The awesome stuff:
The pollution system rocks. I like how it causes the biters to react to what I do/where I expand; It makes the enemy feel much more dynamic and responsive than before.
The modular armor is awesome! The character customization it offers adds a huge depth to the game and feels very rewarding. I like that the armors and modules for it are expensive; you feel like using it is a hard-earned privilege. I wish there was a little more info on the shield recharge/power system to help players optimize their armor setup but it's minor and will probably come later anyway (% of max shield recharge rate achieved maybe, power usage stats for personal turrets, juicy statistic
). Great stuff!The new biter graphics and types are great; they add even more depth to enemy attacks and ramp-up in difficulty. It also makes killing them even more satisfying.
Capsules came in all sorts of handy. Follower robots were nice and expensive but very useful. Slowdown capsules are perfect for getting away after hit-n-run attacks on big bases. Great new content area for the game!
The new researches to the various weapon types (shooting speed/damage) add even more customization to your play-through. I'm really hoping we'll eventually have one of those deep tech trees like you see in the Space Empires series where a player can branch off into different techs and delve as far as they're willing to go (with ludicrously expensive but still available upgrades far into the branch). The "Follower robot count" research already has 20 levels and helps make the game feel expansive and seeing the same number of levels in all the weapon fields would rock. The current research screen might be a problem though; it's already starting to get cluttered and hard to use (good thing the game pauses when I hit t!). Maybe consider creating a categorized research screen with expandable trees to help keep it all manageable?
The balance:
In my first play-through in 7.1, I made the mistake of focusing on machine gun and its upgrades (for nostalgias sake) and was absolutely harmless against medium and large biters. I also used machine gun turrets to defend my base and, because of the puny damage, ended up chewing through all the local resources just to keep the turrets armed and the biters out of my base with none left to research with. I also got a bit of slow start from being a little rusty too. It all ended very badly.. My second play-through was based on a finite (2048x2048) sized map and I decided to try and eradicate the biters for revenges sake rather than go for the rocket defense. I'm up to hour 27 and counting so far. Bases are respawning faster than I can kill them so I'm having to build little mini-bases everywhere to help keep territory clear. Power requirements are becoming brutal, even with the idle-power reduction for turrets a couple versions back. Maybe reduce/cap the base/biter spawning frequency in late-game? I know the game wasn't intended for this style of play but the game engine doesn't seem to mind (aside from the occasioanl 250ms pause when the biter swarms spawn) and driving the biters to extinction is a really fun and challenging goal. An idle-power/overall power consumption reduction research for laser turrets would be very useful for large-scale bases/empire type play-throughs like this.
I didn't really mess with trains in this version since I read that the biters are now able to target tracks. It might make sense to have them ignore tracks since they're inanimate and don't present any kind of barrier to their movement. Maybe the same for power lines?
The car is much weaker since I last played. I really miss turning a herd of biters into street-pizza so maybe some car health/armor/bumper spikes research upgrades would allow the (diabolically fun) tactic to make a return? A modular car screen maybe? Maybe the car (or another new type of vehicle) could become an expensive rolling fortress in late-game; complete with personal turrets, spinning biter harvester blades on the front, its own shields/fusion reactors?
Machine gun turrets really need a hefty boost in damage to offset the resources needed for ammo and the complexity/hassle of loading turrets. It would be nice to sprinkle in some long-range rocket turrets in base defense too; rockets could share a belt with ammunition and help take down big biters around the base. It would be really nice to have turrets only auto-load 4 or 5 magazines (kind of like furnaces/assembling machines).
The players machine gun could also use some help. Even loaded with armor piercing rounds and upgraded to maximum, it is totally useless beyond small biters.
The shotgun seems a little overpowered. The massive damage gives it a big advantage when taking down biter spawners/worms.
Grenades were utterly useless because of the low damage but they could be the base of a nice research tree; maybe incendiary/plasma grenade researches? Basic grenade really needs a damage increase even in the early game.
It would be great to have the various weapons be useful in specific circumstances like mentioned elsewhere on the forum (these are just some basic ideas):
- Pistol/machine gun for early on base defense against small biters. The fast/automatic target acquisition and ability to fire over (through?) walls is perfect for defending. Maybe incendiary machine gun rounds for defending against larger biters later on to give the tech branch a payoff? It's kind of a dead-end in 7.1 which is a shame.
- The flame-thrower could be given a big bonus to building/worm damage. The new biter base graphics already make me think "kill it with fire!" and storming in and torching the places would be so fun.
- Shotgun already seems like a great weapon for wiping out herds of following biters. Maybe make it less useful against buildings?
- Maybe a new weapon; plasma/laser rifle for end-game? Ultra expensive but effective against herds of big biters?
- Rockets could be a good all-around weapon but they need some damage increase to compete with the combat shotgun.
Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks to the devs for the best and most addictive game I've played in years!
7.1 has brought some really exciting changes; very nice work guys!
