I've been playing off and on for the last month or so and compiled a list of complements/critiques/suggestions. I realize the game is still a work in progress, and as I have stated before on this thread I absolutely love it so far. I realize there may be answers to questions or suggestions of mine on other threads which I might not have read as of yet.
System
XP Service Pack 3
Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual Core 2.79 GHz
2.0 GB DDR Ram
Radeon X1950 512 mb
500 GB 7200 RPM
Things I like
-Resource system and surplus.
-No buy production, more realistic. (but see suggestions on some kind of hurry production system).
-Overall display/animation.
-Waypoints!!!!!
.
-Quadrants.
-Large/Huge galaxy size.
-Like minor race sector shading
-Mouse wheel zoom is great, wish it was in regular BOTF
.
-Like separate build tasks in system for structures and ships.
-Like personnel system.
-Love how build task/research carries over into next build item/research task (accumulation of production/research is more realistic).
-Music is fantastic, dead on trek, gives sense of awe/wonder but is not cheezy.
Critique/Questions
-Whatever happened to scanner strength (not just scan range)?
-Min/Max ranges of ships should be displayed somewhere on the man map, or should be a selectible overlay, otherwise you have to click on individual ships to find out ranges.
-Will obsolete ships be upgraded automatically upon tech research (per BOTF), manually in a shipyard/starbase (like MOO2), or not at all?
-Summary doesn't disappear when clicking on message thats takes screen to system info.
-Autoassign workers leaves workers idle or assigns to random jobs (my impression from February 2008 version).
-Will there be voice prompts at start of turn like in BOTF? (new colony, diplomacy, combat, etc.)
-Will there be a system bonus/build que overlay display in the main screen like in BOTF?
-Would like to see how adjustments to research, personnel system will affect those items the next turn, currently only the last turns production is displayed along with current surplus.
-Diplomacy display should make major races more prominent.
-Idle system que message only displays once after an item is built and queue empty, but not after it remains empty (no trade goods option to produce credits fill queue automatically).
-Don't really like the Vorta being a minor race seeing as how they run the Dominion for the Founders (maybe call them free Vorta, but I don't think they fit outside of the Dominion, its like making the Jem'Hdar a minor race).
-Quasars should probably not be in the game, or they should be renamed to something else. This is a small nitpicking item, but if you have ever taken astronomy you would know why it would be impossible for a quasar to be inside our galaxy. They represent light from a supermassive black hole at the center of the universe's youngest galaxies at farthest reaches of the galaxy from the earth, and despite their distance are still the most luminous objects in the universe. I guess you could put on at the center of the galaxy, but it would be massive, extremely bright, and would consume everything nearby probably. Feel free to ignore this rant about quasars though.
Suggestions
-The message display each turn should have a means of distinguishing different types of events with color or font, and maybe its not in the game yet, but there really really needs to be a system display on the message window like in BOTF that displays idle systems. What would be even cooler is if you could change production queues from a drop down in the window displaying system production which would let you add to the queue, like colonies display in MOO2 and cities overview in Civ.
-Research encyclopedia should display either all future research or at least one tech level in the future, otherwise it is difficult to plan ahead (could make research really blind like in reality, but would have to randomize tech for each game, don't know how to do that).
-Industry/Food/Intel/Energy upgrades should not require researching all techs at a given level to obtain them, otherwise no need to pay much attention to research, can just put it equal on all. Should be forced to research one area over another to gain upgrades to food or industry, or to get a structure/ship. (Don't know how anyone would feel about a tech system more like MOO2, where individual tech/structures is what you research, a tech tree rather than tech fields).
-Maybe use surplus resources/money to rush production, not in 1 turn, but over a fewer turns @ double cost or maybe have to purchase compenents on a black market to rush build (I am just making this up, I like how its realistic with no 1 turn buy, but there should be a way to rush production without having to build a ton of industry, especially on a tiny planet with small pop cap).
-Maybe have resources/money have to go to maintainence/repair at a certain empire size, rather than accumulate a massive surplus?
-Terraforming, maybe this should be done like MOO2 (since its sorta the ancestor of BOTF) where terraforming is done as a colony add on, progressively improving the planet over the game, but requiring other tech, and progressively more expensive?? Do remember something about terraforming in a post somewhere, but can't remember what it was right now.
-Sector display at top should include quadrants, would make it easier to locate where something occurred if a message says something happened in xx,xx sector in xxxx quadrant.
-Maybe minor races could grow and compete in a limited capacity so you could have more competition than just the 5 major powers, especially on a huge map?? Perhaps thats too ambitious and complicated.
-Intel report on races could display their estimated tech level, and then overlay estimated ship ranges at propulsion tech level.
-Intelligence could use money to bribe specific agents in an enemy empire, and maybe there would be a loyalty meter to see if they would turn on you.
-I know diplomacy is still in its infant stages, but I like the idea of your past relationship/history really affecting how a race acts. CivIV has an interesting diplomacy system like that, but adds things like religion, border tension, trade relations, etc.
-Would like to trade/purchase star charts and race contact info in diplomacy (maybe also could steal star charts and race contact info in intel).
-Would be cool to somehow coordinate specific attacks with the computer in an Alliance, but probably impossible to implement.
-I like the idea of being able to detect cloaked ships or ships of smaller sizes only if there a certain level of tech/scanner strength, cloak would also improve with tech. Could be a detection rating for ships based on range/scan strength/anomolies, with some ships not showing up, some showing up as unknown, some as a given races ship with an unknown class/size, and some showing up with all of its statistics available. (also, in MOO2 scanner strength improved targeting/chance to hit/damage, but don't know how that would fit into 3D combat system).
-Would like to display fleet size somehow, maybe a series of pips by the ingsignia indicating a fleet in a sector. Enemy fleet size could also only reflect ships detected by scanners per the last suggestion, with some not showing up at all which would make for a nice surprise in combat.
-Planets could have bonuses outside of resources/population size, like artifacts/research in MOO2.
-If there is a supernova or some sort of random cosmic event, it would be cool if there was a flash all over the galaxy and some sort of animation or something (obviously not a priority on things to do with the game right now). Maybe a supernova could have a certain range, and star systems in range could protect themselves with a certain technology or supernova could be repaired like in MOO2.
-Music could reflect the mood of the galaxy. Early on the current music reflects a sense of exploration/wonder, but there could be new music for when there is tension/war between empires (in addition to combat music). Music could also reflect your stage of development in the game (like civ III and IV). This would give subtle ques to the player and add to the atmosphere of the game. Obviously not a high priority at the moment, but would be cool to see.
Errors
-As of new release, research has a total of 102% because each field starts at 17%. Each field requires a minimum of 1%, so can't assign more than 97% to any one field.
-Game crashes when trying to load game (error to big, to post now, but can post if anyone is interested to see the error text file).
-When you send a membership treaty twice in a row the first one is cancelled, but diplomacy still operates as if they are a member and you can't ask them to rejoin
.
-Prior to sending message in diplomacy, if you switch to another race and switch back, cannot edit message anymore. Can only cancel if you select overview/agreements/outbox and then it will prompt to discard message.
-Game real slow past turn 60 or so, may crash sometimes.
-Game hangs/crashes on retirement.
-With exactly 25 energy can't power ship yards, need 26 or more to power, even though 25 used (was in February 2008 version).
I probably missed somethings, and I apologize if some of what I said isn't clear or doesn't makes sense. Hoping I can find an area I can help on, I will have to review the jobs/tasks threads again. Again, I really love the game so far and appreciate all the work everyone is putting into it.
