A lot of thoughts, ideas, and garbage

[Rosenthal]

After making second play through, I've managed to organize my thoughts a little better. I really do like this game, maybe a little too much, but it satisfies that itch for a sandbox with objectives.

This is still a little ranty, but I think most things should make sense. I tried to organize things between things that need improvements and things that would be adding on to the game.

Please let me know if somethings don't make sense, I can make a drawing since pictures/diagrams can get the point across better

Game/Interface Changes

Engineering and design process

At some point, treating engineers in terms of man-hours would make more sense if the game followed XCOM time mechanics, where making small changes would require a few hours and total rebuilds takes days. Until then, I think Engineering needs streamlining, just having a revert button to return the mech to the original specification to the last committed state is needed, otherwise we're spending engineers needlessly. Generally I think the Engineering tab should be more designed focused supported with better simulation tools and telemetry, with manpower commitments at the very end. This could be helped with some things below.

The punchcard for mechs is not robust enough, as it doesn't detail exactly what components are missing when copy/pasting, and it is not clear if the player needs to manually configure weapons to the exact matching spec.

Given the depth of the game, something like dedicated line-lists in the form of saved punchcards for each component category would save effort of tring to do first time setup. This is already super tedious on larger setups like Castle. For example, if I'm trying to replicate a setup of a cannon that's currently installed on a mech, I would have to transfer the mech to the hanger, uninstall the cannon, copy it, then paste it onto the other cannon, then reinstall previous cannon while spending engineers because I just uninstalled it.

Add a clear/fill mech button. Being able to clear the mech quickly would make copy/pasting way less tedious. I couldn't tell you what the purpose of the fill button would be other than masochists doing a senile-AI mode where the mech is "technically" capable of deploying but possibly not viable.

When doing energy setups, it could be streamlined by having buttons "1/2/3" available to click on instead of click-dragging or shift clicking. This would reduce setup times whenever a player reinstall a reactor, again super tedious. This could be simplified by having a All Negative/Neutral/Positive button.

Nested component categories would cleanup much of the inventory lists, at mid and late game players will start to pileup inventory, even with the recent addition of recycling/dismantling. Having a label indicating quantities, while being able to collapse and expand said categories. Being able to retrieve saved component setups should make things easier.

I think one of the biggest sources of contention is the constant modifying weapons and reactors. The player should be able to access weapons directly without needing to uninstall/reinstall. This could work by introducing a clickable gear/pancake symbol ontop of the weapon that pulls down the weapon modification screen, making it easier to copy/paste or know certain details without uninstalling.

Mech and Weapon Simulation

Weapon Simulation needs an expanded range, with the changes in bullet velocities and lifetime it's very possible to exceed 1km. Missiles already have crazy range

An extra toggle for the Needle Bullet/Torpedo upgrade would help immensely, unless those upgrades literally just mean "ignore water". In that case it's a little misleading since the upgrades imply they mitigate water.

Weapons should save AUX energy settings, this is very relevant for projectile acceleration mod, railguns, and plasma?

Monster target ranges should just be an entire board filled with Min/Max sliders marked 0/1000/inf at this point, considering how the simulator features a slider. This would replace the Up/Down with the dual -/+ min/max buttons. It would make assigning combat ranges much faster.

Add a label indicating average across a given time. Something like "Avg / 5 Sec" might be good enough

Add lower/upper bound on Taken Damage to better reflect accuracy values, given how averaging values across 5 seconds is not long enough for things like mega missiles.

The slider could use more symbols, it's missing most of the symbols the player would come across. The slider could be complemented with a series buttons with the corresponding environment label or a small display with 2 buttons to cycle the list of possible environments in ascending order.

There should be a toggle to autofire in the mech simulator, it's occasionally tiring to hold down the button in cases where the mech setup is so optimized it takes minutes to cause overheating state.

The mech should reposition automatically to account for recoil, otherwise it would recoil off screen.

The Mech simulator does not account for certain weapon's range parameters. If a certain monster is disabled entirely it will not fire. This makes it difficult to accurately determine reloading/heating performance when all guns are firing.

City Planner

An interactive overlay would help players understand read the map better. Highlighting against components, goods, food, wounded, and life systems, as well as dedicated highlighting of game critical structures such as factories and hangers would help immensely in guiding the player as to what to upgrade next.

Books

The game guide's labels could be double sided, so the player isn't required to have memorized what they say. The bestiary could also use labels with corresponding monster icons, as well as additional entries for turrets and "hard" versions when encountered in the maze.

Mech Cards

There needs to be some kind of interaction with the mouse and card's handle to imply it can be expanded, so the player can attempt to click on it. Currently there isn't much point to expand the card as it does not expand on any information aside from spelling out the abbreviations.

The tiny symbols for melee and repair drones are not enough.

If a mech has melee 2 repair drones, counter measures, and needle bullets it would look like: M RR C N respectively. Basically, it could use better symbology.

Maintenance tags could have extra flair.

https://imgur.com/a/tsWPKJT examples of cards improvement and readability

Gameplay additions

The bestiary could updated as the player progresses through the game, with "new" monsters appearing as question marks with possibly vague descriptions accompanying. For newer players this would enforce /improve the feeling of discovery along with the gameplay loop of trial and error


Radar and mission deployment mechanics. Radar sweep is dependant on relative City location, with radar being weaker when deploying farther away from the City, causing fuzzys onscreen.

Eventually infrared/heat/radiation mechanics could be a thing, giving purpose to the color filters available. In colder enviroments spawning could be more aggressive since your mechs may as well be a beacon, in hotter enviroments spawning is less aggressive due to relative mech heat dissappating to background levels. This can be a way to balance out early/mid game, as mech performance is largely dependant on thermals. Meanwhile this could allow for the addition of enemies that have detection mechanics, visible or not.

Squad movement, formation. Depending on the squad members selected, the relative positions would always be updated around the cursor until the player commits to a selection. Squad formation could also be enforced, through keeping a relative shape and setting minimum distances. When moving as a squad certain members could also respect minimum firing distances as players usually tune minimum distances towards self, it would help managing explosives and maintaining sightlines without needing to micromanage. Formations could be in the form of Convoy, Arrow, Diamond, and Line. I am drawing heavy inspiration from Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, and Homeworld.

Pathing is very rough, as it currently takes the shortest path possible, and not always ideal. Including movement orders for picking up resources along the way would reduce the need to micromanage.

Maze movement, could expedite time to move through the place, as much as x6/x8 At the very least, when attempting to retreat there could be a quick pathfinding check to see if there's a clear path to escape from the Maze so long as the centepede isn't in the way.

Later on, mazes could be one big map as opposed to segmented sections. It would basically turn the mission into a constant gauntlet, giving extra pressure on the player to monitor the Titanus Centipeda against mission progress. The downside is making that big map, maybe in the form procedural generation.

Map variety. Adding map features, like bodies of water or rivers, and lava equivelents, along with quicksand and oasis's in the desert. Make swamps actually swamps and therefore somewhat miserable to traverse for everyone. Vegetation alien or native, would be cool. Burning grass, or trees that fall down. Caves are one thing, but Starcraft-esque Zerg Creep would be a cool addition while in the maze, gives credence to why monsters are buffed.

Deployable, consumable turrets would be cool, to cover advances or retreats. Not as powerful as artillery, but would still work in a pinch, especially in caves/mazes and possibly underwater until depth charges are researched.

Nitpicks and rambling

The shockwaves/pressurewaves for weapon fire seem to be out of place, as they appear far forward of the bullets instead of forming at the tip.

The shockwave art is cool, do you think it would be practical to add muzzle effects to the mechs?

Pilot skills, does rescuing pilot refer to the pilot with the ability or the whole squad. What does taunt mean, does it draw aggro/attract attention or does it scare away monsters

I still have not figured out what the research "Cyborg Squads" does exactly.

Still need a page for how fusion reactors work

Armor and Weight value mismatch between Production and Engineering. For example, 0/1 will be 3 weight and 4 armor, but reports 1 weight and 4 armor.

The Bjorn and Skalaknit small art doesn't match the large counterparts. Bjorn looks like a sagging X despite the image being much more slender looking fork. Skalanit art is not matching between the Engineering's battle cost and the Hanger's mission squares

Weapon Energy Efficiency/Reactor Energy tuning feels contradictory, however I have witnessed it does bring efficiency at the cost of damage

Monster spawning in particular the Titanus Centipeda sometimes spawn on the squad when moving through the maze. I don' t know if you fixed this already. Now, if the Titanus were to spawn off-screen and move towards the squad due to relative position on the maze map I might be okay with, as long as map indicators are present so the player knows to react appropiately.

The increased penetration and projectile acceleration still seem to be at odds with each other. The Increased Penetration mod could be reworked into HEAT/APFDS-like mechanics where shots maintain penetration at larger distances. This would encourage better usage against single target damage but losing potential punchthrough mechanics IE crowd control, or in some cases cheesing the maze. Meanwhile the Projectile Acceleration mod would allow for dramitcally better penetration at shorter distances at the expense of dramatic aerodynamic drag falloff, much like how the PDW P90's rounds are designed for, allowing for better early game crowd control and armor mechanics, but becomes less reliable later game as approaching certain enemies would be brushing with death.

For missiles, this would probably mean Penetration translates to gaining dramatically improved penetration (HEAT) while losing a lot of area of effect, while Acceleration would mean missiles gain dramatically improved rocket motors while keeping their area of effect but lose armor penetration (Airburst). This would keep armor stripping mechanics without making either option a clear winner.

If I'm being really honest weapon mods needs a rework, as not everything needs or even can take a weapon mod, but this would devolve into specific weapon mods like how missiles and guns can take advantage of real life armor piercing and airburst tech, whereas flamers/chemical throwers would just have improvements to fuel flow or just improved chemistry. Weapons like railgun and tesla mostly play to energy balancing, which is currently just cranking it up to 11. At the same I welcome mods, because it just opens up the door to unintended combinations. Maybe mods could be a research thing, something for the player to discover and prioritize. As it stands they just kind of exist.

At the same mods should be use to keep early game weapons relevant, by giving them niche roles. Miniguns and cannons could still carry stun rounds and incendiary, something railguns wouldnt have the payload for and tesla realistically couldnt have.

Shatter mod should be reworked into an airburst mod. It gets outclassed by fire when it comes to crowd control and damage, with the likley hood of penetration already too low.

Radar mechanics could probably improve to the point where the player the can force a scan of the area without requiring a deployment of a squad, at the expense of losing forcast the next day or something to that effect.

Underwater maps still don't feel great mechanically, as it basically boils down to "everything slows down" without actually respecting monster ands mechs. It doesn't feel great to just slap on a needle bullets and then builds work again, since it seems like the ranged monsters aren't affected by water to begin with. Maybe, in the form of major update/expansion, underwater areas could be it's own thing with subspecies or entirely new species, with torpedo launchers and needle/harpoon guns to match

[KiberKreker]

woah
Thank you for the feedback
I most likely will not change old systems.
But I took some notes...