How much trouble would it be to show the ship designs that are available from an ARS and a Backup server while clicking on them? I'm thinking a similar display as the ARS tab when another research ship is on the same planet as an ARS, except visible when clicking on the ARS / Backup Server directly, with no research ship present.
Would this be overly difficult to implement or defeat some strategic challenge I'm not seeing?
My viewpoint / arguments in favor (in briefer form than usual
):
- The information is already available when another science ship is present, so it's not "supposed" to be hidden from the player. Having the extra requirement of getting a science ship to the planet in question does nothing aside from adding tedium.
- New players likely don't even know about this "peek at the ARS" feature, as it's not at all obvious (unless the tutorials have been massively changed in the past few months).
- With the increased importance / prominence of hacking, more detailed information helps the player make better strategic decisions about what to hack.
- In the case of the backup servers, the listing is better than nothing, but at best requires bringing up the unit guides and finding the right ship. Tedious and time-consuming, not to mention completely beyond something a new player would think / be able to effectively do.
- Having the mouse-over ship information (vs. just a ship name) is necessary simply due to the sheer number of ships in the game.
In my current game, I forgot that Etherjet Tractors had cloaking. Knowing this would have saved me the time needed to reload the game to the last auto-save, replay the battle except bringing along a science ship, then reloading the original save (the other ships weren't game-changers, and cloaking is cool).
Can YOU recall the stats, armor types, and special abilities of every ship in the game?
In short: if the player should have the information,
then give them all of it as easily as possible.
{aside}
I'm kinda "back" --- still getting acclimated to a new job and moved into a new place, but just bought VotM and playing when I have time. Playing on a Hex map and have no idea how I'm gonna defend myself.
{/aside}
