Bugs and Suggestions
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 4:52 pm
First, these are not crash bugs (I sent a direct email and save-file for one of those I found).
Bugs:
It seems if a ship refit is queued (after a prior project; mine said 9 days to do it), but when it reaches the queue (particularly if the queue is delayed due to resources being unavailable) the refit time when it actually starts jumps up to the full ship construction time (71 days).
Also, the "Use materials from Earth" check box on shipyards value is not saved between game loads (they all reset to "allow" each time loaded).
Game Balance Suggestion:
For Heavy Fusion Reactor Farms, which get so numerous later in the game (when you need so many Battlestations), I suggest reducing the Noble Metals monthly cost to 0.8 (from 1; a 20% reduction) since Noble Metals are much rarer and lesser in amounts than normal metals. This would help reduce some resource starvation.
UI Irritation:
The game pause/unpause mechanic can cause an irritating event. In particular if I try to pause the game manually just as an event pops up, instead it unpauses the game instead (which can lead to enemy fleets bombarding before you react to them).
My suggestion is to make the "pause" and "unpause" keybinds separate. If they are both "Spacebar" then it would toggle (as it does now), but for those experiencing this issue they we could change "unpause" to something like "Alt-Spacebar" so we don't accidentally unpause when we want to pause.
UI Improvements:
For the Combat UI - Fleet control, it would be nice if some controls (such as the Posture controls) lit up (or changed the circle border color) when that mode has been activated for all ships. Sort of a fleet status. Similarly the "Retract/Extend Radiators" could do the same, or show/hide as they do for the individual ships. If the fleet is mixed, the buttons could show in their normal default state.
For the Fleet List, it would be nice if it could filter the list by area and faction like the Habs list does. Presently it is a massive list to find that one fleet in. For fleets in transit, they could be included in the filter by their destination. (So you could find all Alien fleets orbiting Mars and transiting to Mars, for example).
It would also be nice if the fleet list was sorted alphabetically. Right now it seems random and re-arranges every different time I look at it.
This one I know is more uncertain, but for fleets that have just finished a combat, it would be nice if we could "queue" a transfer (or land) order to take effect once they are available. Having to catch that the fleet is available again to order it to base to refuel (and/or repair) has led a great many times to the UI Irritation described above. It doesn't need to start the transfer right away, but this way doesn't have to be manually caught a few game-hours later.
Game Oddity:
I have found an oddity with refueling ships. The refueling time is based upon the size of the fleet and its fuel needs (which seems logical), but if I manually split the fleet and refuel them individually it is far faster (since they all get done in parallel then). Conversely a large fleet kept together results in some really long refueling times by comparison. Perhaps a hab (or shipyard module) could have a "refueling capacity/rate" so that many ships individually are slower/queued, but the fleet combined might be a bit faster.
Technology Idea:
As a military technology, an idea would be to "Rapid Mobilization" or some such that reduced deployment time to a region by 25% (or so). It would just seem a nice thing, especially later as large areas where you have to go through many regions even in your own mega-nation can take a really long time (think reaching Novobirisk from Poland).
Thank you for your time. These above not withstanding, it is a very enjoyable game.
Bugs:
It seems if a ship refit is queued (after a prior project; mine said 9 days to do it), but when it reaches the queue (particularly if the queue is delayed due to resources being unavailable) the refit time when it actually starts jumps up to the full ship construction time (71 days).
Also, the "Use materials from Earth" check box on shipyards value is not saved between game loads (they all reset to "allow" each time loaded).
Game Balance Suggestion:
For Heavy Fusion Reactor Farms, which get so numerous later in the game (when you need so many Battlestations), I suggest reducing the Noble Metals monthly cost to 0.8 (from 1; a 20% reduction) since Noble Metals are much rarer and lesser in amounts than normal metals. This would help reduce some resource starvation.
UI Irritation:
The game pause/unpause mechanic can cause an irritating event. In particular if I try to pause the game manually just as an event pops up, instead it unpauses the game instead (which can lead to enemy fleets bombarding before you react to them).
My suggestion is to make the "pause" and "unpause" keybinds separate. If they are both "Spacebar" then it would toggle (as it does now), but for those experiencing this issue they we could change "unpause" to something like "Alt-Spacebar" so we don't accidentally unpause when we want to pause.
UI Improvements:
For the Combat UI - Fleet control, it would be nice if some controls (such as the Posture controls) lit up (or changed the circle border color) when that mode has been activated for all ships. Sort of a fleet status. Similarly the "Retract/Extend Radiators" could do the same, or show/hide as they do for the individual ships. If the fleet is mixed, the buttons could show in their normal default state.
For the Fleet List, it would be nice if it could filter the list by area and faction like the Habs list does. Presently it is a massive list to find that one fleet in. For fleets in transit, they could be included in the filter by their destination. (So you could find all Alien fleets orbiting Mars and transiting to Mars, for example).
It would also be nice if the fleet list was sorted alphabetically. Right now it seems random and re-arranges every different time I look at it.
This one I know is more uncertain, but for fleets that have just finished a combat, it would be nice if we could "queue" a transfer (or land) order to take effect once they are available. Having to catch that the fleet is available again to order it to base to refuel (and/or repair) has led a great many times to the UI Irritation described above. It doesn't need to start the transfer right away, but this way doesn't have to be manually caught a few game-hours later.
Game Oddity:
I have found an oddity with refueling ships. The refueling time is based upon the size of the fleet and its fuel needs (which seems logical), but if I manually split the fleet and refuel them individually it is far faster (since they all get done in parallel then). Conversely a large fleet kept together results in some really long refueling times by comparison. Perhaps a hab (or shipyard module) could have a "refueling capacity/rate" so that many ships individually are slower/queued, but the fleet combined might be a bit faster.
Technology Idea:
As a military technology, an idea would be to "Rapid Mobilization" or some such that reduced deployment time to a region by 25% (or so). It would just seem a nice thing, especially later as large areas where you have to go through many regions even in your own mega-nation can take a really long time (think reaching Novobirisk from Poland).
Thank you for your time. These above not withstanding, it is a very enjoyable game.