ovarwa wrote:
I last tried out FreeOrion two years ago, and have been playing with the latest stable release. AI set to Aggressive. (Not sure Maniacal is harder, because suicidal aggression maybe isn't so awesome.)
Some thoughts about my experience...
Cool: AI aggression level isn't meant to be a "difficulty" level apart from Beginner, but it can seem that way, and I sort of concur, I think I'd prefer to have some maniacal in a galaxy of mostly Aggressive or Typical, but it works for now. I'm going to clip points I can't respond to: for crashes &c please do open a Github issue with a zip of the log files, my Win7 laptop died but we definitely want the game to be playable there.
* Uses most of my cpu (2c/4t Sandy Bridge)
Yeah, it is/can be intensive, especially if you don't have a graphics card: try turning off some of the graphics options like the dust clouds and background stars, can help if it gets bad.
* The AI seems smarter, or the game more difficult. But it isn't consistently clever....
All true: if you last played two years ago IIRC the AI adaptive ship design rewrite is newer than this, and while that can be funny at times it is interesting to see them respond to different design choices you make.
** Cluster map is easier than Random, and the topology more satisfying; Random seems to have many empty sectors.
Random isn't actually a map type, it merely selects one of the other types at random so depending on what it selects you could be getting anything: personally I mostly play the Irregular layout (which is new, the old algorithm called Irregular is now "Box"). Some work was done to reduce large gaps for layouts, which also appears to have made Clusters a lot better.
-snipping AI stuff, I mostly agree with observations but I don't/can't write AI code-
* I like the change to weapons tech: Mass Drivers become more interesting, and building ships early is much less of a penalty since Mass Driver 4 (or Laser 4, etc) will eventually apply to all of them.
Yes, I think this is one of my favourite improvements of late, rushing to get a higher MD tech early is less important and you don't feel like you're wasting PP if you queue a warship in the first few turns, far superior.
* Asteroid Hulls are not nearly as awesome as they used to be. I don't know if something in the tech tree changed, or if I feel much more of a need to get some half-decent ships out before I can make my way up the tech tree and produce asteroid processors, etc. I'm no longer sure that asteroid ships are all that great anymore.
There have been some changes, they were one of the most overpowered lines and we introduced a series of nerfs to, hopefully, bring them into line. It's arguable they're currently slightly underpowered as a line, although the Heavy and Scattered hulls are still amongst the best, but that is/will be changing in the next Release (and test releases from very soon) as they have more internal slots and the new Fighters features use them more.
I plan/hope to rebalance ship costs after Fighters is bedded in, but that's a hope not a plan at the moment, it's not worth doing anything beforehand because, well, wasted work.
* I still don't see why anyone would bother with Organic Hulls.
Stealth.
My favourite games are always when I rush organics and run around hidden from the enemy. But stealth-as-a-strategy is currently underwhelming and a lot more work is needed to make it interesting/viable, so yeah, Organics are currently a big hit and miss. But stealth improves them, as will Fighters (all those lovely internal slots).
* The entry level Robotic Hull is surprisingly good! It might have always been that way. The self-repair feature is particularly nice. Two years ago, I prioritized hulls over armor or weaponry (although the asteroid path provides very good armor along the way), but now I like the reverse: Building a fleet of lesser ships now and using research to improve my economy seems a better choice in a galaxy filled with marauding monsters and antagonistic AIs. There's always time to build better ships later.
My first major patch was to rebalance hull costs, Robotics were always good but overcosted, now they're possibly a little bit too cheap (but not by much), it was about 2 years ago but not sure exactly when. They always had self repair though, that's actually been toned down a bit recently
* This was probably always true: Because each weapon is aimed randomly, a larger fleet of smaller ships isn't necessarily worse than a smaller fleet of bigger ships. There is a production penalty for the former, but there are also advantages: You can split the fleet more ways, for different missions; you can build up your fleet over time; Basic Damage Control heals more damage.
Agreed, but...
If I've got 200 structure in two ships and you've got 200 structure in 10 ships, my ships will likely both survive the first of the three rounds of combat, you start losing ships almost immediately. My firepower remains the same, yours is reduced.
I currently think the combat mechanics and the upkeep mechanics favour large hulls, but we have plans (Influence, not for next Release but the one after) to change this and I
really look forward to it as I liked mixed fleets.
* You might as well restart if you begin with a Drone Factory too close to your home system.
I think we have different definitions of "too close"

It currently can't spwan within 3 jumps of a player's start, arguably that could/should be increased, if you want to try it then editing this line
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... ts.inf#L44
in your default folder will do the trick.
* Fractal Hulls are very good. But Fleet Damage Control or system facilities are needed. Not quite as many slots as a Scattered Asteroid Hull but faster to research, more fuel and just plain twice as fast.
Yup. Toned them down a bit before release and they're still OTT. But they lose power with Fighters significantly, as they also will as we expand the number of internal parts available. I may have to reduce their cost a bit at some point, especially when damage control parts are introduuced.
* Shields are too expensive. (If they were better, Fractal would be a much harder choice.)
Possibly: I reduced their effect and their cost fairly substantially in the last cycle, it's possible they're still overcosted but while most players, including the AI, think they're worth using then it's hard to be sure.
I like playing with shieldless ships, especially using engines instead.
* Trith are a surprisingly good race. I'm not saying they are awesome.
Telepathic Detection is another of my favourite additions. But yeah, if you use Camps effectively they can be awesome.
* Is it my imagination or has the Psionics+ tech tree been utterly nerfed? (No opinion about the merits.)
I don't recall any changes to it since Psychogenic Domination was made into a focus, might be wrong but I think you're imagining things: doing more with psionics is definitely a plan tho.
* Gyasche (sp?) get worse as the game progresses: Bad troops and bad pilots more than absorb their production and research advantages, and other species can eventually catch up on tech.
Yup. Bad troops in particular is a major nerf, for all species that have it, they absolutely need a good native to complement them early, or to pick their AI target very wisely.
Having said that, they still end up being my most populous species by the end of most games, their bonuses are so good, as long as you have other/better shipbuilders they colonise heavily.
* Starting with great research continues to be great, since the tech tree offers much better static bonuses for Industry than for Research.
* Broad-based planet compatibility continues to feel meh: Converting two Hostile types to Poor? Meh. OTOH, Narrow is painful: Converting two Adequate to Hostile? Ouch.
Agreed. Both need work.
* Still, species creation is not at all points-based, but obviously fine-tuned based on experience.
Yup, lots of input on here, more needs doing but it's a lot better than it was. So many different variables (which is good) means you can't just assign a value to them all, different combinations are very effective: Egassem for example are good because the combination of good supply, industry and attack troops is awesome, take any of them out they suffer, make the galaxy huge and sparsely populated and they're in real trouble.
* I love the species description for Humans. The stats are totally bland, though. I suppose someone needs to be average.
Thank you, I got the idea from a series of Tumblr posts but I am really proud of that chunk of text, it really captures a different take on things.
But yeah, Humans are deliberately exactly average, need a basepoint species. Some advantages tho: they start on and prefer research unlike, for example, Gysache, giving them a boost and they have no disadvantages. They also have the tag "STYLISH". This does nothing. Anywhere. But it's cool. Plus, no advantages means no disadvantages, currently having average attack troops is an advantage
* I haven't tried it yet, but suspect that the AI will be utterly helpless once a human player starts punching new starlines into the AI's undefended rear.
Yup, they have little to no idea about topography anyway, the Bore and Nexus probably need some more balancing at some point.
* It would be nice to have a tech that suppressed weak wandering monsters within supply range. Small krill patrol eventually because a boring waste of clicks.
Nah. We need to have more interesting things to need to supress within your empire.
Rebellions and Pirates as well as Krill
* The production window should only show systems in which you can produce something. Cycling through systems that have nothing in them is worse than worthless in that context.
It's been useless for so long I forgot you could even do it to be honest, so yeah, agreed, if in ProdWnd you should only cycle your systems.
* I'd love a keyboard shortcut to close the civilopedia.
Esc does it in the main window, but not in ProdWnd. Unfortunately Esc closes the Sitrep window first, which I always keep open, I'm guessing that can be changed.
Thanks for the feedback, always appreciated: once you've settled in, trying a recent Test release, especially once Fighters are in, will be fun, we'll need a LOT of feedback for Fighters as we get them right.