Hot posts in thread: Things I'd like to see in ISG (sooner than later!)

Great ideas there @Mezmorki .

I would like to add for what we need right away is an "auto turn" feature. NOT FUN just hitting "end turn" for 5 or so turns in a row. An auto turn feature when the turns stop for something for us to do I think would help a long way. We asked for this in the MOO CtS forum on Steam, and the dev's gave it to us eventually and it helped out playing the game, at least the first few turns when all we can do is wait.

 

Good points, have a similar feeling.

 

That was a great feature in MOO2 as well. Often it was a crucial to send a colonist or two to a newly populated world, it boosted its production dramatically.

I've pointed out this to Adam Apr 23, 2017 so quite a long time ago, maybe we will get this in DLC

 

I've been having a great time with ISG so far, and it seems like the reception has been quite positive overall. Very happy for the devs!

In mt recent playing, a few things have popped up in terms of either balance or functionality, and a few others in terms of new features/content I'd like to see down the road. The following is in no particular order:

More Engaging Galactic Senate
I'd love there to be some galactic UN-style policies that could be enacted. A big one comes to mind which is making mass destruction bombardment be deemed atrocity, and hence hurt relationships with everyone in the senate. Other laws could be explored of course too. Something to make it more interactive and frequent.

Minor note on the senate, but it doesn't tell you how/when the next vote is coming. There are also no diplomacy options to ask your friends/allies to vote for you in the Senate, which seems strange. What determines what empires are nominated?

Population Migration
Creating and balancing multi-faction/race empires can be a good thing. I'd love to add the ability, using freighter fleets, to be able to move population between planets. It would open up interesting options for using mineral poor planets as growth centers to send off colonists to high production worlds. Would give more variety to empire management and growth opportunities.

Armada 2526 had a slick system of being able to setup automated transports / freighters to move population around. It was a little clunky in the implementation and could've been simplified. But even setting up a freighter connection between two worlds (like with asteroid mining) that directed a portion of the population growth in planet X to growth in planet Y would be a simpler way of handling it?

Customizable Starbases
Why can't starbases / battlestations be a customizable unit? Is this possible?

Deeper Stealth and Detection System
I'd love to see more nuance and depth to detection. Getting really powerful scanners takes all the mystery out of fights and makes it easy to exploit the AI. I think it would be cool if the amount of information provided by sensors declined over a distance, so that only within 25% of its max range could you see the full details of a ship. E.g, Scan level 1 (detect fleet only) would go out to the max distance, level 2 is number of ships (to 75% range), level 3 is ships and types (to 50% range), level 4 is full ship details (0-25% range).

Then, if you could also have varying levels of stealth modules on ships that would reduce the effective scan level by the stealth amount. So a ship in scan level 3 (detects type of ship) with stealth level 2 would mean that the ship was only viewable as a generic "fleet". Higher stealth level than scan means the ship is invisible.

Improve Map Paths/Lines Visually
I'm referring to the movement lines, wormhole lines, asteroid mining lines, etc. Right now, these are all just solid lines of different colors. It gets messy at times sorting out what is what. Asteroid mining should have a distinctive style (string of dots that slowly move?). Wormholes should have a specific style (line is a wavy or double-helix looking line?).

Fleet movement paths should be colored based on your diplomatic relationship. A player's own fleets should be solid green. Neutral should be dashed yellow. Peace should be dashed blue. Hostile should be a heavy dashed red line, to make is abundantly clear what movements are hostile or not.

On a related note - it would be great if all hostile assets (fleets icons, star system name) were outlined in a heavy red to again make it clear to tell where the threats are. I think it would help the map be more visually engaging too and better reflect the diplomatic situation.

Diplomacy & Vassals
I'd like to see more diplomatic options added down the road. A system for turning conquered worlds into vassal states instead of full conquest would be cool. Might be as simple as disabling direct control of the colony in exchange for allowing greater happiness / liberty within the colony. You'd get a portion of their income and could request ship construction, but otherwise wouldn't have to manage it directly.

Combat Fleeing
Maybe I missed it, but is there a ship module (not planet building) that allows you to inhibit or restrict ships from fleeting? It would be nice late game to have a way to better pin and lock down hostile forces that just flee on the first turn each time.

Victory Conditions & Galactic Threats?
This is my bold vision / idea, but I would love there to be a more narrative-based victory condition that provides a unique way to win the game as well as creating an interesting galactic threat. My idea is that exploring ruins could give you clues (in addition to other rewards) of key sectors to explore for remote exploration. You would then be able to explore and find some unique mega-artifacts that would provide benefits to being held and perhaps even function similar to the Age of Wonders 3 seal's victory system. As these get discovered, they awaken some galactic threat that starts to spawn across the galaxy, which tries to retake the artifact sites and attacks the different empires directly. Could be pretty awesome I feel.

That's it for now. Phew!