Quote Originally Posted by catswift View Post
First strike needs to go. I captured my entire galactic sector on day 3 of a server start (not colonies, just outposts), all without losing a ship.

Diplomatic status having an effect on first strike just contributes horribly to this mechanic. Set my diplomatic status with everyone to war, please. The cost otherwise is simply not worth it.
Yeah, the balance of this game is all messed up. I'm not even sure anymore what factors are contributing to it, which of them are bugs, and what can be done about it. I still think colony defense is too high, but outposts are too easy to take. Taking an undefended outpost should be easy, but with first strike it's nearly impossible to deploy sufficient defenses at an outpost. Once an attack by 20+ cruisers is common (which doesn't take long), first strike means you need 5 or more orbital laser arrays to fend that off. Is that really what the designers intended?

What we need is a bunch of fixes and then a fresh game to see how they play out. The dynamics are all out of whack in the early games because of the lack of ship count early on, artificially inflated empires, etc. (that said, I've already given up on the latest server, since my home world spawned in the absolute corner of the universe, with nothing within 10 sectors, and the closest stuff already claimed by others... And I'm not a trader).

As much as I love the idea of this game, I'm starting to think it's really just not ready for prime time. It needs 6 more months of design and development. The fact that fundamental balance changes are patched in willy-nilly is not encouraging. For a game of this complexity, you really need to think through the impact of every tweak.