Hi all. I played the game a bit and it's time to share some thoughts



If you don't understand something, please tell me and I'll try to explain it better, english is not my main language.



I feel this game has a lot of potential to be a fun and new alternative to other 4x games, and honestly I was expecting something worse from an alpha version made by indies, it definitely surprised me. I won't spend too many words to say good job to the devs, since it's so obvious, instead I'm gonna focus on suggestions.



First general suggestion to the devs: don't be afraid to copy other games where they excel. User experience should come before uniqueness, and if you have played some good games, you should be able to replicate good stuff and empower your game concept.



Then, speaking about the UI:

there's not enough data displayed. Too much information is bad for user experience and I like the essentiality of this UI, but this interface is lacking information, or at least ease of access to it.

A good criteria would be that if I need some data often, then it shouldn't be deep in the interface tree. Same for stuff that deeply influence the game.

I read some people pointing out that the galaxy view is lacking some status icons near the stars and the fleets, I agree. I read also a lot of other stuff that would be smart to do, but I think it's not a good idea to enumerate them.

Here's my personal list of stuff I didn't see covered before, at least not in the same way:



* The top left bar

The top left bar need more data, especially the income, something I should being able to check every turn without clicking to open some other view. Research should be more readable, maybe you should use the tech icon, take more space for the name, and move the number of turns near the tech name or icon from the research button it's located now (nice to see, but it's better if it stays near the rest of related data).



* The "invasion bar", invasion and combat mechanics

It took a lot to understand what is that colored bar under system name, and it still isn't clear to me how the invasion mechanics work. At least combat was similar to galciv, so I wasn't completely lost when I had to design ships. I don't have a real suggestion here, but I think an effort is needed to give new players a way to understand how combat and invasion works from the beginning... to make the right decision you need information, and I feel the tutorial is not enough. I felt blind and I had to rely on my knowledge of other games to guess how this game worked.



* Ships stats should be visible during combat

Both player and opponent data should be visible during manual combat, I can see that stuff before and after the combat, why I can't see anything during it, to better decide what action card I should use?



* Event log

I should be able to check the events, at least the stuff happened in the last turn. notifications are good, but an auto-dismiss and a logger to check them would be better imho. If you are going to do this, you should eliminate the system build summary and treat each finished build as a single event to notify (there's no sense in opening the log and then opening the summary and then finally opening the system, when you can cut a step)



* Stats screen

Some people complain about not being able to understand what the enemies are doing and how to prevent AI victories. My suggestion is to copy other games (two big examples: civ, galciv), and making a stat/victory screen to check when the player feel the need to understand how is doing and how his opponents are doing. Points are not enough. Also, I still don't know what are the victory conditions in this game, this screen would be a good place to write the details.



* We need damn hot keys!!!

Really, it's really frustrating surviving without at least Esc or F10 to open the main menu... It's good that Enter ends the turn, but some hotkeys for the various tabs are needed. usually the function keys. Also a key to automove the selected unit to the already set destination would be welcome (I suggest M), especially if you implement the stuff in the next point. I hate using the mouse for everything. Also, don't forget to insert the hotkey in the tooltip!



* Fleet Cycling

This is something a lot of games do, some way to cycle through units in the map, to be sure not to miss anything. Pressing TAB or N to cycle through fleets, and if you want to do it well, at least an option to skip the turn with the selected unit, and another to guard indefinitely the system, they would be welcome. (not sure if I explained it in a clear way, but I think any civ player knows what I'm talking about)



* A clock, to remind us of the real world

This is not really game related but welcome... we all know the "just one more turn syndrome", this is a way to fight its side effects, like being constantly late at appointments or not realizing it's 4am and you were supposed to wake up at 7.





Not directly related to the UI but still an usability issue:



* Save names

The autosave name should include the turn number, possibly even the faction played.

Related but not as important: the default savegame names are too generic, because if I'm playing more than a game with the same faction, the names will match... This issue is debatable, but I'd like to see something like "Game 121 - United Empire - Turn 109", or no default name at all, so I can write something like "sophos3 turn51" as i'm forced to do now anyway because otherwise i get confused.





And here's some thoughts related to other aspects of the game, I'd like to see some other player opinions about them:



* Star map tech

This is something issue-related: in my second game I had this problem, I couldn't get to the other half of the galaxy because I couldn't see any stars, while seeing cravers going back and forth and even attacking me, their stars were just too far to be seen and so I just couldn't explore.

Maybe I should have waited until I had some late-game tech to increase my range, but I just quitted and started a new game...

Or maybe it's a map generation bug, should I post it in tech support?

Anyway, besides the obvious "let me move my ship where i want" complaint I've already seen around, I thought: why the hell I shouldn't know where the stars are, I can terraform planets and I don't know the coordinates of a star? GalCiv authors probably thought about it when they put techs to chart stars and planets in the minimap



* Heroes: career separation

I don't know what other players think and play, but I usually want all starting heroes to be administrators to boost production. later I may put them to combat, but it's rare and usually I pick the 4th or 5th hero to act as fleet admiral. I feel that being able to produce more ships is something worth more than having a bonus in combat. Maybe I'm wrong, I still have to play and experiment more with heroes, but that's the feeling.

Anyway, the kind of change I propose is a big one, and shouldn't be implemented now. Save it for a 2.0 version or something like that. I think you should separate the civilian and military career. Administrators and Admirals should be two different categories of characters doing different stuff. The only reasonable exception being a military character assigned to a newly conquered planet or an unhappy planet to avoid some kind of insurrection, if you want something blurry.



* Politics

This is a big topic. I think you should implement some kind of political choices, elections, and stuff like that. The sci-fi version of the U.N. is also one of the things everyone would like to see. That's big stuff for later on big releases too.

I'd like to see something like the civics in civ4, or even better the social engineering in alpha centauri, mixed with some good ideas from galciv, namingly parties, elections and alignement. Also something interesting was in the total war series, with characters assignable to specific roles. All this stuff doesn't mix well so you have to invent something new, something that allows to make decision about the kind of political order inside a faction, something that comes from the game situation (unhappiness, losing or winning a war, economy, and other stuff that can influence elections/revolutions) and optionally stuff that involves characters. Some people proposed faction leaders with traits, that's something related too, especially if you manage to insert characters into politics.

But maybe it's too much, just add something simple and should be enough



* Trade, war and peace

I still don't get how trade works. The stuff I said about combat and invasion apply here too. What I see thou is that it doesn't have enough impact on the economy. If I can trade with other factions then I get an economic advantage... when I'm at war I need to conquer other planets (maybe we need loot too) to fill the economic gap. At the moment it seems too easy to get a flourishing economy and a big military power with little trade and no wars.

Trade should be a big chunk of the economy and war should be something that rewards me economically, so I can sustain the military and infrastructural upkeep without relying on trade only.

Also I still haven't seen what happens when I'm without dust. I remember seeing a negative number but no side effects...



I hope this is useful, since I spent a lot of time writing it :P

I suppose you have some useful things in there, the problem is that it's a lot to read and a lot of the suggestions are already made somewhere. So the devs can't really always read through such big feedback threads.



You could help a lot better if you'd first look if your suggestion is already in the list in this thread: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13096-updated-summary-of-suggestions-ideas



If you have a suggestion that isn't there, post your suggestion either in this thread: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion or make a new thread for it and post the link in the thread mentioned before.