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[Grievous69]

I don't even know what will the next version be but regardless, there are some things which I believe should be improved by the time the game is done.

Replace the explosion white out effect
Please, put anything else, I don't care if you put an explosion jpeg just slapped on top of a wreck, that would be better than the current flashbang. It's annoying, it happens constantly after early game, it obscures UI elements if you pause during it. It's just so so bad I'll never stop commenting on it as long as it stays in the game. And yes every living soul that's been here for more than a day knows you can disable it by going in the game's files, and yes you can just play using GraphicsLib. New players don't know that, every time time the game updates or I watch a video on youtube I'm reminded of that abomination that plagues this game's otherwise lovely visuals.

I believe there could be something that's actually nice to look at and satisfying, just how the vent animation got a nice update.
(And yes I know this was already brought up a billion times)

Simulator improvements
This is also something that can be accomplished by playing with the game's files but there really should be more varied sim enemies. I don't understand the point of multiples of same ships (3 Dominators...) and then d-modded versions on top of that. If anyone comes here and says "oh if you add more ships that are newer it'll just become crowded to navigate", please take a look at it now and say that seems fine. Ideally you should be able to pick and choose variants for most ships (like a drop down menu with variant names), and then how many you want of those. Because we currently have 2 exact same Onslaughts for some reason. Yet there's barely any choice in testing your builds against cruiser enemies. You have the tankiest son of a gun ship, and some kiters. No carriers, no Champion, no Apogee, etc.

If I seem a bit too passionate about this, the reason behind that is I spend A LOT of time testing out builds and seeing how they perform. having a bit more options and a nicer way of doing things would be awesome.

Codex
And lastly this tiny tiny piece of the game that's been mentioned in need of a rework back when I bought the game lmao. With each update bringing new content, it can sometimes be a hassle to find something you want, search bar would help a lot here, along with some other improvements of course. Also getting info on

Spoiler

haha get it

[close]

ships and weapons once you encounter them could be fun. I don't know, there are certainly more important things that this but I remembered it's due for a polish session so putting it here to see if it's still planned.

P.S. None of these things are super important or anything (okay maybe the explosion effect), I'm just curious if there's anything planned in the future to improve things that in my opinion need it.

[Dread Pirate Robots]

Simulator improvements
This is also something that can be accomplished by playing with the game's files but there really should be more varied sim enemies. I don't understand the point of multiples of same ships (3 Dominators...) and then d-modded versions on top of that. If anyone comes here and says "oh if you add more ships that are newer it'll just become crowded to navigate", please take a look at it now and say that seems fine. Ideally you should be able to pick and choose variants for most ships (like a drop down menu with variant names), and then how many you want of those. Because we currently have 2 exact same Onslaughts for some reason. Yet there's barely any choice in testing your builds against cruiser enemies. You have the tankiest son of a gun ship, and some kiters. No carriers, no Champion, no Apogee, etc.

If I seem a bit too passionate about this, the reason behind that is I spend A LOT of time testing out builds and seeing how they perform. having a bit more options and a nicer way of doing things would be awesome.

I definitely agree with this one, I also spend a ton of time in the simulator - and I doubt we're the only ones - so it's a shame the vanilla simulator is so lacking in options.

I like the idea an old(?) mod had where you unlock ships in the simulator as you fight them. This give you more variety and also lets you test ships against the various end-game enemies once you have met them without "ruining the surprise" by having them available to fight from the beginning.

[Yunru]

I'm shocked you don't see the point in multiples: It's to test against multiples. No combat's going to be a 1v1 after all.

That said, I don't see the point in listing any D-Mod variants, because they're just the same as their pristine variants tactic-wise, just worse.

[Grievous69]

I'm shocked you don't see the point in multiples: It's to test against multiples. No combat's going to be a 1v1 after all.

That's why I said you ideally would pick and choose variants of each ship and how many you'd like to deploy. Instead of you know, adding unecessary clutter to the box.

Sorry if it wasn't clear enough at first.

[SCC]

Some way to deploy multiple ship of the same variant would be nice. And some codex rework was supposed to be on the table, but I have heard that some time ago already.

[Alex]

Just wanted to say, both the Codex and the Simulator are on my long-term list! The simulator is more of a "look at this" while the Codex is more of "this very likely needs a bunch of work". Of course, both could benefit from it, but it's just always a question of what to put effort into at any given time to get the most out of it. And e.g. it's not immediately apparent exactly how a new simulator UI should be designed; it'd be a fair amount of design effort.

The whiteout explosions I personally like, but I recognize that they're... let's call it "slightly divisive" I wouldn't mind getting different explosion visuals into the game, but new vfx can be one of the more time-consuming things, so it's also just never made the cut.

[SafariJohn]

Put the whiteout behind the UI and make it fade as you move the view away (and stay gone). Empire Earth did it right 20 years ago.

[Serenitis]

First thing I do whenever I have a new version is disable the whiteout.
Not even using GLib atm, and the explosions still look okay to me.

Two things about the whiteout I dislike:

• As mentioned it obscures the UI.
• The game as a whole is fairly dark. It's space, and your basic space colour is black, which tends to be on the darker side of things. Whiting out the screen for any reason is like shining several very bright lights directly into my eye holes. This is uncomfortable and I don't like it at all.
  Staring into a lightbulb is not something I really consider to be a good thing and I want to avoid it wherever possible.
  (This is the exact same reason I force my browser to 'invert' its display to show dark background + light text if a site does not have an appropriate 'dark' mode.)

[Grievous69]

• The game as a whole is fairly dark. It's space, and your basic space colour is black, which tends to be on the darker side of things. Whiting out the screen for any reason is like shining several very bright lights directly into my eye holes. This is uncomfortable and I don't like it at all.
  Staring into a lightbulb is not something I really consider to be a good thing and I want to avoid it wherever possible.
  (This is the exact same reason I force my browser to 'invert' its display to show dark background + light text if a site does not have an appropriate 'dark' mode.)

[/list]

Oh yeah this is an obvious one that I somehow forgot to mention. I don't usually mind bright screens or shining lights but when you're playing something for 20 minutes, mostly staring at dark things, and then get bombarded with flashes in a big fight it's truly unpleasant. And yes, it's especially detrimental to us who are used to using "dark modes" in apps or other things.[/list]

[SCC]

It would be nice if the explosion was toned down to a single bright light, but for a second during the explosion a flash protection kicked in, darkening the visuals (except the UI). It doesn't have to be bright in absolute terms, but just showing that in-universe there are necessary eye protecting measures would sell the brightness well enough.

[Megas]

I liked that bug in one old release (when officers first came) that deployed your allied ships as an enemy.  I deployed one of my Onslaughts, and I was gunned down by it.

It would be nice to choose whether to deploy your ships as an enemy instead of as an ally.

[Alex]

Put the whiteout behind the UI

(Tried that! It looked surprisingly bad. I'm sure it worked for Empire Earth, but, well, apples and oranges.)

[Tartiflette]

I made a (somewhat facecious) poll on the topic of the whiteout a while back. It ended up at 12% keep them, 17% don't care about them.

[Alex]

Considering how biased that poll is, 12% is feeling like a resounding endorsement of the effect, tbh

[BigBeans]

The whiteout effect is bad. Its a generally dark game and is like getting blasted in the face with a hand torch every time a big enough ship dies.

And what about people with epilepsy? The default explosion effect literally flashbangs the screen? Seizure danger much? Maybe a toggle option in settings at the very least?