Jay2Jay wrote:two words Facing System. In order to get a smooth looking transition you must make a model and then take at least X amount of pictures which must all be rotated X amount of degrees and it makes the entire thing take up so much more space in order to get a crappy looking thing to look slightly less crappy. It's bulky, time-consuming, and makes me not want to make ships for a mod. I understand that it was implemented because of the constraints of the time, however I still don't understand why it hasn't been replaced by at least a "single image that rotates" or preferably a "full 3d rendered model" version. I know that would take lots of time and would break every mod ever made, but it would save lots of time in the long run and make modding much easier.
Too much space taken up by files, and a single rotating image would be impossible. However, I have wanted a way to automatically turn 3d models into facing setups.
Xephyr wrote:The game has a pretty steep learning curve, but after that its pretty easy. I don't need to put a lot of thought into my games anymore.
I wholeheartedly agree. Perhaps making the better weapons a bit rarer, and making them sometimes not appear at all in some games, would help with this. For example, some games might not have any Fusionfires.
or saying poor enemy AI, because they rarely use their weapons appropriately (Such as range limitations, etc), and often a group of enemies will just end up tripping over themselves rather than effectively attacking, so often my cool ideas for NPC ships often end up performing mediocre at best due to the AI limitations.
This is the major suggestion I was going to make, and you said it better than I could have. Hopefully CSC America's AI system will improve this significantly, as I don't see the current AI working in an RTS.
What bothers me personally is the fact that massive commodity gradients just seem to go unresolved. Two stations right next to each other simply should not have a potential 20,000 credit profit from trading between them.
A simple means of resolving this is by decreasing buy price variation based on the level of development in the system. Stations in the middle of nowhere should have higher demand for needed goods than ones in St. Katherine's.
I would also enjoy more dynamic, shared between systems reputation, for example, if you go out of your way to kill every single sung base, they may begin to swarm you as soon as you enter a system, or fear you, abandoning stations and moving away
Love it. Love everything about it.
Another thing that irks me is the low level of activity that goes on beyond the player's interaction with the system. Freighters spawn occasionally and wrecks are scuttled, but aside from that there's nothing that really happens despite the fact that the local CSC was frantically sending you on missions to raid Ares convoys and halt sieges just a minute ago.
Some simple means of resolving this have been discussed in the past, including making freighters smarter and actually capable of hauling goods between stations. Here are some examples of things that I think would help to alleviate the problem:
Charon raids on escorted NPC freighters.
Korolov launches attacks on frigates that kill too many freighters, similarly to how it attacks Strongholds.
Rather than spawning frigates in, have a set number be present in the system, and simply send them to attack freighters when needed.
Militia and Fleet aligned stations/CSCs ought to send ships to defend civilian stations.
Every so often, a CSC should automatically carry out an escort mission for a refueling run. Attacks on these escorts should be smaller and more conventional than those on player escorted freighters, and should not always occur.
Rarely, Ares convoys should spawn on their own, moving between stargates.
Finally, missions all too often do nothing to improve the state of a system, are rarely affected by the system's current situation, and at times worsen it. Korolov missions add more frigates, Militia missions have the player destroy a station but otherwise help nothing, and Fleet missions just spawn an enemy out of nowhere for you to fight. It would be nice if factions reacted to their standing in a particular system. A CSC shouldn't come under attack in an empty system, and it might not need the player at all. This would make the game harder, but that's not a bad thing, especially when that difficulty grows naturally from increased immersiveness.
