My thoughts:

I just noticed that when I went to a new system, all the planets said that they were "-1 jump from home world." The pirates are only really effective in their ability to attack anywhere very quickly. They use a lot of siege frigates so they can raze your planet very quickly, but if you have a phase inhibitor so they can't run, they are no match for a balanced fleet of around the same size. In response to matthewfarmary's suggestion, I think it would work if the default view when you loaded was a zoomed out view of the system you were looking at when you saved. Once you get used to the logistics points, they are actually really interesting. It gives the game a whole new challenge. Worlds really need to specialize now, instead of just building everything at every world like before. For example, you need one world to build frigates, another to get cap ships. You need to spread your research out over many worlds, and I can only afford to get trade ports at my planets, and refineries are limited to my desert worlds.

I think you need to make a capital planet in your new system, you can have one for each

::I just noticed that when I went to a new system, all the planets said that they were "-1 jump from home world."

That's a known issue that I think is already on the fixed list.

but they shouldnt limit you completely, it should be a flexible limit. this currently FORCES a player to adapt ONE strategy, rather than sticking to the concept of "to each their own"

because they serve more purposeful functions, such as covering the asses of the rest of the group.

they arent difficult to beat... they are pushovers
the difficulty is that they can annihilate a planet within a couple minutes.

it doesnt help gameplay, and its not realistic.
like I said, the limiting aspect is nice, but it has to be more flexible because now I cant bother to waste one of my precious logistics slots on a frig construction yard! I now have to send ALL of my forces from my capitol planet, talk about a HUGE pain in the ass.
theres a difference between limiting to what extent one can play, and limiting which way one can play. I'm fine with the former, the latter is a dumbass idea.
the system, albeit not doing it intentionally, is the latter.

really?

Yep.

I'm kind of disappointed in the amount of logistic support we get too. I've gone through a period in my game where I've had no construction capabilities in favor of trade ports and refineries! Talk about regression.

Same here with the logistics, it just wasn't fun as its too limited. So I modded the game so there are now 1.5x more logistics spots per planet.

logistics cap needs to be increased, Im having the same problem

but here is an idea, the enemy AI can retreat in battles, but why not your own ships? maybe the devs could implement something like, if your ships suffer X amount of damage they will retreat, you could select this as an option, that will make it better especially if you fighting in another area of the map, and you prized cap ship is under attack you its suffers a lot of damage, would be nice if it retreats to a nearby player or ally planet,

sweet.

I'd prefer a lightly modified system.
the current option of 4 catagories is nice, but I would like to see a graded system with an infinite ammount of gradations.
thing of it like this:
each planet has an infinite well of points, but every successive point has a monetary and resource cost 5-20% greater than the previous bought point. points bought can be allocated to each of the four catagories, upgrading them respectively. the exponential nature of the system will cause it to become unwieldy to progress too far, but its still possible for the financially stable. not to mention its far more realistic than "nope, cant expand the empire any farther"
-"why?"-
"... let me get back to you on that"

in order to balance it you would need simply to modify the increase in point cost per level, and to make each option (tactical, fleet, logistic and civil) about equally important to a balanced empire. that doesnt sound like a lot of work to me.

in essence this system ties together all 4 objects, so that an increase in one will cause a price difficulty in the others. this is realistic and will attribute itself to the "play your own way" ideal than keeping each cost seperate, which is both unrealistic and forces a singular mode of gameplay.
plus it would solve the ominous"I dont have enough logistic/fleet points, whine" issue that will FOREVER plague you guys if you have a hard cap.

I personally think they simply need to increase the base logistics by one for all planets, even the dead asteroids. That should provide just enough breathing room while still forcing expansion.

Im not keen on the forcing expansion bit, I've always been a turtle player, its always been my style of play, and this is very hard to play as that style, maybe it should be possible to create different AI styles, that would help a lot

hehe couldn't resist...

nothing wrong being a turtle player,

I would like to see some more options for custom games. It would be cool if you could edit things like logistic numbers and ship cap when playing a custom game. I mean those are the fun games and the player should be able to make them how they want. If you're a novice maybe you could stop with lots of starting logistics points and fleet caps, while those more experienced players can choose lower numbers. Also it would be really cool if you would pick the starting ships, or at least the starting capital ship. Maybe create a point systems where a player can pick a certain number of ships to start off.

that really does sound like a very good idea,

This is where I disagree.

Yes, there needs to be some logistics cap, including all orbitals and ship numbers. Yes, the current caps are too low. BUT, I don't think one should be constantly forced to expand.

I like SS ninja's logarithmic-esque cost scale idea, in that with enough wait and resources I can build a force with little expansion. Yes, I think that a smart and aggressive expansion should provide more numbers (for lack of a better word), but right now a defensive turtling empire is impossible. The longer time to increase money and resources should be the limiting factor, not abstract caps.

I have differing ideas about the limit of each category: tact. log. and fleet.

Tactical much be limited or else fleets are not needed for defense at all. With unlimited cannons and hangers, even a human would struggle to break through, let alone the AI of my ships that just sit and eat up damage (I'll get back to that).

Logistical orbitals seem limited as a mechanic, rather than something that disrupts gameplay. Yes, the previous limitless system provides worlds with 8 research stations and trade and blah blah, but what is necessarily the problem with that? As stated before, the cost effectiveness of doing so, especially early on, is not worth it with pirates and other empires next door.

Fleet caps I hate! I understand the need and can see the functionality, but if I keep churning out metal and moolah who's stopping me? I understand the need to limit the larger ships to keep balance, but what if I want my battle fleet to have every capital ship? Thats 40 light frigs! The 1:8 ration may be wanted for design and balancing reasons, but it has thus far limited the truly epic scale of fleet battles that I've been hoping for.

Only in my last game session (a 4 hour romp in a medium map with 7 hard AIs) did I see these larger battles, with over 40 ships per side. Though, even with me under specs laptop, I could zoom right down to the battle and watch my beautiful ships destroy the pirates'. VERY pretty!

I'm sure there is more I wanted to talk about, including the poor AI interaction between frigs and masses of cannons, but this post was is lengthy enough.

If you have giant warships and nobody piloting them then you have a serious problem. I don't think fleet capacity should be upgradable (it should depend on your total population), but they are better then none. Now people can't build 400 Kodiak's (like I did). It just raped everything; platforms, hangars, capital ships, whole systems in under a minute. Then I send 10 siege frigates to wipe out the planet.

And expansion is an important part of the game. That's the whole point of the four X's! You have to expand. Turtling should get you nowhere in this game. You have to be an aggressive player. That being said, just how much of a turtle are you thinking about? Just taking an additional three systems is enough to start some serious research and building.

Oh I noticed something else. I don't know if it bothers anyone else, but I think the starting locations are way to close to each other. Every game I play there have been other capital planets within 2-3 jumps away, sometimes only one jump. I don't like that at all. I want some time for all the players and myself to spread out a little before coming into contact with one another. It would also let people take more planets before the AI does and let you amass larger fleets for getting battles. It would just be more fun if everyone was spread out more.

But some people want to be turtles and some want to be aggressive , for the game to sell well, it has to appeal to both.

While not a total turtle, I am not totally aggressive either. I like to get a foothold , fortify and then move on.

you bring up a lot of interesting points there, it is hard to turtle, and resources is / will be the limiting factor, if you don't expend fast enough, the AI will eat up all the resources leaving you with very little, again different AI styles will help, I also have to agree on your argument about the ship cap, its just too small and the game should have large ship battles, and Im not really seeing it at the mo, but if the player could build more refineries that would help also, I think something needs to be done or tweaked, Im not too sure how without upsetting the balance, and we haven't got the other two races either,

I just don't see why people complain about turtling when the game focues on the 4X's. It's like complaining about the lack of tactics in a strategy game.

You can turtle all you want, however trade ports are completely unnecessary to turtling. I should think a turtle should go for its advantages : small empire -> tax income. And trade ports are the primary crunch on logistics. You don't need more than 3 points spent on shipyards total. Toss in 4 research stations, 3 orbital refineries, a couple broadcast centers, and there you are. A perfectly respectable midgame empire in 12 logistics points, which you could get with your homeworld, your starting asteroid, an Ice planet, and another asteroid. For four more logistics points you can get 8 research stations.

You have to take proportion into the equation as well, turtle is ok, but there gotta be a reasonable balance between that.


Right now it's quite possible to turtle, say if you play on 15 planets in total, the agressive players got 9 and you got 6 then you'll still be able to defense most likely if you move your fleet around enough. But, if by turtle you mean you try to hold into only 5 planets in a 30 planets game then one way or another you gonna get fragged.


Again in proportion the battle has to be at that scale also. If two empires duke it out while only poccess 5 or 6 planets each then chance it makes sense for the battles two can't be very big. But if each of them own a star systems then it makes sense epic battle can only happen at that scale.

'Insurgency' is bothering me. Every 10 minutes it seems a large fleet of pirates attacks some random, distant planet of mine. Is there anything I can do to curb this trend? Or do I simply have to turn every single one of my outposts into gigantic gauss battery?

It just seems a little too powerful, concidering this is in a custom game with the absolute biggest settings so I'll be dealing with these insurgents every 10 minutes for the next 20 hours or whatever it takes to win.

Really? Because I research them and didn't see any amount of improve in detecting them.(Just how much your sensor is improved from researching it?)