my notes after playing

[death rage]

ive been playing this game for a week and i'd like to request a few things:

first, the "no research selected means you cant press the next turn button" i think it needs to be removed since in theory you can move turns only as far as you have something to research so im not sure how good that feature is and i feel its a bit limiting(and i hate limits).

second the "creative races perk" is far too unbalanced. if as the united colonies i can open all the improvments, all the upgrades and all the advantages of having lets say a fusion beam bomb and rifle, then why should i play the renegades faction for instance who only have to choose one out of the three? i think it either needs to be open for all races or make a random event where creative races have a better chance then other to be able to open an otherwise locked research path.

third, for this game to be massive, i think the unit limit should be either removed or give all races simple and cheap means of increasing the command limit or at least make it standradized between all races like in sins of a solar empire where through research that all players, big or small can do, they all have the same limit since this kind of limit that grows by 1 for every planet and 3 for every star base means that big guys could always swarm little guys with numbers that the little guys have no chance of building.

[Troy]

Part of the thing that balances the United Colonies is that you waste time opening old techs instead of researching new ones. You will fall behind the other races is to mess around with opening redundant techs instead of new tech upgrades.

[death rage]

still it feels more advantagous to have a starbase that has fighers, research and shipyard in any planet you like rather then only one of these

same goes for having both guns and lasers, both nuclear bombs and missiles, and more

[Nyphur]

Początkowo opublikowane przez death rage:

first, the "no research selected means you cant press the next turn button" i think it needs to be removed since in theory you can move turns only as far as you have something to research so im not sure how good that feature is and i feel its a bit limiting(and i hate limits).

We considered the problem of running out of technologies to research and actually built in an exception for this, so if there are no technologies left that you can research in the four main trees then the game will actually let you end turn. Not having this feature would mean that players might accidentally waste research points by hitting End Turn with no research selected, which is something we wanted to avoid. When we examined how other 4X games approached this problem, they pretty much all require that you are always researching something.

Początkowo opublikowane przez death rage:

second the "creative races perk" is far too unbalanced. if as the united colonies i can open all the improvments, all the upgrades and all the advantages of having lets say a fusion beam bomb and rifle, then why should i play the renegades faction for instance who only have to choose one out of the three? i think it either needs to be open for all races or make a random event where creative races have a better chance then other to be able to open an otherwise locked research path.

This is a valid concern and a similar balance issue exists in pretty much every 4X that has a creative type option. The research system is designed so that the player has to make some tough choices like which of the three biospheres you research (Barren, Molten, or Toxic) or Fusion Beam vs Fusion Drive, but there are always players who want the option of researching everything so we definitely wanted to have a Creative trait.

As troy pointed out, part of the balance of the Creative trait is that you have to waste research points researching old technologies, so other races can actually get ahead of you in some research fields. On the other hand, you have more technologies to trade so you can potentially get the more advanced tech by trade, and it's very advantageous to not have to choose between certain techs. It's definitely a powerful trait, but rather than nerf it I'd rather buff the other races by increasing their bonuses to other things. That way the United Colonies will have this one powerful trait but not much else.

Początkowo opublikowane przez death rage:

third, for this game to be massive, i think the unit limit should be either removed or give all races simple and cheap means of increasing the command limit or at least make it standradized between all races like in sins of a solar empire where through research that all players, big or small can do, they all have the same limit since this kind of limit that grows by 1 for every planet and 3 for every star base means that big guys could always swarm little guys with numbers that the little guys have no chance of building.

Fair point! The Command Point limit always favours the player with the most planets and starbases, and that means you can have larger fleets and swarm the little guys, but we have a few ways of balancing this. If you build up a much larger military than the other races then the Revenants actually start preferentially attacking you and destroying your ships. Warlord races also get a bonus of +1 command point for every star system they have a colony in so their military will be bigger than other races with the same size of empire.

The biggest balancing point for command points though is starbases and military cities, because a city with a handful of ground turrets can be extremely powerful in fleet combat and don't take up any command points. Ground cannons etc let you defend a planet with a much smaller force than the enemy has to send to destroy it, so the enemy has to send so many ships that they leave their own systems vulnerable.

That said, if you have any ideas for improving this I'm very happy to consider them. A few new technologies that just give a flat number of bonus command points could help even out the difference between the big and small empires. Also we now have the ability to create non-warp-capable ships so we could do something with that to create defensive-only ships that use fewer command points.

Cheers,
-- Brendan, Lead Developer