Comments After One Game

from Sins Forums
I played my first game of Sins yesterday, and while it was generally enjoyable, there were a quite a few things I thought could use some improvement. I was using version 0.76[b].018.

There were a few things during the game that struck me as blatantly wrong (I imagine some or all of these have been mentioned before, so my apologies for any duplication):

- The "Zoom to Cursor" mode doesn't work well with the Follow camera. Whenever you have your view centered on a moving object, like a ship, and try to zoom in on it, the camera ceases to focus on the object - even if the cursor was right over the object when you zoomed in (it switches the focus to the static point behind/beneath the object instead).

- When you're zoomed out enough that an object appears as an icon, it is impossible to select it if it's in front of a planet. The icon shows up clearly, but trying to click on it results in selecting the planet in the background.

- While its possible to give commands when the game is paused, it would be helpful if the screen reflected those orders before unpausing the game. For instance, if I gave a Phase Jump order to a ship with the game paused, the blue line indicating its flight path wouldn't appear until I unpaused the game. Likewise, the fleet icons in the empire tree don't update until while paused, so its hard to tell if adding a ship to a fleet "took" until you unpause.

- The AI placed a Bounty on me, despite the facts that it was a one-on-one game, and that I was playing with Marauders off (i.e., there was no one to collect the bounty). Since there were no one else that could be encouraged to attack me, this seemed like a pretty obvious waste of money.

- The info cards that display through the shipyards (when you're trying to decide what kind of ship to build) don't display weapon type/average damage information. That would be extremely useful information to have there.

- When traveling by/invading an enemy's planet, the planet's info card shows the number of jumps the planet is from *my* home world, but the Allegiance Modifier is relative to the *AI*'s home world - since the Allegiance Modifiers are pretty straightforward and linear, this is a bit of an exploit in that I can figure out how close I am to the AI's home planet, even if I've yet to scout it.

- (Trivial) The three listboxes on the Graphics Options screen are missing headers (Resolution, Refresh Rate, and Anti-aliasing).

In the category of things that aren't wrong, but probably could be better, here's what I noticed:

- Combat seems too static. The only ships that move significantly in combat are fighters/bombers; everyone else does an intergalactic version of an 18th/19th century firing line. I can understand Capital ships being pretty stationary, but I'd like to see a lot more movement out of Frigates and Cruisers during combat.

- The targeting AI during combat is sub-optimal. Most of the time my ships seem to prefer to spread their fire around (for example, a fleet of nine Cobalt frigates would target 4-5 enemies simultaneously). Unless you implement a system where ships' effectiveness is reduced as they take damage, the more efficient approach is to concentrate fire on one ship and destroy it before moving on to the next. I found myself repeatedly pausing and reassigning targets during combat because the AI didn't seem to understand this.

- The Auto-attack options (Gravity Well, Weapons Range, Local Area) need expanding. I'd really like options for "only if fired upon" and "never without orders" so that I can more easily control my trigger-happy pilots.

- To go with the Auto-attack options, I'd like a similar set for movement behaviour: Pursue Anywhere, Pursue Within Gravity Well, and Hold Position. For instance, sometimes I want a few of my ships to guard the terminal point of a phase lane without running off after the first light frigate that waltzes into the system.

- Ship pathfinding, especially for capital ships in fleets, could use some work. Specifically, I found that fleets of capital ships with the All Grouped phase jump option engaged spent too long "waiting for formation" at the edge of a gravity well because one or two ships (usually the long, bulky Sova-class carriers) were having a hard time lining up with the rest.

- Fleets need Formations. I didn't play a lot of Homeworld, but I seem to recall those games did formations pretty well - lines, echelons, and more. The probably complicate pathfinding, but they're pretty much an expected part of the genre at this point - plus, they look cool. (Of course, if formations are added, control options will be needed to tell the ships under what circumstances its OK to break formation)

- The mop-up stage of the game, even in a small, one-on-one situation, seemed too prolonged. AIs should surrender when they're beaten, not force me to trapse my uber-fleet of capital ships through every backwater resource asteroid (defended by nothing remotely threatening) in the system before the game ends. This would be less of an issue if travel was faster all around, but as it stands having to wait for my ships to clean up an effectively defenseless AI made for a tedious 15-20 minutes at the end of the game.

All of that said, I don't want to give the impression that I didn't enjoy the game - I did. For balance, here are some of the things I liked:

- Graphics: very pretty and very clean. One of the least important gameplay elements, IMHO, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be praised.

- The Pirates concept. I think the implementation still needs some work - I'll try to share more thoughts about them once I've played a few more games - but I really like the basic idea. They also act as a very effective way of slowing the Expansion phase of the game, which is appreciated.

- Ship durability. Other than fighters (appropriately), nothing seemed too easy to destroy. Concentrated fire from an entire fleet can take ships down quickly, but that's to be expected. In more balanced fights, my spaceships felt like the sturdy, expensive things they are.

- The core concept of the game itself. A Civilization/GalCiv game that looks as pretty as Homeworld is tremendously appealing. I think you're going to have to walk a very fine line to please the fans of both genres, but its a noble thing to attempt. I hope the increasing pressure as the release date approaches doesn't lead to an abandonment of either aspect of the game.

- Not a game component itself, but I have to mention the responsiveness and customer service I've observed over the last couple days on this forum. I've come to expect it with any project associated with Stardock, and it's greatly appreciated. FWIW, my decision to pre-order the game and try the beta was based more on a desire to support this kind of development than on the game itself.

Anyway, I think that's quite enough for now. Best of luck to whoever gets the job of trying to digest all that. I promise I'm not always this longwinded. Just most of the time.

- Ash
7,182 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top


- The "Zoom to Cursor" mode doesn't work well with the Follow camera. Whenever you have your view centered on a moving object, like a ship, and try to zoom in on it, the camera ceases to focus on the object - even if the cursor was right over the object when you zoomed in (it switches the focus to the static point behind/beneath the object instead).

When we didn't have the camera unattach from the object when you went to zoom, everyone complained that the camera was being pulled along. Thus, we exposed access to the "attached camera mode" and made it very easy to toggle between them during game play (button top left and the letter N on the keyboard). It is an interesting idea that perhaps the camera could stay attached when pointing at the object though I'm not sure how easy that would be to do if you were zoomed out a fair bit.


- When you're zoomed out enough that an object appears as an icon, it is impossible to select it if it's in front of a planet. The icon shows up clearly, but trying to click on it results in selecting the planet in the background.

Icon's behind the planet show thru so you can see what is there. Is it possible you were trying to select one of those? (which would select the planet first since it is in front).


- While its possible to give commands when the game is paused, it would be helpful if the screen reflected those orders before unpausing the game. For instance, if I gave a Phase Jump order to a ship with the game paused, the blue line indicating its flight path wouldn't appear until I unpaused the game. Likewise, the fleet icons in the empire tree don't update until while paused, so its hard to tell if adding a ship to a fleet "took" until you unpause.

Agreed, in the list.


- The AI placed a Bounty on me, despite the facts that it was a one-on-one game, and that I was playing with Marauders off (i.e., there was no one to collect the bounty). Since there were no one else that could be encouraged to attack me, this seemed like a pretty obvious waste of money.

Agreed, will be fixed next patch.


- The info cards that display through the shipyards (when you're trying to decide what kind of ship to build) don't display weapon type/average damage information. That would be extremely useful information to have there.

Possibly, I can't remember if that card is cluttered at the moment or not. Perhaps something of less priority could be removed.


- When traveling by/invading an enemy's planet, the planet's info card shows the number of jumps the planet is from *my* home world, but the Allegiance Modifier is relative to the *AI*'s home world - since the Allegiance Modifiers are pretty straightforward and linear, this is a bit of an exploit in that I can figure out how close I am to the AI's home planet, even if I've yet to scout it.

Haha, yeah. Definately something to fix before multiplayer


- (Trivial) The three listboxes on the Graphics Options screen are missing headers (Resolution, Refresh Rate, and Anti-aliasing).

Consider it done.

In the category of things that aren't wrong, but probably could be better, here's what I noticed:


- Combat seems too static. The only ships that move significantly in combat are fighters/bombers; everyone else does an intergalactic version of an 18th/19th century firing line. I can understand Capital ships being pretty stationary, but I'd like to see a lot more movement out of Frigates and Cruisers during combat.\

Common request, though there are equal arguements to leave it. Still a source of much internal debate.


- The targeting AI during combat is sub-optimal. Most of the time my ships seem to prefer to spread their fire around (for example, a fleet of nine Cobalt frigates would target 4-5 enemies simultaneously). Unless you implement a system where ships' effectiveness is reduced as they take damage, the more efficient approach is to concentrate fire on one ship and destroy it before moving on to the next. I found myself repeatedly pausing and reassigning targets during combat because the AI didn't seem to understand this.

Shield mitigation is exactly as you described (shields block more damage as they take fire). It is not supposed to be optimal to focus fire but we've yet to strike the balance we desire.


- The Auto-attack options (Gravity Well, Weapons Range, Local Area) need expanding. I'd really like options for "only if fired upon" and "never without orders" so that I can more easily control my trigger-happy pilots.

Why you would never want to fire at something? In which case, "Weapons Range" AA would cover both your examples.


- To go with the Auto-attack options, I'd like a similar set for movement behaviour: Pursue Anywhere, Pursue Within Gravity Well, and Hold Position. For instance, sometimes I want a few of my ships to guard the terminal point of a phase lane without running off after the first light frigate that waltzes into the system.

This sounds exactly like what we have in the autoattack options.


- Ship pathfinding, especially for capital ships in fleets, could use some work. Specifically, I found that fleets of capital ships with the All Grouped phase jump option engaged spent too long "waiting for formation" at the edge of a gravity well because one or two ships (usually the long, bulky Sova-class carriers) were having a hard time lining up with the rest.

Agreed, however, they won't wait for more than 30 seconds for everyone to form up. Perhaps the form-up timer is bugged.


- Fleets need Formations. I didn't play a lot of Homeworld, but I seem to recall those games did formations pretty well - lines, echelons, and more. The probably complicate pathfinding, but they're pretty much an expected part of the genre at this point - plus, they look cool. (Of course, if formations are added, control options will be needed to tell the ships under what circumstances its OK to break formation)

Aside from looking cool, we never found much use for them in any game we've played or in Sins. Sins does have formations but we are only exposing access to the wall formation (with the auto placement of weaker stuff in successive ranks) which is optimal for ranged DPS. We'll review exposing them to the user, though given their limited usefulness and our limited HUD space we aren't sure its worth adding graphical controls for them to the userinterface.


- The mop-up stage of the game, even in a small, one-on-one situation, seemed too prolonged. AIs should surrender when they're beaten, not force me to trapse my uber-fleet of capital ships through every backwater resource asteroid (defended by nothing remotely threatening) in the system before the game ends. This would be less of an issue if travel was faster all around, but as it stands having to wait for my ships to clean up an effectively defenseless AI made for a tedious 15-20 minutes at the end of the game.

There are plans for having the AI surrender.

Thx, for the constructive comments Ash

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Eyes hurt... good read overall.

Agreed, however, they won't wait for more than 30 seconds for everyone to form up. Perhaps the form-up timer is bugged.


Yeah this should get looked at , I had some cobalts in my last game bouncing into each other for awhile ,as they got into jump formation.

SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
When we didn't have the camera unattach from the object when you went to zoom, everyone complained that the camera was being pulled along. Thus, we exposed access to the "attached camera mode" and made it very easy to toggle between them during game play (button top left and the letter N on the keyboard). It is an interesting idea that perhaps the camera could stay attached when pointing at the object though I'm not sure how easy that would be to do if you were zoomed out a fair bit.

Hmm. I can see why people would object to having it "my" way, and I can imagine it would be technically difficult to achieve, as well. I am basically asking the game to magically understand my intent when I zoom (on or "close" to focus object = zoom on it; otherwise zoom on cursor location).

Perhaps it would work as a distinct command? With Zoom to Cursor enabled, something like [Scrollwheel] zooms to the cursor (canceling the Follow cam), Ctrl+[Scrollwheel] zooms to the focus object (keeping the Follow)?

Icon's behind the planet show thru so you can see what is there. Is it possible you were trying to select one of those? (which would select the planet first since it is in front).

It was very early in the game, and it was my first time with the interface, so its possible. I'll check for it when I start a second game and let you know.

Shield mitigation is exactly as you described (shields block more damage as they take fire). It is not supposed to be optimal to focus fire but we've yet to strike the balance we desire.

Ah, OK. Shield mitigation is a new concept to me; while I got that it reduced damage, I admit to not being too clear how it was "triggered". I take it, then, that DPS, rather than raw damage totals, is what increases the mitigation percentage? So a ship that takes a little damage over a long period of time will always have a low mitigation percentage, but a ship that takes a lot of a damage in a short time will 'resist' a lot of it?

Balanced right, that's a very interesting mechanic.

Why you would never want to fire at something?

OK, good point. Logical completeness somehow trumped actual relevance in my mind on that one.

This sounds exactly like what we have in the autoattack options.

Mostly, yeah, but while you're correct in pointing out that there's no reason to have a "don't fire" option in the autoattack choices, there is a reason to have a command for "don't move": guarding a particular point, such as a phase lane terminus or an important shipyard. As it is, no matter what autoattack setting I use, once an enemy ship gets within that range, my ships identify it as a threat and pursue it until it's dead.

Suppose I have a fleet guarding the end point of a phase lane, and I see two separate enemy fleets coming in. The first is a single ship, the second is 20+. When the first ship arrives, I don't want me guards running off after the lone 'recon' ship; I want them in position to stop the large fleet from getting to the defenseless structures around the planet. I'd rather they take a couple shots at the lone ship as it passes and then ignore it, which, as far as I can tell, I can only do currently by manually giving the ships a "stop" command - which is good for micromanagers, but bad for strategic focus.

Agreed, however, they won't wait for more than 30 seconds for everyone to form up. Perhaps the form-up timer is bugged.

No, that sounds about right. I don't think it ever took longer than that. I'm just not very patient - and 30 seconds per jump, doing dozens of jumps a game, is still a lot of minutes of waiting that could probably be avoided.

Aside from looking cool, we never found much use for them in any game we've played or in Sins. Sins does have formations but we are only exposing access to the wall formation (with the auto placement of weaker stuff in successive ranks) which is optimal for ranged DPS. We'll review exposing them to the user, though given their limited usefulness and our limited HUD space we aren't sure its worth adding graphical controls for them to the userinterface.

Fair enough. I feel kind of weird arguing a form-over-function position to begin with (and points to you for the function-over-form response), but I think this is a case where reviewers might latch on to "no formations" as evidence that the RTS portion of the game is a step backwards relative other, older games.

---

Thanks for responding to my comments. Double edged sword and all, but knowing they didn't vanish into the ether encourages me to write more.

- Ash
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

As it is, no matter what autoattack setting I use, once an enemy ship gets within that range, my ships identify it as a threat and pursue it until it's dead.


Hey Ash, Right click the attack button until you get auto attack range is set to 'weapons range'. Your ships will stand guard without moving.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Aside from looking cool, we never found much use for them in any game we've played or in Sins. Sins does have formations but we are only exposing access to the wall formation (with the auto placement of weaker stuff in successive ranks) which is optimal for ranged DPS. We'll review exposing them to the user, though given their limited usefulness and our limited HUD space we aren't sure its worth adding graphical controls for them to the userinterface.



Let me point out that while there is limited space, there's blank icon even in full fleets in the lower right hand box (unless thats planned for something else). And even if that is the case, creating a "behaviours" tab and allowing that to control the selected unit / fleet behavior would be advantageous. For example, there are times when I want to have split up fleets meet at a given star, then jump as a group, so let there be "Jump one; jump some; jump all; jump all (no timer)" so that they'll just sit there *untill* the ENTIRE group is in position to jump. Just to minimize micro. Controlling formations would also be done in this tab, of course
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
We have goodies planned for that button
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I second this by Ash. You saved me some time man, thanks!     

- Not a game component itself, but I have to mention the responsiveness and customer service I've observed over the last couple days on this forum. I've come to expect it with any project associated with Stardock, and it's greatly appreciated. FWIW, my decision to pre-order the game and try the beta was based more on a desire to support this kind of development than on the game itself.


I preordered this game mainly because it was Stardock also, and the game has great potential. It is very good to see that quite a few like myself really appreciate the work Stardock does.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, agreed Ultimax: I pre-ordered so "quickly" (I hate having to pay for things...) because it is a Stardock product. Oh, and I like the general game idea. I've never tracked down a copy of homeworld, but I definitely enjoyed Imperium Galactica II.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Ash, Right click the attack button until you get auto attack range is set to 'weapons range'. Your ships will stand guard without moving.

Thanks. Damn beta software doesn't even have a freakin' manual.

- Ash

PS> Oh, and I just lost my first fight. Can you make it so that doesn't happen again?

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

This sounds exactly like what we have in the autoattack options.

Mostly, yeah, but while you're correct in pointing out that there's no reason to have a "don't fire" option in the autoattack choices, there is a reason to have a command for "don't move": guarding a particular point, such as a phase lane terminus or an important shipyard. As it is, no matter what autoattack setting I use, once an enemy ship gets within that range, my ships identify it as a threat and pursue it until it's dead.

Suppose I have a fleet guarding the end point of a phase lane, and I see two separate enemy fleets coming in. The first is a single ship, the second is 20+. When the first ship arrives, I don't want me guards running off after the lone 'recon' ship; I want them in position to stop the large fleet from getting to the defenseless structures around the planet. I'd rather they take a couple shots at the lone ship as it passes and then ignore it, which, as far as I can tell, I can only do currently by manually giving the ships a "stop" command - which is good for micromanagers, but bad for strategic focus.

This is accomplished by setting your attack range to "Weapons Range". The ship will not move no matter what and will only rotate to fire at anything within its weapon range. Verify by holding down ALT and noting that the ship's target line will only point to things that enter the orange circle and the ship will never leave the center of that circle. "Weapons Range" is effectively what most games would call "Hold Position" though we'd argue this is a subset of "Attack Range". This allowing us to combine it into the attack button secondary functions leaving a button open in the bottom right for something like AI stances which we see as AI functions in a seperate dimension.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
"Weapons Range" is effectively what most games would call "Hold Position" though we'd argue this is a subset of "Attack Range".

Yeah, Craig already straightened me out about that, and I'm happy with the functionality as it is, then (pending more play, of course).

That said, you might want to consider simply renaming Weapons Range to something like Guard Point (or Hold Position, but that doesn't convey the "will shoot trespassers" aspect of the command). My confusion stemmed from the fact that nothing in the term "Weapons Range" intuitively said to me "ship will not move". Likewise, actually, I have no idea what Local Area does (from the name, I'd have guessed it did the same thing as Gravity Well) - while I can probably figure it out with more play time, either I'm clueless (a distinct possibility) or the name isn't very newbie-friendly.

- Ash
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Oops, ya - I didn't see Craig's post (my bad!) Local area is about 1/4th of the gravity well. The three values basically form a sphere with A) radius 0 B) radius 1/4 gravity well C) 100% gravity well.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
... THat local area one is a REALLY nice idea that I wish I knew about earlier.

I kinda got frustrated when my "defensive" squad wandered off from the two warp-points I wanted it to "sit" on.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I'm pretty sure that stuff (and more) is explained in the tutorials. Who knows what else you might be missing tsk tsk!
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

I'm pretty sure that stuff (and more) is explained in the tutorials. Who knows what else you might be missing tsk tsk!


I played through them, so if those details are in there, then I completely failed to internalize them.

- Ash
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think the tutorial goes into that much detail. I've gone through them probably more than anyone outside Ironclad and didn't know that much about the ranges.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

I don't think the tutorial goes into that much detail. I've gone through them probably more than anyone outside Ironclad and didn't know that much about the ranges.


yeah what he said, I actually played through the beta 2 tutorials 5x, whats wrong with meeeeeeee....
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think the tutorial goes into that much detail. I've gone through them probably more than anyone outside Ironclad and didn't know that much about the ranges.


Imho the tutorial should not only explain those buttons, but also show you how the function.

For example, the weapons button:

Let the player set it's fleet to: Weapon Range. Then jump in some pirates, one group near the players ships, one group farther away, and one on the other side of the grav well.

The nearest group should then attack the players ship. The player will then see it's ships shooting at the pirates, but not moving. I.e. holding position.

After this short battle, the player is instructed to change its ships mode to local area. The ships would then fly to the nearby pirates and engage them, but not the pirates on the other side of the grav well.

Last the player has to set it's fleet to grav well attacking mode. The ships will then finally attack those pirates on the other side.

This should then make it clear to the player, how those modes work. Experiencing something like this, makes it much more likely for the player to remember how something works, then just hearing how it works.