- It would be nice to define points or zones of danger: automated ships would avoid these areas. I know some places occupied by pirates or space monsters and I want to automate little ships.
- WASD moves the camera much slower once other sectors are unlocked
- Radius of missle range 3 is a litte bit too small to fit the "4 corners rule" in every direction

This is strange.

I don't think it's all that strange that the leader has the Strange trait, but the overall Social for the leader is -1.

Should a leader have a negative overall value for any of these characteristics?  Will a negative value cause problems in other areas that use these values to determine how things go in those areas?  Is this going to cause any problems, or is it just one of those strange things in the game?   

When I attacked a defended ship graveyard, I won and managed to capture/scavenge all 3 of the pirate ships guarding it.  All of them had incomplete names.  They all looked like this, except for different numbers.

I checked and found that ShipClassText.xml doesn't have an entry for PirateAttacker, so no name was available to be shown.

Offered money to attack another npc - I accepted. Got a nice cach payout. Then go check Diplomacy. NPC that offered me the "contract" is now negative 3 --- because I am at war with his "friend". Either don't offered me an attack deal if they are friends or at least no negative diplomacy from said npc that made the offer

I'm seeing evidence that some effort has been made to eliminate the use of words like global and others with meanings that mainly apply in games that are confined to one planet.  I found a tech that still uses global.

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I got a quest called "It's Alive?".  It was about a problem at my colony on Drengi, but Drengi is my home planet.  This quest shouldn't happen on my home planet.

I went through the quest and was told I needed to look for missing colonists on Drengi.  The option to look for them did appear in the list of things I could "build" on the planet.  I did "build it" and found the missing colonists.  I chose the middle option that seemed to finish the quest.  After that, the option to search for missing colonists reappeared in my build list for Drengi.  When I searched again, nothing happened to the quest, but the option to search reappeared again in my build list.  It is still happening.

I have a save that shows it's still happening.  You can get it here.  Go to Drengi and check the list of things that can be built.  "Build" the "Find Missing Colonists".  When it finishes, nothing happens, but it is back the list of things that can be built.

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I got a quest called "Investigation" where the Terrans asked me to search anomalies and return a data capsule to them without tampering with it.  When I found it, I was given the option to return it without tampering or to try to recover the information.  I chose to try to recover the information and succeeded without any evidence of tampering being evident.  I then told the Terrans what I had done.  They were very pleased with my "loyalty in the delicate matter".  This last part makes no sense.  I did the opposite of what they wanted, then I told them about it.  They should be mad at me.

I have a save that allowed me to go through the last part of the quest again, but this time I lied to them about tampering with the capsule.  Since there was no evidence of tampering, they believed me and gave the same answer they did when I confessed to tampering.  This is the answer I expecting in this case, so the previous answer is wrong.

The save is available here.

Load the save and go to the next turn.  Skip the turn of the ship that still has turns left, and the screen will jump around as battles with the Baratak Grove occur.  Wait until the request from the Iconians appears, the choose the second choice to decline the war request.  The quest from the Terrans will resume.  Choose the second choice.  The next screen has only one choice.  The screen after that has two choices.  The first should make the Terrans mad, but it leads to the happy result mentioned earlier.  The second choice also leads to the happy result. 

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The Baratak Grove in my sector didn't colonize much, only 3 class 1 worlds.  They eventually declared war on me.  After a series of conquests and re-conquests by both of us, I had taken the three planets they had settled, and they had taken one of my colonies.  Eventually I took their home plant/capital, leaving them with only my former colony.  It became their class 3 capital.


I'm wondering how much trouble it is for an AI to have a class 3 planet as its capital.  If they have a core world somewhere, can they make one, preferably the best one, into their capital?  If they don't have a core world, how much trouble does it cause them to have a colony as their capital?  This will also apply to a human player, but I expect most human players to be able to handle this better than the AI, at least for now.

In this case, it didn't matter for long.  I soon took this last planet to eliminate them.

I like to see fleets with the numbers when you zoom out far. Maybe it would be even better to show the logistics value instead of the number of ships. This could be true in general (at all zoom levels), I am not sure.

A symbol for survey ships is displayed at maximum zoom level. I like this. Military fleets are not shown though. My first impression is, that it would be nice to see both types at maxed out zoom level.

Review based on Test Edition V0.50.190544b

Played as Terrans, Arm, Normal Difficulty, Huge Sectors, Distanced from AI, mix of abundant and occasional settings, Conquest Victory, Very Slow in both Pacing and Research, 8 AI opponents.

Review:

If playing on a map with abundant anomalies, do rewards like +10% Influence Growth for 50 Turns stack? If not, suggest adding this to alert player.

Ship Design:

As in my last feedback, I know it’s early. Having played 577 turns in my current game, ship design—the slot system—is not satisfying. A recommendation:

Hull size:

Tiny – 2 slots

Small – 4 slots

Medium – 8 slots

Large – 16 slots

Massive – 32 slots

Weapons/Defenses number of slots required:

Tier 1 (early tech) – 1 slot

Tier 2 (middle tech) – 2 slots

Tier 3 (Late tech) – 3 slots

(Maybe add an “anti-air” defense module to counter interceptors, etc.?)

Carrier modules:

Tier 1 (early tech) – 4 slots (2 interceptors)

Tier 2 (middle tech) – 6 slots (2 interceptors, 1 bomber)

Tier 3 (Late tech) – 8 slots (5 advanced fighter/bombers)

Specialty modules (e.g., Survey) would all require at least 3 slots so they can’t be carried on tiny hulls.

The above suggestion gives designs more versatility. Tiny craft can have a weapon and defense early, and can mount a tier 2 weapon mid game. Small craft can mount a tier 1 weapon and 3 tier 1 defenses, or a tier 1 carrier module with no weapons or defenses, or even a tier 3 weapon late game. And so on.

Right now, the slot system is too confining. My large hull ships are losing after only ~4-6 single combats with tiny space monsters.

I would also like special events or end game tech that could increase slots, the equivalent of getting better miniaturization in GC2 and GC3.

Commanders:

Have to vote thumbs down on current implementation. Commanders are simply a different way to get the Bazaar ships from GC3. In GC3, I used commanders to lead my best battle groups (fleets, whatever). Some led my best combat groups “designed” to clear an enemy’s defense forces, others led my major invasions forces.

I rarely used GC3 Bazaar ships in my mid- to late-game battle groups: They were simply not powerful enough compared to ships I could design myself.

Recommendation: I don’t mind requiring leaders to unlock Bazaar ships. I would prefer commanders be assignable to command battle groups and boost their stats (or lower them?). Maybe even have commanders in charge of several battle groups assigned to them. This would mirror current military organization: an admiral or commodore or senior captain commands a carrier battle group but works for an admiral who commands all the forces in an area. Same for generals.

(For instance, General MacArthur commanding the island-hopping campaign in the southern pacific and retaking the Philippines while Admiral Nimitz did the same in the northern pacific eventually taking Iwo Jima and Okinawa during WW II.)

This would make commanders genuinely important to the game, not just a different mechanism for getting GC3 Bazaar ships.

Ideology:

Same opinion as with version .45, Ideology is just too complicated. I like the option of saving points and selecting a more expensive ideology option instead of having to select every item in a progression. There are just too many trees. In this case, simpler is better. My opinion, of course.

Recommendation: Maybe have only 6 trees, 3 each on either side of good versus evil. Players could select from either at any time, but would have to do something consequential in game to earn points on either side (not just exploring anomalies, settling planets, etc.).  Having "good" options that could avert a war with another player or help them through some difficulty, while "evil" options may actually start a war or significantly harm another player—something other opponents would remember. A "neutral" option would be "not our problem." More like the good-neutral-evil system from ye ol’ Dungeons and Dragons where in-game choices could actually change your alignment and how the “world” reacts to you.

Oh, I still don’t fully understand the mechanism for getting Culture Points. By mid game, I wasn’t getting any at all.

AI:

I know it’s early in game development but something is wrong with the AI. At turn 577 on normal difficulty (just testing game mechanics not min-maxing yet), I have 12 Core worlds and 55 colonies. My nearest AI competitor (Mimot) has only 9 colonies. The Navigators have 6, Drengin have 5, the Arceans and Krynn 2 each, etc.

Resources:

I have all resource settings at abundant. No Precursor Nanites to be found so far with 12 sectors scanned. Not in my territory, not among any of the AI. The algorithm needs to distribute a selection of every resource, even if only a few players get a particular one.

While we’re on the subject of resources, requiring specialty resources for starbase upgrades is almost game breaking, especially when some resources are so hard (or impossible) to find. This potentially cripples players without access to the specialty resource. Tetropod Hive for production upgrades? It cost Durantium in GC3. My starting sector has only 1 Durantium resource. That’s rare enough.

Bug: Very early game, I had 36 control points. I hover over the enforce law option and it says -6 control but the option is grayed out, not usable. Actual cost is (50?) control points.

Bug: Several times (about every 20-40 turns) clicking on a target to resolve combat results in no resolution. The visuals play as normal, but no damage occurs to either side. When this first happened, I tried on about 10 successive turns to resolve combat with no result. Exiting and reloading the game fixed it. For the remainder of the game, every time a combat failed to resolve, I would exit and reload the game, and it would be good for another 20-40 turns or so.

Bug?: I encountered a world that was an 8 quality. When I added a governor, it suddenly became a 77 quality world (every tile usable). Not complaining, just seemed odd.

Bug?: From within a game, clicked to load a different save and game hung for about two minutes after clicking “Yes” on the Confirm pop-up. Loading the same save from the main menu was much faster.

Playing as humans, had 'Curiosity' and 'The Gaze' in the same fleet. Fighting space monsters would show combat, but no damage was done to either side. Repeated combat just led to the same result.

General feedback from having played on maps of all sizes for hundreds of turns:

First of all, combat has been both improved and in some ways is lacking compared to GC3. I understand that the lack of animations is an early access thing, but what about planetary invasion? Is there ever going to be a screen where you have an additional layer of siege combat where you deploy troops and watch them fight akin to GC3?

While I don't like the new direction of population, as it tends to be far more archaic than GC3's easy-to-read number system, I understand that it's not something you guys are interested in changing. My question is, how are you intending to make planetary conquest and ruling a multi-system empire a more interactive experience? Now instead of losing several of my 5 or 10 'Soldiers', I either keep or lose 1 guy, which is far more difficult to wrap my head around actual body count losses on each side. Adding even one or two additional, interactive steps for planetary invasion would make a world of difference. Even having a phase where you are forced to decide how to integrate the new planet into your empire and whether or not to repair the collateral damage caused would help immensely.

Even on Parsec map with the 'fastest' game setting on with three opponents in the same star system, it was still well past turn 100 by the time I was able to utilize planetary invasion. If this is by design of the new 'random research pool', then I guess it's working as intended, but it feels unnecessary and like a fairly pointless addition to the game. Also, we need both 'guard' mode for ships/fleets and a way to have governors automatically take control of planets because playing on Arm or Galaxy map size and managing a large empire while trying to fight a war is actually not a very fun experience, with the camera jerking your perspective every which way and constantly having to spam click 'economic stimulus' into eternity.

Drengi feel fun but need a bit more attention and the same goes for the Festron.

That's it as far as my combat and general .5 thoughts.

As far as the state of the game, there need to be more anomalies of all three tiers, more planet events all around, more mundane and extreme planet types if possible and more events involving other civilizations, colonies within your empire and governing events that actually involve the Governors you've selected and specific citizens on your planets. All this effort was obviously made into combining Citizens with Population, yet the individual characters seem even less fleshed out than they were before in terms of interaction.

There needs to be a cost to having an enormous, expansive empire, potential fracturing of culture and rebellions. The fact that it's possible for me to have an empire of dozens of planets and not a single ship to defend them or to enforce imperial laws is weird and feels silly. By adding that level of depth to both the player and the AI players, it would prevent a large amount of that early and mid-game colony ship spam that leads to all but a handful of factions ballooning in size at ridiculous speeds. Slowing down influence gain and how far it spreads would also seriously help. Having each planet have a ZOC that only starts to appear several turns after you've colonized it would make a lot more sense and would encourage the use of star bases for purposes other than just the usual fare or mining or relic.

Also this is more of a wish, but please let us interrupt trade routes by placing a ship/s along them. This is something I've wondered about since GC3.

Thank you for your time and thank you for making a game with nearly limitless potential. Cheers to GC4

Here is a bug. When I get an opportunity to research a tech that requires drones, I select the tech and spend the drone(s). When I exit the research screen and pick another tech, I don't get those drone(s) back. In fact, its possible to not have enough drones to select the tech again.

Odd. I find those special ships quite kill able. Especially if they are built alone.

It actually costs 50 Control to Enforce Law.  The tooltip is wrong.

(edit) I actually checked on this because of your post, so thanks