that is a whole crap ton to read i think im going blind already 
but before i continue on. would like to point out that ships can be replaced in the station... though not very fast. and as such at this moment agree that its not a viable way to increase your fleet.
also agree that any victory that comes with the loss of a ship or wing of fighters is phyric and as such more of a loss than a victory.
so did a pretty quick glossing over the rest after the first post to just get the jist of the posts. (most of it i cant comment on as i dont know exactly where alex is going to take the game) but i can say is i would not expect the zoom level to become like supreme commander. alex has stated that it can greatly slow down the system if he makes it much larger, and as such likely will not be getting any larger than it is now.
also this was my third attempt at the mission ever. and my first victory with it.
Yes I noticed that, but the rate is very slow and doesn't always shave the ship you want. Say I want Wasp Squadrons, they're pretty rare and very hard to obtain aside from attacking the Tri-Tachyon fleets. I like their stuff, but I don't like having to make enemies with them to obtain their stuff.
Also, while death should be more than a slap on the wrist, winning shouldn't be a kick in the teeth either, nor should losing be 'Game Over'.
The zoom levels can be obtained by switching out the higher quality images for smaller more compressed ones at certain visions. That's what team fortress does and it works fine when they're working right.
Of course you only see the second version when players are really far away, to the point where the even with anti-aliasing you's see hardly any difference. Also with surpreme commander zoom out far enough and they simply turn into easily recognizable icons.
Yes, I realize it's not actually impossible that I have a problem with is that the control over the ship I have is so little that I feel that I'm not so much controlling it as aiming it. Sometimes I wonder if auto-pilot would win battles for me more often.
Case in pointI feel that this is a problem that needs to be resolved, human players shouldn't feel inferior to the computer. The main problem is while the AI sucks at things like grand tactics it's great at combat, which currently is what the game really comes down too.
Here's my feedback:
I didn't read 95% of your post because you seem to have lost the forest for all your trees.
Do you really think the developers don't realise the first public engine demonstration doesn't have a constant difficulty curve, or that the system runs out of ships or any of the 100 other obvious limitations you highlighted?
Perhaps there's another explanation.
Three months ago there was no campaign whatsoever. The current build is an alpha -- most of the core features of the game are yet to be implemented, and there's a billion things on the TODO list to get the game "finished".
In the mean time, you should look up learning to code Java, then head on over to the Modding section and try implementing some of your ideas yourself. That's much more convincing that expecting others to do all the hard work behind your brilliant ideas.
Developers aren't perfect, they make mistakes. They can't catch anything, nor can they think of all the wonderful possibilities that everyone else can. I enjoy the game, a lot. This isn't a bash on the game, which you act like it is. I realize this is an alpha, hence why I suggest stuff be added
now rather than when it's already
released. I know there's things like todo lists, but that doesn't mean that there's no better alternatives or features that the developers didn't think of. There sure as hell are suggestions on this forum that I never would have thought of. If the developers didn't think this forum would provide useful ideas than they wouldn't have it.
And no, don't tell me to go code that's not my job. You confuse a Game Designer for a Game Programmer, which are two different fields of study
From wikipedia:
Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as well as documentation that describes such a design. Game design requires artistic and technical competence as well as writing skills.
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer, who works on game design.
While I'm certainly not Starfarer's game designer, my suggestions are more akin to the work a game designer would do than a game programmer so please don't give that response.
Read your posts and really like your ideas... But a lot of it is way to soon, the game is in alpha, not a demo, not even a beta. There is a lot of content and features yet to be added. Hopefully Alex will read your post and get some ideas for that content and features, but I'm pretty sure he realizes the "problems" with the alpha at this point.
Anyway, great ideas, I hope to see a lot of it implemented.
As I explained, the developers might not be aware of any bug or balance issue in the game, otherwise why bother with playtesting? Same goes for ideas and suggestions, they can't possibly think of every great feature that could be put in Starfarer.
Few thigns from your whats wrong with the game part of your post (first page)
As long as you dont have a brawler (or mauler.... or whatver it is) the start of the game is not that hard (at least for me) i can in a lasher easily take on 2-3 frigates and win. Perhaps this is because i am well practiced i dont know.
I have played through to large fleet stage (capital ships) without ever using a save load other then when i quit the game itself. Just to see how it is, you end up picking your fights alot more and being very proactive about telling your ships to retreat, it is very doable to not just save before every battle and then reload if something goes wrong... yes sometimes you come out behind but you can still build up a fleet its just not as easy.
Lastly this alpha build we are in 1 system with tons of features missing... that fleet you have there would take a fair bit of fuel to move between systems i am guessing. Also it completely overshoots the limits to fleet size and what not, sure there is no penalty now to that but there will be so why not try and stay within that to get a more acurate gameplay sense?
Edit: I beat forlorn hope my first attempt with a decent score i fealt it was fairly easy and i killed almost every ship (cant remember if any retreated and if so how many so want say i killed every ship)
The start of the game isn't so much 'hard' as it is slow, progression is very hard to get and very easy to lose.
If you happen to lose your fleet you're might as well make a new save as your replacement ship will be made of cardboard and fire peas at enemy ships. As pointed out by a previous poster simply losing one ship makes the 'victory' more of a loss than anything. By the way I know how to play easily, I still use my lasher I started with, however since the ship is random the game gets harder or easier depending on your starting ship.
Problem is that at that stage of the game it becomes
incredibly easy,
the only point I save and reload is to get the result I want (IE I want to be able to board the biggest ship and not the ten talons they have as escort).I realize it's an alpha and not feature complete, that doesn't mean I cannot put forth ideas that I believe could improve the game. In fact some of my ideas are already tied into existing but unimplemented mechanics such as the player's leveling.
