Dear Devs,



First of all, it is a great game, definitely the best 4x (and most likely best tbs) I ever played, and one of the best games for me overall for several years, a true surprise, so thanks to everyone involved. I really appreciate everything what is done already, thanks for your attention to all the little details around the game.

Rummaging in complicated games, learning formulas and thinking about balance as about a system, where several concurrent conditions may lead to heavy consequences sometimes, is my hobby, and I highly estimate your balancing initiative. By writing all this I am just trying to help make ES even better.

I did not get far into ES yet, but I was playing for some time at v. 1.0.9, learning all the stuff and having my part of joy. But I have updated to the latest version recently, looked at the Automatons, glanced at the new traits balance, started new galaxy as I did before and... something was wrong. I could not make even a couple of turns. My (only) planet was on strike, people were dying, Dust was flowing away harshly, and finally I found myself in the main menu, thinking "Balancing is a delicate matter".



Ten minutes of googling gave me this:

Product Update - Valve

RISE OF THE AUTOMATONS (1.0.25)

...

BALANCING

- Changed the upkeep formula (cost 1 per CP --> cost 0.4*CP max per CP).



And here is where the problem lies.

I like to play weak creatures, suffering the severities of space but strong enough in the end to overbear everything with my help, so I take as racial traits:

Black Thumbs -30%: they have poor health and choosy eating habits;

Pessimistic -20: they are unhappy about that.

My race are also Spendthrifts at -30%, so I expect Dust will reduce at start;

But they compensate all the above with numbers: Big Fleets +2 CP, and leave enough trait points for other good things.



Before the patch, when 1 ship cost 1 dust, I was feeling ok with an intense micromanagement, filling the gaps here and there from my very first turn. This set of traits cause the population of 3 to die from starvation at first turn. Nothing wrong here, I got 2 more, it was my choice and I am used to it.

Because of the approval I have to keep my taxes low, resulting in negative Dust per turn. I had few turns in reserve, for evolving soils and scouting for other possible planets, I could build Ind-Dust as a last resort, and thus reach the equilibrium.

But after the new formula was implemented, my ships now cost me 0.4*7=2.8 per each, *2 CP = -6 of +6 total, if to start not on Terran. And -6 of +4 after the 1st turn. This is way too much, and the wrong thing here is that nothing can be done with it. Even if I skyrocket taxation to 100% and build Ind-Dust at the same time, I have only several turns before new starvation will destroy me completely, even with +Food bonuses on starting planet. A realistic space race history we have here: everybody died, end of story.



Big Fleets cost as many as 25 now, which is pretty much already, but if to tie upkeep to max CP in formula, this trait is turning from a virtue to a flaw from economic point of view, in addition to high points cost. The CP upkeep formula, as it is now, may be ok for later parts of game, I have not tried out that well yet, but at the beginning it is a total killer, with little to no choices/chances for a player (where there were some before).



If I add the new shiny Dust Starved (No Dust at Start) trait over top, I will end up around turn 3-4. The game does not allow to make a turn if cash is going to be negative, just as it does when no research is selected - a good foolproof technique playing a bad joke here. It does not allow to scrap a ship going along cosmic string (only out of them, orbiting systems) to cut the expenses this way, and I do not see other options of gaining money at start, considering the planet should build food improvements. If I happen to go along a long cosmic string, the only thing I can do is to exit/load/restart. It may seem that I was lucky to catch a rare coincidence but I think that each of the above problems are worthwhile looking at as themselves.



Brief summary:

- Expenses on ship upkeep should be cut for the beginning phase of the game, either via redesigning the formula, or via some other means, like making the first scout free of charge, for example (I wouldn't want to lose a dilemma "scouting vs. income" though);

- Formula should not stick to max CP if Big Fleets are treated as an advantage (Or at least Big Fleets should be cheaper, but that's another thread on a forum);

- The game should allow ship scrapping not only "out of travel", but at any time (more of a bug, as for me);

- No set of racial traits should cause the game to be ruined without giving reasonable chances to break the situation, just because the player preferred poor choice;

- The game design should not lead to dead ends resolvable by exiting only (not much can be done here cause it's not easy to find such things).



Thanks for reading, hope I'll find something interesting again in future , and sorry for my cluttered English



PS: I play on difficulty something about Serious or Impossible, I find ES pretty difficult at these levels, but not too much. I like a slightly overpowered AI of yours yet

The world is abetter place with he new fleet maintenance, no more 1000 ship armadas from the AI.

I understand that. Maybe giving a little +Dust amount from a Colony Base to counter upkeep of starting ships would solve the issue I am talking about.

possibly.



The idea intrigues me.

Like Ign said, the fleet maintenance formula helps keep AI fleets in check.



But also from a MP standpoint, it also helps discourage super powerful rushing. One can easily research the first +2 CP upgrade, and with big fleets, thats a 9 CP fleet that can be gotten very early in the game. For a peace-loving race, that will ruin your day very fast. Having fleet upkeep be linked to CP max keeps this strategy in check by making it harder to balance the checkbook while waging a rushed war.



Also, late game, a 20+ CP craver fleet with a good pilot on it is near impossible to stop. especially if the player can reinforce with a ton of 1 CP glass cannons with nothing but missles on them. With the new formula, maintaining this is harder for the craver, whereas before it was probably too easy to create an indestructible craver death fleet that had 8 more CP than the best opposition.



Onto your actual dilema, that is quite possibly the worst custom race I can think of. Haha, no offense, and by all means play what makes you happy, just from a strategic efficiency standpoint it's bad. But I don't think that it is unplayable. I played the start of a few games with a race that had blackthumbs, spendthrifts, pessimistic and big fleets and thats it, leaving -42 points to spend (lol). After 10 or so turns, I certainly wasn't doing amazingly well, but I was able to stay afloat without too much trouble. Turn 4 I had to raise taxes for a turn, but then I colonized a planet and the fleet upkeep went down. An event gave me +20 happiness, which helped but wasn't needed. Soon after, I stabalized getting +2 dust per turn and would populate in 8 turns. I certainly wasn't doing well, with no hero, still only 3 pop, and nothing to show for it, but I was alive.



That said, it is certainly true that you should be able to scrap a ship traveling on a cosmic string. That should definately be fixed.



If you still want to play with a race like yours, I would suggest adding a positive anomaly on your homeworld. dust lode would solve your money problems, or rich soil perhaps.

I will feel ok if I edit my race a bit, no problem or offence here, where I'm having fun atm is mixing things up and see what happens. This race of mine has much more disasters they are unlucky indeed If the game tells me this way "stop right now, end your agony before wasting more time, you won't get going", I can live with that, but I think game can tell me that from galaxy creation screen - by disallowing to create such race for example.



What I say is wrong: there is the possibility, using game settings, to put oneself into an unplayable situation, because your initial house of cards collapses under it's own weight. If to compare with civ4(other game with similar approach in balancing, I just know it best of all i guess) you always have Palace, giving you +8 gold, the rule "no upkeep of cities on strike", a little free limit for an army and autodisbanding for the excess. No matter how bad you are doing, you will never get less than +8 gold per turn, which is like nothing in later game, and you are still able to press end of turn button(even without any practical gameplay use). ES now does not let you stay afloat for sure, alike, and that seem as a little of poor design for me.

The reason of such possibility is the fact CP upkeep formula was rebalanced, so I am attracting your attention here, now we have to fix something other to counter. Fixing scrap ship will help here.



The other point of view is a way too big difference in initial development, if one chooses all the possible drawback traits in economy/growth vs all the possible drawback traits in military/ship quality. The latter will come in play and draw heavy consequences later, but will still leave some chances (you still can expand, grow, spawn week masses and pray). But the first one is too underpowered in my opinion, coming in play too early and hindering too much. Playing with trait point cost here does not eliminate the roots of a problem.



I know an ordinary player will never encounter the things I am talking about, I know I am being nerdy, but I do not want to lose the feeling I got from examining all the traits at the first time: "whoaa, they are cool, I want them all!", not like in many other games. I want all of them to be useful in any combination.

I myself once experimented with a race similar to what you described. PYour problems seem to be you cannot have both a scout and a colony ship and remain outside of the negative dust zone. The simple solution to this problem is to use your starting colony ship to boost your current planets population. This could result in starvation, but it allowed me to survive the first few turns on 0 dust with 0 dust income and still have a scout ship

I don't think the devs are finished balancing traits.



In any case, to me it seems that your situation is still playable, if done right. Get the colonizer to colonize something quickly, and if you really can't pay for it retire the scout ship. Be very wary of the upkeep cost of improvements, Xenotourism Agencies for instance is a net money sink on a low population system in low tax conditions, Heavy Isotope Refineries on the other hand will almost always be a positive contribution under industry -> dust conversion.

Doing well with that save atm, yep, it's playable, you just got to know some things beforehand. But trying to avoid this "knowing beforehand" is the reason of this topic here, in Design Discussion.

I already read some strategy guides earlier, anyway, thanks for everyone trying to help me to get out!

Going to participate in trait balancing - I have some ideas already, and hope devs need our participation, traits definitely must be tuned. Maybe I can be of some help.