Last minute changes that you would like for Entrenchment or the first update patch

(was named My opinions on the latest entrenchment)

from Stardock Forums

alright, so, i realise that the final entrenchment is coming out in like 2 days (OMGZ), but ive noticed a few things that tick me off in entrenchment and would like changed... now, these are my opinions, but feel free to post your own, maybe som dev will read this and think of putting it in the next update.

SO:

i really hate having the starbases appear in the empire window, there should be a way to turn them off

for instance, im playing areolian sector (or however you spell it) right now, its the map with like 9 stars and 100 something planets, all connected by wormholes. so, if i want to create a huge trade network (or even just to secure each star system), i need lots of starbases, means the empire tree gets VERY cluttered, and i have to keep scrolling up (which in itself is an exercise in tedium, because the empire window thinks i want to see my fleet in reference to the planet - which i dont - and so automatically scrolls back down again)

i think the less cluttered the empire window the better. by all means make it an option, turn starbases on/off in the empire window, but atm, its rather irritating

next, i think that starbase based strikecraft hould not show up in the ships tag on planets... its hard to describe, you know when you scroll out from a planet far enough that you see an icon of the planet, plus small bars indicating the number of orbital structures, ships, enemy ships etc? at the moment, starbase based strike craft appear as friendly (belonging to you) ships, its a little confusing, especially when i want to muster all my forces for a single push, or make sure i havent manufactured too many ships for each fleet etc

i also think that mines should be scuttle-able even after they have been built... i mean, its a mine, the device for destroying it is already in place so... point is i was against a hard AI opponent, and for some reason he mustered his entire fleet capacity at one of my planets. this planet was fully developed and defended, starbases, gauss cannons, strikecraft, mine capacity full, small-ish defending fleet. however, i had to cover like a 100 degree slice of the GW with mines to defend it effectively. now, the enemy AI kept sending his fleet to the same spot on my GW and everytime i turned him back, but the area of the mine field he kept entering was becoming less and less effecient at repelling his fleet because the mines had been rebuilt elsewhere.

so long story short, you should be able to scuttle mines to redistribute them accordingly. id also like the old system of showing how many mines you had built (at least in the TAC structures window) so u can plan how many more and where to build your remaining mines

i also would like to have at least 2 or 3 starbases allowed in gravity wells. at present, you can build 4 starbases in a suns GW, so i dont see why a wormhole should have less?

also, im not sure if this is right or not, but it seems that anti-structure cruisers dont do damage against ships... i mean, they will fire on them, but they dont do any noticable damage, at least not when scaled against the damage on structures. i understand, for realism and balance, if you could blast ships they way you blast structures, then every other ship becomes useless, however, maybe include some light lasers or something, maybe a mode that fires cluster bombs which do (MUCH) less damage but have AOE? or else make it that smaller ships (frigs, cruisers) can evade but caps get hit more often? (im not so fussed about this point, but it seems weird to me, especially if the anti structure cruisers are programmed to shoot at ships...?)

thats all atm, i hear entrenchment is coming out Feb 25... if thats true then there may not be time for these to be implemented... though there are always later patches =)

speaking of which, a little off topic, but i still get a mini-dump (2 to be precise, since the new update) every now and then... maybe that patch will come sooner than we think? =)

 

so, what are your thoughts?

12,160 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

you could just unpin them or minimize whatever plannet theyre on

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Wow 4 starbases in a solar well.. man I really need to read release notes closer. I would agree that having more starbases would be good.  Perhaps link it to planet type,  asteroids only get one,  larget planets get 2, etc.  By a couple hours into hte game, even a well developed starbase is rather easy to destroy, so they are only modestly useful.

 

My current problem is I just downloaded the latest beta yesterday, now I can't play more than about 2-3 hrs without the game crashing, if it gets that far.  They have made some good adjustments, but it seems that every new beta makes the game crash quicker for me. wish I could explain why that is.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

I like the idea of extra Starbases, as suggested above. Worm holes should have 2 or so... they are generally the backway into your lovely empire. By what has been said above, I wasn't aware that there can be 4 Starbases in a suns gravity well... I also think that the Advents meteor control with their Starbase should be tweaked. Get a bunch of torpedo ships against a Starbase and it's pretty well screwed because they are just out of range by the main guns. Increase damage or reduce cool down for the meteor shower would be great. There should also be a way to degrade Starbases, your needs from a single Starbase might change so therefore you may want to decrease armour and increase fighters/bombers. Could be handy.

Since the last update (prior to 0.94) I have had one mini-dump. Not sure why. But it's been good, rather impressed. I used to get them all the time but then I competely uninstalled the games (Sins and Entrenchement) then downloaded and installed them again. Worked like a gem.

To my understanding, scout ships are the only ones that can detect mines. Would it not be sensible to enable Capital Class ships to detect them too? All that sophisticated technology and all you get is a massive floating gun with no way to detect mines. GG.

The empire tree should be redesigned. Perhaps have the type of 'body' in a line up the top of the window with each planet listed below. For example; Asteroid, Terran, Desert, Ice, Volcanic listed along the top. Then each planet under your control listed under those categories. To also assist in reducing the clutter-ness, make the icons smaller? I'm running a fairly large resolution (1600 x 1200) and I still have a hard time scrolling down finding all my planets. Also, current ships in phase space should be placed somewhere else on the screen (not with the planets).

I have noticed with the Advent that once you use 'Domination' on an enemy ship, that ship becomes yours (obvious). But then for some reason when you send that ship somewhere else and then go back to your fleet (normally capital class ships), the ship that took control of the now captured ship seems to divert away from the fleet when told to go somewhere in a group... it could just be me but it annoyed me. All this stopped when I put ALL the captured ships into the same group as the capital class ships.

Other than that, Entrenchement has come a long way, good work guys.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Halidan, reply 2
Wow 4 starbases in a solar well.. man I really need to read release notes closer. I would agree that having more starbases would be good.  Perhaps link it to planet type,  asteroids only get one,  larget planets get 2, etc.  By a couple hours into hte game, even a well developed starbase is rather easy to destroy, so they are only modestly useful.

 

My current problem is I just downloaded the latest beta yesterday, now I can't play more than about 2-3 hrs without the game crashing, if it gets that far.  They have made some good adjustments, but it seems that every new beta makes the game crash quicker for me. wish I could explain why that is.
End of Halidan's quote

yeah, all in all i think the release notes could have been presented better , but nonethless

so, about the crashing problem, if you drop your graphics (effects tab) settings to high or even medium instead of highest, it seems to stop the crashes. to be honest, only when im bored or the battle is a sweep that i bother to zoom in on the ships, so really, for me, the diff between high and highest graphics settings is nothing. however, just because it doesnt bug me, doesnt mean it doesnt have to be fixed...

 

i also agree with AoD with many things.

As far as i know, couts are the only ones who can detect mines, and i agree that Caps should be able to do it too (just talking logically here), but, once again, scouts become useless as you would no longer need them in your fleets... to be honest, i dont mind having 5-15 scouts in my fleet, they cost nothing in both resources and fleet capacity, and add a bit of diversity to your fleet.

like i said above, im playing aerolian sector atm, and ive had two minidumps, dont know why, but it is a HUGE map so its possible a lot goes wrong.

as for the empire window... i dont really use it all that much, i pin my manufacturing planets and front line planets for quick access, other than that, i just use it to oversee my fleets and make sure they are kept fully reinforced etc though i agree a better organised EW would be good (p.s. you would also need a column for solars and GWs and solar events like gas giants and plasma storms) and i agree, it should be put maybe somewhere not on the empire screen? because atm it just clutters the EW up and is pretty useless, i mean, i dont really care whos ships are in phase space unless they are coming my way...

i am running 1920 x 1200 res so the icons for me are pretty small already... could be one reason i dont use the EW so much because i take more time finding out which ice planet is which than if i had just moused there.

lastly, i also think that the starbases need to be downgradable. i was playing triumvirate and i had locked down canello and porta (the only two planets with access to the sun) and i was thinking that if an enemy fleet came in and wiped out the planet, i would need ship building capability, then i realised that if a fleet comes in, they'll go for the SB first, so i wanted to undo the ship building upgrade, but couldnt... p.s. one thing i just remembered, i think stabase strikcraft can exist in plasma storms... i havent tried with the new update yet, but in the last one, starbase strikecraft definitly can exist and fight in plasma storms... as much as i like this, its not really right... so...

in response to firaths post, i tried to unpin them, does not work, they are treated like fleet and you cant unpin them, and i always minimise them, but when you have 20 (for example) starbases throughout the map, minimising them does not matter. even if you have starbases in wormholes and sun GWs, where there is very little going on anyway, the sheer number of stabases does clutter up the empire window.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

i would like it so that if i zoom in using my mouse wheel, it zooms to where my pointer is, not to the middle of the screen. would make going across multiple systems much quicker and easier

 

 

Edit: scrap that, apparently im not very observant... found the option! :)

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

When you select to build the star base I would like the alt key to highlight what the weapons radius of the star base would be just like when you build the fix gun platforms or repair platforms.

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edit: Nevermind. Oh and thank you! :grin:

(from the change log)

-Star base attack ranges are now rendered during the placement process.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Another change I wish to see is that after we have numbered our fleets using the keyboard, it would be great if when we press a number, we are brought at once to the fleet itself, instead of the system in which the fleet is located. Or, if it would work for aesthetic or loading purposes, one tap of a key would bring us to the system, while a second tap would bring us to the fleet itself.

 

 

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting AxeEmAll, reply 7
Another change I wish to see is that after we have numbered our fleets using the keyboard, it would be great if when we press a number, we are brought at once to the fleet itself, instead of the system in which the fleet is located. Or, if it would work for aesthetic or loading purposes, one tap of a key would bring us to the system, while a second tap would bring us to the fleet itself.

 

 
End of AxeEmAll's quote

 

i thought it already does that? or maybe it depends on zoom... i have to say though, its like, if at one stage you want to look at the system a fleet is in rather than the actualy planet, then later want to zoom to the planet itself... well, theres no way to program that without making it hugely cumbersome... however, if you press the capslock key it will automatically zoom you in from system view to planet view so maye you should start using that?

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

I play multi player with my roomate and every game we play starts out like a normal game, then his computer says I have lost a planet or that I am under attack when my computer shows nothing. This seems to happen in about 1/2 and hour... I would like to see this fixed in the patch ;) .