Feedback including some bugs.

Sins of a Solar Empire II - feedback 01.

Please note some elements (specifically, bugs) have been fixed or partially fixed with the latest update. This was written before and up to that update.


AI

Not attacking/colonizing 1-jump asteroids (Supply 31) / Planets
1vs1 on Hard: not a single ship seen while there was no time they could not take the non-Pirate route.
1vs1 on Hard: 3 Pirate raids, of which only 1 or 2 on Capital, won the game.
NOTE these 2 were in the same game.

I won an Unfair twice. Nice...but I think I should have lost both:
- first game I sort of had to make a Hail Mary pass while I was beset by 3 enormous fleets. No chance so with Capitol Victory on, I race through all 3. They are *never* well defended if I am fast. A bit more inconsistency perhaps?
- Speaking of which: a random factor affecting how much the Supply Diff is between Enemy fleet & say, Pirate location (their Hideout, which the opponent would not pass, but could have without even medium losses), would have made the 2nd win much harder. I'm not complaining...but it was the predictability that made me not get smashed.
Although various interesting things happened that certainly improved my gameplay. In theory

Ships

No 'Capital Ship low on health'
No 'Titan low on health'
But...a looooot of 'Enemy invading planet'.
Now without going into the 'Oh look, it's another Trade Ship' thingy...althought that does adequately describe my reaction: solutions.
1) The thing you fear: a nice interface element, that we can reach while playing (but should be in setting up game), where we can check, for each ship type (across factions), whether or not we want to be bothered. It may not be feasible, for MP, to allow access to this while in-match but...you and others know better than me.
2) The easy version: let me set (*definitely* needs access in-game) the Supply Value that triggers the message.
Note: this is my main irritation in the game, atm, and I have been of the opinion for nearly half a century now that any game's success comes down to: 'Fascination minus irritation equals longevity'. I just have not put it into words until about 30 seconds ago...

Palpitations

When someone puts a single, unmoving blue pixel on my screen, various things happen to me that are well...more scary than a Titan. A few games later, I realized it was a 4x4, since there were half a dozen 1-pixel vary-colored other pixels. On 3840x1600, for the record.
I do not know if this is on purpose? If not this is, then, a bug paragraph.
Do we have some 'Upload screenshots of bugs to This_Link' thingy?
Also: can we have the ability to make screenshots, since NDA-wise I can think of no inhibition since it's a commercial release and Epic has no very lovely Steam F12 function (one can only wonder why).
NOTE the occurence of these pixels, and their number, appears to be random.

Difficulty

Handicap system (Age of Empires III) is already half-way built in...if Options can be set per AI player.
Mostly the Options that exist are there for each player. If a player were to have the choice of checking for which:
Player
Team
they were to apply, there would be an implementation that would not require much in the way of Interface Additions ergo no great impact on game setup complexity. I think.
Right now, I think the gap between Hard and Unfair is...the latter. A more refined system of finetuning AI players would be at the top of my list.

Me Wants It

Handicap system (see: Difficulty) - infinite depth and replayability.
The hotkeys! The hotkeys! My Electric Sheep for the Key Bindings screen.
A supply indication for the total Planet Defense Structures (just like fleets have).
A way to change my player name.
Player progress (e.g. who is doing how well/badly) UI element. Not sure which version you would want, but probably one that players can turn OFF. I would probably keep it in-screen a lot, because it helps me see what I do wrong, and how the AI decides and changes tactics.
Individual UI element zoom. I think Final Fantasy XIV (the online thing) does that rather well? I could be wrong; do not have it installed. Also City of Heroes/Villains. Am not sure if this is feasible in the current UI setup.
Reset Camera to previous (not default) position. Having to manually 'put the solar system back in its rightful orientation' is a bit of a hassle. And I *like* the graphics, and viewing each ship from various angles. You know...I only have (checking...right) 9,916 screenshots that I have made over time. Let's crack that 10k mark.
If my Teammate bids on a Raid, I would like to know, so as to not waste our combined (I signed a pre-nup, what can you do) resources.


Bug

NOTE some of this is no longer correct after the latest update. But there are still issues.

Someone mentioned a problem with Hotkeys for Fleets not working properly.
- When I put *one* ship in a Fleet, the (ctrl+number) will select the ship.
- When I put *more* than one ship in a fleet (as one does ), it will not select a ship.
My temporary workaround is: I use (on a thumb-grid (12 buttons) Razer Naga Trinity):
1 for Alpha Fleet, 4 for main (or any) ship in fleet
2 and 5 for Beta
3 and 6 for Gamma
This would be the same on a Numpad. On the normal keys (slaptop) 1-2 / 3-4 / 5-6.
Hope that works for now.

'Bug' is a strong word but: in the Factions screen, looking at a Teammate, the order in Text (top-to-bottom) is 'Cease Fire / Share Vision / Synergy Pact'. That is not the order of the icons (left-to-right). Unless the 'eye' is not 'Share Vision'.

Can my dear teammates (AI) stop refusing precious metals? It's free!



UI

I have trouble seeing the mini-icon for, most notably I think, Andvar, also Tauranite, when I try to see what a fleet can build (what materials are needed for a capital ship). It took me 5 games before I noticed these little icons where in fact there. NOTE some of this was in 100% UI size.
I have put the UI at 75% because for some odd reason the 'planets and fleets' (wild guess) list in the left had grown to...I think 24 was when the game no longer added items. My list covered only 80% of the (3840 by) 1600 resolution. Not sure why that is?

I am not sure if this is intended (hope not)? If I select a ship (from a Ctrl-C hotkey assignment) it does not select it *when* it is in a phase lane. NOTE this may have been fixed.
Additional: this is true most of the time, for me. But in the current game it is not only not always true, there is also the circumstance where the previously described ship lost *all* response to pressing a hotkey. Fixed it with temporarily assigning a nearby ship to that key. And back again.

In the Research cue (at the bottom of the research screens), I can not quickly re-prioritize. Projects can be shifted to the right, but not to the left. If you have 6 projects that you want to skip over (for the one you have just chosen, more often than not, for reasons of urgency) this is a bit of a hassle.


Right; good luck to what appears to become another fine title with an already impressive GUI.

PS I don't suppose there's a plan in the works that adds a little 'female/male' button next to the UI element where I click to change a capital ship's Name? Too many barkers