First I have to say that I am very impressed by the amount of polish on this Alpha release. I recently had a bad experience with a released space 4X game that was terribly buggy and unfinished to the point of being unplayable. This experience has been pleasantly the opposite. Glad to see a company willing to take the time to finish a game. Now for my feedback so far.





Settings and Setup:

1. Resolution and Graphics

On the first run of Endless Space I was greeted with 1024x768 and the lowest graphics settings. As such this was the first impression. I would suggest a better and even safer graphics setting for first launch would be to default to the Desktop resolution, we know that one works! The game isn't a graphics hog, I would suggest defaulting to a medium setting, or reading the Window's Experience Index, to base a setting off of. Why doesn't anything read that? I was told that's what the Index was for. Anyway, definitely recommend using the desktop resolution for the default. Makes a better first impression.



2. Frame-Rate Cap

I play these games on a laptop with a medium powered ATI 5730 chip. Most of my games run at 20-45fps, as such I have Wait for Vertical Refresh, turned off not to clip my FPS at an lower fraction. I have seen Endless Space experience a lot of tearing as it blows way over 60fps. Another issue is actually more important to me from a good design stand-point and laptop engineering one. On simpler menu screens, the fan starts to race hard! I realize that this is because the simple graphics load is causing the FPS to race well over 200 and thus causing the CPU and GPU to ironically churn much harder. All this extra effort (and heat and battery use) is to no point however. I would love a setting to have the Frame Rate Capped to a certain number, either a slider with 60, 30, 20, or a number. Other strategy games have had such a setting, I know I used to always hunt down the cap in Civ4 and Civ5 hidden in the .INI file. This would just be a good bit of elegant programming and would allow the game to run much longer on batteries.



Game Play:

1. Rock-Paper-Scissors, AKA Kinetic-Beam-Missile

I do like the play between having the right weapon defended by the right armor. I just am disliking the extreme that Endless Space is taking it too. As the game currently is, the only way to design your ships is to be specifically designed to counter the chosen enemy. If the enemy is using Kinetic weapons, put only Kinetic armor on forgoing all others as there is no point in wasting the tonnage. Same with weapons, only choose the weapons that his ships have no armor for. That is that. No other strategy or play makes any sense or has any pay off. I fine it dumb that I can have a ship with literally 5 meters of Kinetic armor and that armor is completely useless against a bottle-rocket or a laser pen! Come on. I like the specialized armor, but it needs to not be so extreme!

I would suggest that say Kinetic armor is only 1/3 as effective against Beam or Missile (same idea for other types). This would prevent the massively tanked ship being taken out by pea-shooters of other weapon types.

Changing this methodology actually opens up much more design choices and research options! Instead of the armors being one thing only they would all have rating on the three categories: Kinetic/Beam/Missile. Such that Armor 'A' may have a rating of 14/4/10 and Armor 'B' might have a rating of 4/18/6. This would make more sense to me. Ships would still be specialize or generalist but not to the crazy amount now.

If we take the idea further we would change the weapon types, from Kinetic-Beam-Missile, to Kinetic-Energy-Explosive. An Ion torpedo may now have a rating of 0/10/4 on Kinetic/Energy/Explosive, and so on and so forth. Many of the weapon descriptions sound like they cross damage types.

Just my two cents on the game play choices so far.



Bugs:

Combat Pop-Up: Sometimes the Combat Pop-Up comes up and refuses to respond to clicks, this happens several times a play session. It's like the mouse just isn't registering on that GUI plane.

Fleets: Some times a fleet will refuse to be selected, or when selected refuse to go to a certain system. It's odd, more ignoring clicks it seems.

Fleets: If combat occurs while transitioning through a system, the fleet gets stuck and can not be selected or moved. (yes, this is already known)

"I do like the play between having the right weapon defended by the right armor."



I agree with the things you said, but that.



I cannot stand that, its limits the weapons and defences into compleate weapons and counters and i feel as if it is a really poor system to put into a 4X game.

I agree with the point you made with weapons and armors.

Wyvern76 wrote:
Game Play:

1. Rock-Paper-Scissors, AKA Kinetic-Beam-Missile

I do like the play between having the right weapon defended by the right armor. I just am disliking the extreme that Endless Space is taking it too. As the game currently is, the only way to design your ships is to be specifically designed to counter the chosen enemy. If the enemy is using Kinetic weapons, put only Kinetic armor on forgoing all others as there is no point in wasting the tonnage. Same with weapons, only choose the weapons that his ships have no armor for. That is that. No other strategy or play makes any sense or has any pay off. I fine it dumb that I can have a ship with literally 5 meters of Kinetic armor and that armor is completely useless against a bottle-rocket or a laser pen! Come on. I like the specialized armor, but it needs to not be so extreme!

I would suggest that say Kinetic armor is only 1/3 as effective against Beam or Missile (same idea for other types). This would prevent the massively tanked ship being taken out by pea-shooters of other weapon types.



Changing this methodology actually opens up much more design choices and research options! Instead of the armors being one thing only they would all have rating on the three categories: Kinetic/Beam/Missile. Such that Armor 'A' may have a rating of 14/4/10 and Armor 'B' might have a rating of 4/18/6. This would make more sense to me. Ships would still be specialize or generalist but not to the crazy amount now.



If we take the idea further we would change the weapon types, from Kinetic-Beam-Missile, to Kinetic-Energy-Explosive. An Ion torpedo may now have a rating of 0/10/4 on Kinetic/Energy/Explosive, and so on and so forth. Many of the weapon descriptions sound like they cross damage types.

I think a better way to say it is:



Random chance is fine for tactical battles (the card system), but making strategic level games a matter of chance (is he going missiles? Beams?) seems like a weaker decisions, and much more frustrating. If it's intended to force a user to scout his potential opponents, and respond to their decisions, then an interface needs to be provided to do that. A way of tracking 'known' weapon types, defenses, etc etc that enemy ships are using -- and a way to get that information that can't be blocked by 'oh, the ships in his choke-point are type A, but the rest of his fleet are type B...' (were type A might be beams with deflection, and type B is missiles with shields to counter YOUR beams).



The question also becomes a matter of mechanics -- how does defense stack up against offense in each category -- something that none of the tutorials covered (I think; maybe I missed a few...?)

RonLugge wrote:
I think a better way to say it is:



Random chance is fine for tactical battles (the card system), but making strategic level games a matter of chance (is he going missiles? Beams?) seems like a weaker decisions, and much more frustrating. If it's intended to force a user to scout his potential opponents, and respond to their decisions, then an interface needs to be provided to do that. A way of tracking 'known' weapon types, defenses, etc etc that enemy ships are using -- and a way to get that information that can't be blocked by 'oh, the ships in his choke-point are type A, but the rest of his fleet are type B...' (were type A might be beams with deflection, and type B is missiles with shields to counter YOUR beams).



The question also becomes a matter of mechanics -- how does defense stack up against offense in each category -- something that none of the tutorials covered (I think; maybe I missed a few...?)

So yeah its rock paper scissors, When it should be more about the actual design of your ships in terms of weapons, HP and Defences.



Not Weapon ABC, HP and Defence ABC.

Wyvern76 wrote:




Game Play:

1. Rock-Paper-Scissors, AKA Kinetic-Beam-Missile

I do like the play between having the right weapon defended by the right armor. I just am disliking the extreme that Endless Space is taking it too. As the game currently is, the only way to design your ships is to be specifically designed to counter the chosen enemy. If the enemy is using Kinetic weapons, put only Kinetic armor on forgoing all others as there is no point in wasting the tonnage. Same with weapons, only choose the weapons that his ships have no armor for. That is that. No other strategy or play makes any sense or has any pay off. I fine it dumb that I can have a ship with literally 5 meters of Kinetic armor and that armor is completely useless against a bottle-rocket or a laser pen! Come on. I like the specialized armor, but it needs to not be so extreme!

I would suggest that say Kinetic armor is only 1/3 as effective against Beam or Missile (same idea for other types). This would prevent the massively tanked ship being taken out by pea-shooters of other weapon types.

Changing this methodology actually opens up much more design choices and research options! Instead of the armors being one thing only they would all have rating on the three categories: Kinetic/Beam/Missile. Such that Armor 'A' may have a rating of 14/4/10 and Armor 'B' might have a rating of 4/18/6. This would make more sense to me. Ships would still be specialize or generalist but not to the crazy amount now.

If we take the idea further we would change the weapon types, from Kinetic-Beam-Missile, to Kinetic-Energy-Explosive. An Ion torpedo may now have a rating of 0/10/4 on Kinetic/Energy/Explosive, and so on and so forth. Many of the weapon descriptions sound like they cross damage types.

Just my two cents on the game play choices so far.

I hadn't actually even thought of this until now, but I agree that this makes far more sense than the current system in place.

I you reall want to open it up, dont make defences specilised at all!



Armour should be a basic for of protection but the most abundant

Shields should be like armour but it recharges between phases



and Flak? well should be an actual weapon against missiles instead of just you know, some kind of stopper as i dont think you actually can see it.



this way it becomes more like a true 4X game!

I like the idea, though it does tend to encourage de-specialization. You either want no missiles, or heavy missiles, because just a few missiles will tend to get swatted by enemy flak.

Specilisation would give you more advanced weapon types that could give you the edge over current defence technologys.

Bleh. I meant it tended to discourage de-specialization. But your right, the tech tree already 'helps' with that issue.

hello,



i've been playing a number of games and really enjoyed the game so far .. figured it was time for some feedback. Some issues might have been mentioned or just a 'feature' of the alpha release (there's quite a bit to read) but here goes, hope this is the right place



Some issues:

- i was not able to travel to a certain system at some points in several games. I figured later it was probably because it was within the radius of influence of some AI 's system (which i could not see yet)

would be nice to have some sort of indicator.

- sometimes i was not able to select manual/auto on a battle screen. It just seemed to flicker and when the time had expired, it resolved it automatically

- it doesnt seem possible to alter the research order without having to line up a number of techs from scratch

- victory conditions (i disabled all but supremacy) dont seem to work (yet). after about some 200+ turns some empire always won an economic victory



some suggestions:

I'd like to

- be able to scratch a colony. (too close ot AI, didnt want to needlessly piss him off)

- see if a moon has been explored, or is in the construction queue (maybe just with some icon on the system screen, a question mark.. the industry/production icon

- see in the system screen if 'planet specialization' is in the queue , like the moon exploration , with some icon, so i dont have to cycle through all my systems at some point.

(i liked playing with many systems)

- similarly, some icon which allows me to see in the system / planet overview if there is a possibility to improve an anomly, without having to actually go to the planet.

- ways to drag/drop items in the production queue, to rearrange the order. (so i dont have to clean the queue and start from scratch)

- simply have a prod. queue produce dust or science automatically, when not constructing anything.

- a way to speed up manual battles.

- a way to cycle through fleets i might want to move (and maybe a fortify/sentry order for the ones i'd like to guard a planet?)

- see a bit more clearly what a surplus of food actually does, in terms of growth. (if it's +70, why go to +100..)

- keep playing after someone won a victory. (nice if AI1 won an economic victory, i still want to kick his *ss and experiment around a bit with some features)



cheers

Please take a look at the suggestions thread linked in my sig. Almost all of these points are being discussed there. Also, there are some known bugs which we hope will be fixed in the next release.

A billion times over YES on the queue re-arranging.

Ditto on the moon info on screens instead of cycling through each planet one... by... one...

gourensm wrote:
hello,



some suggestions:

I'd like to

- see if a moon has been explored, or is in the construction queue (maybe just with some icon on the system screen, a question mark.. the industry/production icon

- see in the system screen if 'planet specialization' is in the queue , like the moon exploration , with some icon, so i dont have to cycle through all my systems at some point.

(i liked playing with many systems)

- similarly, some icon which allows me to see in the system / planet overview if there is a possibility to improve an anomly, without having to actually go to the planet.

- ways to drag/drop items in the production queue, to rearrange the order. (so i dont have to clean the queue and start from scratch)

- simply have a prod. queue produce dust or science automatically, when not constructing anything.

- a way to speed up manual battles.

- a way to cycle through fleets i might want to move (and maybe a fortify/sentry order for the ones i'd like to guard a planet?)

- see a bit more clearly what a surplus of food actually does, in terms of growth. (if it's +70, why go to +100..)

- keep playing after someone won a victory. (nice if AI1 won an economic victory, i still want to kick his *ss and experiment around a bit with some features)



cheers

Wyvern76 wrote:
Settings and Setup:

1. Resolution and Graphics

On the first run of Endless Space I was greeted with 1024x768 and the lowest graphics settings.

2. Frame-Rate Cap

I play these games on a laptop with a medium powered ATI 5730 chip. Most of my games run at 20-45fps, as such I have Wait for Vertical Refresh, turned off not to clip my FPS at an lower fraction. I have seen Endless Space experience a lot of tearing as it blows way over 60fps. Another issue is actually more important to me from a good design stand-point and laptop engineering one. On simpler menu screens, the fan starts to race hard! I realize that this is because the simple graphics load is causing the FPS to race well over 200 and thus causing the CPU and GPU to ironically churn much harder. All this extra effort (and heat and battery use) is to no point however. I would love a setting to have the Frame Rate Capped to a certain number, either a slider with 60, 30, 20, or a number. Other strategy games have had such a setting, I know I used to always hunt down the cap in Civ4 and Civ5 hidden in the .INI file. This would just be a good bit of elegant programming and would allow the game to run much longer on batteries.

I really really want the Frame Rate cap, all the other game play stuff, is really just suggestion and opinion.