Stream of Consciousness First Impressions

[MaxAstro]

About to click play, so excited... 

Main menu is about what I expect of Arcen: Cheesy logo, questionable interface, music that I'm completely in love with two bars in.  Gonna sit here and listen for a bit before I click start.  Wow this is badass.

No options menu yet, it seems... which I totally understand, although I can't help but wonder if the menu buttons being directly on top of the AI War logo, instead of in the plethora of empty space below it, is evidence of the early alpha state, or evidence of something bugged on my end. 

Galaxy looks AWESOME.  Controls like I expect (middle click and drag makes sense), except no center-scrolling-on-mouse, which I hope will be returning.  Scroll speed is too low, but that's to be expected for my twitchy self what with the lack of options.  Holy CRAP the lobby music is amazing also!

...Oops.  Cycling galaxy types a couple times caused the menu to disappear.  Time for a reboot...

Selecting a starting planet is intuitive enough, although if you zoom out a bit it tends to be very picky about clicking ~exactly~ on the planet.  Oh... can I see planet marks when I am picking my starting planet?  Interesting.  I kinda hope that "hide unexplored planets" will make a return eventually, on that note.

I select a mark I named "Easely" and click start.

And I have a fleet!  And it's already winning its first fight.  Oh hey I can fullscreen... oh NOPE, gui doesn't resize yet, nevermind.

Love the forcefield graphics, very intuitive.

Do not like the wormhole graphics.  Tiny, hard to tell what they are, nothing about that says "wormhole" to me.  It says "green marble with a name".

Combination of slow scroll speed + no center scroll to mouse means I am playing on max zoom out all the time.

Some fighting with the UI ensues, wherein I cannot figure out how to attack a warp gate or build a space dock...

Well, undaunted by my inability to capture that planet, I shall head to another planet! 

Hm... wormholes are always exactly in relation to the planet map.  Pro: Easier to read.  Con: More predictable.  Unsure how I feel.

Eep.  Note to self: Turn FRD off when moving your entire fleet to an enemy world... too used to that being automatic, I suppose.

I see how it is, Keith.  "Very early alpha", but the AI already knows how to kite better than it did in the first game.  This does not bode well for my survival. 

Does everything currently move at the same speed?  This seem much more ponderous compared to the first game... then again, I did always play on the highest speed setting...  Anyway, drove the AI off a second planet... healed up... rebuilt... still can't kill the controller or warp gate.  Ah, well. Next planet is a Mark 4, that should be fun!

Fleet groups are MUCH less readable than the first game.  Everything kinda devolves into a blob of neon color that is impossible to pick ships out of; lack of borders on the ship symbols really hurts there.  In the first game you could pick out the silhouettes of at least 30-40% of even a very large fleet.  Here even with the starting fleet it all blurs together and I couldn't tell you what ANY of the ships in the fleet are.  Slightly more readable when the fleet is not selected - the overlapped selection circles are a big culprit on killing readability.  But even then I can only pick out maybe 10% of the fleet.

...Well, I think we'll wrap this up here, no need to talk about how my brave and daring excursion onto a Mark 4 planet went, I'm sure my troops carried the day in a heroic fashion...  >.> 

[Cinth]

I think it was mentioned somewhere that balance doesn't exist yet

Fleet groups are MUCH less readable than the first game.  Everything kinda devolves into a blob of neon color that is impossible to pick ships out of; lack of borders on the ship symbols really hurts there.  In the first game you could pick out the silhouettes of at least 30-40% of even a very large fleet.  Here even with the starting fleet it all blurs together and I couldn't tell you what ANY of the ships in the fleet are.  Slightly more readable when the fleet is not selected - the overlapped selection circles are a big culprit on killing readability.  But even then I can only pick out maybe 10% of the fleet.

That super bright neon will be toned down for the next release (I actually went to far and it's flat now, but whatever, it's not blinding).  I'll agree that those icons get hard to read when they are blobbed, but I'll counter and say the center of large blobs in Classic were just as illegible (in my games anyway).

[keith.lamothe]

You can capture the planet by clearing your selection, going to the galaxy map, and clicking the capture toggle on that planet (you can also select other planets and pre-flag them for capture).

I need to make that accessible without having to clear your selection or go to the galaxy map, and probably also have it take a direct attack order despite the toggle being off.

[Lakshata]

You can capture the planet by clearing your selection, going to the galaxy map, and clicking the capture toggle on that planet (you can also select other planets and pre-flag them for capture).

I need to make that accessible without having to clear your selection or go to the galaxy map, and probably also have it take a direct attack order despite the toggle being off.

Is there any way you could make it like classic where your ships wouldn't attack the AI Command station unless you clicked on it, but clicking on it killed it? Having to toggle some opaque setting just to kill the last structure seems like an unnecessary step.

[x4000]

You can capture the planet by clearing your selection, going to the galaxy map, and clicking the capture toggle on that planet (you can also select other planets and pre-flag them for capture).

I need to make that accessible without having to clear your selection or go to the galaxy map, and probably also have it take a direct attack order despite the toggle being off.

Is there any way you could make it like classic where your ships wouldn't attack the AI Command station unless you clicked on it, but clicking on it killed it? Having to toggle some opaque setting just to kill the last structure seems like an unnecessary step.

This has been my feeling also, but I'm trying to stay out of it.

[Bill Whitmore]

For reference, I am playing on a Win 10 / 64-bit OS.

You can capture the planet by clearing your selection, going to the galaxy map, and clicking the capture toggle on that planet (you can also select other planets and pre-flag them for capture).

I need to make that accessible without having to clear your selection or go to the galaxy map, and probably also have it take a direct attack order despite the toggle being off.

Is there any way you could make it like classic where your ships wouldn't attack the AI Command station unless you clicked on it, but clicking on it killed it? Having to toggle some opaque setting just to kill the last structure seems like an unnecessary step.

This has been my feeling also, but I'm trying to stay out of it.

I actually prefer not being able to just right click it to capture it.

In AI War classic, I've lost count of how many AI Command Stations I accidentally destroyed by misclicking the Command Station instead of a ship sitting next to it.

Galaxy looks AWESOME.  Controls like I expect (middle click and drag makes sense), except no center-scrolling-on-mouse, which I hope will be returning.  Scroll speed is too low, but that's to be expected for my twitchy self what with the lack of options.  Holy CRAP the lobby music is amazing also!

My mouse wheel scrolling worked once I started the game but it was also slow, particularly when zoomed out. Once I was in close, it moved decently, but it took a lot of scrolling to see any change when zoomed out.

...Oops.  Cycling galaxy types a couple times caused the menu to disappear.  Time for a reboot...

Yea, I had this same problem. It wasn't consistent. Sometimes I could cycle through multiple galaxy maps, and others it seemed the first or second time I clicked for a new map it did this.

And I have a fleet!  And it's already winning its first fight.  Oh hey I can fullscreen... oh NOPE, gui doesn't resize yet, nevermind.

Yea, since you start off in enemy territory under attack, I like that the ARK starts off building your first fleet.

One thing that would be nice to have is if the newly built squadrons started off either following your ARK or were issued move orders to stay with your ARK. Usually my fleet would be moving, a squadron would be built and just sit idle while the rest of my fleet continued on its way.

Actually, now that I think about it, being able to issue an "escort" order to a ship/squadron targeting another ship/squadron would be awesome. You could set your fleet ships to escort starships, or newly built ships could auto escort whatever built them so they'll follow your ARK/starship until you give them new orders.

Love the forcefield graphics, very intuitive.

Agreed.

Do not like the wormhole graphics.  Tiny, hard to tell what they are, nothing about that says "wormhole" to me.  It says "green marble with a name".

I suspect (hope) this is still a placeholder. 

Combination of slow scroll speed + no center scroll to mouse means I am playing on max zoom out all the time.

As I mentioned above, my scroll wheel worked, but was really slow when zoomed out.

Hm... wormholes are always exactly in relation to the planet map.  Pro: Easier to read.  Con: More predictable.  Unsure how I feel.

Yea, I noticed this also and I agree on the pro/cons. It definitely changes the feel and planning for defenses since your opposition will always be coming from the outside.

Also unsure how I feel about it.

Since they allow for potentially different defense styles, maybe it would make a good option, like a "Random wormhole placement" toggle.