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[kazi]

Playing through 0.9 again after a bit of a break... some UI/UX things I've noticed along with some difficulty tuning:

User interface fixes

• Officer level up should be doable from character screen. (You're usually leveling them up at the same time as the player character, makes no sense to level them up separately from the fleet menu.)
• Have a script to create a Linux ".desktop" launcher in ~/.local/share/applications. This is the standard way to launch desktop applications and games on Linux, and will make Starsector show up along with other games installed from places like GOG.
• Viewing the buy/sell ships screen is strangely one of the more CPU punishing parts of the game when playing on a laptop. See if this can't be optimized.
• I have no idea what consumes transplutonics, volatiles, or lobster (or how to produce drugs and organs). Make a commodities screen in the intel tab which explains what consumes what as well as view current commodity sales info.
• Maybe move the codex to the intel screen as well. It makes more sense to integrate it more into gameplay since it doesn't see much traffic in the current "pause" menu.
• Burn level isn't anywhere to be seen on the fleet or refit screen. If you are refitting the ship, you need to know how that stat is changing as you add/subtract hull mods. Additionally, there is no way to find what is your slowest ship at a glance.
• When selecting hull mods, the "Go back" button is in a really unintuitive place on the side. Most players will look to the upper-right corner to close the menu since that is where the close buttons for other screens is.
• Markets change which ships are on sale maybe a little too often. Sometimes I want to complete an extra cargo run to make enough money to buy a ship, but when I come back, the ship I wanted is gone
• The dockside bar is wayyyyy more interesting than the comm directory and serves the same purpose. Most of the comms directory entries don't do anything (portmaster, quartermaster, etc.). Get rid of the comms directory and integrate it into the bar.

Difficulty tuning

• Get rid of the Galatian Stipend unless the player is on "Easy" difficulty. Makes things way too easy.
• Colonies are a little too easy to "cheese" and build tons of structures at. I think the number of structures a colony can support should be limited by market size. It doesn't make sense for a tiny, size 3 colony to have every possible structure and upgrade. (Perhaps the maximum number of structures should be limited to the current size?)
• Financial rewards are consistently too high for bounties and "dockside bar" stuff (rewards seem to be a consistent ~30k regardless of quantity of goods). Maybe cut rewards in half to slow player progression a bit.
• There is no way to escape an engagement when a player has a cruiser or capital, why? You can't even fight a disengagement battle which is super punishing, especially if you're unlucky enough to run into a death-stack of like 80 pirate ships in multiple fleets. Iron mode isn't quite fun yet with some of the BS deaths you get sometimes this way (are the neighboring fleets far enough? or are they just too close to join the battle and gank you with no possibility of escape?  ).
• Orbital stations should not be allowed to participate in a battle unless they are directly attacked. Combined with the above bug, it's like a guaranteed player death if they get engaged by a fleet of any size if near a big station. There's no way to retreat or otherwise disengage unless you somehow kill the station, which is unlikely to happen unless the player is an absolute beast (esp. for core worlds). It's not like stations can move, after all...
• If you join a battle with one of your colonies' orbital stations, it counts against your deployment limit (when battle size is limited). Get rid of this, a station is supposed to be a massive advantage, not handicap you by preventing you from deploying half your fleet.
• A lot of long-time players enjoy this being sort of the "dark souls" of space games. A difficulty option for reduced rewards across-the-board would be welcome.
• You can game the system a bit with the battle-size slider. You have the advantage? Increase it to maximum to ensure the steamroll. You're outnumbered? Decrease the slider so that you can deploy your entire fleet, but they have to come at you piecemeal.

Content tweaks

• Please make a pirate start where you are neutral with pirates or the luddic path and hostile to several major factions. This would be a fun turnabout on things.
• More "story" missions and scripted interactions for the player while exploring or at dockside bars. These are really fun and add a lot of "life" to the game.
• The spaceport upgrade isn't very interesting gameplay wise. It's absolutely required for any player colony, and doesn't serve a purpose beyond making the upgrade to megaport available. Either build it automatically on colonizing a planet (and deduct the appropriate $), or figure out a more measured approach to it. (Perhaps increase base colony accessibility, and decrease the starport accessibility bonus so that it's a nice-to-have, but not a hard requirement.)
• A small set of story missions (that the player doesn't have to follow) could be used to further explain mechanics, like founding a colony or performing surveys.
• More behavioral changes to differentiate the factions a bit. They all feel very samey-samey aside from the pirates, luddic path, independents, and maaaaybe the Tri-Tacyhons (with their "free ports" everywhere). Maybe have the Hegemony shake you down for bribes when doing anything (ah, corruption) and have the Diktat start impressing the crewmen in your merchant fleets. Enemy factions should make you "choose a side" if they know you're dealing with the enemy.