260+ turns as Cravers vs the United Empire and the Sophon (victory by expansion).



Things that left me positively surprised:

• The UI. It looks crisp, clean and navigating it "feels right". Whenever i found myself thinking "what if i could drag that there" or "what if i could click this icon would it take me to the associated screen", the game actually did that and it felt really great.
• Lots of tooltips for everything/ user friendly without feeling "dumbed down".
• Artwork, ship models, effects and planets look great.
• Random events, random discoveries.
• Really stable for an alpha (more stable than many games that i know of in their current state)
• Nonexistent transition times between screens.
• Alt-tab friendly
• Performs great on my system: e8400 @ 3,9 Ghz, 4 GB ram, GTX 570
  
  

Things i'd like to see tweaked:

• In the colonize screen, when you can't colonize due to lack of pop the game doesn't state that explicitly. I know it's a minor complain but i'd like to see something like "can't colonize:not enough ".
• Hangar "pool" on the military view and a greater connection between the empire and the military screens in general. Going from Hangar->Create Fleet in the EM screen should transport you to the military screen with a prompt to customize the fleet's aspects, rather than having to exit the EM, go to the MS, search for the computer-assigned fleet name,etc
• Being able to click on the missing technology on the Planet view with the game transferring you to the related research on the research screen (rather than going to the RS then typing in the name, etc). Again minor complaint.
• An event log (is it the grayed-out archives option?)
• "Jumping" on your fleet's location on the planetary map by the Military Screen (by clicking on the mission bracket for example).
• An option to intercept ships, either by fighting them in deep space or by "locking down" a planet. Chasing them around becomes tiresome after a while.
• Persistent sorting of the solar systems in the Empire Management screen. Right now sorting the systems by scientific output for example and then leaving and going back to the EM screen, leaves the list scrambled again.
• Combat, needs a little "something" to make it feel more dynamic/exciting imo. It's nice to make the decisions and then getting to watch the fireworks but i'd like to see a bit more dynamism in there.
• Camera rotation should be in the game. The ship/planet models are too good looking to not warrant a free view camera.
• 
  
  

All in all, i'm really happy i took the plunge and bought the game.



I've had a great time with it so far and from what i've seen it can only get better.



Keep up the great work !







P.S: Relax the auto-kick-due-to-inactivity timer of the forums a bit. I had to rewrite this .

I agree with most of what you said. I am really enjoying the game as well (Cravers for the win!)

Cravers for the win!

Testify Craver-Brother!



Cravers are awesome