I have played ES for about 15 hours, done 2 partial play-throughs and two full games all on normal difficulty. From the experience I made a list of things that I feel would improve ES. I will try and avoid what other people have said in other threads that I am aware of, anything I mention here are just my primary concerns. I realise this is Alpha and the Devs may already have plans for what I will suggest but here goes...off the top of my head...



Game set-up:

-Allow us to pick research speed and build speed as separate options

-Allow us to name our empire

-Allow us to pick a flag...why not give us a choice of the 3 faction flags from the ones you designed for the "g2g votes"? 3 warring factions of the same descent are unlikely to share a flag...



Galaxy UI:

-Thematic UI depending on what race you play

-Galaxy map icon toggles: allow us to pick what is shown/not shown over our planets. I would love to have my science and production shown over my planets instead of the luxuries etc (civ 5 does this very well)

-Fleet Icons as they are right now I find hard to click and not very smooth to use. Maybe make the fleet button a bit bigger? In maximum zoom perhaps they could become flag icons like in a war room?

-More of an Empire Overview along the top, total research points produced etc. The scrunched up panel we have now is very basic and too small to be useful at a glance!

-Finished constructions: either allow us to insert a build directly on the popup list or at least make it easy to build on all of them another way. Currently its a massive clickfest on that button for me because I have to re-open it every time.



Other UI:

-Fleet battles, please let us use a free camera! Empire at war had a very nice camera system where you have the option to free move or watch cinematic view. ( I know battle camera is being updated, just want to reinforce this importance)

-Please add a combat log to the battle so we know a bit more of what is going on!

-Research 1) Expanded and easier to read tech descriptions, as it stands right now you don't know what the tech will actually do and there is no background info on the line of tech to cross-reference. You have to zoom all the way to read anything useful - colour coding the techs according to its improvements/classification would help as well.

2) add a "sheet" view so we can compare the various different levels of techs easily, the spiral matrix thingy is pretty but it makes comparing and finding things a headache...which also bring me to my request for a search function in the techs...quite a few times I was looking for something to make this planet habitable or something to increase my income etc and I had to click every icon that looked like it might help and read its brief description

-When terrraforming, some indicator as to what will change relative to the current planet

-Remove improvements from build list if they have no applicable use in a particular system (living habitats and endothermic structures are two examples)



General Gameplay

-We need some kind of warp jammer/scrambler. Enemy ships run around your empire and we have no way to slow them down or stop them. Not only can ships pass through systems with a defending fleet but we have no long range system to disrupt their speed. Please allow us to slow enemy ships in our territory and force enemy ships to stop once intercepted in a system! This was probably the most annoying aspect of the game to me right now.

-Saved build ques, i generally build a variation of a couple buildings on new planets...being able load them on each system would be handy

-Option to continue playing after a player has achieved victory "Just one more turn..."

-Please remove requirement of strategic materials for basic things like a tech 1 missile, instead they could provide a bonus to build time/cost or effectiveness of the module/ship/weapon etc.

-More modules please! Far too basic at the moment, add different types of each category of weapons...high RoF, accuracy - these kinds of modifiers can be expanded on for the different versions of a weapon type!

-Why not allow us to mount different versions of each weapon ie short range lasers, long range cannons etc. That way combat will become more dynamic and it also adds a layer of depth to ship design.

-Make dust required, Iplayed a test game and set my tax to 0...not much negatives other than cant use specials and buy things. Fleets didn't disband and buildings were not scrapped...bug or unfinished I hope.



I am out of time for now, I will edit this post when I get home later, I hope the devs will comment on my constructive criticisms!



Overall I love the game!



Cheers,

The AI ships running around your star systems is definitely not cool, especially when you can't do the same to theirs. Not only that, but they can enter your colonies without declaring war, which I didn't think was supposed to be possible. But I assume this is just one of the quirks that comes with Alpha and wasn't really intended.

Xervitus wrote:
I have played ES for about 10 hours, done 2 partial play-throughs and two full games all on normal difficulty. From the experience I made a list of things that I feel would improve ES. I will try and avoid what other people have said in other threads that I am aware of, anything I mention here are just my primary concerns. I realise this is Alpha and the Devs may already have plans for what I will suggest but here goes...off th etop pf my head...



Game set-up:

-Allow us to pick research speed and build speed as separate options

-Allow us to name our empire, possibly pick a flag...why not include all 3 faction flags from the ones you designed for the "g2g votes"? 3 warring factions of the same descent are unlikely to share a flag...



Galaxy UI:

-Thematic UI depending on what race you play

-Galaxy map icon toggles: allow us to pick what is shown/not shown over our planets. I would love to have my science and production shown over my planets instead of the luxuries etc (civ 5 does this very well)

-Fleet Icons as they are right now I find hard to click and not very smooth to use. Maybe make the fleet button a bit bigger? In maximum zoom perhaps they could become flag icons like in a war room?

-More of an Empire Overview along the top, total research points produced etc. The scrunched up panel we have now is very basic and too small to be useful at a glance!



Other UI:

-Fleet battles, please let us use a free camera! Empire at war had a very nice camera system where you have the option to free move or watch cinematic view. Also please add a combat log to the battle so we know a bit more of what is going on!

-Research 1) Expanded and easier to read tech descriptions, as it stands right now you don't know what the tech will actually do and there is no background info on the line of tech to cross-reference. 2) add a "sheet" view so we can compare the various different levels of techs easily, the spiral matrix thingy is pretty but it makes comparing and finding things a headache...which also bring me to my request for a search function in the techs...quite a few times I was looking for something to make this planet habitable or something to increase my income etc and I had to click every icon that looked like it might help and read its brief description (which even after I was occasionally not sure if it would help, lol)



General Gameplay

-We need some kind of warp jammer/scrambler. Enemy ships run around your empire and we have no way to slow them down or stop them. Not only can ships pass through systems with a defending fleet but we have no long range system to disrupt their speed. Please allow us to slow enemy ships in our territory and force enemy ships to stop once intercepted in a system! This was probably the most annoying aspect of the game to me right now.



I am out of time for now, I will edit this post when I get home later, I hope the devs will comment on my constructive criticisms!



Overall I love the game!



Cheers,

I agree with your points. About the free camera, well, I have nothing against it and a cinematic view will be great for ES.

The combat log idea, is very good.

It's needed an expanded description for techs, indeed. I don't know what to say about the search option, though.



About the ships passing through our fleets/empire, I also think it's something not intended to happen.







Regards,



Erethrian

I know the Devs are overloaded at the moment and the threads are going crazy with bugs/suggestions but...hope we can get some more feedback on what they are thinking/considering sometime.

A free camera for battle (like Empire at War) would be absolutely awesome. Or at least have it zoom in on a ship when its getting destroyed. Thats the most exciting part of the battles and too often the camera is looking at something else when it happens.