Latest gameplay feedback.

-The AIs new building placement is neat. However it has some problems. The AI diverts all its gauss guns to perimeter defense, meaning their hangars are totally exposed. On the other hand that does encourage players to use tactics.

-Also, the AI seems to build too many defenses. There's no cenceivable reason to have 10 gauss guns in one place an hour into the game, no conceivable swarm of light frigates is gonna take that out. And it's not any more resistant to bombers.

-Although the AI seems a lot smarter in many respects, it doesn't seem to ever attack me. I think this may in part be due to scurrying about its empire dealing with pirates. Also, the attack AI simply can't seem to deal effectively with the gauss swarms the AI favors. Although I did note the AI using groups of Perchirons in carrier raids.

-Suggestion: Add a massively imba cheating AI for kicks.

-I had to flip a couple mental switches but the new research system seems more manageable now. Rather than progressing your way up the tree (as previously) the current system encourages you to pick and choose topics you need. I am still of the opinion that many techs simply arn't worth it, but it's nice that i dont have to research 4 level 2 combat topics if I just want to fast tech to Perchirons.

WRT most researched / least researched. My most researched - not just in terms of they're at the bottom, but in terms of i want to upgrade them - techs would have to be laser upgrades and hp upgrades, followed by Trade Ports and terran popcap upgrades. My least researched techs would have to be build speed upgrades (Why, when for a fraction of the cost you could just build more shipyards?), mining upgrades, and the uber high end techs which i have never gotten.

I find the cultural starting tech to be worth it but the upgrade techs don't make a lot of sense in terms of price. 5%? Pfft. (the same problem i have with the mining techs really...) Also, cultural loss rate decrease should be easier to acquire - it stands to reason that if you need it, you can't afford it. Maybe this is wild and crazy, but the cultural research benefits should be much higher - so that if, say, you had 4 Broadcast Centers (which is alot!), researching a upgrade tech makes equal sense to building a 5th, and more sense considering logistical constraints. So something like a 15-20% increase.

The AI seem to have a big need to revenge. I was fighting one AI over an asteriod, because it had a broadcast center and I didn't want their culture in my space, and I had taken some heavy losses due to all their Gauss Cannons (Is it normal for the AI to have 6 or 7 of them at most of their planets?) and they offered my a ceasefire accord. I agreed and left the system to rebuild what I had lost. As soon as I had replaced my losses I went back to that asteriod and broke the treaty. Now I have an 18,000 credit boundy on my head! Since I saved and quit I found out it was that one faction that I took the asteriod from (it had to be them, the other two I hadn't fought with all that much, so the majority of it had to be them. They had spent 19,000 credits on placing bounties!). Luckily mauraders were off!

That AI had almost no ships but had Gauss Cannons everywhere (6 to 7 max on a planet, and they were all close to each other) and, as I stated above, was placing huge amounts credits on people's head! Is this a normal AI behavior?

Damn it, I won't be able to play the Beta 2 until my new system is set up in my new office. All the changes so far sound pretty impressive though. I can hardly wait.

I hope the Pirates remain super tough for those of us who like the 'Hard' setting.

yeah, I was able to divert pirates away from me by upping the bounty on any people who were passing through the system (even allies)
always fun to see them divert (although it rarely stops bombardment)

4 most- (generally equal in importance)
crystal and metal speed enhancements
population increase of all sorts
shielding tech/antimatter tech
weapons upgrades (lasers, then bullets, then missiles)
3 most used wierd ones-
crisis recovery
rapid growth
PSIDAR

3 least-
probe
fortified civilian ships
(allows scouts to bypass phase-blocks)

is there pirate base implemented?
please PLEASE say yes!

its saved my ass more than once, allows me to do some impromptu-base building.

you know, just a malenki bit.

already done, look at the mouse picture top-left

yeah, I think they're fun
they should be on a seperate difficulty switch

had the same difficulty
its very frustrating when in a 30-planet universe there is ONE Ice planet (crystal is so rare its rediculous)

Maximus,

The button is called "zoom to mouse", I believe.

that I completely agree on, Logistics has to be increased, I am finding it near impossible to build stuff like trade ports, light factories and refineries, I seem to keep getting asteroids, quite a few times, overall asteroids need to have a Logistics cap of at least 1, planets need to be doubled, what is the point of trade ports when I can't build them hardly at all, let alone anything else like broadcast towers, this cap is the second most used, (probably the fist is ship cap?) and this is the most critical to having a successful empire, especially keeping your planets loyal, and the capital planet needs a double if triple cap as that will help a lot especailly early game and would allow to setup more stuff,

You do know that you can upgrade the logistic and tactical slots of planets with the planet development thingy? It's really handy and forces you to pay extra for that perfect strategical placement. If you can live with an imperfect one, you get it cheaper. Nice trade-off in my eyes.

I'm going to put my list of used/nonused tech's later, but in the meantime I have one suggestion: When you open up the tech trees and go to the artifact section, it seems very open and not really interesting. So I was thinking, why not put them into a few columns with their descriptions next to them? That would make it easier for a player to understand what each artifact was about and would fill up the empty space.

That's my suggestion for the day .
Namnug

Logistics ARE supposed to limit you, after all. Not just be cosmetic.

I find upgrading my tax base to be a better source of income than trade ports anyway, and it doesnt attractor marauders *g*

I just want to say this. According to the Lore: The TEC have been hit pretty hard by the Vasari and now the Advent. They seem to be a people between a rock and a hard place. So why would they design a Cruiser that doesn't have necessary firepower? I mean according to your back story the TEC are in a desperate situation, so why the hell are they wasting resources on Cruisers that are less effective then 3 Cobalt Frigates?

So its worth while to waste resources on a command cruiser that doesn't command? The Embolden ability is nice, but because it targets a single unit at a time not effective. And to be honest the Akkan's targeting ability is more effective then the Command Cruisers .

I am not saying that you can't make your game your way. But if the ships are supposed to represent the race. Why the hell would the TEC make cruisers that suck. I am not saying you have to make cruisers a front line unit, but give them some firepower. Even the Kodiak right now is not that effective and its supposed to be a combat cruiser. Oh and why do the TEC use a lot of Lasers? I thought they were supposed to be low tech? The only ships I really see use Autocannons are: Akkan, Kol, and Gardia.

Don't be afraid to put weapons on your cruisers, because it just doesn't make sense to equip them with pop guns. I understand you said the cruiser commanders don't like the "dirty" work. But if they were such cowards why not camp on a Kol Battleship?

Also why does the Kol Battleship have a railgun ability, when the incendiary shells ability from the Marza would be more effective? Seeing as how the Dreadnought now is more of a Battlecruiser then a Dread. And the Kol is more of a Dread then a Battleship. To be honest I thought the original Marza from Beta 1 was more of Dread then this new Marza ever could be. And seriously why does it have incendiary shells ability anymore when it doesn't even have autocannons? Are the TEC dumb when designing warships? Because right now their are only a few effective ships. Gardia, Cobalt, Carrier Cruiser, Akkan, Kol, and the Capital Carrier (Sorya?).

not sure if this is the correct forum but, whenever I load a save game, it keeps resetting my camera to the capital starting planet, it would be really nice if the game remembers where you were when you last saved,