new to this . . .
I must say I love the game - really good work
but I noticed a few gameplay issues

1. There's no reason to bombard. Playing as the Cartare Union, I like to conquer. If I bombard with warships, they always get hurt or destroyed, but if I attacked with troopships (no matter what the planetary defenses are), they always deliver all the troops and suffer no losses. It's a very easy thing to exploit.

2. After playing serveral games, some minor races don't have the population to produce their bigger ships once they're part of your empire (noticed that with the Brane and the one's that produce the vika ships). It's not all the time and you still get the weapon upgrades, but's it's a bit of a disappointment.

3. Scrapping ships can be exploited. I can scrap 30 or so pre-upgrade warships and get 77000 credits or just produce ships I can''t afford and scrap them later for alot of money. You should get something when you scrap ships, I just think you get way to much. (Same thing is true on selling resources in the end game because you have more than you can use and you get way too much for selling them.)

and a few other things that will probably be addressed but I thought I would mentioned them anyway to be on the safe side . . .

1. I've researched all the way to tech 10 and never got the awesome cartare troops I started with

2. It would be nice if I could direct intelligence operations against minor races before they become part of an empire (sabotage/steal ships, ruin relationships, etc.).

3. And I don't understand the point of monoplies. In one game I had three monoplies and a fleet that was clearly beyond my economic capacity and sometimes I would have positive credits and sometmes negative credits (I think because of monoplies). Just wanted a little clarification.

And again really loved the game . . . one of the best 4X games I've played

Pot

1. sure, transporters should get shot on too. But there is one thing to remember: bombardments take up the whole turn time between turns, i.e. 2 years to 2 weeks (early and late-game) whereas troop transporter just fly in momentarily, deliver troops and get out of firing range of orbitals quickly (then get back to redeploy troops elsewhere according to the needs of the different battle sites) so their exposition to orbital defense fire is way less than the one by orbital bombarding capital ships that fire their arsenals a lot longer on the surface. I'm not really quite sure how to handle this in terms or realism and playability.

One thing's clear, the AI does not build troops yet so they are virtually defenseless against invasions. A human player would probably be a lot more of a challenge. I think the solution will be that there's a possibility later on to do hit&run battle maneuvres targeted on their transporters only, i.e. when defending a planetary system with a fleet you get the option to take out the attacker's transporters first and then either retreat or fight the rest of their fleet. So this is something for tactical combat options to be implemented later-on. For now I suggest not using invasion tactics against the AI, just with human opponents in MP games.

2. sure, but I think that's just necessary. Otherwise you would always know that if you met the Brane, you'd get a >30+ planetary system. If it was less than 30 then you'd have probably a lot of fun trying to build a size 3 ship with a 16 bn planetary system with probably no more than 12 factories and an IP output resulting in build times >20 turns minimum for just one ship. I think weighing up both things the latter weighs more than the first.

3. sure you can do that but are those credits worth it in the end? Usually your opponents should be challenging enough to make you reinvest your money instantly in buying the more-modern ships and buying modern ships usually costs a lot more than 2000 credits. You get 50-75% of invested IP back as credits and the same amount as resources when scrapping at a planetary system (except for deritium which is lost). So you loose all your deritium invested in the ships and get no credits return for the deritium so scrapping is usually not very exploitable because of the deritium shortage you have in nearly every game.

I agree though with end-game resource prices. They should get adapted quicker than at start. I think price development in the early game is okay, but late-game needs to take increased productivity into account. Also prices should not go normal again one turn after a big sell-out for example. They should stay low for a longer period of time because of the "flooding".

Troops are not fully implemented yet. The Alpha Invaders are just experimental "one-time" troops SirP added for the Cartares.

Monopolies will be a victory condition later-on once they get implemented (right now it's just an endless game every time). They are interesting for the Heyoun Trade Union for example. Right now they just let you gain some interests on transactions made by other empires on their stock exchanges like 15% or so. That accounts for the different incomes you gain each turn. Depends on how much the other races are using their stock exchange.

thanks for the compliment

with point one . . .

I understand . . . but like in the movie Starship Troopers[i][/i] a ship with all its troops gets shot down every now and then (how does ground combat work? the side with the highest combat rating (factoring in all the bonuses and experience wins)? Even with the AI building no troops I was still losing 20-30 troops invading the larger worlds.

and with point two

makes perfect sense . . . I just really wanted to build those awesome Brane ships - kept hoping there was some special research or structure that would override the population restrictions

Populations have their own defense value (conscripts, militia etc.). Ground combat works on a 1:1 basis, i.e. a 30 bn system has 30 militia troops (low defense value, yet the AI often builds bunker networks and ground defense structures) and the attacker comes with 60 regular troops. Then one militia unit fights one attacking unit (regardless of the odds or disparity in numbers of troops on each side). Basically dices are rolled and the higher number wins whereby unit strengths (Alpha Invaders got 25, regular Cartare troops for example 15) are added up to the dices and then the losing unit gets killed.

Special research might be a good idea. I once had the idea of such a tech that allowed to build all minor ships on your homeworld too. Would be quite a powerful one.

Maybe implementing something like an embassy which will be availabile after that specific race joined ur empire. When building that embassy their ships become availabile on that planet. Usually the embassy is on the homeplanet but u could even think of a building which has a restriction of 5 per empire so you can make that ship availabile to more systems.

an embassy sounds cool. It should only be available though with friendly minors, not so much with the secretive and evil ones that you for example subdued. The Coalition could benefit most from it then.

I just noticed something wierd about the A.I.
Playing as the Cartare Union I declared war on the Heyoun (they had about a 3 to 1 advantage in planets).
I conquered a few worlds and there was no response.
And then conquered about 20 worlds and their homeworld and they still did not defend themselves or send a fleet my way.
I finally loaded my save game from their point of view and saw they had plenty of ships. They were just focusing on another empire.
I'm playing on normal difficulty but I still would have thought they would have switched their focus onto me instead of still fighting an empire almost defeated especially after I hit their homeworld.

and three questions . . .
can you build the special structures of an empire (ie the ones only for the homeworld) after you conquer it?
and how do you zoom in and zoom out? I did it once accidently, but can't figure out how I did it.
and is there a cap for technology? (I've seen it go up to 12 . . . just wondering how high it goes).

yes, that's one of the weak spots of the AI. It does not readjust attack priorities towards an attacking enemy's fleet, especially when there's a large distance in between positions.

There is a tag in buildings editor called "really only race", meaning you can't build that structure when you are not that race, i.e. after conquering for example. So if that tag is activated, then no. I think all special structures of major empires have that tag.

zooming works with mouse wheel (you mean on galaxy map don't you?).

the cap is 14 atm. but I doubt you reach it before turn 1000 .

wouldn't there be a way to code the AI to respond to a threat if the threat is within a certain distance of the AI's homeworld?
The strategy employed made sense (instead of fighting on two fronts, eliminate one threat then hit the other) until the homeworld was lost (without a fight)

also I think there should be some permenant losses to morale if the homeworld is lost (ie no higher than 90). And it would also make sense to make an empire unable to sue for peace with the empire that conquered the homeworld (at least without even further permenant hit on morale). Almost as if an holy war existed. At least until the homeworld is regained.

sure there is a way but a clever way needs time. as you said, it needs to calculate if threats are just bluffs or otherwise two enemy empires can just make the AI fly from one borderline to the other always in the attempt to pursue fleets that retreat just about the time when they arrive at one front/side. Ultimately the AI would never have a chance to finish off either of them. That's why it isn't implemented yet.

permanent morale losses are indeed something worth considering. but once you lose your homeworld, in most cases you have enough problems already .