Not really sure if this is the best thread for this, but my biggest impediments to being fantastically enthralled with this game are pretty simple, but evidently they are not built into the game or the tooltips anywhere.
1) Getting Tech from Friendly races -> It would be really nice if I could just buy Techs from a friendly race.
i.e. - We can research techs together
i.e. - I can get them to share techs with other races (sometimes detrimentally to themselves, there should be a check so that they don't gift technologies to races they don't like)
i.e. - I can steal Techs from people
- But I cannot go to the Acutians, Andors, Skylaxians, etc. and say, "Hey, you have this cool tech that I would like, I want to buy it from you for X Credits/Voting Proxies/Influence, etc."
2) Game Timing -> I cannot find anything that indicates how long (in game time) that a game should last. This seriously impacts my willingness to do long term contracts.
For instance - why would I ever want to spend 10 months building influence at a rate of 0.1 per month? Is the game so long (in game time) that I can twiddle my thumbs for that length of time for such a small gain?
Why would I want to spend 60 months researching a tech with a race? Granted we both get a tech, but if I burn 5 years of game time, would the Thoraxians (or whatever similar race in a specific game) have conquered the rest of the galaxy in that time?
So really, do I have 100s of years to build a Federation, or do I need to be engaged in a manic-state of combat at all times?
Unlike AI War, Bionic Dues, and Skyward Collapse where there is a nicely defined "I do this and get X, but the <other guys> get Y" mechanic, that seems to be missing from Last Federation. Since I am not sure if a game will take 10 years or 100 years...I find myself unwilling to do anything that takes more than 5 months of game time, and then I wonder if there are many other things I could be doing that is a better use of my "in-game-time."
The "Computer Advisor" throws out some suggestions, which are helpful, but they don't tell me - "Hey, it's okay to go spend 10 years getting the Andors to think you are the greatest being in the galaxy and bring them into the Federation".
Seriously - aside from that this game is awesome and I like playing it, but I think I'm suffering from "ambiguity paralysis" at this point.
