Please make this a better game: A list of 1.08 bugs + feature requests not in 1.13 patch |
I've got a lot of praise for this game - you guys are doing a ton of things RIGHT! However there are many things which make the game less fun to play in my opinion, which I hope isn't totally out of line. Here's my current list, after a long and arduous 1.08 game.
-Chris
Fatal
Cannot use System list - I only tried after controlling most of the gameworld (>200 planets, all asteroids converted to planets, etc.), but it hung my game (ie. CPU 99% and chews up RAM 3MB/second until End Process in Task Manager).
NonFatal
If a build queue has enough in it to need to scroll, if you try reordering anything on the list, the list always pops up to the very top and stays there. Anything lower on the list and you have to remember how many slots you needed to move it up or down.
New empires appeared in my game after 25+ years, seemed to appear on planets my enemies already had colonized. There were no notices in the logs about the changes, even though I had ships in the same system the whole time. BUG: The planet flag+readout was pure white. I had to quit and start the game for it to change to what it was supposed to be. The flags were also missing from the Empire list screen.
Problems with Economy Tech? I gained a few levels in Economy and another Culture tech simultanously at the same levels, then when I gained level 6 it caused a display error in the Empire screen saying that my ships started Producing negative amount of Radiation. I kept gaining 1 level in both cultures for the next 5 levels, and then stopped because the negative amount multiplied each time (doubling?) and when I stopped it said my ships produced -2million Radiation. However at the end of the turn the correct values were used in the calculations (eg. zero). It took more than 1 year of game time before that negative number disappeared. I only researched Economy again many years later alone and did not see the problem.
Tactical battle ship behaviours:
1) When I direct a ship to a location it either reorients itself (~20%) or starts flying in circles (~50%). I'm usually trying to orient ships in a line to better encounter an attack.
2) Fighters circle ~95% of the time (good), but they keep the same exact distances when selected as a group (bad) - they should swarm towards the same point. This leads me to a ton of micromanagement of fighters.
3) Fighters and sometimes ships will scatter after a group of enemies has been destroyed. If the ship-battle error has been fixed, then my argument against this is that I want the ships back in a standard position to receive the next attack without having to manually go through the Sector View every frickin' time. Why don't the ships either: stop or return to their original positions?
4) Request: Please add ship facing to the command, so if I just click it can choose its own facing, but if I right-click and hold a compass appears and lets me choose how the ship should face.
Ship action queues are bonked:
- Frequently after a ship has done some movement it's action queue does not empty, even when it has reached it's destination! Sometimes this is because I give another order while it is pondering through it's movement, or in the second after it has finished moving and before that item is removed. Other times that finished action remains even when it was completed at the beginning of the turn during the auto-move sequence before the log is displayed.
User Interface
SHRINK THE PLANET FLAG/READOUTS - Currently it extremely easy to miss planets and even ships from the system view because no matter how vertical I shift it, those flat/unit readouts block out almost everything behind them. Even rotating the system 360 degrees may not reveal everything. I've lost non-colonized planets, ships, systems, I flip to the next ship and cannot find a highlighted hex since it is in the middle of a couple planets, I can't even see what units exist on some enemy systems which is essential! Fixes could be: half- and quarter-sized flags or the whole readout as an option.
Bugs I don't want to report since they make the game more playable:
- You can choose a valid quantity for the planet and then order that number of Ship Yards be built if there are no existing Ship Yards.
- Ships with 2 of the same Stellar Component can do that operation an infinite number of times in a turn. I always had a repair bay if that matters. I was able to have one ship create 10 planets out of an asteroid belt in a single turn.
- Emergency components (propulsion, supply, reordinance) are repaired automatically if the ship has a repair bay or ship yard.
NEW FEATURES
- Allow multiple Ship Yards on the same Ship.
- Have a Planet build queue warn me if I add a 1-per-system component if it already exists! Have it warn me if I try building multiples or if a 1-per-planet facility already exists too!
- Add a per-system report showing which systems have which 1-per-system facilities (and on which planet), even if multiples.
- Add the ability to recycle facilities from either the colony display, the colony build list, or both!
- Add a loyalty (and ALL OTHER ATTRIBUTES) readout for ships, bases, etc. so I can tell where things are going wrong BEFORE there is a mutiny!
- Allow a ship to use an item IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT having to cancel the ship's action queue! Currently you have to cancel the movement, use the item, and then reinitiate the movement (if you remember where it was going)... You also seem to need one movement point left in order to do many operations, even if it an action which doesn't require movement.
- Allow me to do the same operation to multiple planets and multiple ships: Use emergency device, Launch units, use Stellar devices, recycle buildings or units, add the same set of facilities to the build queue, etc., etc.
- Have a better way to distinguish between the planet sizes!!! This should show up in the logs, on the system display, everywhere the planet picture shows up. In the system there is the blue-bar to determine how full the population is - except how large is the planet?
- Allow for better population management without tons of manual work: When planets are FULL, the migration rate should be changed to match the reproduction rate and then have that effect.
Too many changes needed...
Here's another list of things I haven't mentioned before (except the last 2), though it looks like a lot of the bugs and improvements I mentioned 2+ weeks ago haven't yet been dealt with either.
In total, I'm not sure what to say: It is a good game, but there are a ton of annoyances to be fixed. Even if they are I'm not sure that would make it a perfect game - but absolutely an even better game.
-Chris
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The game is wierd and unclear on which ship items and planet facilities stack and which ones only use the value from one of them:
Shield Regenerator - In the Ship's abilities, it uses the value for only 1 regenerator, not for all of them.
BUG: In battle it seems to only regenerate one point per second, even if the Shield Regerator item says 70/second
Climate Control, Value Improvement - seems to work aggregately
Atmosphere Processor - only one has any effect, and there are only 2 levels to it??
Resupply depot - you can have as many as you want on a planet or in a system, but only one can resupply ships around the system?? Do multiple have an effect on the planets generating amount? If not, why doesn't the text say this is a 1-per-planet (or 1-per-system) item??
If you gain multiple levels in a tech, how about the turn's log only show the most recent level (or summarize all levels per tech together), and have only the highest level of each item enable shown?
In ship design screen, why can't I choose any previous level of ship/unit/base size (I have tech level 5 but I want level 1 since it is cheaper), or of component level (I want a lower level since it does what I need it for and it costs less/takes less time to produce). Otherwise I need to make a ship design for every level I gain in all hull types just so I can use it later.
I've seen these labels around the game but have no idea what they're for:
Refining Planet?
Repeating build?
Emergency build?
Ditto the population suggestion in my previous post, how about automatically filling up supply/ordinance on other planets in the same system if a resupply planet is full?
If a ship is built, clicking on the log entry does not select the ship but instead shows the planet+units view.
Other empires ships - mysteriously teleported across the galaxy?
I had this happen twice in a 1.08 game. Different empires, one transport, one cruiser. Each time the ship magically appeared in a system where I did not have any colonies yet, where they would have had to cross at least 4 of my systems and go through at least one border patrol with a high-level tachyon sensor - and neither race's ship has cloaking abilities according to my scanner.
Build queue:
- If I moved a couple items around but didn't click "Done" then try adding something else, some odd movement happens on the list instead of automagically finishing the Reorder command.
- If I select an item in the list and then add another item, the new one does not appear just below the selected one in the list.
Add "Do Not Shoot" or "Disable" to weapons in combat.
Empire Options screen: When the rollover happens such that you are producing 1mT+ of any resource, SHOW FREAKING DECIMALS, at least 3 places! Going from exact numbers to a VERY rough number like 1mT is horrible! This should be for ALL values: Production, Maintenance, build queues, Net, Storage max, and current Storage.
If the ship/unit/base's "Design Type" options are almost EXCLUSIVELY the name of the hull (or "Assault/Defense Ship"), why not automatically name them? How about adding a way to add more and useful types: Stellar Engineer, etc.
How about adding maneuvering thrusters as ship components? Turn radius is typically horrible, and why would they use a radius anyways: Just flip on the forward starboard and rear port maneuvering thrusters and you've reversed in a second (or more)!
A bonus would be that I could determine both end points' sectors for a new warp instead of just the start point.
OLD ISSUES
- Tech screen should show the tech points for NEXT turn, not the points for the previous turn.
- Tech screen should show how many levels of tech will be earned this turn if > 1 (even show fractions/decimals). Just change the label from "Time: 0.1 years" to "Levels: 1.5"
- Freighters should have both Supply and Ordinance storage count into the 50% amounts.
- Turn on Names on the system window and these HUGE name text pops up - BEHIND most of the graphics making it usually unreadable. If you click it off then ALL text disappears, including the original Warp Label Text. This is then saved on your game and can never be undone??