Greetings!
This post will be with some constructive criticism. and be full of things to improve but i want to note from the very start that i like DW and despite all the problems i am still having an enjoyable experience.
Some points have already be written down by others so many time i wont repeat them all
AI/AUTOMATION
For all- The ai/automation has no memory at all of threats...so we see for instance consuctors happily rush to monster, colony ship continously attempting to colonize a pirate infested system or ships succumbing one at a time to a superior enemy ship.
Territory Management
I'd like to have an ability to flag systems as "hostile" and have the AI avoid it !!
Also i'd like the ability to set up "sphere of influence" , like "painting the galaxy" so in the area i painted the ai can build and move but outside it its only on my manual control
Also it could be great to have a system that tells my ship the maximum distance they can travel from the nearby colonies... so lets say they can move 1 month travel time from any of my current colonies but no more.
Exploration - I play with exploration turned on, they seem to work pretty well though i noticed many time exploration ships stay very close together (very often 2 in the same system) and when found some
special, like a ruin that suggest to investigate an area- they dont go there or at least dont prioritize it enough so i have to manually control it.
Colonization - Where should i begin?
On Automatic the ai will spam colonies regardless of distance, threats, diplomatic consequences and whatever.
On Suggestion on they will spam you with requsts, again regardless of everything.
What i'd like to see is a prioritization of colonizing planets near to my core... not halfway across the galaxy! if i really want to colonize there let me do it manually.
I usually play it on manual and having a good time with it, some suggestion.,. if the designated target of a colony ship got colonized by someone else i usually dont get a warning about that and the colony ship stays idle
Constructors - They go on about their business, as usual they dont care about distances or threats.
Also very often they dont go repair damaged ships or damaged special ships after encounters (found by exploration ships).
I never saw them build resort base.
I'd like to see constructor a little smarter about what to build and WHERE (dont build a mining station the other side of the galaxy when you can build it in the home system for the same resources..)
Also with the "avoid system" opportunity it would be a lot better
Escorts/System sharing - This issue usually is very bad for diplomacy
Since ai build mining station and colony in other race systems (i have the option turned off... the guess is enemy empires dont care which leads to systems being shared and after THEY trespass my territory they bitch about it)
Also having military ship escorting freighters just make the ai spam their warning messages.
I'd like an option to flag systems i dont want my military to go in.
Fleet Automation
Well it really doesnt work very well.
If fleet automation and ships are automated fleets get formed, disbanded and usually do their stuff (which often i dont like but at least is consistent...)
If fleet automation is OFF and ships are automated (my usual settings) the ai still decide to remove ships from my fleet.
I'd like to have ship taking control of my automated ships inside a fleet if i'm not using it for stuff for patrol close to the designated home of the system and keep them well supplied as in a "ready for action state", NOT removing them from my fleet
Also since i've talked already about avoid system list, area of influence and maybe paint for automation what about a paint attack in which i tell the fleet the region i want to patrol and engage enemy in?
Patrolling and Fleet suggestions
It usually works decently,problem is since the ai spam colonies very far away and move ship back and forth you need 3 times the real amount needed if you leave it on automation
What i'd like is manually use fleet for defensive duty and early response to threats...
Bear with me what about having "fleet stances" ? i'd like to assign lets say 3 frigate and 2 escort for patrol duty in "defend/Patrol" stance in my home system... so those 5 ships will patrol the systems and maybe the close neighbourhood (thanks to the sphere of influence) and will not move away
I can have instead a "Fast strike force" that will be on "engage hosties " strike that will respond to threats in the sphere of influence and in the allowed systems by immediatly jumping in and intercepting targets (like incoming enemy fleets)
I could also have a fleet in "attack" stance that will selectively pick targets and attack enemyt system i designated (with the paint attack)
Retrofit
This has been said dozens of times already, the ability to retrofit all ships of a specific class is essential
Design Screen
I dont like it, at all.
First of all the autodesign is flawed as so many have pointed out already, lets stick to manual design but still the interface can be improved a lot.
First i dont like the "see only latest design of the class", allow me to filter out obsolete designs instead!
Also allow me to upgrade everything with latest components or multiobsolete ships from the interface
This could be useful so at game start i can select all ships and obsolete them all and then load my starting ships (i saved previously) without having to click hundreds of times at every game start.
I want the ai if in autobuild never build something obsolete (civilian too)
I'd also like to see a design type and pick (multi pick) possible duties for it, so assuming the fleet automation can have stances like "Defend/Patrol","Engage Hostiles","Attack" i can then create for instance a Frigate that can be in "Engage Hostiles" stance and the automation, if turned on
can pick this class of ship to form a "Engage Hostiles" fleet.
There is also work to be done in renaming ships when you upgrade.. what about add Mk2,Mk3 and so on without changing the name?
Ship Design Screen
Its not that bad, i dont like having to enter it to obsolete designs.
Also instead of listing all components could ne good to have a number for it , like Mexos Blaster x4
Ship Design still is very simplicistic, no various kind of damage, no shield piercing, no armor piercing, it seems to me that moo2 had a way way better design system more than 10 years ago with also directional damage.
From my experience just build the biggest ship with tons of shields (very overpowered) and lot of weapons, especially torpedoes, and you're good to go.
Combat
The actual combat, though not very interesting since there is only 1 kind of damage and no real neat feature, play itself quite well. There are some problems with it mostly for earlier points like sending
ships 1 at a time vs very big threats.
What i'd like to see (and this will be a big one) is more realistic combat which without touching exagerated level of complexity could have shield strength divided into 4 areas, and weapons with different effects, tracking speed, and firearcs.
Also manually controlled ship sometime wont return fire.
Research
In one word.. bad.
Possibly the worst part of all game, there are tecnologies that are all the same for the most part with just a little better version of the previous one, there is really nothing very interesting about it.
Also you cant really choose what to research easily and from what i saw the tech tree is very very small for a game like this.
Planet Development
Ok there isnt really one
by design to reduce complexity and thats ok... but maybe in the future (or next game) allow building on the planets can be a pro
Resource System
I like it! it works and works well
Diplomacy
Dont like it very much, most important due to the sharing of systems and the continous bitching about "removing ships" in the shared system.
There are also exploit for buying new planets (ai should NOT sell planets unless for HUGE amount of techs/cash(
Also tech prices seems a little too low.
Economy
Now its a little too easy to make money, this will be fixed
Galaxy sizes
It seems that if you play a tiny 100 star game or a huge 1000 star game the size of the galaxy is the same... this is awful.
I'd like the scale of the game to..scale
or allow me to select the number of stars i want AND the galaxy size so i can make it as i like
so instead of being 2000x2000 everytime (for example) i can have it 1000x1000 if i want 100 start, 2000x2000 if i want 250 or 4000x4000 if i want 2500 stars.
In case put a warning that performance may suffer if you go over recommended level and let me worry about it.
Performance
Personally i didnt notice any problems here, to me it run smoothly.
Modding
Atm modding capabilities are.... minimal.
A game like that should be heavily moddable something that atm is not.
Ok customizing races and ship names, but what about tech tree, components? what about ai ? what about ai prioritizations? what about game mechanics?
Basically real modding is totally missing which is a very very bad thing since from mods you could get lot of contents and happy player...free!
I deliberatly left out bugs and crashes that i hope will get fixed in the new release.
