Peace time I can leave running at 1x speed while I work from home, occasionaly looking up when I hear a message ping. Makes a great podcast alternative.
Playing as Ackdarian on 700 stars, 6x6 sectors, varied clusters, prewarp, random+hidden research paths, 200ly colonise range, low planet quality and 1 of each faction. Everything else default (I think).
I'm one of those idjits that play mostly manual. Everything is set to manual except:
- Newly built explorer ships(first few are manual for a bit, viva las queue missions)
- Constructor ships (they still don't do anything unless I manually designate a station/wreckage to be built)
- Home planet tax is manual until it's 80% full, then automated. Other planets taxes are automated for 15/30/40 happiness in settings
- Stockpiles. Seem to work fine enough automated
- Defence fleets. Once I make them and designate a home, I just leave them at 50% defence range. Seem to only defend against other empires actual fleets but eventually the mining stations can kill non-fleeted pirates/creatures by themselves. So nbd
- Raid fleets. I'll build a handful and more as the game progresses. When there's a war, I'll change their homebase to something near the front and leave them to do their thing. More for distraction than anything else. Also doesn't seem fair to micro against the AI too much, since they (presumably) use the same fleet automation as the player.
Understandably, "pure" manual players aren't a priority but had a few suggestions I think are worth bringing up anyway. Definitely have more thoughts but those would be personal preferences left to modding (e.g. reduced ship ranges, fewer good planet types spawning as opposed to less quality).
In no particular order:
- Path of the Ancients/Shadows succession planet event should result in no succession if you're already Way of the Foo. If you're the correct Way already, just a nice "we feel validated" message and free ruin. If you're the wrong Way, a worse outcome than neutral (e.g. autosuccession and -20 relations intead of -10).
- "Military" -> "Fleets": The Fleet Role icon next to fleet names should be clickable like the Ship Automation icon for individual ships. If it's an issue of the fleet settings being configurable, those can be copied from the latest Fleet Template with the relavant role.
- Ability to select multiple Fleets, as fleets. You can shift/control click individual ships from the list, same should apply to fleets. Since I play manually this would be great. Currently have to click them one by one, which is a pain because of the next point.
- The click and hold item selection menu should work when zoomed in (not just in galaxy view). Having to zoom out to select the enemy fleet is pretty annoying (can at least double click for mine). Also hard to select individual ships, especially enemy since the targeting prefers my faction.
- Option to build Fleet Templates directly from Spaceport/Planet info cards (bonus points if the fleet is named "<fleet template name> <build location name>"). Since I'm playing manually and planet names don't always match system names (you can still pan galaxy map while the "Fleet Template" window is open), this becomes a real pain.
- "Fleet templates" -> "Build new Foo Fleet at..." should be Alphabetised (with shipyards together first and planets together after, like it already is)
- Search functionality in Research Screen. Took me around 20 years to realise I had Improved Frigates (random research paths) because it was in the top row of construction techs instead of bottom like escorts and destroyers.
- Generals are a pain. When assigned to a fleet, they hop on a non-troop transport. Then when you're loading troops after finishing an invasion, they decide to take a vacation on the planet. They should be hoovered up when loading troops. They still show up in their fleets list of characters while on vacation, so you should (hopefully) be able to use that link to determine whether to hoover them up when loading troops. This is my optimised dance/workaround I (try to) do while paused and zoomed in after every invasion:
- Double click a ship from invasion fleet to select fleet
- Click general in info card to bring up "Characters" overview
- Select a Troop Transport from the fleet
- Click "Leave Fleet" in the info card
- Click "Create new Fleet ..." right next to previous button
- With the already open character overview (sweet optimisation dude), transfer general to new fleet (thank god it's at bottom of list everytime)
- With the already open new temporary fleets info card, select the Troop Transport again
- Click "Leave Fleet" in the info card
- Without moving the mouse, click "Join ship .* to fleet" and rejoin original invasion fleet. Can mouse over another ship (without clicking) if you forget the original ship name
- Now when you unpause, the general will be going back to its original fleet in a Troop Transport instead of Frigate. Yay (yes this has given me brainrot, how could you tell?)
- The "Join ship .* to fleet" list should be alphabetised
- "Resources" -> "New Mining Locations" should have construction/fuel(?)/luxuries filters.
- Upgrade should respect weapon designation (e.g Standoff Weapon), class (e.g. Torpedoes) and size (S/M/L).
- "Top up fleet with ships" should priorite nearby ship yards with enough resources for a ship or 2. Priorite more, if it's already prioritising. It already spreads out the top up near the capital, so I assume it's heavily influenced by distance to capital or total stock currently. It's usually just a few frigates/destroyers, can easily be done nearby.
- Rebellions should have a cooldown or give less assimilation. Currently takes around 15-30 days to 100% a planet, depending on population size. The temptation to cheese is very much real.
- If Shakturi Beacon world is meant to be invulnerable to land invasion pre-events, pummeling them down to 30m pop where they become invulnerable should forcibly bring in the planet destroyer fleet and progress the event chain. "The psyonic cries of the Shakturi genocide echo out into the void. The void echoes back" or some such flavour reason. It takes years for the land battle to wittle down the pop that much, since it's still immune to bombardment and you're relying purely on your troops. If you can afford to last years, you can afford Shakturi reinforcements arriving.
Random aside, the music sucks. Understandable but worth bringing up (I assume it's brought up a lot). I've been playing the Endless Space 2 and Mechanicus OSTs on loop instead. I don't know where they found those no name artists to make those bangers but I'm happy with you spending your money on code/3d assets rather than music. The chances of finding a hidden gem artist (who I presume is cheaper than a popular artist) who fits in budget is probably astranomical.
EDIT: Finished the game. It went out with a wimper. Maybe because the galaxy is small (700 stars), Shakturi only had 1 beacon. In the 22 years the war lasted, their planet destroyer never came so I couldn't progress the ancient vault events to get the virus or the ability to destroy beacons via research (without planet destroyers or espionage).
Once their allies were left with a few systems and Shakturi themselves were down to only their beacon world, I invaded with 70-80k troop strenghth (in space, before in battle bonuses kick in). They had 800m pop and 50k troop defend strenghth. Over years, managed to wittle them down to 30m pop and 4 immortal militia spec ops. At which point they stopped taking troop AND pop damage. Ended up tasking 10 spies with destroying the beacon over 12 months, my troops were taking damage the entire time but I had so many that none actually died. Decided to throw my chicken tendies on the floor, re-enabled all automation, set 8x speed and declared war on everyone.
I "won" the game a few years into the war. Does that disable the Shakturi story line from progressing?
