Hello,
So I got the game only a couple weeks ago and played it extensively though not reaching endgame.
Might be a bit early for feedback as it is but ...
First I want to say I thoroughly enjoy the game. My first computer was a Mac and of course Escape Velocity was on the menu. Also a fan of science fiction literature.
I might seem to focus on what I think is missing / perfectible in the current game, but this is already a gem of a game to me.
I also only played 0.95a so have no history with what was before.
I say this aloud : this is just all opinions.
- Progression : things are too easy.
I am not writing that in terms of battles but in terms of accessibility of the ships and their prices.
- Bigger and more advanced ships should be exponentially more expensive to really put them out of reach of the player beginning the game. Cruiser at the million or three credits value (and not just 2-4 times the price of a frigate). Capitals at 6-10 milions etc.
It feels weird to accomplish a couple of basic missions and being able to acquire a cruiser size ship already. And considering how easy it is to make money trading / smuggling (should be harder really), this would give more meaning and impact to the progression of the player. Though I get it would just mean more busy work for a while, as it is, it felt too easy.
- Ship accessibility should be more restrictive. By that I mean the availability of military ships to the global market, and even more so for advanced top of the line ships. Military ships of advanced design should only rarely be available on the black market (at an exorbitant price) while open market should not have them (or being locked behind opening a license for them based on reputation + credits in the millions range maybe).
I used the mod that informs where ship / items / officers are available on the market which would work well with a scarcer economy if you had a cost associated with it.
- Officers : the system is great but could be better.
- I wish you could manage more of them once you reach a certain point, having a colony and starbase could mean being able to double your recruitment capacity and have them be useful to you defending the colony. This would allow more flexibility for switching fleets for the player. The number you are able to field at a given time in your fleet would stay the same.
They level pretty fast, with this system they could level slower too.
- Officer personality : well I tried with steady officers and they were useless. So I only recruited aggressive ones from there.
- Interface : perfectible for some stuff.
- Some information is missing (cooldown for ship abilities, range etc.). Also I wish I could see the modified values for weapon ranges etc once you apply mods.
- I found out about the alt key move by random chance, this should be enabled by default in the settings json.
- I keep on not finding where to fire an administrator !
- The map system (tab + q to get on global map) and the task (intel) system is confusing / cumbersome to use. Clicking on a star system in the task (intel) map should switch to the solar system map at least. This gets very annoying over time.
- I still get confused on when to use left / right click to navigate depending if I am on the map or not. Not sure if it's just me being confused or the lack of consistency for what each buttons do on different screens.
- Skills : well the current system is not satisfying but there has been a blog post about it already.
- Being able to switch between 2 sets of skills locked behind some Neural Matrix Personality Storage you could find exploring would be great for when you get a colony and want to go from your Doom to your non phased ship.
- Exploration : Could use some more variety in events and loot (rarer weapons with lowered requirements / some eventual drawbacks). But that is "just" content.
Thank you for the game and can't wait to see what comes next with the new skills and all !
