I know the developers don't like hearing this but this game is buggy. The sliders for setting military production,
social production, and resaerch are buggy as can be. -- Can you use em?, yes. but still for the one of the most basic
things a micromanager is going to be adjusting, thet shoulkd be smooth -- and such an easy and small routine to
program. Or is this another deliberate thing to discourage micromanaging.
The extra round of ship moves with save/load is buggy. And if it is deliberate...............................
The loading of saved games is buggy --- I can no longer even load a saved game. I deleted all my ship designs in
the folder inside of my documents area and that didn't help. Double checked my video card drivers to make sure they
are the most recent. I changed the game graphic settings to the same as my desktop and that didn't help. And what is up with that anyways? -- should be in manual with installing game instructions if it is really necessary -- not buried in some forums.
So I have yet to get past the expansion phase of a game to even learn how the combat works.
I have seen the reasearch costs of a tech fluctuate greatly in the same game -- like somewhere around 600 TP
cost when first available and then down under 200 TP cost a bit latter after i've gotten a few other techs. Don't know
if it is deliberate to keep someone from just researching straight down one tech line -- haven't been able to play a
game long enough or reload game to track it down.
This isn't a bug but where is a good civlopedia of things in the game. Techs,weapons,armor,shields,buildings,etc ---
giving their costs and specifications. This has been a feature of good turn based stragey games for like almost 10 years now.
Also, this isn't a bug -- but from what i've played, i'm not sure the game is even close to play balanced. Looks like
the developers have created a game with features they want in it and then coded it without finding out if the basic
concepts are balanced.
The explanation of spending in the game is buggy. the spending is related to both production costs and
research costs. And why the developers decided that production and research had to be tied together, i have no
idea. Production spending should be independent of research spending. The fact that they both cost money
will keep it in check. I know , you are saying i don't understand and misread manual. No I did not,
you clearly state that if spending is at 100%, then the spending costs will be equal to the factory proctuction.
It is not -- if total factory production is 100 MP and total research proction is 50 TP; and social production +
military proction = 50% and technology production =50% then total spending will be 100 x .5 + 50 x .5 = 75.
keeping it simple and not introducing all the adjustments. Such a basic concept to the game and your
explanation in the game manual is misleading at best ( purely wrong as far as i'm concerned ).
Also do not like the fact that you have to pay for production that you are not using. For instance, you get high
production on your home planet and build it up. Then you expand, then you go into a phase of building up your colonies,
but don't need to build anything on your home planet -- those social production costs still come out even though you
aren't building anything there. It's a real problem if you've gotten some good production tiles --- Read posts where
players are saying don't use em cause they'll ruin your economy.
Guess i could go on and on but it is pretty obvious how i feel ( yes there is a lot more ).
Bottom line -- the game is buggy. Also the play balancing of game features is probably quite weak -- but i cann't
get enough game stability to really check it out.
Lots of nice features in the game and might even be fun to play if i could load a saved game. ( in spite of how I
feel about a lot of the game ). I'll check back and try the game off and on after patches.
BTW, i personally take offence from the devlopers taking offence at players who find the game buggy. You got
blinders on? Just the funky sliders for setting production %s -- sure we can work around it -- but heh if you cann't
handle a simple subroutine like that!!!
Oh yeah, last game i played locked up my computer on the new technology screen. Had autosave on for each
turn but of course after rebooting my comp, the game couldn't load the saved game. Had just gotten to the end
of the expansion phase of the game too. That's as far as i've ever been able to get. Have never even had a battle
yet to see what it is like. And no, I'm not going to invest a lot of time into figuring out how to get the game to work for me.
I payed my $40 for the game, guess my expectation is a little too high, not much demand for these types of games,
so the best we can expect is someone who does it for the passion and fun in their offtime. But in this case, they came up
short for me.
I would hope the developers would take this as valid critism and take a good look at the game. They could change this
game into something really special. However from what i've read in their posts, they seem quite content with the direction they are heading. Well wasted enough time writing this and trying to play this game -- think i'll play a game of Alpha Centauri
and have some fun.