final B3z1 comments I guess

from Stardock Forums
Having played right through on large galaxy default settings and posted here and there, here are my final set of playtest comments this beta-


possible bugs-

1. trade routes can't be established between friendly planets. OK but, they remain in place between friendly planets where one once belonged to a different race.

2. Having traded for Tech's I get pop-ups for many turns thereafter saying my spies have stolen the same techs from race x or y.

3. I am getting some very sluggish AI between turns I wasn't getting before. Towards the end of my current game (sent to Brad) the ship movement and turn-timer completely came out of synth with the graphics of ship movement to the point where I could only move ships after selecting a destination THEN clicking end turn. Othr wise they wouldnt move and the clock stayed 'thinking' A restart cleared this up. Possible multithreading getting out of synch or memory leak?

4. Mid to late game consistently I was stealing technology from the Drengins every two to three turns - no exageration. My investment in spying wasn't that great. This was to the extent that I did not need to invest at all in research as I couldn't keep up processing the stolen tech I was getting! This spoiled the fun of researching quite a bit.

5. I saw a mesage that diplomacy screen on the Drengin page that they were at war with teh Yor. The Yor were no longer in the game and hadn't been for a while.

Suggestions-

6. I think there is far to much space junk, anomalies and respurces. It gets quite teadious collecting it or using a ship wastefully. What would be more fun is much less stuff and higher unit values and benefits - make it exciting and rewarding to hunt it down and find it. Additionally it feels gamey and unrealistic, it should be more rare and prized.

7. It would be great if you could select combo's of the ship automatic pilot tools. For example, when the pirates turn up if you could select the combo - 'Sector sweep' and 'Auto attack' you could set up offensive patrols (or instead implement an offensive patrol command?

8. Reduce numbers of pirates please!

9. This is monor but to me 'Millitary turns left' should be 'turns to completion' and therefore the planets producing sooners are at the top of the planet list rather than at the bottom. I am always looking at this upside down. Ditto with other planet lists.

10 again a minor point. It would be nice to pause building planetary stuff instead of having to set it to 'nothing' as you then have to remember what it was you wanted to do in the first place for each planet.

11. If I could see something indicating the number and class of ships orbiting the planet actually overlaying the planet globe graphic on the scrolling planet list it would help as you have to 'build blind' in this view which is a shame as i find it a smooth and efficient method of working through the planets as you can click once by ione on the planets from the scrolling list and the planet build screen updates to that planet.

Balance issues -

This might just be my understanding please help stardock! Perhaps a couple of pointers for the manual?

12. It took me 5 to 10 transports to take each planet if i was lucky. AI was taking mine with an average 1 or two. It didn't feel fair and was demotivating.

13. Can this be right? If so please can someone explain-

a) Late game when me and the AI got Avatars (me first) the AI Avatars have something like 97 hit points mine had 60. I had no more ship improving tech to research that I know off.

b) I lost 3 or 4 'fresh' 60 hit-point Avatars in a row to a a single damaged 19-97 AI Avatar. I dont think I would have destroyed it if I had pounded it all day.
c) However my 69-69 Ranger beats an AI 97-97 Avatar! - they have different weapons (Ranger projectile/photon Avatar beam) is there some scissors-paper-stone at work here? If so manual item please!

14. Are terror stars to expensive? I was out producing my last remaining opponent (Drengin) by around 25% i felt and ten i built one TS and all of a sudden was 25k in debt and game over. I could not produce anything else and he wiped the floor with me with his 'indestructable Avatars.

That said I will know better next time. The Drengins are fierce!

Superb game I was up till 2am this morning totally absorbed. In places it was actually dramatic and exciting - which is not what you would expect from a 4X game - this is very very promising

s
224 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
i meant massive galaxy and where is that damned spell checker! ;p
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Steevo,

On your item 9, try clicking on the sort type (between the arrows). The sort order reverses. (BTW, I found this out by accident.)

On your balance issue 13a, This can happen if the AI's political party was the War Party.

Cheers,
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Jack

Thanks! spot on both times. Of course the Drengin are a war party! I must try this, I always go for technologists(my style I guess) so therefore I have proved that even with all the warfare techs researched, the war party's ships are still 20% meaner.

S
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Lucky Jack-

"try clicking on the sort type (between the arrows). The sort order reverses"..

I did nothing happened!. Do you mean actually on the text panel where it describes the list type?

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
started a new game and it works - thanks
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Steevo,

Yes, I mean the text between the arrows that describes what sort is being displayed. The sort type that most dramatically shows the sort reversal (assending vs desending) is "population". On some of the others it may be difficult to see the reversal.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Steevo,

Excellent comments, we should all be following your example.

Specifically I would enhance your suggestion #11, by having a dashbord square (1cm) appear
automaticly next to the system on a mouseover.

In the dashboard as much info as possible could be cramed in,
such as ships, class, quantity of planets > 14, morale for each, party, gov, etc....
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Louis - many thanks you are far too generous. I try to follow the example set by half a dozen testers who set the standards to be honest! I knew those mouse hovers had a name, mouseovers.

more comments -

15. Selecting multiple destinations with explorer craft (anomalies, debris etc) with for example a shift-click would be great and reduce the tedium of 'trawling' for credits, tech etc if they remain at the same level.

16. A symbol on the star map planet side (one of your graphically beautiful shields?) for systems currently producing (either craft or planet projects)

17. A mouse-click link from the newish pop-up updating on the success of your espionage investment to the stats of that reported empire when it says circa 'we have more info on race x, y, z..'

18. Suddenly in this game I find myself 'lost' as the yellow circle on the galactic map locating ships seems to be sporadically disappearing. In my current game, I refresh it by scrolling out of the sector I am currently centred on in the galmap and then clicking the 'find' button.

The default seems to have lost the yellow circle. Here I reference Lucky Jack's comment on cleaning out old files on the download as last game, using the same beta I did not have this intermittent fault.

19. I suggest it would be nice if the influence colour overlay did not close down the 'unexplored sector' graphics on the mini map. They work well together in exploration and target selection.

20. The trade screen is great but needs some explanatory 'mouseovers'. for example what do the following mean:

Turns - 3/155
Value - 1/13

I think 'Value' is the trade credit return range per month (average somewhere between one and thirteen) but I am really not sure. Turns I have no idea. A nice mouseover would sort this.

- The title 'Torian Confederation' The 'To' overlaps the pop value on the planet list when you click on a Torian planet.

21. A comment, I understand the logic. When you change back to 'War party' politics having regained power after an election, your ships are expressed as 'damaged' as they have regained 30% hit points.

22. There is no mouse scroll in the list on the Stats-Domestic Policy screen.

23. What would be great would be stats on the income generated by all stations on the stats/domestic policy screen and it would be good to see the income generated by a specific station on the station info pop-up.

Finally (sorry!) a question -

what do stations generate, if anything, if built on resources outside of a sector with a planet or influence controlled by you the player?








Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
'what do stations generate, if anything, if built on resources outside of a sector with a planet or influence controlled by you the player?'

Resources affect the entire civilization.

It's other effects usually only affect that sector or the directly contiguous sectors. If there are no planets in any of those sectors, then those modules would have no effects.

In the singular case of Influence, if it's high enough, it can bleed off farther, but it takes alot of influence to do so. Starbases generate influence, even without influence modules or nearby planets, but I haven't looked at it to determine how much. The modules then increase all influence sources in the same sector, including itself and other starbases, by the percentage on the details screen.