Oooooooookay. Big patch I see here.... let's get to it, there's good and bad here.
Let's start with the bad though before I forget the details: Techs. These are a bit messy right now. The problem is simple: The early-game choices on these are bad. Like, really terrible. There is once again that feeling of "I dont know what to do, because there are very few options". Dispatch missions that are worth doing are typically tech/building related, but.... there simply arent any. There's like, TWO techs I can go after, and they're both useless. And the rest of the available list doesnt make any sense. Why is a 200-month tech even on the list this early? There's no possible way to get at it at this point.
Mostly, this causes problems in pursuing important goals. In my current game right now, I want to get the Boarine's nasty negative medical trend brought up, but... there's next to nothing I can do about it. I did the politcal action to get a "positive trend", but as tends to be the case, this isnt really enough, particularly as the regent really isnt that interested in focusing on that (despite that it's clearly hurting them a bit). And that's literally the only possible action I could do. I did grab one of the two available techs for them just to pass time, but... yeah, that aint accomplishing much. And buildings are even worse, there arent any of them whatsoever. The various races are still farting out tech research on their own though, but that's a far cry from me being able to choose and influence things according to strategy. Not having enough early-game actions possible has been an ongoing issue with the game for awhile... addressing that a bit would help alot. There are of course a good amount of political actions, but as the dispatch stuff is quite an important mechanic, it needs to be more usable early on, particularly as it's a major source of credit that doesnt involve shooting pirates. And even that depends on the race in question... the Burlusts for instance tend to have very few options, and nearly all of them involve shooting their warlords just... because.
Dispatch types that arent research/building related are entirely useless at this point in the game.... there's no reason at all to do any of them.
Looking at the list of possibilities, it seems like a bazillion years must pass before there is a decent selection of these, and by that point it may be a bit too late for many to be of use, because all sorts of events will have distorted things by then. Also on the note of that list, some categories could use a few more options here... more techs in some of them might be a good idea. Some of them seem kinda same-y as well.... ALL of the ground combat ones seem to do basically the same thing, for instance. Some also seem way too situational. Like the one that stops volcanic eruptions... no way to really know how much this is needed. Are these eruptions common? Does something affect the chances of them occuring? How can I find out how likely these are? Stuff like that.
It's a very nice mechanic overall, but I still feel there's a bit more that could be done with it, and that some of the current ones need to have a more obvious benefit to them, adding to the choice-making that the player must do.
Next, the resources still dont really make sense to me. One of them says something like "this is good for bio-engineering", to which I say "Okay, that's nice.... and that does what now?". No reason to mine for these if I dont know why I should want them. And each race seems to start with a good amount of them anyway, and with a positive amount incoming constantly. So... no reason to worry about mining these or setting up trade routes.
Also, smuggling missions. These arent really smuggling missions if the races involved are going to get angry at me regardless of wether I get caught or not, which appears to be what happens here. Granted, if the player was able to constantly do these WITHOUT ever having this happen, that'd be a major imbalance. But it at least needs to make more sense, as right now it's a question of why should I bother avoiding the probes? It also rather feels like the probes are pointless, as the bazillions of turrets and ships clearly know you're there.... So, not so much a gameplay problem, more of a "why in the heck is it this way?" problem.
Uhhhh.... I cant remember what else there was.
Okay, let's get to the good stuff.
The UI.... ahhh, massive improvement here. For the most part, it's easy to get information on each thing now, which helps ALOT. This should improve the user experience by quite a bit. Things are alot less cryptic, though there are still exceptions to this. EDIT: Oh yeah, and the ability to see lists of what's happened with a given race is the best part. Been wanting that from the start, so that's a much appreciated addition. It's now very easy to get info on what they're all doing.
Combat! This is doing well. The changes to the flagships is a good one... they seem to actually care now, haha. As opposed to just sitting there, drinking coffee and waiting for something interesting to happen. I like that smaller ships seem to do other things than just beeline at you. In the escape mission, I had a bunch of them go and sit near the docking station, seeming to guard it, and a few more sit along the obvious approach angle to it too. Granted, they all exploded because I breathed in their general direction, but at least they seemed to be putting some effort into it.
It's a bit too easy to tank things though, even on the higher difficulties. Some shot types seem like they could use a bit of a boost, and raising shield power seems a little too strong. Or at least, that's how it seems to me anyway... other players may have very different views on this one. I dont get hit by all that much in most battles, so that's a bit of it, but still, that's the feeling I get from it. Where even if I do run into a barrage of those yellow shots, they just dont do much. Most of the time right now, the enemy has no chance of defeating me unless I get really impatient.
Also I can agree with Professor Paul that super-high speeds seem a little... unnecessary? With one exception, which is smuggling missions, where they seem absolutely necessary, unless you want to be there all day. But in most cases, this just isnt ever needed. Putting power into engines is the least important thing most of the time. If I'm going to do it at all, it's for turning radius, but that only has so much effect.
Some projectile speeds could do with a small boost as well. Too much of a boost though will just result in a more sparse battlefield, as threats go, as bullets leave the area too fast. Might be a bit fiddly to balance out properly.
But overall these recent changes have really improved upon it in an overall sense... I have few complaints here, though the lack of abilities in certain missions is still annoying.
Oh, also, rescuing pilots is a bit overly difficult... they appear and just implode too easily. And heck, it's hard to even notice that they've appeared in the first place. This could do with some tweaking.
All in all, it's a pretty good update, and the polishing seems to be coming along nicely. And I've forgotten whatever else I was going to say.
