Initial Beta Impressions

from Sins Forums
Overall quite nice, was very surprised at how stable and smooth the game was playing for a beta, especially on my antiquated system (AMD XP 2500+, Radeon 9800, 1GB Ram) at 1680x1050 on High textures with 4x sampling. It didnt slow down until I started putting out some very large fleets (5-6 cap ships, 12 frigates, X fighters/bombers/missle drones)

Some quirks:

- Camera controls; its weird and unintuitive, in part b/c my fingers have been trained into certain pathways by all the other games out there. I spend way too much time screwing around with the camera to get my viewpoint where I want it.

- Units: - Way too easy to get Mammoth class Capital Ships. I had giant dreadnought/mammoth capital ships deployed long before I even finished the research for the Heavy Frigate.
- Far too easy to upgrade ships; after I upgraded my first seasoned up ship I discovered you can simply buy your way into more abilities. Especially after about 30min, I was just pumping up my fleets to max level with maxed out abilities. In a Battleship on Battleship engagment, my ship ahnnialated a comparable alien ship after I dumped some credits on it; the costs need to be scaled up for leveling up.

- Diplomacy: - AI is very inconcsistent, one minute declaring a cease fire and opening trade then canceling the cease fire without canceling the trade. This ends up with my trade ships being considered hostile while still going to their space and vice versa; my stationary defenses tore their trade fleet apart while they wrecked my trade fleet as well.
- Ceasefire is not the same as alliance, however the voice overs call it this way. There should be a grey ground between friend or foe: neutral.

- You need some kind of indicator showing what other species relations look like ot each other. Currently you only can see your own relations (The Treaties screen of GalCiv2 is perfect example of this). I spent 30min getting cries for help before I realized that two of my allies were at war. In my space.

- UI: Need an easier way to find all ships of a class; after killing a planet I am always searching for my Colony frigates and its a devil to find them when your fleets get big.
5,007 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

- Camera controls; its weird and unintuitive, in part b/c my fingers have been trained into certain pathways by all the other games out there. I spend way too much time screwing around with the camera to get my viewpoint where I want it.


They have stated a couple times that they will be releasing control modifications for the camera.. that way you can edit stuff there.. I think we all agree its a little wonky..


- Units: - Way too easy to get Mammoth class Capital Ships. I had giant dreadnought/mammoth capital ships deployed long before I even finished the research for the Heavy Frigate.


Yeah I agree here.. It seems like capital ships are a dime a dozen.. This is something that will most likely get handled in beta 2.


- Far too easy to upgrade ships; after I upgraded my first seasoned up ship I discovered you can simply buy your way into more abilities. Especially after about 30min, I was just pumping up my fleets to max level with maxed out abilities. In a Battleship on Battleship engagment, my ship ahnnialated a comparable alien ship after I dumped some credits on it; the costs need to be scaled up for leveling up.


Again, I agree.. It seems pretty easy to get really powerful ships very quickly.. this might be fine for some players who want fast power building, but I personally like it to go a lot slower.. I think a capital ship and high end super ships should be faaaarr away.. I hope this gets dealt with in beta 2 but others might disagree..


- Diplomacy: - AI is very inconcsistent, one minute declaring a cease fire and opening trade then canceling the cease fire without canceling the trade. This ends up with my trade ships being considered hostile while still going to their space and vice versa; my stationary defenses tore their trade fleet apart while they wrecked my trade fleet as well.


Again, spot on.. I had one NPC wanting a trade agreement and alliance one minute and then be at war the next.. then swing back a minute later with no change of status or posture on my part.. Probably need to work on this slider a bit..


- You need some kind of indicator showing what other species relations look like ot each other. Currently you only can see your own relations (The Treaties screen of GalCiv2 is perfect example of this). I spent 30min getting cries for help before I realized that two of my allies were at war. In my space.


This would be nice but I can see reasons why it wouldn't happen.. maybe some sort of spy system ala Masters of Orion? I dont know if you should know about X npc at all if you haven't even met them in space.. etc.. but once you are actively engaged I can see why you would have a clue as to what various NPC's posture is towards one another..


- UI: Need an easier way to find all ships of a class; after killing a planet I am always searching for my Colony frigates and its a devil to find them when your fleets get big.


I agree.. mentioned this else where, it would be nice to have a fleet option or some way to seperate a ship from other ships in the list so you have immediate access to it agian.. some sort of hot bar or something..

Good stuff though..
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top


- UI: Need an easier way to find all ships of a class; after killing a planet I am always searching for my Colony frigates and its a devil to find them when your fleets get big.

I agree.. mentioned this else where, it would be nice to have a fleet option or some way to seperate a ship from other ships in the list so you have immediate access to it agian.. some sort of hot bar or something..

Some good comments, a lot of which will be addressed in beta 2. With regards to the quoted issue. All the ships are organized by class in the empire tree to make it easy to find them. Also, you can hold down alt + left click to select all of one type.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Selecting ships, coming out and selecting all then with all the planets minimised in the empire list you can see where ships are and focus on them from there.

Hot key groups, hmmm maybe 1 to 0 with shift for set and Ctrl to add possably being able to set shipyards to fleet #.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Is there a way to dismantle gauss cannons that you don't want anymore? Also the same goes for any building that you might have placed where you don't want it now.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Hot key groups, hmmm maybe 1 to 0 with shift for set and Ctrl to add possably being able to set shipyards to fleet #.


You already can do hotkey grouping. Ctrl+number to set a group, number again to retrieve one.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I wish it was possible to select all ships of one type on the screen by double clicking a ship. It doesn't seem to work...
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I wish it was possible to select all ships of one type on the screen by double clicking a ship. It doesn't seem to work...


agreed
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Is there a way to dismantle gauss cannons that you don't want anymore? Also the same goes for any building that you might have placed where you don't want it now.


Absolutely, although I'm not authorized to tell you just yet Explore the UI and report back to base.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Is there a way to dismantle gauss cannons that you don't want anymore? Also the same goes for any building that you might have placed where you don't want it now.


Absolutely, although I'm authorized to tell you just yet Explore the UI and report back to base.




haha yeah frost told me about the button on the UI... who looks at the UI in a game this pretty? lol...

Ok now answer my clicking on one unit sellects all idea!
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
I wish it was possible to select all ships of one type on the screen by double clicking a ship. It doesn't seem to work...


The double click is reserved for focusing the camera on an object. If you would like to select all ships of a given type (within the gravity well) just hold down alt and click any ship. This works in the Main view and Empire view.

Has anyone been using this already? If not, it's your next mission. Let us know if it feels intuitive.  
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Where's the ALT key?

Haha I will give it a try next game... For a moment I feared it was left out of the game... You know since it has been in EVERY game since DUNE 2.