I'll comment on each change section separately. Land grab: I like the idea of keeping us from rushing out and grabbing everything in site. With this change I would like to see a change to the teraformer. Maybe allow the teraformer to actually change planet types. This would be a looooooonnnngggg process, but it would allow those who get crummy starting areas to change a few planets to accommodate their play style.
Massive armies and super capitals: are we going to keep the super capitals a warlord only realm, or open them up to the other specialists? I would like to see all but the PK open up to the other specialists. Not having gone down the combat line to far in my main game Im not 100% sure if this is currently the case or not, I'm just going off what my factory screens say I may build, and what I havnt met the requirements for yet. If we are a trader or scientist and we max out at dreads I guess I would feel really left behind if we want to stray from our specialist end game or defend from a warlord fleet. I would really have to reread the combat revision thread and spreadsheet to get a full understanding.
Love the research/building slider! I had been trying to figure out what would really make this feel like I was making a more interactive choice in the game and this screams it. The Ro evening out is a great idea as well. I would have to say I really don't think the production bonus is in the spirit of the trader. It really seems like it should be the warlords bonus, warlord should be the one cranking out ship after ship on a production war factory line. The idea of getting ro/co from ship destruction is nice and would maybe make a nice skill for anybody to take. Maybe a scavenger skill, not sure. I would like to see the trader get a trade bonus from actually trading, this would get them actively getting routes going. With the production bonus it just says crank out more ships, well more ships is only really good for war, huge empires, or your stuff is getting blown up alot.
Colony and outpost ships dipping into the origin planets population will really make us protect those ships instead of blindly setting them off into the void. I like jets ship range limit idea, if this were to come to be let's leave the limit off a colony ship and it's protecting fleet. This way we can make a new home in another galaxy without having to settle to close to home. On the topic of ship changes I would like to propose a big change to mine layers and orbital defenses. In the current game mine layers suck, they are over priced, and way under powered. We can only lay mines on our own planets. Well I really don't care under current system if I lose an outpost, it's really easy to retake, and I can build mines at any old colony. I had imagined being able to lay mines in open space quadrants to create a wall around my empire. I would like to see Defense orbitals given this option too.
If we could get some form of rudimentary alliance system soon too that would be great. Would like to be able to just ally with one or two people, see their territory, be able to put orbitals on friendly planets and outposts, and maybe combine fleets. We can work out more elaborate details later, but this would be a great start. Maybe make it distance restricted, so you and your best bud don't ally from one end of the universe to the other and take advantage of trade routes or some odd thing I can't think about right now. Maybe to increase the number of people you can ally with it could be a skill, each rank increases the size of the alliance/guild/faction/corporation. Maybe the forming person get some sort of cut of trades or mining profits, would be very trader oriented. That portion doesn't need to implemented now but an idea for the future.
Would like to add something else that I thought of about the warlord scavenger ability. How often is that really going to come into effect? If they want to make it harder to take outposts and colonies, we are talking a week or two into the game at least before anybody has at least a dread fleet in decent numbers. Then they are gonna maybe start getting some of this extra co/ro. But taking a colony/hw is a pretty major deal now and more so with the changes proposed. So take the two or three day between building a big enough fleet in the current system, make that longer and then attack the planet. Ok so I took the planet now and lost a whole bunch ships. Gonna be a few more days till I can take a planet. Ok so warlords are gonna only getting a payout after a week or more and then only every now and then. I see the researcher getting the best deal with the current system, followed by the trader and still last warlord. Maybe I'm not imagining how fast a warlord is gonna be cruising around but taking planets will be the only thing bringing in money. Even with all these great changes there is still no reason to fight in open space unless I'm missing something. So it's gonna be one or two trading vessels a warlord eats for dinner, and I can't imagine those will net much. Maybe I'm missing something, can anybody enlighten me?
I agree with this, but want to add one more thing: a bunch of the "hardcore" players have been posting a lot about how easy it is to take colonies ("it only takes 400 battleships!"). Once again, I disclaim this by conceding that I may not "get it," but in none of the games I've played so far have I gotten close to building 400 ships. Given the amount of time I played, I was too occupied with other stuff to manage that. You guys can argue that new players will eventually learn that building huge fleets is the path to victory, but I'm telling you as a guy who has experience with 4x games and played a fair amount in this game, building enormous fleets was not an obvious thing for me to do.Originally Posted by Truckingyoda
More generally, I think it's a symptom of poor design that someone like me could go so far off the rails in terms of playing successfully, so I encourage the designers not to make decisions based on this hardcore play style. I really think the vast majority of potential players are not ever going to reach the point of colony killing fleets. More likely, they will play the game like me, realize at some point that they are completely outclassed by some of the other players, and then quit the game thinking "no way am I putting in the effort that guy has."
Anyways, regardless, the idea of getting resources from killing ships is interesting in theory, but in practice most ships are parked in orbit of colonies, and with colonies being so badass, it seems that a young warlord who hasn't built a colony killing fleet will stand little chance of actually killing any ships.
On a side note, given how colonies work, it would be interesting if there could be some way to attack things in orbit of a colony without invoking its murderous wrath. There is a HUGE jump between fleets that can have skirmishes in uncontested space, and fleets sitting in orbit of a 400mu planet.
Also, on the topic of defending colonies/homeworlds, I don't think I've found a single homeworld yet that had more than a couple orbitals defending them. I think the best I've seen was a couple colonies and a homeworld (from the same player) with 1 energy array, 1 missile array, and a few ships (I think it was 1 fighter, 1 destroyer, one cruiser, 1 battleship). I think I lost a total of 60 or 70 ships to that one. I found another player 1 energy array, 1 missile array, and a few fighters. Not sure if people think that's enough defense to protect them, or if they don't realize they can build more than one of each type of orbital defense or what. Personally, I have at least 15 energy arrays on each of my homeworlds...
Oh, and I've seen some with 1 or 2 minefields, which might be good early game or against a fleet that's just barely big enough to capture the homeworld. Later on against larger fleets, doesn't help much. Not sure if it makes a difference if the mines are on the defense and not at war with the attacker or not, can they be killed off in the first round before they attack?
Jet, with all due respect. Yes, you did not get it this game. It is very, VERY EASY and CHEAP to protect your colony from 400 Battleships. When I did a math I said to myself at the beginning of the game - there is no point to build 400 battleships since it will be useless against reasonably defended colony. I build my army only to fight aliens. Then later on I noticed that almost all players put a sign on his/her home worlds: "Please conquer me. I am totally undefended. I do not know what I am doing".
I repeat as a winner on Aruru of 18 home worlds: It is almost impossible to take down reasonably protected home world! My own home world could not be taken by 1000+ battleships. The attacker is in serious disadvantage against properly protected colony.
I think a simple knowledge about this fact will render idea of attacking home worlds obsolete in the future games.
Last edited by SG7; 06-22-2012 at 01:55 PM.
I also just found a colony (I'm assuming homeworld, looks like a homeworld system) with 850Mu population. That one's gonna hurt too methinks...
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