Thoughts on 0.0.3202 Thread - Interplanetary

Having played a couple more hours, these are my observations:

• Needs a save feature. Games take longer to complete than I generally have time to devote in a single sitting.
  
• Yellow connections between structures stay floating in the void of space when the planet begins to orbit during the end of the turn.

• Are planets tidally locked with the sun? It is hard to measure and track which direction my weapons will point next turn. Rotation or tidal locking would be fine, just as long as it is clear which is happening.

• Railgun velocities can be set high enough to nearly ignore gravitational effects. This removes some of the challenge. Lowering the maximum would help preserve the spirit of gravity-based combat.

• It would be nice to have an easy visual indicator of which planet is active. Hotseat games can become confusing. Perhaps color-code the planet-shaped indicator for remaining resource reserves? (Red pie-chart / blue pie-chart)

• An indicator of how far away a new structure can be placed while retaining it's connection. During placement mode, perhaps a ring overlaid on the planet surface showing the maximum distance, or a dynamic meter than shows how much distance remains before the connection is cut.

• Slightly more emphasized arrows that denote orbital directions. It is hard to see the arrows without zooming in on each planet that is obstructing my shot.

Otherwise, the game is a blast to play! I'll post more thoughts/suggestions when I have them.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll just go address the issues you've found.

Sendai45 wrote: Needs a save feature. Games take longer to complete than I generally have time to devote in a single sitting.

Save feature is coming. We need to leave developing it for a bit later, unfortunately, since many more features need to be implemented before it's sensible to start working on it.

Sendai45 wrote: Yellow connections between structures stay floating in the void of space when the planet begins to orbit during the end of the turn.

This was actually a much more complicated issue than it seems, but we've fixed it now. The problem will be gone from the next update.

Sendai45 wrote: Are planets tidally locked with the sun? It is hard to measure and track which direction my weapons will point next turn. Rotation or tidal locking would be fine, just as long as it is clear which is happening.

They are not, at the moment. Their rotation, right now, does add a very random element to the game, so the idea is good. We'll look into it.

Sendai45 wrote: Railgun velocities can be set high enough to nearly ignore gravitational effects. This removes some of the challenge. Lowering the maximum would help preserve the spirit of gravity-based combat.

Nice catch! This is a bit of a complicated issue and just changing the velocities creates new problems altogether. It is still not possible to do the straight shots when your gun is on the wrong side of the planet, so it's not a huge problem, but we'll see if there's something we can do to make this work a bit better.

Sendai45 wrote: It would be nice to have an easy visual indicator of which planet is active. Hotseat games can become confusing. Perhaps color-code the planet-shaped indicator for remaining resource reserves? (Red pie-chart / blue pie-chart)

Good idea, we've already considered something similar and a better indicator is definitely coming later. In our current version, the camera focuses on the active player at the start of the turn. Seems to work quite nicely.

Sendai45 wrote: An indicator of how far away a new structure can be placed while retaining it's connection. During placement mode, perhaps a ring overlaid on the planet surface showing the maximum distance, or a dynamic meter than shows how much distance remains before the connection is cut.

Figuring out the right distance can be frustrating. We've been thinking about making the connector lines dynamic, so that they will go thinner as you pull away from the other building. This should show the distance pretty well.

Sendai45 wrote: Slightly more emphasized arrows that denote orbital directions. It is hard to see the arrows without zooming in on each planet that is obstructing my shot.

Good idea! This should be an easy fix.

Thanks again! Very useful. Glad you're having fun!

Jeoo wrote: Sendai45 wrote:

Are planets tidally locked with the sun? It is hard to measure and track which direction my weapons will point next turn. Rotation or tidal locking would be fine, just as long as it is clear which is happening.

They are not, at the moment. Their rotation, right now, does add a very random element to the game, so the idea is good. We'll look into it.

Without testing, I can't tell you which would lead to better gameplay. Perhaps a small number of days per year would work well. Small enough that a railgun built on turn one would still be facing the enemy on turn two, but large enough that huge offensive installations can't be planned to be pointing at the enemy during their closest approach a year from now. (May I suggest a multiple of phi? By its nature, it evenly spreads the directions a point on a rotating sphere will face, without resorting to randomness.)

Jeoo wrote: Sendai45 wrote:

An indicator of how far away a new structure can be placed while retaining it's connection. During placement mode, perhaps a ring overlaid on the planet surface showing the maximum distance, or a dynamic meter than shows how much distance remains before the connection is cut.

Figuring out the right distance can be frustrating. We've been thinking about making the connector lines dynamic, so that they will go thinner as you pull away from the other building. This should show the distance pretty well.

Perhaps it can be cleanly implemented by making the proposed building stop moving outwards once the boundary has been reached. Don't have the connection cut itself. Implement a sort of semi-deadzone where moving the mouse only adjusts the angle along the outer circle where the building will be placed. To deliberately cut the connection, move even further, outside of the generous deadzone. Or assign a button/key for cutting the connection manually. Not sure how difficult it would be to implement this feature, but I think it would be user-friendly and intuitive.

One more thing; Projectiles will orbit along the same path as a planet, but at a higher speed. This deviates from Kepler's Laws. I fully understand that sometimes simulation accuracy must be sacrificed for gameplay quality, but you should have a rebuttal prepared for the nitpickers out there who don't get it.

Edited by: Sendai45

We've also considered that approach to the power grid connectors, but we're a bit worried that it can lead to a lot of frustration when accidentally making unwanted connections. For now, we'll try the thinning lines, but add to it in case it's not enough.

Sendai45 wrote: One more thing; Projectiles will orbit along the same path as a planet, but at a higher speed. This deviates from Kepler's Laws. I fully understand that sometimes simulation accuracy must be sacrificed for gameplay quality, but you should have a rebuttal prepared for the nitpickers out there who don't get it.

Heh, we do talk about the whole "battle of realism vs. fun" all the time! At the moment, the planetary system really isn't very keplerian. Since we're already giving the game out for players to play, the most important thing is that it feels good to play. Once we have more time to concentrate on it, we'll definitely see how we can do a better compromise on the issue.