Hello - still working through a game session, but I thought I'd share a few quick reactions to the UI and some feedback/suggestions. Thanks for adding the WASD controls. You might also consider adding Q+E or Z+X for zooming in and out. Can we have an option for SPACE bar to end turn (in addition to ENTER/RETURN)? Using WASD for paning leaves your thumb on the space bar which is easy to got end turn. PRE-BATTLE SCREEN - the pre-battle screen really needs to work as a NOTIFICATION item instead of window that pops up that can't be minimized until you make a choice (e.g. auto-resolve vs. manual resolve). There are a few reasons for this - but most notably that when the pre-battle screen is up, you can't even see on the map where the battle is taking place unless you have all the system names and their location memorized. Where the battles are might affect your decisions. Treating them as a notification that you can open and close and decide when to resolve would be great. Visually, systems where battles are imminent and must be resolved could get some cool graphic effect. This might have been fixed in the hotfix, but I noticed that you can use the mouse wheel to zoom into the system level, but you can't use it to zoom back out to the galaxy level. The different types of nebula need to look a lot more distinct on the galaxy map IMHO. Dark Nebula in particular, that provide a significant movement obstacle, should really stand out (be really, really, dark?) Following from the above, Is there an underlying GRID that determines what areas apply movement / nebula effects? It can be really hard to tell is a movement path will be affected by a nebula when it's close to the edge. Is there a faded / transparent grid that could be turned on as a map option? Mentioned in another thread, but if you have a colony ship in a system, when in the system view you should be able to colonize right from there, instead of having to drop back to galaxy level and select your colony ship, just to go back to the same system screen again. The Settings Menu needs an "OK" on "Confirm" button or something. Pressing ESC to get back to the main menu isn't intuitive, and doesn't make it clear that your settings will be applied. Map Zoom + Extent - I think it's great that there is panning and zooming in the map, but it needs some work IMHO: It would be nice if at full zoom the map was scaled to fully fit the display view - basically at the scale/extent of the old fixed view map. I say this because right now you you can zoom way out and still pan around a bit and it lets you see the blank space outside of the generated star field area. It's a seemingly minor point but I think it hurts the immersion a big. Related to the above, at lower zoom levels, the area that you can pan into and display should be locked more tightly to the starfield, for the same reason as the above - that you don't want people to visually navigate away from where the game is taking place. It breaks the immersion a bit and makes the galaxy feel smaller and less grand in a way. I think there should be more zoom levels overall. In particular the step between the most zoomed in and when it switches to the system view is a really big jump. The icons displayed near systems (fleets, colonizable planets, number of planets etc.) are really small overall. When zoomed all the way out it's understandable, but zooming in dosn't seem to change the scale of these icons. I would think through the size of these icons and consistency in size (some like strategic resources and ruins are a lot bigger than others). Overall, I think the icons need to be bigger and more clear, especially when zooming in. Are these placeholder or more final? Following from the above: think about the arrangement of these icons and where it makes sense to orient them around the systems. For example, the magnifying glass (exploration level) could be located next to the planet icons/dots OR at the end of the system's name text (or below it) to be a bit more prominent. All of the system wide info (number of planets, exploration level, strategic resources in system, etc. could be listed in one spot/line, leaving more room for ship/starbase icons in other spots. Some Gameplay Feedback SURVEY SHIPS - as exploration vessels, it's kinda lame that they get auto-killed by space monsters and the like. Giving that a single frigate can retreat 100% of the time (upon manually engaging in battle), it seems crazy that an exploration ship wouldn't have similar retreat capabilities. Especially given the expense and cost to produce them. It's just weird to be sending frigates around everywhere first to scout for monsters when logically the "scout" type unit would be the one best poised to do that. This is also a potential "nOOb trap" (i.e. source of potential frustration and griefing) and should b avoided IMHO. A bit related to the above - I find it irritating that I have to manually initiate combat, just to immediately retreat, when facing space monsters in the early game in order to avoid damage. Can an option for "Auto-Retreat" be added" ? Could be called "Disengage" or something. Someone mentioned in a different thread about not wanting be spammed with messages about engaging in combat each round whenever potential enemy ships are present. Seems like rethinking how engagement/disengagement is handled via the battle notifications would be a good thing to consider more. Phew - that's it for now. More on mechanics and gameplay as I dig in further. BTW - I really like the randomized tech tree! Any chance you'd consider an option for randomizing the culture advancements a little bit too?
Lots of great feedback here Mezmorki, thanks. I agree with basically everything. Some things will be easier to implement than others but I'm sure we'll be able to accomodate for most of what you suggest if not all in a next opportunity. I'll process your feedback points one by one soon, but for now I'd just say that yes, randomizing the culture advancements is in the cards Seems like a great opportunity to add more variety. Glad you liked the random tech trees approach. Looking forward for more feedback
Just another thought on randomization.... One of the games that handled a great intersection between faction design / selection and randomization was Age of Wonders 3. Your leaders race + class + specializations determined the pool of items in your spell book (research) that would be available - and yet the exact order in which items appeared was randomized a bit. Obviously more powerful expensive stuff still showed up later on in the tech tree, but it prevented the game from being too scripted feeling. Anyway - for ISG what if your form of government plus some other critical species/race traits determined what trees of cultural advancement were available and each tree further had a bit of randomization in it. Instead of the three trees we have right now, what if there were 6-8 trees but depending on your race you'd only have access to 3 in any given run? Something like that could go a long ways towards keeping the gameplay fresh and not feeling scripted.
