As a disclaimer, I am really and truly excited about this game, and I love the fact that the devs are so in tuned to what the players are asking for, you don't see that much these days. I also realize that the game is only in its infancy, and will likely be a much different beast by the time it hits gold. These are just some thoughts I've had on it, which in all honesty probably have been said or floating around already, just wanted to throw my two cents out.



First note, I've surprisingly seen very few bugs and glitches since I started playing, which I am very grateful for, it barely even feels like an alpha game.



Secondly, and probably the biggest thing I'd like to see, is more immersive combat. I do enjoy the fact that the game has taken a great many pages from Master of Orion 2, which in my opinion is the best example of a space 4x game that I've ever played. I enjoy the fact that the tech tree, or tech web really, is much more complex and branched out than most games of the genre. What I personally would like to see is more diverse weapons and options for said weapons. In MoO2, there were so many options for weapons, armors, shields, and so on that you could outfit your ships to fight any way you wanted. It wasn't just Lasers, Better Lasers, Even BETTER Lasers. The weapons had individual characteristics. You could go from having fusion beams to researching neutron blasters, but still use both effectively since fusion beams were just more powerful lasers, but neutron blasters went through the shields and armor and just killed the crew so you could capture their ships. Graviton beams couldn't go through shields but could tear apart the structure of the ship, so if you hit them with ion cannons or some other weapon first, then in with the gravitons, it was an effective combo early on. So on and so forth.



The diverse tech in MoO2 is probably the biggest thing I miss from it in newer games of the genre, where the devs, imo, over simplify the tech. I don't want it too complex, but I do like having more tactical options. It made your research and your ship design MUCH more important, and, more importantly, made it feel that much more immersive.



And then there was the fact that you could modify how you mounted the weapons, determining the arc that the weapons could fire, whether they were point defense or heavy mount, continuous beam or bursts, and so on. I felt this added a lot of weight to the tactical depth of the game, as there were so many different ways you could design a good ship. You could set them up for destruction, hit and run, capturing enemy ships, planet destruction, and so on. I very much miss those options.



More immersive ground combat as well, as the current style is rather bland. You put invasion MP bonuses on your ship and then sit in there system and after a few turns, pow! It's yours. Why can't I just scorched earth it and bombard their settlements to nothing? Or destroy their home world? I want to be able to upgrade my troops and send them onto the ground with orbital support from the navy, and on the flipside, I want to be able to put missile batteries, fighter garrisons, and upgraded troops on the planets, as well as orbital defenses of some sort, to fend off the enemy.



On the note of ground combat, I think it would be cool to add some sort of mini-game if you will or similar mechanic for invading systems/planets. Nothing too complex, mind you, but cool and where you get some kind of control how the ground war goes. Even if it was just the same style as the current space battles, but on a planet.



I also think it'd be nice to have more control over the space combat. The current system looks very pretty and is fun to watch, and has some strategy but mostly it's who has the better tech on their ships and picks the right cards. I'd be much more immersed in the game if I had some kind of tactical control of the ships in battle, which would make the victories feel that much better. I recall in MoO2, you could go up against ships with better tech and still win if you used the right strategies. It was hard, granted, but not impossible.



Thirdly, and I assume this is in the process of being worked on anyway, I think the game needs a little better diplomacy options. Obviously, as I've seen on the forums, there needs to be some improvement on the consistency of the AI, or at least some thought pattern behind it. On the one hand, it would be less likely for an ally of many decades of turns to turn traitor and attack, but I do look back into history and that wasn't all that uncommon. Just take a look at Europe throughout most of it's history. One country gets powerful, their neighbors get scared and ally against them. Then, 20 years down the road, one of those allies gets too powerful and everyone turns on them, etc... But it would be nice if each race had different motives that moved their diplomatic actions, to where you actually feel like you're dealing with a real opponent. On side note about diplomacy, I do think it would be cool if there was some sort of internal politics element, which could erupt in civil wars and revolutions etc.. Would again add to the immersion.



Fourthly, I think it'd be nice if the character cap on naming ships/fleets/systems/etc... was a little longer. I don't know about other people, but when I can name my grouped units I like to give them actual unit designations and such, again adding to my personal immersion in the game. It gives the units a sense of persistence and personality, to me anyway, and that's hard to do with 10 characters.



Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject, which most likely have already been said somewhere on the forums, but hey that's how life goes, maybe I got lucky and mentioned something others missed. Love the game and have VERY high hopes for it!

I am not sure if this has been touched on or not, I think the idea for randomly generated missions would be pretty rad. I know EV Nova had something like that (in which you could randomly start a specific story line) and I believe that it could be something very cool in ES. Maybe just lore when scanning moons which could unlock special research tree lines or just give access to a special tech.



As a side note I do know all races have different starting traits but is it possible for each race to get something specific to them in regards to an ability? For instance maybe the cravers could reverse teraphorm jungle planets and turn them into desert plants because they ate everything? Just throwing stuff out there

Excellent feedback. Many of the points you mention are already discussed in the suggestions thread in my sig. Please take a look and add more comments!

Those are actually really great ideas that I think would be great additions to the game. Another bit from MoO2 I'd like to see is custom races. That was one of the coolest features I've ever seen, because it was basically impossible to make an overpowered race since they had such a good system of checks and balances. But yea, I wouldn't mind at all having random unknown tech trees pop up from hidden ancient technology and random missions, would be pretty awesome.

And since we are plugging you should check out my general combat ideas here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11640-5th-tech-tree-military-doctrine