I have mixed thoughts on how happiness can be a game-ending mechanic now. I misjudged an election as the Cravers and ended up with 100% of my Senate being religious while only about 15% of my population was. All of my systems went into open rebellion over the election results and I bled out all my FIDSI.

I'd like some kind of last-ditch political repression button to make up for situations like that at the cost of a lot of industry or influence.

Ah thanks man. Definitely helpful.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

Haelmatrel wrote:

Sir-Rogers wrote:

User eXperience:

• Basic options difficult to find: It took me 10 minutes before figuring out where the Fleet repairing button was located in the interface. I think that such an important functionality should be added to the Fleet UI on the map view.

Did you find the small fleet repair button that is on the main map mode? It has had that spot since its predecessor ES1. It would be interesting to know why you found it hard to find, if you could elaborate a bit on the subject that would be great

Good point Sir-Roger. I should elaborate more on those kind of 'UX' topic, especially by adding screenshots :D

I couldn't find the button you are referring to. I spent something like 10 minutes before giving up and thinking that I might not have unlocked a pre-requisite for doing so (e.g.: technology or building).

To me, repairing a fleet is a basic functionality that you will most likely call a lot of time. I would have assumed that I could have found it in the fleet action panel (map mode), but couldn't find it there.

I would suggest to add this button, or if it is already the case, to make it more visible.

This is the button in the main map mode:

http://prntscr.com/cqx590

You were unable to find it?

I'll note that until you mentioned this:

1) I didn't even know you had to click a button to repair ships.

2) Where said button was.

So no, not the most intuitive:)

Lynrael wrote:

Greedis wrote:

Just three things I've noticed playing so far:

1) After the first two election, militarist and industrialist tend to be the leading parties, no matter how you played. There seems to be a lot more actions that give them support, vs. very little actions that give the other parties support (es. Scientific party only gains it by building science building or research tech leading to science building); I know that having only military and score victory (and a simple IA for enemies) tend to favor militarist, so it's not a critic, just an observation.

2) After every battle, the "Guard" fleet state untoggle itself, leaving other enemies free to move away. That's a little unfair, given that IA doesn't have this problem.

3) There's a dire need of the good old empire overview, where you can see a list of all planets with a small summary. The economy scan is good, but can't replace it.

To 3:

 There is one actually, okay its only your systems, but well, better then nothing... 

Thank you, I really missed it.

Research really needs an overhaul.  I knew I wouldn't be happy with research eras after reading the GDDs, but after playing a bit, I abhor them.  If I want to focus on just one branch of research like in ES1, why not let me?  I loved that tech tree.  Needing resources to be unlocked kept you from completely neglecting paths, but still gave you plenty of room to do what you wanted.  Eras also let you learn advanced tech in fields you've previously neglected.  It makes no sense thematically to skip past early advances.

Additionally, having tech increase in cost since you researched something else makes no sense to me.  If anything, it should be the other way around!  This is a major problem in an ES game since there are so many techs needed just to colonize different planets.  I know it's late as EA is upon us, but this was my first chance to try it myself and see.  Please, please, please, make some drastic changes to research (hopefully back in the direction of ES1)!

Greedis wrote:

Just three things I've noticed playing so far:

1) After the first two election, militarist and industrialist tend to be the leading parties, no matter how you played. There seems to be a lot more actions that give them support, vs. very little actions that give the other parties support (es. Scientific party only gains it by building science building or research tech leading to science building); I know that having only military and score victory (and a simple IA for enemies) tend to favor militarist, so it's not a critic, just an observation.

2) After every battle, the "Guard" fleet state untoggle itself, leaving other enemies free to move away. That's a little unfair, given that IA doesn't have this problem.

3) There's a dire need of the good old empire overview, where you can see a list of all planets with a small summary. The economy scan is good, but can't replace it.

Sending out expeditions and probes also creates science support, but not nearly at a high enough rate compared to Industrialist or Militarist.

That's also probably a feature of the Early Access AI -- if you play the game right now you invariably face opponents who focus on expansion/military above all else and that influences how your people respond.

game feels great so far but I feel like the approval system defiantly needs some rework because it is very difficult in the mid game especially when you play cravers or change your government type to anarchy because if you have a diverse population your guaranteed to lose happiness with every election. also love what your doing with the trade routes just wish there was a way to seem them on the map without the economic screen. I feel like the battle camera needs a bit of work because most of the time its either too close or far from the action and the scroll speed of the manual camera is too slow and doesn't let you see everything. perhaps also adding more ship types and hulls too make the battles feel a bit more fleshed out, I would love to see more than just 4 hull types and I know since es1 amplitude normally hasn't had more than about 4 unit types(although in el you could get more through minor faction assimilation), I also feel like more hull types would add to the variety of possible play styles and make the game look better on top of giving you more research options. Lastly I REALLY don't like this tech tree, I loved the es1 tech tree it was amazing and I never felt limited by it but this one just feels too much like the el one, not that theirs anything wrong with it but I just feel like for the sequel to es1 if your going to bring back a tech tree I think it should be the tech tree from es1 not el

Greedis wrote:

Just three things I've noticed playing so far:

1) After the first two election, militarist and industrialist tend to be the leading parties, no matter how you played. There seems to be a lot more actions that give them support, vs. very little actions that give the other parties support (es. Scientific party only gains it by building science building or research tech leading to science building); I know that having only military and score victory (and a simple IA for enemies) tend to favor militarist, so it's not a critic, just an observation.

2) After every battle, the "Guard" fleet state untoggle itself, leaving other enemies free to move away. That's a little unfair, given that IA doesn't have this problem.

3) There's a dire need of the good old empire overview, where you can see a list of all planets with a small summary. The economy scan is good, but can't replace it.

To 3:

 There is one actually, okay its only your systems, but well, better then nothing... 

Ferigad wrote:

To be honest, i remember only vague endless space 1 and i did find that repair button you guys talk about by accident. I always used the fleet manager screen because i thought it has no direct repair button. Nothing against the UI so far, but some of the buttons are extremely small and yeah, while a wrench should be self explaining, it is A: Extremely small and B the entire interface was for me primary on the left side with the big buttons. I found the whole UI on the right side for ships after an hour playing ;)

Still happy i found it too but it did, in fact, take time. On the other Hand you got only expert mode and no proper tutorial for UI explanation. I am sure it will change in the future and their will be better tutorials for the entire UI.

If I recall correctly, when you start a game there's a greyed-out option for a full tutorial, so yes, there'll be a more extensive one probably closer to release.

To be honest, i remember only vague endless space 1 and i did find that repair button you guys talk about by accident. I always used the fleet manager screen because i thought it has no direct repair button. Nothing against the UI so far, but some of the buttons are extremely small and yeah, while a wrench should be self explaining, it is A: Extremely small and B the entire interface was for me primary on the left side with the big buttons. I found the whole UI on the right side for ships after an hour playing ;)

Still happy i found it too but it did, in fact, take time. On the other Hand you got only expert mode and no proper tutorial for UI explanation. I am sure it will change in the future and their will be better tutorials for the entire UI.

Haelmatrel wrote:

Many thanks Sir-Rogers for the tip,

Indeed I was not able to find it. 

I was expecting the button to be located on the left (see figure), that shows all available options related to the selected object; here, my damaged fleet.

I don't know what you think about it, but I would expect critical options, such as repairing a damaged fleet, to be more visible on the screen.

The left side are "global" system-wide actions. The right side are "local" fleet-specific actions. So they only affect the fleet currently selected, whilst the other options affect the entire system ( Ark Anchoring, Guarding, etc... they are not actions tied to that specific fleet) - I think it´s perfectly fine.

Many thanks Sir-Rogers for the tip,

Indeed I was not able to find it. 

I was expecting the button to be located on the left (see figure), that shows all available options related to the selected object; here, my damaged fleet.

I don't know what you think about it, but I would expect critical options, such as repairing a damaged fleet, to be more visible on the screen.

Haelmatrel wrote:

Sir-Rogers wrote:

User eXperience:

• Basic options difficult to find: It took me 10 minutes before figuring out where the Fleet repairing button was located in the interface. I think that such an important functionality should be added to the Fleet UI on the map view.

Did you find the small fleet repair button that is on the main map mode? It has had that spot since its predecessor ES1. It would be interesting to know why you found it hard to find, if you could elaborate a bit on the subject that would be great

Good point Sir-Roger. I should elaborate more on those kind of 'UX' topic, especially by adding screenshots :D

I couldn't find the button you are referring to. I spent something like 10 minutes before giving up and thinking that I might not have unlocked a pre-requisite for doing so (e.g.: technology or building).

To me, repairing a fleet is a basic functionality that you will most likely call a lot of time. I would have assumed that I could have found it in the fleet action panel (map mode), but couldn't find it there.

I would suggest to add this button, or if it is already the case, to make it more visible.

This is the button in the main map mode:

http://prntscr.com/cqx590

You were unable to find it?

Sir-Rogers wrote:

User eXperience:

• Basic options difficult to find: It took me 10 minutes before figuring out where the Fleet repairing button was located in the interface. I think that such an important functionality should be added to the Fleet UI on the map view.

Did you find the small fleet repair button that is on the main map mode? It has had that spot since its predecessor ES1. It would be interesting to know why you found it hard to find, if you could elaborate a bit on the subject that would be great

Good point Sir-Roger. I should elaborate more on those kind of 'UX' topic, especially by adding screenshots :D

I couldn't find the button you are referring to. I spent something like 10 minutes before giving up and thinking that I might not have unlocked a pre-requisite for doing so (e.g.: technology or building).

To me, repairing a fleet is a basic functionality that you will most likely call a lot of time. I would have assumed that I could have found it in the fleet action panel (map mode), but couldn't find it there.

I would suggest to add this button, or if it is already the case, to make it more visible.

User eXperience:

• Basic options difficult to find: It took me 10 minutes before figuring out where the Fleet repairing button was located in the interface. I think that such an important functionality should be added to the Fleet UI on the map view.

Did you find the small fleet repair button that is on the main map mode? It has had that spot since its predecessor ES1. It would be interesting to know why you found it hard to find, if you could elaborate a bit on the subject that would be great

Hi Guys,

Some additional feedbacks from my early game testing:

General:

• Building description are unclear: Most likely a copy/paste mistake; however I found the buildings description quite confusing. A simple example is the first industrial building in Era 1, granting +5 industry per forest. What does represent forest, here?

Vodyani:

• Anchored Ark being destroyed if failing to defend against a land invasion: It seems the Ark is automatically destroyed if an enemy succeed a land invasion in a system where your Ark is anchored. This is to me, a strange behavior.
• Population per system: Need more clarity on how Vodyan' population is calculated per system and per planet. At the moment if an anchored Ark reach a population of 3 in a 4 hospitable planets system (no pop limit considered), it seems that my system population is 12, having thus a strong influence on the buildings bonuses. However the displayed system pop is equal to 3. We would clearly benefit from more clarity here.

User eXperience:

• Basic options difficult to find: It took me 10 minutes before figuring out where the Fleet repairing button was located in the interface. I think that such an important functionality should be added to the Fleet UI on the map view.

Cheers

I think the strategic resource shortage will be alleviated somewhat when the marketplace gets implemented. I do agree that after an early game rush it kind of falls off. Makes preserving/retrofitting your initial fleets more important.

Also I second the science cost complaints. It makes the Sophons even more OP because they can pull ahead of everyone else and their advantage gets progressively stronger the further they pull ahead.