Heya, (this might end up getting long, but do please give it a read-through at the least! <3 <3 )
I first of all want to say that I am loving this game so far. Hilarious explosions, ships and lasers everywhere, etc. I’ve already wasted countless hours of my life playing and enjoying this game! It is loads of fun. I’m fighting vs other people’s challenges, making my own, making themed fleets, etc. Beware my battlestar fleets, my Starcraft-Terran fleets, and so on. Lotsa fun, ^.^;
But I feel that this game could be a lot more than it already is. I think the game could be a lot more complicated. Ships should have much more complex commands. Give us control over each individual weapon! I’d like to be able to tell my cruisers “no, do not fire your plasma doom cannons on those enemy fighters, you will never hit them”, or “Please do not fire your defense lasers at that enemy cruiser, it doesn’t do any damage T_T”. Let us be much more specific with the instructions for our ships! Prioritize laser fire on ships who’s shields have already collapsed! Attempt to stay at a distance!
What bugs me about this game right now is the lack of control I can have over my ships, and how little it matters in battle. I usually try to set my fleets up in such a way that their victory appears epic. Frigates who have come full circle and are now behind the enemy fleet, shooting them in the rear. Cruisers turning to level a broadside at the enemy when in range, etc. But this is hard to do without a convoluted set of escort orders, and frankly doesn’t change much. I do just as much damage shooting an enemy cruiser in the front as I do in the engines or aside. I really feel that this system could be expanded with so much potential.
Have firing-arcs and differing armor values! Don’t tell me that my gun turrets can somehow shoot over my own ship. They are mounted on the side! They should only be able to fire in that general direction. Give me an incentive to try more tactical positioning. A target coming straight at you is much easier to hit than a target moving side to side. Ships moving abeam to another should be more difficult to hit. Ships should be more vulnerable in the rear, or in the sides where all those armored plates aren’t in the way. Sure this is space-combat, but as long as we’re only playing in 2 dimensions, let’s add some emphasis to maneuvers! Order ships to advance until they reach a certain distance from the enemy, and then turn sideways and give them a broadside or something. Or have ships specially designed to always face the enemy from behind a very powerful armored/shielded prow. Such a ship might be very durable from the front, but a few sneaky frigates ordered to get behind it could take it down. This could add soooo much more possibilities for strategy to the game.
Right now I just get frustrated at times with the lack of control I have over my ships. My missile frigates are fragile, and have a very long range. I want them to try to stay at that range! If the enemy is barreling down on them, run! A giant ponderous cruiser could be out maneuvered by a slightly smaller cruiser who slowly runs circles around the other, but couldn’t win in a straight firefight. We need more options! Right now it’s horribly frustrating when my ships are all deployed facing the exact same direction, blindly charge towards each other, and go ape-shit on the first thing that enters their range. They then stumble around aimlessly with no regard for their own safety, seeming to pick new targets quite indiscriminately. Formation orders only further complicate things.
Perhaps add some terrain in space? Maybe we’re fighting in an asteroid belt? Larger ships should be more worried about crashing into giant rocks, and smaller frigates and fighters would more easily find safe passage.
A spaceship exploding in a wonderfully gratuitous and violent fashion should be a little more scary than it is! Debris and fire and other large chunks of spaceship flying in all directions, crashing into anything in their way. And those tier 3 generators you had in your ship? I hope they didn’t overload. Exploding ships should do much more damage to nearby ships, giving us more of an incentive to spread out more realistically. Stacking 5 cruisers on top of each other is kind of silly.
I guess I just want the game to be more complicated and deep. I love the game so far, but I want my positioning to affect more than just the aesthetics of the battle. These are giant flying metal fortresses of doom… IN SPACE!! Let’s have them act more like it!
And a few other various suggestions:
-Fighters able to shoot down missiles? Make assigning a CAP to big capital ships more useful?
-Battleships? Bigger and badder than cruisers? Perhaps in an expansion sometime?
-Momentum? A ship 200 meters long isn’t going to stop on a dime.
-More order options: “stay at range”, “keep your bow pointed at…”, “Focus all of gun X on target type Y”, etc.
-Allow changing of ship facing at deployment? Again, it just feels silly that they all line up and drive at each other in a straight line. Ships facing abeam to each other and racing for position could add a lot of emphasis to weight and speed in ship design. As it is now, engines aren’t all that big of a deal when your enemy is going to come at you head on.
-Kinetic weapons could use some prettier graphics. Show the hail of metal shards of doom that are flying towards my enemy!
Much thanks for taking the time to read all of that. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I really feel that this game could be soooooo much more than it already is now! <3