* I had way too much cash at the beginning. I got a ton of cash at the end of the first month. Looking back, enough for probably 3 or 4 bases. I continued to get enough cash that so that I never had to sell anything or think about money. In the end I had 6 full bases, all fully equipped, about 85 researchers, 30 workers, 5 docs and 3 Landing parties of soldiers. I
think I might now be losing money due to large upkeep costs. Maybe. Anyway: From a balance view, there is way too much cash around. Covering the globe should, in my opinion take longer, and even if it shouldn't, building everything everywhere should take longer. You should drastically reduce the amount of cash available to make the economy relevant.
On a similar note, there was also "employee inflation", I got tons and tons of guys. Researchers were always appreciated, but maybe even for those there were too many. I'd reduce the amount of people supplied as well.
* Similarly, upkeep costs are a bad idea without a "Finances" screen. I don't know how much I gained and lost each month, unless I sum it personally and write it on a piece of paper. Such a screen is really needed if upkeep is a serious factor in finances.
* I encountered an early attack in Wellington, New Zealand. At the time, I had one base in Greece, and one under construction in North America. My plane couldn't reach Wellington from Greece, even with 2 fuel pods. As I had only started a small hangar in NA, I had to wait 4 days for it to finish and then use a single soldier to clear the hotspot. Quite frustrating, especially as I had to watch them kill people there... Would recommend either programming it so that hotspots stay in range of bases (might be difficult) or to increase fuel pods to reach around the globe (maybe a large pod so that 2 of them will reach, but will slow down the plane). As it was, it was impossible to do anything for several days, which was frustrating as a player.
* The Tech Tree is very broad and moves too fast from a balancing point of view. I had over a dozen different options incredibly soon, from alien weapons, to autopsies, to lasers and the bolter, and so on. These all stayed around forever, with a nice flow of new research, and then it ended. Now, I assume the ending is because it's not finished
But from a design view, you are currently swamping the player with options right at the start, which can be overwhelming. In addition, there's a lot of tech (like 5 primary weapons, 4 secondaries, the knife and lots of grenades) already available right away, so I never even experimented with half of the stuff.
My recommendation would be to "elongate" the tech tree. By this I mean, move more options to the back, add more dependencies and make it a little more linear. This helps to ease players into research, and keeps the game interesting longer. The reason is, if I have new tech to play with, an otherwise standard mission is "new" again, because I am solving it in a different way. So, having a longer, slimmer tech tree would make the game be fun longer while removing the "research option overkill" I kind of felt.
Possible Ideas might be:
- Don't give a Quarantine Station right away, have players research it as a consequence of autopsies or Breathing Apparatus (I played in German, so specific names might be off here...)
- Require a hospital for autopsies
- Somehow prevent research of plasma weapons for a while, so that lasers are more of an option. I read in the forum that they used to be weaker than lasers, but seriously: They are alien weapons, everyone expects them to be better! Have them be better, but (a) make them more difficult to research and (b) make alien weapons scarce.
- While I love the great texts in both the proposals and the research reports, I feel that both should have a summary and a numerical value describing the complexity in e.g. man-hours. That would help make informed decisions about research without a lot of work. For example: Laser Pistol. Summary: A laser-based secondary weapon. Expected Man-hours required: 1000h. Something like this right at the top would be great.
* As I said, I feel that there are too many different weapons available from the beginning on. Have some of them be researchable to reduce the amount of experimenting players have to do right at the start. It might require some good writing to explain why a shotgun has to be researched, though. This is simply from a design perspective. On the other hand, you could require this research for plasma weapons, so that they show up later (see above).
* Production seems to cost money, time and place in a base. I never produced anything I couldn't have bought, because apparently, many things turn up on the market if I researched them. That, and my apparently limitless supply of cash, meant I never really needed anything built. The only exception were Nanocomposite Armors, which were not available in amounts I needed. My suggestion: Don't offer stuff that had to be researched on the market at all. No stun sticks, no Stingrays, no Plasma Ammo... Then Production would mean something. Also, with production costs, costs for workers, costs for Workshops, I had no idea what's cheaper: Production or buying. I would remove production costs to simplify this. Remember, you know all the formulas for cash inside out, players don't (this is a problem I run in often in one of my games).
* What's with that screen I had? xcvi_1 or something, then _2? Looks like a placeholder for a cut-scene of a movie. Even if it's beta, please give some information for new players
* I assume I am at the end of existing content right now. I had to dig pretty deep in the wiki to find out however. Please, have some short description of the current status somewhere so we all know why the game stopped. (As I follow releases, this won't be a problem anymore in the future, but is important for new players.)
That's all I can think of right now
Remember, I loved playing no matter what I wrote, this is only meant to help, if you want to use it. If not, re-read paragraph one and leave it at that.
I'll be around in the forum to see what you replied. If you want help, I can elaborate on my ideas, and I could give the Tech-Tree a go to see if I could make something I would consider more appropriate. I could also try and have a look at the economy to make that more interesting if you are interested. But, from my own development experience, game design is the part that's most fun, while coding, art and other stuff is more of a chore (at least, for me it is). So if you feel that you have enough own ideas and plans, by all means tell me "No thanks". You are the dev team, and you should get to do what's most fun for you
