Guess who's back

Man how I missed being here and damn I could not witness the opening of pre-orders and the armies that invaded the forums afterwards. I expected and wished a great success to you guys but what I’m seeing here is even surpassing expectations, the number of registered forum members quadrupled for just more than a week, 539 users online at the same time!? Holy ****!, and the most important thing Endless Space in Steam's Top 10 Sellers!!! Wow!



I'm, happy for you guys and full of joy seeing how well this game is received. I knew it was something special and everything that's been happening lately confirms it. I myself gave it a go earlier today for the first time and it looks and feels great! I'll need some time to catch up with the details but overall it looks pretty polished for an alpha-build.

Now let's get to business. For starters the things that first meet the eye:



-Immersive music right from the first screen

-Very clean and well designed UI

-Very nice graphics, planets and ships in particular. There's even ships flying in the colonized planets' atmosphere, awesome!

-The tech tree is beautiful and impressive as expected

-The game is pretty stable (so far)

-Fast-paced gameplay with enough depth but accessible and no overwhelming micromanagement

-The new Hissho race! They seem to be a mix between Japanese and Aztec cultures and birds of prey (raptors hehe) looks. And the name I guess comes from the Japanese必勝 (hisshou) meaning “a sure/certain victory”, these dudes are easily my new favorite race.



Some things I think should be improved/changed starting with the most important ones and also some suggestions. Some of these improvements have been suggested already, but I have my opinion on what's would be the best way to implement them:



1. System defense. I read several posts already about this issue, this is a very important part of the gameplay. Currently the enemy during his turn can arrive to a system you have a fleet in and if he has some move points left to ride another string to another star system completely avoiding your ships. This could lead to an indefinite game of cat and mouse which cannot be won by the player with slower ships. This has to be changed. If you have a fleet in a system you should be presented a choice upon the arrival of an enemy fleet, do you want to attack the fleet that has just arrived or do nothing and wait for their action. And I say a choice cause I’ve seen several people suggesting the battle to start automatically, I do not agree with that. You might be outnumbered and you might not want to engage the incoming fleet.



2. The camera movement during battles. It seems a little chaotic jumping from ship to ship all the time so it would be nice to have the possibility to change between several preset camera positions. I read somewhere it’s in the devs’ to-do list I just want to underline the importance of having this feature.



3. Hiring Heroes belonging to different races. I'm still not completely sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. I'm leaning towards the latter though. Say I'm on a conquest to wipe out the UE from the face of the universe and the best stats-wise Hero currently available for hire is a human. That's just not right. I would propose something, not sure if it would be welcomed well though. Now you know currently there are no minor races planned, maybe for the expansion but we are not there yet. This is fine, but what if we have just a bunch of Heroes from such minor races? Just some hero portraits would be enough, no serious racial background and lore needed. You would still have variety, in choosing Heroes from your own race and several others that are not from one of the other 7 major races. Having seen the art Amplitude's artists are capable of creating, a few small portraits of heroes from some fictional minor races wouldn't be a problem. Heroes are mercenaries, a bio and a portrait and there you go, a new Hero. No need for detailed racial background so they could be easily introduced in the Endless Space universe. Besides since we are going to be able to create our own custom races having a number of heroes looking differently would be great as it would be easier to associate a custom race with some of them. If this idea doesn't sound good, at the very least I think Heroes from our own race should be much more common at the Academy and we should get Heroes from other races for hire just occasionally.



4. And just a note here, I’ve seen some people complain that when you send a ship to a star system you can't stop it half way through and get it to return, i.e. it has to reach the star system you initially sent it to and then get back. Well this is how it is supposed to work, if you could turn it around while it's still on the string connecting two star systems than that is something that could be abused pretty badly. Since there are no battles on strings being able to move your fleet forward and backwards on the strings would be a terrible exploit in that you can keep a fleet or 10 fleets there for as long as you like and they would be untouchable. Even if just one change direction command was allowed it would still be pretty annoying as you would never know if a fleet coming to your system is actually going to arrive or it will turn back in the last second. So please don't change this particular part of the ship traveling mechanics.



5. Race-specific tech. The tech tree is huge but there are only five unique techs per race in it. This is something that should be looked into in the future. Diversity is a good thing, the more unique the gameplay with each race the better.



6. Beam weapons effects. These should look like beams as right now they look more like projectile type weapons.



7. I know you guys have some cinematics prepared, it would be great to have them as soon as possible in the game. These are probably low on the priority list right now but I hope we get to see them in the Beta.



8. And another suggestion, Hissho Hero bio contest!



Finally check what yours truly found, the blog of one of the devs containing some pretty nice and not yet shown Sophon concept images and other awesome stuff. Kryssalian designed this race so be sure to check out his blog here: http://kryssalian.blogspot.com/



At the end of this wall of text I also wanted to mention that along with the usual communication it is great to see the devs posting at the Alpha Support section, this comes to show support is not left aside and bugs and issues are really getting fixed.



To everybody from Amplitude, enjoy this well deserved success, and once again thank you for making this game! Endless Space is on the right path to becoming the best 4x game ever and I can't wait to witness that in the upcoming months.



Oh and I almost forgot, I just noticed that the cute gas mask icon has made it to the tech tree, yeah! I was hoping to see it there, if it is Corinne's doing, kudos to her!

Raptor gets a +1 for deducing the Hissho name



Welcome back!

Me seeing cookies coming his way.

Slowhands wrote:
Raptor gets a +1 for deducing the Hissho name



Welcome back!

Sharidann wrote:
Me seeing cookies coming his way.

Slowhands wrote:
Raptor gets a +1 for deducing the Hissho name



Welcome back!

woohoo it's good to be back

Gotta agree with most of what is said by Raptor.



As a "person who came with the steam exodus", im glad to see a game such as this get the rewards it clearly deserves. It is in fantastic shape for an Alpha!

I remember bringing the hissho name up when they was first revealed nobody gave me a +1 lol only kidding though don't care :P



Welcome back raptor. Didn't feel quite the same without seeing you posting

MT4K wrote:
I remember bringing the hissho name up when they was first revealed nobody gave me a +1 lol only kidding though don't care :P



Welcome back raptor. Didn't feel quite the same without seeing you posting

Don't worry mate, we split cookies in half

Hey, welcome back. I'll read a wall of text posted by yourself anytime

MT4K wrote:
I remember bringing the hissho name up when they was first revealed nobody gave me a +1 lol only kidding though don't care :P



Welcome back raptor. Didn't feel quite the same without seeing you posting

+1 for MT4K! Maybe even a +2!



Sorry about that, I didn't catch your post in the deluge... My bad.

Deluge, what deluge ?

Slowhands wrote:
+1 for MT4K! Maybe even a +2!



Sorry about that, I didn't catch your post in the deluge... My bad.

Ello, ello, ello... what have we here?



Scroll down on that (beautiful) blog - Vaisseau concept art? What's a Vaisseau? Seems to be an un-announced race...



Unless I've missed something.



Vaisseau by the way means 'a blood vessel' - since we're on the subject of names.

yay now i feel special lol.



Also i forgot to mention in my previous reply - Good find with the blog cool images there.

Woah, what a pretty blog!... Thanks for the link! We haven't met before, but welcome back! Gotta say, liked your thoughts. Glad to see I'm not the only one who got an Aztec vibe as well as a Japanese feel from the Hissho; their ships remind me of Coatl... That wear kabuto. Good times. Anyway, enjoy yer cookie!

Yeah Raptor is back !

With one huge thread, as usual

Thanks for link !

Nice to see again all of you guys, also I didn't have the opportunity to welcome the new recruits but it's great to see them active in the forums. Cheers!