Hello everyone



I could really not believe that there is a game such Endless Space. It's my long dead dream of playing my favorite Strategy game MOO2 updated with new concepts and graphics of the last 15 years. I must say i enjoyed very much playing it and i hail the dev team for their efforts and ideas. Also a thanks to the game community that is behind this.



Since i like very much the idea of the Dev team to hear what gamers have to say i wanted to put in my list of few things that could be better according to my opinion.





Production leaders

If you start a game with a production leader it makes a huge amount of difference in your economy. I was so lucky to get with the United empire a second planet in my home system and i colonized a second system and started with 2 production leaders. I pushed the production and food bonus to a point where i could expand by building so many colony ships that i could expand in any direction at alarming rate.



The same thing cannot be done without production leaders, making them too powerful.



I would consider to limit the lvl cap of heroes or bind them with technology. Pretty much like the old MOO2 did where you had to wait until later to get good heroes.





System Patrol

Every fleet should by default intercept any other fleet





Ship defenses

After some point there is no point in building defensive module as the offensive overpower totally the defensive module. It would be nice to have a choice to either make defensive ships or offensive ships. As for now the best choice is to invest in Beam and Kinetics as they will destroy enemy ships before they launch missiles





Missiles

Missiles are very strong in the beginning but then become near to useless as battles will end likely at mid first round or faster. A possible solution would be to fire the missile at round beginning.





Autobuild

It would be nice to have a generic autobuild feature without a specific focus. Also it would be nice that you can set by default if it goes for science or dust when it finished it's autobuild list.





Moons

Optical sign that a moon is explored





Anomalies

When a anomlie is giving a negative bonus then it should be something like red. If it has been removed or is giving a bonus it should be green or something.





Planetary defenses

There should be something like space stations and planetary defense. It would add a depth and a needed advantage in defense for smaller nations.





Fleets

there should be a visual sign that a fleet has already move or has still full movement points. Something like a ship is green and it scales to red when it has emptied it's movement points.





Fleets 2

Sometimes it's difficult to tell if a ship is heading in a direction or it is going in the opposite direction. It would be nice to have a more understandable front and rear of ships.





Fleets 3

When the techs are researched you do not need to move anymore trough lanes or wormholes and it is fine. But it's difficult to understand how far you can go and where you can actually cut.





Fleet Management

As for now to merge 1 fleet in to a other while having 3 or more fleets you have to use control key to do so. It would be nice to just mouse click.





Fleet Upgrade

While you guys have one of the best ways to upgrade old ships to the new designs it would be nice to have a single option to upgrade them all at once, instead of doing it fleet wise.





Diplomacy timing

As for now researching diplomacy techs to just be able to do basic diplomacy stuff seems odd. There is much more important research to be done in other fields. So diplomacy will only happen in mid to late game.





Terraforming

While it's very nice to have the possibility to terraform, i feel that there is no need to do that as for now. Having the first food techs and leaders you do not need to terraform at all. Wanting to maximize production it's better to terraform in to lava and barren planets to get out the most of science and production.





Trade

Should be possible to trade with your own planets but it should be balanced out with other source of money.





Trade with other races

As for now it's a bit difficult as the priority of the AI to decide if it should be hostile or not are pretty much in side of hostility.



As for now these are the points i find out that need some improvement.



Thanks again for your work and effort!

Francesco

You seem to raise some new and good suggestions there, but some of the suggestions are reposts as well, you could help more if you'd look for your suggestions here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13096-updated-summary-of-suggestions-ideas



And if you don't find your idea there than either make a thread and post the link in the following thread, or if it is something small post it directly here:

/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion



I agree on the anomalies part, that would be handy. Also use yellow for anomalies that have both bonuses and maluses and green for good anomalies.



As for terraforming, the system should be overhauled but it's not that simple in the game, taking it out completely would be definitely bad.

thanks, it's a big help to get directed exactly where i need!



I agree that terraforming should be overhauled, not abbandoned.



I will keep a eye for all the micromanagement issues to reduce the micromanagement effort and improve strategic choices.

Francech wrote:
thanks, it's a big help to get directed exactly where i need!

No problem, we are all here to make the game better and helping members is another way of contributing

Some good points here, and I haven't been here long enough to know where else some of this has been posted, Buut I wanted to comment on this point because I think it's especially important:

Francech wrote:


Trade with other races

As for now it's a bit difficult as the priority of the AI to decide if it should be hostile or not are pretty much in side of hostility.

This game is different from most other 4x games I've played, in that you have to go a few steps into one of the research trees before you can even start talking to a newly discovered faction about trade, or treaties.



If you're on a small or medium galaxy map and happen to run into another faction in the first stages of the game, there is just no way to start relations. You can easily run into a territorial clash before anything else like trade has a chance to soften or build the relationship.



It would change how the current tech tree works, but I think this game needs to give the player at least a first-level ability to trade or negotiate treaties, right from the start at First Contact. It takes too long to get trade and other diplomatic relations going, even if it's just a holding action until you're ready for a full-scale territorial conflict.



As a temporary solution, you could try playing on larger galaxy maps where you might not run into other factions so quickly, and you can spend time moving into those trade techs you'll need when you finally meet someone.

System Patrol

Every fleet should by default intercept any other fleet

From what I see some people think it should be default, others prefer having to enable it manually.



I think that choosing to battle or not is a important decision. What about asking the player each time a non-friendly fleet passes by whether he wants to attack or not. Or would that be to annoying in the length? Personally I don't think so since the choice can have a significant consequences.