Bigger is always better concerning a Space 4x game.



The main reason why I played a little around with this game, was very fascinated and then stopped playing it, was the combat system.

The biggest problem of a space strategy game is that you do not have combat strategy influences like hills, rivers, fortresses... so fighing most of the time will not be as interesting as in games with swords or tanks.

In this game fighting seems not intersting at all to me. I read about the philosphy that it should be mainly a strategy game and not a game about space fights.

But fighting is neccessary, so it should be intersting, or better said, the whole filed of combat should be more intersting.

That is what makles 4x-games so much better then all the other games. I do not want to play sth. like Home World or Sins of... where fighting is 90 % the focus of the game, but a 4x game needs a good fourth x.

More types of enemies (Space monsters, more interesting pirates, nomadics, harriers,...), defended systems with good planets, missions, little neutrals, interesting options to defend systems (alarm buoys, sensors, mines, Moonbases with rockets, local effects like nebulas or asteroid fields...) and earlier possiblities to design ships. At the moment the possibilities to design sth. interesting are not very high, the values of the tonnage are to close, newer systems are always much much better then old systems, you can not really combine interesting things.

The rock-paper-scissors -system is TOO clear: If I have the wrong setup I clearly loose. At the moment I try to scout my enemies design, try do design sth. against this design, and when I am ready my enemy already changed his design against my design... I can not say that I really like this cycle in the meaning of fun, but it is close to Eclipse, but there you always know all other players designs and you have chances to hit other ships even with the standard canon.

At the moment I am not sure if I should prefer Endless space or Civ 4 BTS Final Frontier.

Considering the fact that most comments are related to battle enhancements, I mite be out of context here however I feel that there is a flaw when it comes to colonization.

Some planets are inhabitable to begin with depending on its conditions, unless you are able to unlock the tech tree upgrades...so, why not introduce the moons at that point?

Moons can be habitable too, for ex: a moon can be arid, tundra, etc. Showing if a moon is habitable can add an interesting touch, moreover be more realistic.

(Haven't read the whole thread, only the first page);



Personally I'd like to see more varied battle formations depending on conditions of the engagement in the star system.

It seems that the expansion will be around combat (after all those posts). Although i want some major changes in combat, i dont want see other elements skipped like espionage and diplomacy. The Devs are getting more and more busy

I would suggest a lot of expansiosn in the next 5 years... The devs should concentrate on improving components step by step, quality forward quantity because the game is already a solid construct. I think I would buy them all because the lack of alternatives...

I would love to see the inclusion of Minor Races much like the City-States of Civ5.



Especially due to the (very interesting and fun) cold war feature, this game feels more hostile than other 4x games.

The inclusion of Minor Races that do not expand beyond their own system would be very welcome - and familiar to players of Civ5.

Not sure if it has been said, but I would really prefer it if star system upgrades that do not apply to anything in the system weren't listed, such as Living Habitats in a system without asteroids or gas giants. Or all the moon upgrades in a system with no moons.

Better yet, grey them out and then you can throw in the upgrades that require a certain planet type; unless you terraform to get that planet type, you can't build the tech.

Like most people, I'd like to see more in-depth battles.

Preferably, giving more of a feeling of actually being in control of the battle.

I'd love to see more artwork in the game... like the art for the load screens, for instance. It's all quite beautiful, and I think the game would improve greatly if there were more instances of seeing such art. Maybe in diplomacy/research trees? Or system upgrades could have a little piece of artwork that is associated with the description text?

First off i'd like to congratulate the Amplitude guys on a great game. For me it's close behind MoO2 as the second best 4X space strategy game i've played - and i've played pretty much all of 'em.



In terms of suggestions i'd echo several of those already made:



a) Fighters

b) Bombers

c) ship to ship boarding - including the old favourite 'assault shuttles'

d) System defences - but don't go overboard like MoO2 did.

e) ground battles

f) unique buildings that can only be built once



Alot of players here lament the lack of control over space battles. I do agree they could use a little more user interaction. But overall i have to stress i love the quick, streamlined sit-back-and-enjoy approach and think you should stick with it. My suggestions all relate to space combat:



a) I'd love to see more detail in the way ships are damaged. MoO2 had a great system - where damage would be applied to the ships Hull>Structure>Systems in that order. The drive could be damaged slowing the ship, the shield generator destroyed and bits blown off. In fact, I'd LOVE to see bits blown off ships generally!

b) When a ship is destroyed I wish their graphical demise was determined by the weapon they were destroyed by. Further to that, I wish the larger ships would slowly break up rather than just disappearing in a flash of explosion.

c) When opposing fleets close to melee range, they never really seem to get much closer! I wish we could see them fly right by each other at point-blank range - think Return of the Jedi with the Star Destroyers and Rebel cruisers scraping right by each other blasting away!

d) I'm not a big fan of the Battlestar Galactica camera action - i'd love an option to fix the camera to a 3D iso perspective.



Thanks for a great game!



BTW - MoO2 = Master of Orion 2!

I have to admit that I've been throwing around a bit of an idea in my head, how to, well, improve the dinky little 1 planet systems you get (Unless it's a Huge Jungle with Garden of Eden.)



Admittedly, it involves starbases.



Virtually, and only rough idea so far, but I was thinking something along these lines.



1. To be pretty expensive. You're building something the size of a planet, after all.

2. To provide minimal FIDS. (+1 of each per pop?)

3. To provide boosts to fleets and invasion defense in the system.

4. For 1 planet system, able to build Huge, for 2 planet, Large, 3 planet, Medium, 4 planet, Small, 5 planet, Tiny. 6 planet, unable to build, since the system's already full.



If there's any interest, I'll share some of my thoughts, but yeah, it's more a way to make invasions more interesting, and to make smaller systems suck less.



And hopefully this won't get shoved into a expansion pack add on, but if a system's reached it's current population cap, can you make the population number show up as a light yellow or something, so we know?

I think some of this has come up already, but one thing that was lacking for me in ES was any concept of planetary improvement - what I mean by this is once you pick a planets improvement, everything after that is really at a system level.



I'd prefer to see something like GalCivII where you have colony improvements similar to this:







Of course I am not suggesting you just copy this But I think going ahead, providing more specialisations per planet, rather than per-system would keep us micro-managers happy.

tanepiper wrote:
I think some of this has come up already, but one thing that was lacking for me in ES was any concept of planetary improvement - what I mean by this is once you pick a planets improvement, everything after that is really at a system level.



I'd prefer to see something like GalCivII where you have colony improvements similar to this:







Of course I am not suggesting you just copy this But I think going ahead, providing more specialisations per planet, rather than per-system would keep us micro-managers happy.

Micro-management per system is already quite the hassle, let alone more per planet.

That's actually one thing I really like about ES, you don't have to micromanage every single planet you colonize. There's just enough micromanagement with individual systems to be fun, but keep it from being overbearing and annoying to deal with every turn.

Jos wrote:
First off i'd like to congratulate the Amplitude guys on a great game. For me it's close behind MoO2 as the second best 4X space strategy game i've played - and i've played pretty much all of 'em.



In terms of suggestions i'd echo several of those already made:



a) Fighters

b) Bombers

c) ship to ship boarding - including the old favourite 'assault shuttles'

d) System defences - but don't go overboard like MoO 2 did.

e) ground battles

f) unique buildings that can only be built once



Alot of players here lament the lack of control over space battles. I do agree they could use a little more user interaction. But overall i have to stress i love the quick, streamlined sit-back-and-enjoy approach and think you should stick with it. My suggestions all relate to space combat:



a) I'd love to see more detail in the way ships are damaged. M o O2 had a great system - where damage would be applied to the ships Hull>Structure>Systems in that order. The drive could be damaged slowing the ship, the shield generator destroyed and bits blown off. In fact, I'd LOVE to see bits blown off ships generally!

b) When a ship is destroyed I wish their graphical demise was determined by the weapon they were destroyed by. Further to that, I wish the larger ships would slowly break up rather than just disappearing in a flash of explosion.

c) When opposing fleets close to melee range, they never really seem to get much closer! I wish we could see them fly right by each other at point-blank range - think Return of the Jedi with the Star Destroyers and Rebel cruisers scraping right by each other blasting away!

d) I'm not a big fan of the Battlestar Galactica camera action - i'd love an option to fix the camera to a 3D iso perspective.



Thanks for a great game!



BTW - MoO2 = Master of Orion 2!

I can only sign that.



Except that I'd love to see a modularity on ships. To have a visible change in the appearance of the ship when a certain technology is improved. If I improve the weapon systems, I want to see bigger guns on aiming at those poor basterds on the other side



(When) will you attend to that kind of stuff?



Aside from all that, it's a very cool game already

I'm loving this game. The fact that it's an evolving development effort just makes it even more intriguing. Looking forward to playing the expansions. Good job, devs.

Just don't make the game too complex.. if you make multiplayer games last over 6h because of it, it ain't worth it.

LordN wrote:
Just don't make the game too complex.. if you make multiplayer games last over 6h because of it, it ain't worth it.

You're joking right?



Whats better than playing with friends on one mp round longer than few minutes, I remember times where I played about 2-3 weeks with a friend Civ IV. It was just awesome when we finished the AI and then tried to conquer each over

DoGy wrote:
You're joking right?



Whats better than playing with friends on one mp round longer than few minutes, I remember times where I played about 2-3 weeks with a friend Civ IV. It was just awesome when we finished the AI and then tried to conquer each over

I have to agree. When I played Star Wars:Empire at War with a friend, we would spend days, weeks even on a single match. It was a blast and I love the long, thoughtful games where it takes real strategy.

DeamonStorm wrote:
I have to agree. When I played Star Wars:Empire at War with a friend, we would spend days, weeks even on a single match. It was a blast and I love the long, thoughtful games where it takes real strategy.

Weeks on SW:EAW?



That's commitment.



But the problem is how do the devs balance this? Between people who want 2 hour games and people who want to play till starvation?