Starting with the obligatory praise: I've had a good amount of fun the past few days with the new patch, and it's been a while since I've put this much time into SS. Pretty cool.
Saying that, there's stuff I have thoughts on, old and new. I realize a a fair amount, if not all, of this is scattered in feedback in other threads elsewhere, but I find it easier to sort my thoughts this way, and just put it all together.
On with the poorly formatted wall. Whoops.
1) No (apparent) way to influence Deployment Points in combat.
Problem: DP / force deployment is a critical part of winning a fight, and your ability to influence it is minimal at best. Also: How the heck do I take out a huge station with only 100 DP without massive losses?
Potential Solution: Make a Skill increase the amount of DP you get per-fight. Either fold it into an existing Leadership one (Command and Control?), or make a new one for it (but then you'd need extra benefits, I think - JUST DP seems lackluster). Potentially make a flagship-specific Hullmod for it as well?
Goal of Solution: The amount of DP you have per fight seems to be dictated maybe by a comparison between the 2 parties fleets, then the "Battle Size" is split between them. This feels similar to Mount and Blade's "Battle Advantage" stat. Essentially, I'm asking for a "Tactics" skill to permit swinging the "Battle Advantage" in your favor somehow, so you have another way to influence a battle and playstyle.
2) Colonization Market Share pacing is wonky.
Problem(s):
Market Share is easily taken over in a variety of fields by simple production, outpacing Core Worlds' productions with just a few of your own colonies. Or quite easily, just one colony.
Interacting with other faction colonies (to raid them) feels fairly unnecessary overall.
Potential Solution(s):
Change "Free Port" to lessen (say down to 1520%) or outright remove the Accessibility bonus, but increase the Prod & Infrastructure's Benefit more shady characters, more outright production of "illegal" goods and manpower. The lessened Accessibility will slow down your domination of the market, and require you to impair their industries to maintain an edge.
Increasing Core Faction Production or Accessibility somehow would help, as you wouldn't be able to immediately take over the market. Maybe increase the "Proximity to Other Colonies" accessibility benefit, or lower the penalty from hostilies? That way the Core Worlds aren't so debilitated.
Goal of Solutions: Make Market Share Domination require more interactive behavior to attain if you want to make your living with colony management, it's something you'll have to focus on beyond "shove money in, wait." The Stab Hit from Free Port is good asis, as it represents well how inviting a bunch of underworlders could cause troubles.
3) Colony "Expansion"/Growth
Problem: What to build at a colony doesn't require too much thought beyond "can I afford this?". You can otherwise spring up 9 industries in some 30 days, which is odd.
Potential Solution: You have an amount of "workable" Industrial "Tiles" equal to something like ~2+your Colony Size. Make it part of a Skill to increase this by 1? If you have no Workable Tile, you can't produce another Industry. Alternatively, it worsens the output of every Industry, as you strain your population, which could just manifest as an Accessibility penalty.
Notes on this topic: The "base production" of a tile DOES scale with your Colony Size, which does represent how, for example, your Mining Industry grows from a small one to a planetscale one, so I dunno how necessary this really is. What's more, I disagree very much with having a bunch of upgrades for individual tiles that's merely more clicking & having to remember to have to upgrade things until they're max and after playing Stellaris, I don't need that. As it is, every time I install Batteries, Patrol HQ, or Orbital Station I have to remember to go back to upgrade it (or click the prompt when it says it's finished, if I notice it). The current system of "Most things are slowgrowth, but can be accelerated via an infusion of money" (Growth Incentives) is a very good one, IMO.
SickSock's Demographic Idea could be interesting. It lets you differentiate different colonies more, and the idea of demographics in general could be vastly expanded as desierd. I'd be fond of simply adding them as "Planetary Conditions". I know there seem to be "Colony Conditions" like Pollution and Decivilized, and they would work well here. Alternatively, have them function like AI Cores where they're assigned to a specific industry and they provide effects?
Goal of Solution: Make Colony scaling more gradual and produce more choices on Industry building.
4) Expeditions are slightly overbearing. Will be sparse, as there's a
big thread on it.Problem: You get swarmed by them a
mite bit too much..
Potential Solution: Make them have some bleedin' cost to the AI. Ideally, you can interact with it in some way, because as it is, the overall economy seems to be functionally irrelevant to the AI, which isn't cool.
Goal of Solution: Increase interaction with player's faction and other factions' threat projection.
5) Aptitudes are still semi-meh.
Problem: Putting a point into an Aptitude is boring, and feels bad. It's essentially a "dead level", just letting you *eventually* get what you want.
Potential Solution: Create "Aptitude Points" and "Skill Points". At level 2, you get 2 Aptitude Points and 2 skill points. Then, every 8th level or so, reward an Aptitude Point and a Skill Point. Alternatively (and less excitingly) make Aptitudes grant a small generic bonus in themselves. For example, Combat could be +2% damage taken/received, Leadership could be +1% for allied ships, +1.5% OP for ship, who knows for Industry. Yes, this might lead to some people going "The aptitude feels underpowered." Guess what they are now, though? Bad feeling, and also underpowered.
Goal of Solution: Prevent dead levels.
6) Interpersonal Relations and Interactions, Empire Leadership
Disclaimer: I imagine this is all a WIP, as Colonies were literally just added.
Problem: Your abilities to interact with other peoples are still lacking. If you get attacked, they say "Surrender or die" you can't Surrender. Building relationships with people is both hard and also apparently useless.
Potential Solution: Add more stuff here. Make "Fleet Admirals" of other nations more prominent and persistent (see Mount and Blade & Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system for example). The Luddic Path at lowest Rep says there's probably an "highranking officer" whose assignment is just to hunt me down. Make that an actual thing! As it is, other people are just meaningless faces with a number by them.
Problem: "I have this giant empire and I have to do everything myself". You can't order anybody around to do anything, not even simple stuff like organize an expedition of your own, send out prospectors/salvagers, have an allied fleet follow you, etc.
Potential Solution: Add that stuff. Throw a tab up in the "Command" section that lets you do this, and let you issue orders to your faction when you encounter them on the map. Tying into the "prominent characters", maybe make it so you can hire Fleet Admirals for your nation, who are more independent in how they act, and are able to be ordered to do more things like maybe you can't order all your Patrols & Detachments to follow you around (at least, not out of the system), but Fleet Admirals can. Again, this can take inspiration from M&B with their Lords.
Goal of Solution: Make interactions with other factions & peoples more meaningful and interesting.
7) Black Markets & Harvested Organs.
Problem: There are seemingly no negatives to smuggling everything everywhere and being an overal illegal trader boi. I made absurd amounts of money with black market Organ trading, especially with Procurement Missions, and not once was I concerned about getting in trouble. Organ Procurement missions are exceedingly good in general. Being "bad" at black market trading is hard to do, and isn't very penalizing. Also, why do any Procurement/Trading mission that ISN'T Harvested Organs? Or really, any other mission in general, given it's high-risk, basically no reward.
Potential "Solution": The repercussions of trafficking illegal goods and trading on the black market should be more pronounced if you fail to properly hide your actions, and it should be harder than it currently is. That would mean more of a threat of being scanned say, in controlled space by jumppoints there are basic gates that scan for "potentially illegal" goods, and will direct a patrol to scan you if detected, and maybe bring back (?) investigations, but let their efficacy be influenced by eg bribery, stability of the trade hub, etc. Illegal goods shouldn't be best sold in pirate areas bafflingly, Qaras and Kapetyn's Starworks are ENORMOUSLY better salepoints for Organs.
I dunno if it's in and I just haven't seen it, but adding the Shielded Cargo Holds as a hullmod you can add would be nice too, as otherwise you have to rely on Pirate hulls to get them, which are rarer than it seems they should be, and probably Dmodded.
Goal of Solution: Make Black Marketeering more interesting, mainly by increasing its danger.
8} Invasions
Problem: They don't exist! Yes, I know they're still on the table. I just want to give some thoughts on how they might easily fold into existing systems, so hopefully nobody does a silly thing like decide they don't need to be in the game due to difficulty of implementation.
The Idea: Under Military Actions, add an "Invade Planet" option. It requires essentially a Raid Effectiveness of 100% or higher, as well as requiring Heavy Armaments and Supplies. The amount required is equal to the planets Defenses value, but only Supplies are consumed. In a way, the Invasion is treated similar to Surveying, but instead use Marines, Heavy Armaments, and Supplies. The Marines and HA are "deployed" to the battlefield, but are recovered if successful. Extra Marines can be deployed to aid the fight, but at diminishing returns, and only so many (say, up to double the initial required amount)
Properly invading a planet takes months even on the small end, and how well it is progressing is indicated by a very obvious bi-colored bar (representing your control versus their control) with its own neat little +-% by it and a breakdown tooltip, like Growth. If the Planet has an Operating defensive battery network, progression is extremely penalized. Over time or through interactions (eg, enemy controlling the airspace), you might lose deployed Marines and HA, slowing your progress unless replenished.
Once fully occupied (the bar is filled), the planet is yours but will be suffering from "Resistance" - similar to how Luddic Sabotage works, it generously provides Recent Unrest.
9) Miscellaneous Junk, Requests, and Notes
-Please add a planet listing for each faction to the faction screen, or a sort option in the planets screen. Whichever.
-Not so Miscellaneous: Maybe add a way to (slowly) Research & Develop blueprints? Increased via reverse-engineering the equipment (destroys it). This way it isn't basically RNG of what you get. Would be boosted by a Technology skill, and require some Industry (existing or new one)
-Add indicators for if a building can be upgraded (a simple arrow at the top left of its picture is good)
-Explain to me what "Markets under AI Control" means on the Colonies listing screen. The heck is that?
-Make Neutrino Detector not require gosh-danged Volatiles, what am I even supposed to do with this ability? Why is it so nonstandard in its use of requiring a specific material?
-Not sure Remote Survey is that useful - anybody disagree? Hazard-ratings are decent info, but ultimately resources on the planet & survey data are too important to not check anyways.
-I want something to make Exploration & in particular planetary survey to be something more than RNG "I hope this planet is good" -> "Oh I ran out of supplies, better head back to resupply" repeat, but I'm unsure how to go about that. At the very least, being able to determine if a system is likely to have a good planet or not without diving into it would be helpful. Maybe Volatiles and Neutrino could somehow work into here?
-How do I clear my fleet log holy carp it's full of outdated garbage.
-Is it intended for Fuel Production to be so expensive that without a Beta+ AI Core, it's a net loss?
-Espionage and spies when? Gotta get them BPs.
-Thanks.
