1. Absolutely agree. Although it needs to stay desirable it is laughably better than the 1 science per pop and giving massive amounts of science early on.



2. Was saying this during beta, heroes are too powerful. The administrator is fantastic for starting off new systems at level 3 and above, and is still great later on because of the percentage production increase. The Corporate hero could do with a buff I think.

The biggest issue is a levelled fleet hero is too powerful you can forget about strategy because there becomes no way to counter someone who has got a significant hero lead. That's not fun.



3. Made this point during beta also and it was suggested to me to wait for release, unfortunately the problem still exists. It is not fun to either have a fleet that is invulnerable to your enemy or to have the opposite. In the recent update they talked about in combat healing being nerfed, this is the right direction. I believe they need to seriously consider changing defensive modules to be percentage damage reduction or at least a proportion of the effect. It feels like ship hp is very unimportant, you either overwhelm your enemies defences and they die or your weapons just bounce off defences forever.

Tigga wrote:
You have MFGs well before turn 50, especially if you have that much population. Turn 25-30 seems much more realistic. Normal speed, of course.



What do you class as "a lot"? Are you using an unbalanced custom faction? I rarely find a lot of systems that can actually support 20+ population in the early game, let alone am able to settle them all and grow them all.

I feel like 3-4 10+ pop systems turn 50 is "a lot" I also usually have a 10+ total systems at that point. I don't feel like finding 3-4 systems with 4 5+ pop planets that you can readily settle is a problem if your strategy DEPENDS on it and drives for it. For instance, I will often skip destroyers on the way to Cashmir because the extra planet type and the +2 fleet speed > new ship type very early (If I am alone in the center, offense is pointless). Ergo, I usually pick up the +40 science ability when it takes 2-4 turns of research. If I'm playing a hide in my constellation strategy and be unassailable, then I beeline for it. But that also means I am colonizing the "1-2 planet systems in the backfield early as opposed to going to the strategic high pop targets. This makes that ability critical.



As for races, I have been experimenting with custom factions a lot recently, but the tactics involved can be easily executed with most of the base races.

1. I was unaware people go straight for this! Yea i also think it needs to be hacked down.



2. I feel it would be better for other heroes to increase in strength (And for their cost to increase because i forget to use them lol.)



3.I agree, personally id rather see wars decided by the battle cards and then have technology be a gradual improvement for success. And the balancing for them is very bi-polar.

Nodor wrote:
#1)A fixed +40 is frequently less than the +2/Person in the level 1 tech for me by the time I research this technology. It's a nice addition, but I will have a lot of systems with 20+ people by turn 50. It's a very nice piece of technology for 1-2 planet systems or for systems where taking multiple planets is prohibitive.

You have MFGs well before turn 50, especially if you have that much population. Turn 25-30 seems much more realistic. Normal speed, of course.



What do you class as "a lot"? Are you using an unbalanced custom faction? I rarely find a lot of systems that can actually support 20+ population in the early game, let alone am able to settle them all and grow them all.

Velaux wrote:
The T1 building is 1 per pop, and even if it was 2, if you're getting the +40 building at 20 pop systems you're doing it very wrong.

Using Fleet Errant to drop 8-10 people on a planet on turn 30ish means I have close to 20 people in a system by turn 50. Since this strategy requires being first to the middle, you have to get Cashmir/Warp from the bottom tree and food from the left tree before going deep enough into the science tree to get the +40.



Doing it differntly I can see.. not so sure on the wrong part.

Tigga wrote:
The way this game works it's more like riflemen not being able to hurt tanks. Maybe even infantry. Not even able to put a dent in one of them. Actually... so much so that the tank often ends the battle with more health than it started.



A difference of one tier all round should give an advantage, but you be able should be able to do 20-25% total HP damage on an even fleet cap. Two tiers should perhaps do ~5% damage. Three tiers and unkillable is fine.

I bet I can kill any theoretical fleet you can come up with, with 3 tiers less tech. It would have to be a highly specialised fleet, designed solely to kill yours, but that's fine at such a tech disadvantage.

Velaux wrote:


3) Don't agree. Civ's infamous axeman beating a tank is the opposite of how games should work.

The way this game works it's more like riflemen not being able to hurt tanks. Maybe even infantry. Not even able to put a dent in one of them. Actually... so much so that the tank often ends the battle with more health than it started.



A difference of one tier all round should give an advantage, but you be able should be able to do 20-25% total HP damage on an even fleet cap. Two tiers should perhaps do ~5% damage. Three tiers and unkillable is fine.

The T1 building is 1 per pop, and even if it was 2, if you're getting the +40 building at 20 pop systems you're doing it very wrong.

#1)A fixed +40 is frequently less than the +2/Person in the level 1 tech for me by the time I research this technology. It's a nice addition, but I will have a lot of systems with 20+ people by turn 50. It's a very nice piece of technology for 1-2 planet systems or for systems where taking multiple planets is prohibitive.



#2) Heroes are powerful. In fact, they are powerful enough that you need to be able to alter your strategy to capitalize on them. This is a good thing, as it forces a random element and prevents custom race designs from always winning. A hisshio or craver will play very differently without a pilot or commander. The sophons or sowers without corporate or administration heroes have an interesting game ahead of them.



#3) This is the inverse of the destroyer spam argument. Arguably, military tech is the hardest to research in the game. Good designs for ships are hard. The issue at hand is "how do you counter the enemy" - not necessarily "how do you counter 1 fleet". With the ability to fly around foes (and spacelanes) tactical thinking should be able to counter the AI or a couple of good heroes. I have also never found that 1 tech level was "enough different" to stop a foe. Lower tech levels, plus fewer command points, plus weaker hulls, plus less production means that you lost the FIDS race a LONG time ago - and your loss is inevitable. A large volume of destroyers can take down dreadnaughts with basic missles/lasers.

1) Yes, absolutely.

2) Well they obviously want Heros to be very powerful, so...just how it is. It's neither right nor wrong.

3) Don't agree. Civ's infamous axeman beating a tank is the opposite of how games should work.

I couldnt agree more to what Tigga has said.



In addition, some of the science in late game takes a massive amount of time to get through each one. It feels like you can get sceince on most techs to 1 turn early game, then late game they rise to 5-10 turns.

1. I agree, although this nerf will make everybody angry that it slows down the game. I always beeline this tech.



2. I don't agree about the admin hero. The problem is that the *other* heroes do not have a corresponding strong early game ability. We could nerf the admin hero a little, but the goal should be to buff the others. See my mod and the related threads pointed there:



/#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15699-obsolete-corporate-hero-buff

/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11210-discussion-pilots-and-admirals-hero-classes-assignment

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9149-the-25-industry-hero-bonus-is-too-good.





3. It may be that weapon balance should be tweaked, but this needs to be studied carefully. For example, high tier flak is already useless because low tier flak is just as effective, while still smaller and cheaper. The whole point of tech is that a high tech fleet *should be* unkillable.