units. so we get all the buffs.
The question is, how is managed the general range of engagement of the group? is it based on the dreadnought type and position? sometimes we see some units advancing to attack, or staying at the back/on the sides, to protect the group or retaliate against some lone enemies. This sensation of "mutual cover" is very pleasant.
But for now, we also see quite often a whole group "breaking the distance" when we A-move, and colliding in an enemy group. i'm sure you'll take care of the ranges of engagement, and when a group has to stop in order to attack and maximize its efficiency.
Consequently, have you planned some kind of "stances" to manage the group behaviours? perimeter defense, static defense, attack at will? close/medium/spaced formations? we had some good routines in Sins of a solar empire to manage these behaviours. As the game seems to rely on macro management, these kind of routines could be handy for the players, and the macro strategies they could try to develop. sure you already looked ahead and thought about that.
Other tiny things come to mind :
For example a better readability of the builder units. could they appear separated from the others in the left panel? just like the "subsection" for the buildings? for example with different colors. a green one indicating that the builder unit is ready for a task, a red one indicating that it is busy, or a tilting icon, this sort of things. or simply an icon above the unit on the game screen?
Another thing, a visual effect could warn the player that his buildings suffer from the "decay" when built on the "zone of influence" of another player. (even when built where a teammate has his zone of influence?)
The visual effects rendering the range of radar detection (for the building or units) are quite interesting. if i understood well, the "blue dots" represent the zones that the radar can't detect : because they are out of range, or because of the LOS i guess. the "red dots" warn the player of enemy presence. maybe i didn't find it, but do we have a clear "detection range circle" with the UI? when holding Alt or Shift, or when we turn the bars/indications on in the options (different from the one of the units, representing the firing range i guess)?
Just some observations gathered from the first games. i may be wrong about some points of course, maybe i didn't understand perfectly the game mechanics yet.
This pre-beta is very promising and the game has definitely a tremendous potential. keep up the good work guys