So this is my second run at this game. Enjoying it. I've got about 15 colonies. So, I don't -actually- know if the game was originally intended to be played the way I'm playing it. Regardless, I would like to offer some suggestions/feedback.
As of now, I think Pirates are too strong against Factions, and too weak against the player in the later game. And are so numerous they are a chore (may be a side-effect of 15 colonies, so IDK about the last one). They're involved in a terrible cycle. Pirates ruin faction econ. Player econ. supersedes Faction econ. Factions that have no fleets to defend their own econ. somehow summon up magic death fleets to attack player econ. And regardless of the outcome the Pirates will just ruin the Faction econ. again, resulting in the same. With what seems like 4/5 Factions constantly incapable of defending their Economy this leaves the player at the helm of juggling multiple Expedition fleets regardless of reputation with said Faction, and the Pirates, and the Pathers.
There needs to be a way to put the breaks on this. One idea may be a Pirate "Boss". It could be a Pirate King, Pirate Alliance, or any sort of Pirate Big Thing. Maybe raids get more frequent leading up to the it, and then you gotta go deal with it or maybe it comes to you. And if you kill the Pirate Big Thing, there is such a huge power vacuum left by the loss of it that the Pirates are scrambling over each other for 365 days of beautiful Pirate free existence for the player and Factions. If the player can't deal with the Pirate Big Thing, then it can disappear via message that the Factions decided to put aside their differences to go deal with it, and same outcome. Or you can have the factions -actually send- death fleets. Then at the end of the 365 days another cycle of doom starts up till the next Pirate Big Thing.
Regardless of if that idea is solid or not, Factions shouldn't be able to get pushed over so easily by Pirates. With exception to the Sindrian Diktat, whom routinely set an example of the Pirates in their system, I've encounter Space Stations overwhelmed or under repair consistently due to Pirate Armada spam in all other factions. I feel like that should literally never happen. These are big players in the sector that have carved out huge swaths of territory under the logical assumption that they can -defend- said territory. The vast majority of Factions already have Domain era Relays and Sensor Arrays, and I don't think its a stretch that theses Factions could have some Domain Era Defense Systems or Space Stations that attributed to the current entrenched of Core Systems territory. Or everybody could just take after the Diktat and start have legit defense fleets. Maybe they appear only when the stations come under attack.
And in addition to Factions being able to defend their territory, they should have a tighter hold on the Economy. I agree that a newcomer into a Market can absolutely upset it, but in terms of game play the consequences and gains of the player being able to do so easy (and early) are too powerful. I think the major culprit here is that Markets are unrealistically small. We've got Markets that don't even total the cost of a single Cruiser, and there are -fleets- of them flying around. If the Markets were larger, the base share of each holder would be larger, and thus the player would have to actually work to upset a Market leader through additional output on Industry through Pop. gain (and maybe some additional upgrades to buildings later?
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I do also think Expeditions should take into account player Reputation. As it stands, I consistently -lose 5 Reputation- when I challenge so-called "unauthorized" Expeditions, which the game highlights that I WILL NOT LOSE REPUTATION for blowing out of hyperspace. But maybe that should be the base for how Expeditions show up, and then if a player has "Friendly" rep. the Expedition fleet could be a Mercenary or Bounty Hunter fleet instead aligned with the Pirates the same way that there are some Pirate aligned Scavenger fleets, that way the player actually doesn't lose rep for being Friendly with one of the big 5 Faction, but loses a little rep. if they weren't Friendly prior to the Expedition. And if the player is Cooperative at bare minimum the timer to allow another fleet -should be increased drastically-. I would argue that Cooperative rep. should -eliminate- Expeditions, so that the player has hope of actually outgrowing the need to babysit their Colonies and has time do explore the game more.
Finally some minor gripes about Colony structures. I absolutely think that a level 9 & 10 Colony should award additional Industry slots. If not one a piece. As it stands, I've modified my game to go 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. The moment I hit Pop. 7 at a vanilla Colony I thought "Welp, that is it. That is a max colony." Because that is the truth. There is no further improvement after Pop. 7 except for output, and you're talking to a guy with 13 Colonies settled prior to one Colony reaching 8 Pop. So output doesn't really interest me. As a player I liked the idea of building up a mega-10 pop. Colony, but in practice, a Pop. 7 Colony -is- a max Colony. I don't see how it is a balance concern, as by the time I reached Pop. 8 I was flying around in a Paragon/Astral/Onslaughtx2/Legionx3 max Officer fleet. So if a player has invested enough time for a Pop. 9 or 10, they've effectively beaten the game long prior to them reaching that Pop. milestone. So the extra slots would really be something to both look forward to, and they are not gonna "break" anything that isn't already beaten.
I would also love to see some more structure options. Maybe Tech Mining could be upgraded to mine through ruins at a better high quality drop rate, but doing so decreases the remaining time before the Camp decays to almost no finds. Maybe structures that increase the duration of Pather disruption like a Counter-Pather Network, or Rep. structures like a Church of Ludd for +1 Rep. per Month with said faction. A Hegemony/Persean/Sindrian Embassy or Tri-Tachyon Corporate Retreat equivalent. Or maybe a chance to grain rep per month. They could produce/cost a few resources associated with that faction through diplomatic gifts. Specialized Mining would be nice, so if you have multiple resources you can dedicate one Mining Industry to that resources at the cost of producing general amounts of each on a planet. Waystation could become Orbital Control to add Sensor Range. Maybe like +50.
Great game, again. Thanks for reading. Look forward to the next version.
