Hadn't played (PA10) since May or so, since I didn't want to burn out. Just as addictive as I remembered. I was like "Where did that extra hour (from DST) go?" Performance is somewhat better and no actual crashes, though after 4-5 hours things kinda slow down. Love the improved colony view. Love the space elevator building. Still, I think there need to be more choices in buildings, I found myself building the same few time. And that 1 population dome or anti-grav thing is just a waste, given the limited building spots. While I like the new leader additions, at the same time I noticed a drawback from PA10. Early on, I can't afford to hire many leaders (maybe 2 of each) and you never get the chance to hire more even in the middle of the game as the AI hires them all, I presume. (This also sort of negates that one special power to summon a high level leader every 40 turns, because there's no one available.) Because of this, I think maybe the spy system should have its own separate leaders. If they are off spying, they aren't real useful to you in their normal job. Also if they have unfulfilled requests, sending them off to spy makes them fail which pisses them off. And once they are really low, it's hard to get them back in positive territory, opinion wise. While I like how ISG keeps ships fairly balanced, I still think there's too much weight towards larger ships. Maybe Titans should cost even more support points. It would also be nice if maybe ships could have their shields (and maybe armor) upgraded automatically, like the space drives. At least the smaller ships, because otherwise it gets to a point where it's easier and just as quick to just build new ones than refit Still sometimes get tooltips flying during invasions. Also had a problem later in the game when it would just go back to the invasion screen after the animation and would say something like "Orion VI Conquered" or something, even though that wasn't the name of the planet. And lastly, how the heck isn't this on Steam yet? I've got probably half a dozen early access games there that aren't as complete as this (or even PA10). Then again, given how fickle people on Steam can be, maybe it's best waiting. Anyway, really impressed on how far the game has come along. edit: One more thing, it would be nice if ship name and ship design name were separate. I like to name my ships, but every time I would refit they would get renamed with the original in parentheses.
Thanks a lot for the detailed and great feedback! We're happy to hear you're having fun. Cool. Having "The just one more turn..." feeling and not realizing where the time went is what we're aiming towards. It's great to hear that is happening to you. We'll keep looking into ways to optimize performance. We were already able to to reduced the memory footprint significantly. Load times are expected to improve a lot, as for the in-game overall fluidity. We will get there. By the way, could you send us your system specs: graphics card, CPU and RAM? That will help us understand better how much we will need to optimize. Thanks. We'll look into that. Going with random tech trees can help with variety, as buildings will be unlocked in a different order. However, we'll keep assessing that. As for Domes and Anti-gravs taking 1 slot, that is an intentional design decision for you to consider going after a more costly and definite gravity solution (Planetary Gravity Generator), or to go with the Anti-grav quick fix. The same for domes and terraforming. However, we're open to revise this idea if something doesn't work as well as intended or there are alternative solutions that work best. I understand what you mean. However, we plan to have more leaders going forward, so that should help alleviate the fact that many are hired fast by other players. That said, I agree that we should have more leaders with espionage skills from the get go. However, consider that there are three techs that grant spy skills to your existing leaders (Intelligence Headquarters, Imperial Archive and the Galactic Surveillance Network wonder). So, even if there are few initial spy leaders, some of yours can learn spy skills via constructing these buildings. As for sending off spies doing missions with open desires we'll look into that. If the leader has an open desire with an unfulfillment ETA that should take into account the leader is currently in a spy mission. We'll give it some thought if Titans should have more ship support points. As for the ship refit, we agree, it can become tedious, especially in the late game. We plan on streamlining that a bit, probably by allowing mass refit orders, where your ships go refit and get back or something on those lines. And I thought the flying tooltips during invasion were a thing of the past We'll look into that. The wrong message you get after coming from the invasion screen is probably a bug that corrupts the screen information, or a graphical glitch that doesn't show the screen in the correct timing. Do you happen to have a save you can spare us where this anomalous invasion behavior occured? Saves can be found here C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\LocalLow\Praxis Games\ISG\ just zip it and you can upload by using the "Upload a file" button below. Hehe, yes, we could have put the game on Steam already. However, we think it's best waiting to put the game on Steam when the game is more stable and more complete so that we can get a great first impression. You guys have been providing great feedback and with your help I think we'll be ready to go to Steam soon. Yeah, it's tricky to get this right. The ship design name can be useful sometimes, however having a custom ship name is nice for narrative reasons. Ideally we should allow to have both, as you say, the tricky part is how to show this, and especially what name to show in the overview panel, fleet panel, etc, as having the two names doesn't seem feasible. If you have any ideas of how to make this work better please let us know. Thanks for the kind words and for your great feedback. We are very happy to hear that you think the game is already fun and going in the right direction, as that is what counts the most at the end of the day.
A game on Steam only gets one chance to make a first impression splash. I have seen many games go into early access, get some initial buzz and reviews, and then be forgotten about. When the game is finally finished, there is often little coverage or attention shown to the milestone. I am a firm believer in delaying putting games on Steam until the overall reception to the game by the "average" gamer will be positive. A great article on the issues with an Early Access Steam launch was written by Soren Johnson: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...ld_Trading_Companys_Early_Access_campaign.php Key excerpt: "if we are getting sufficient feedback while selling the game independently, we would delay our Early Access launch as long as possible."
I thought so as well at first DiscoJer, but not so much anymore. Domes are good for hostile worlds, as even one or two will drastically effect the morale there, alternatively you can put up med-bay facilities instead, you only need one. A combination of Med bay with a dome or two is great. The system as implemented is actually pretty well balanced, and Adam knows, I gave him plenty of grief over it a few years ago, his argument never won me over, it was the actual practical experience that did.
Yes, when arguments fail I let the game speak for itself, and usually it's ok After all, you can never really win an argument.
