This long document is intended for developers so that they have a complete sum up.

I played the game as all available factions and here are my observations:

1) Vodyani

I know this was already discussed a lot.

If Vodyani are shipbound then why can a ground invasion take place and destroy the Ark? That should not be the case.

Assimilation of minor faction doesn't make sense. You assimilate them and the only thing you can then do is destroy them with once click of a button? What is the point?

And on top of that sending a Leacher ship to that collony doesn't give anything as you cannot gain religion income from assimilated minor factions.

For Vodyani an assimilated minor faction should produce religious income. There should be 3 options (slow / balanced / fast).

Slow - half the growth is turned into religion income the other half increases population (this way you income increases)

Balances - no population growth but also bigger religion income.

Fast - population declines but religion income is big (twice food production for example)

Also the assimilated minor faction should still be usable as a star system to have production / science / dust income.

2) Sophons

What can I do not to lose the "research next era tech" law? I tried multiple things but I always lose it in the first election no matter what I do.

If that is the intent then fine I don't mind as this could be a good balance not being able to do that constantly.

As Sophons are science and heading for pacifisting in the early start there is unfortunately no way to keep that going.

You need to build military ships or you will simply die.
This is a problem for all factions. The lack of static defence on start systems. (more on this in the Cravers section)

3) Cravers

I feel that currently this is the strongest race. Starting with attack ships and big production bonus (including a production hero) they quickly build up an army and don't need to build colony ships but instead just invade.

Don't get me wrong. They should be strong in military and concentrated on that but currently I thing they are too strong and it is hard to fight them off (not that I wasn't able too).

But when you encounter Cravers near you then it is a must to go full military.

Problem being that there is no defence mechanics in the game. You have only offensive forces that can also be used for defence.

What I am missing is the "militia" from Endless Legends. Each system should have it in the form of star base / ships without star travel capability / fighters and bombers or what ever else that would work.

4) Lumeris

The buy of of planets seams an overkill at the moment. Lumeris can easily expand to the best planets and the unique ones are very nice to have (I know you need to research some tech to colonize them, it is not that they have access to everything from the start).

I like the idea there is something different (lack of colony ships) but I thing something needs to be improved here. I remember there was talk about them being able to buy planets and then sell the colonies to other players and that is their income source. But I don't see much benefit in selling a start system to any other player. Other players won't be able to offer anything of value to a whole star system.

I don't thing that works currently. Maybe colonization of new start systems should be more expensive (expensive colony ships for everyone) and then making business with the Lumeris for planets would make sense in exchange for your ships for example or other start systems?

And to start with who do they buy the planet from? I would see this more like them being able to mobilize people in exchange for dust to colonize a system. Maybe this would extend the time that is needed to colonize a start system and the speed can be increased with the increase of dust?

I don't have a ready solution yet.

5) Minor factions

Why does attitude always go down? If I am a pacifist faction and encounter a pacifist minor faction then shouldn't there be peace between us?

I would suggest to improve this system so that attitide is influenced by what you do not just how much money / influence you spend on an empire.

This would make assimilating minor factions more interesting. The improvement of influence should be possible only by 20 once per turn so that there wouldn't be a momentary buy out and we should be able to see what is the attitide of a minor faction to other factions.

6) Technology

There are a lot of discussions about the eras and technology tree. We all acknowledge that current system needs to change so I will add my own suggestion to that.

To make the factions more unique why don't we give each of them a separate technolog tree / era ?
While that might sound like a lot of work I don't think it would be.

Sophons for example would be able to colonize arctic and ice planets faster as this is their environment.

Cravers would be more concentrated on military research.

This all would need to be balanced out.

7) General remarks

I like the story line and quests but I am very annoyed by one where you land on a planet and trigger a fleet you need to find. This is always the same and in the next games I just started ignoring the quest so that I wouldn't lose my exploration ship. I would somehow change this quest. No problem in generating a space combat but if you have that early on then you have no chance of winning it and losing your ship is a big drawback. You can always retreat but if you get another encounter then you lose your ship.

I also noticed that quickly in the game there are a lot of pirate ships and some of them become powerful (with Era 2 class ships) if you didn't decide to go military.

I don't mind pirates but they shouldn't have powerful fleets unless there is a pirate major faction. Besides pirates want money so if they get a hold of your exploration / colony ship they you should be able to pay a ransom and get it back.

I haven't seen any minor faction fleets that would be owned by them. They always get displayed as "pirate" not sure if this is intended or not. Why shouldn't minor factions have their own fleet?

8) Weapons / equipment

I know a lot is not yet implemented here but I hope it will change in a big way. 

There is no difference between adamantium and anti-mater weapons and equipment.

All factions use the same weapons and equipment. And the specialized resource modules / weapons are just taken from the next era.

Feels like paying Warcraft (from 1994) where you had Humans and Orcs with exactly the same stats but different pictures.

There is a lot of room to create unique styles for each faction and player and I hope developers will take advantage of that.

9) Faction quest

I very much like the idea that trough different quest choices you can in a way customize your faction.

Keep this up and I hope it will get extended.

I agree about the Lumeris. Won a game with them, and the later half felt like doing buyout after buyout. You buy loyalty, planets, upgrades, and the dust comes and comes. It came from lack of pressure but at the same time I feel it kinda lacks engagement. With colony ships/colons, you have often to prepare an expedition, escort them etc. There I just buy an outpost, buy for it's food then when it's done, buy the couple first improvements so to have a quick start. 

Same for minor faction. I feel that they ought not to be hostile systematically, and ought to be cajoled in the span of several turns. 

samsonazs wrote:

This long document is intended for developers so that they have a complete sum up.

I played the game as all available factions and here are my observations:

1) Vodyani

I know this was already discussed a lot.

If Vodyani are shipbound then why can a ground invasion take place and destroy the Ark? That should not be the case.

Assimilation of minor faction doesn't make sense. You assimilate them and the only thing you can then do is destroy them with once click of a button? What is the point?

And on top of that sending a Leacher ship to that collony doesn't give anything as you cannot gain religion income from assimilated minor factions.

For Vodyani an assimilated minor faction should produce religious income. There should be 3 options (slow / balanced / fast).

Slow - half the growth is turned into religion income the other half increases population (this way you income increases)

Balances - no population growth but also bigger religion income.

Fast - population declines but religion income is big (twice food production for example)

Also the assimilated minor faction should still be usable as a star system to have production / science / dust income.

The ground invasion is basically boarding the arc, which given their size makes sense.  It does need work though.

My understanding is minor faction assimilation/mechanics in general are still being developed.  This is just placeholder basically.  Further not being able to leech brainwashed factions is a confirmed bug.

As for the suggestion, maybe, but i t hink the idea is that leeching will have a cost later, so you'll brainwash minor factions to feed off of them without penalty.  Rather see what they have first.

2) Sophons

What can I do not to lose the "research next era tech" law? I tried multiple things but I always lose it in the first election no matter what I do.

If that is the intent then fine I don't mind as this could be a good balance not being able to do that constantly.

As Sophons are science and heading for pacifisting in the early start there is unfortunately no way to keep that going.

You need to build military ships or you will simply die.
This is a problem for all factions. The lack of static defence on start systems. (more on this in the Cravers section

Everyone is pretty sure elections are bugged.  I've done entire strats around not losing the first election and can't make it happen, so I wouldn't worry about it right now.

Building a military is supposed to be a part of the game.  You should be able to keep your laws though by spending dust/influence/tech to influence the election, but that currently doesn't work (static defenses may happen but they're almost always a trap in these games).

If you really want static defenses right now you can rip the engines off a cheap hull design to make it a little cheaper to mass produce as a system fleet.

3) Cravers

I feel that currently this is the strongest race. Starting with attack ships and big production bonus (including a production hero) they quickly build up an army and don't need to build colony ships but instead just invade.

Don't get me wrong. They should be strong in military and concentrated on that but currently I thing they are too strong and it is hard to fight them off (not that I wasn't able too).

But when you encounter Cravers near you then it is a must to go full military.

Problem being that there is no defence mechanics in the game. You have only offensive forces that can also be used for defence.

What I am missing is the "militia" from Endless Legends. Each system should have it in the form of star base / ships without star travel capability / fighters and bombers or what ever else that would work.

Voydani are almost certainly stronger, but there's no doubt cravers are probably too good in the early game right now (it's way too easy to just get a fleet and take a planet right from the start).  A "milita" might help, but i'm not sure it's needed/good.  then again i do like it better than just nerfing the cravers, so they can still go after new colonies but don't instantly force a ship race just by existing next to you.

4) Lumeris

The buy of of planets seams an overkill at the moment. Lumeris can easily expand to the best planets and the unique ones are very nice to have (I know you need to research some tech to colonize them, it is not that they have access to everything from the start).

I like the idea there is something different (lack of colony ships) but I thing something needs to be improved here. I remember there was talk about them being able to buy planets and then sell the colonies to other players and that is their income source. But I don't see much benefit in selling a start system to any other player. Other players won't be able to offer anything of value to a whole star system.

I don't thing that works currently. Maybe colonization of new start systems should be more expensive (expensive colony ships for everyone) and then making business with the Lumeris for planets would make sense in exchange for your ships for example or other start systems?

And to start with who do they buy the planet from? I would see this more like them being able to mobilize people in exchange for dust to colonize a system. Maybe this would extend the time that is needed to colonize a start system and the speed can be increased with the increase of dust?

I don't have a ready solution yet.

Planet buying is  core mechanic of theirs so it's not going anywhere, and it's not fully implemented (with some significant downsides given you cannot ever build colony ships, and the usual expansion penalties).

The real issue right now is that selling planets isn't worth the money (you literally make less than you spent) so you should never do it.  However sending scouts out early game to enemy territory to buy up expansion planets, and then flip them for tech, could be very powerful (and just currently isn't possible as far as i've seen).  You'll never be able to keep the planet yourself due to the location, but you can make a profit from it.

5) Minor factions

Why does attitude always go down? If I am a pacifist faction and encounter a pacifist minor faction then shouldn't there be peace between us?

I would suggest to improve this system so that attitide is influenced by what you do not just how much money / influence you spend on an empire.

This would make assimilating minor factions more interesting. The improvement of influence should be possible only by 20 once per turn so that there wouldn't be a momentary buy out and we should be able to see what is the attitide of a minor faction to other factions.

See above on minor factions not being finished basically.

6) Technology

There are a lot of discussions about the eras and technology tree. We all acknowledge that current system needs to change so I will add my own suggestion to that.

To make the factions more unique why don't we give each of them a separate technolog tree / era ?
While that might sound like a lot of work I don't think it would be.

Sophons for example would be able to colonize arctic and ice planets faster as this is their environment.

Cravers would be more concentrated on military research.

This all would need to be balanced out.

[/quote]

Seperate tech tress would be shit tons of work, but i do think more colonizable planets at the start for each race might help, and I want some race specific techs besdies hulls.

7) General remarks

I like the story line and quests but I am very annoyed by one where you land on a planet and trigger a fleet you need to find. This is always the same and in the next games I just started ignoring the quest so that I wouldn't lose my exploration ship. I would somehow change this quest. No problem in generating a space combat but if you have that early on then you have no chance of winning it and losing your ship is a big drawback. You can always retreat but if you get another encounter then you lose your ship.

I also noticed that quickly in the game there are a lot of pirate ships and some of them become powerful (with Era 2 class ships) if you didn't decide to go military.

I don't mind pirates but they shouldn't have powerful fleets unless there is a pirate major faction. Besides pirates want money so if they get a hold of your exploration / colony ship they you should be able to pay a ransom and get it back.

I haven't seen any minor faction fleets that would be owned by them. They always get displayed as "pirate" not sure if this is intended or not. Why shouldn't minor factions have their own fleet?

[/quote]

That quest is multiple parts and you know it's coming if you read the lore.  It's always "send a scout here" and then "scout this planet" followed by enemy attack, so if you just put a mild military in the same fleet as your explorer you'll kill the ship and win everytime.  It's very easy.

All the pirates you've seen are minor faction ships.  There are no actual pirates right now barring the Voydani starting quest.

8) Weapons / equipment

I know a lot is not yet implemented here but I hope it will change in a big way. 

There is no difference between adamantium and anti-mater weapons and equipment.

All factions use the same weapons and equipment. And the specialized resource modules / weapons are just taken from the next era.

Feels like paying Warcraft (from 1994) where you had Humans and Orcs with exactly the same stats but different pictures.

There is a lot of room to create unique styles for each faction and player and I hope developers will take advantage of that.

[/quote]

Yeah not much to say that hasn't been discussed to death.

9) Faction quest

I very much like the idea that trough different quest choices you can in a way customize your faction.

Keep this up and I hope it will get extended.