Some things I have wished for since 1999:
Ships descriptions are inexplicably not standardized in HW1C and HW1R. It is understandable that you would not know exact stats of ships before researching them, but once researched you should not have to build a ship to find out its stats. The description from the build menu and that from a built ship should provide the same info. In particular, it is silly that you should have better access to stats of enemy ships from the first moment you spot them than you do ships in your build menu.
While on ship stats: can we please get damage numbers rationalized? This number either needs to be DPS (assuming 100% accuracy), or have DPS added. The number seems in most cases to be the damage from one round or missile, which gives a very inaccurate impression of a ship’s damage potential, and this does not compare well with ion beam numbers; which represent I know not what, even when compared with like weapons.
Parade formation needs to be rationalized: Parade formation is an exercise in obnoxiousness. There needs to be a maximum length; something like five capital ships side by side, after which rows are added below and above a la the classic wall formation. The port side needs to have ships tiered by ship type as the starboard does. Stop having your 50 captured ships warp in off the edge of the map; especially given the number of missions that can cause major fails when ships are outside of designated areas.
Make “Standard Corvettes” actually have the salvage ability, or remove that text from the description. If this ability is added, I think it would be most appropriate to give them the boarding ability of Marine Frigates, rather than the towing ability of Salvage Corvettes. This would fit in with their piratical nature, and would reduce the impact on the campaign given the limited access to frigate+ class ships up to mission 4. They should have half or less the boarding speed of Marine Frigates, but also have more boarding points.
Let ships on aggressive use their guns regardless of what other actions they are performing. Ships are able to use their guns while they are being violently boarded, or having their systems interfered with by Salvage Corvettes, it is only sensible that they should be able to use them while performing an intended function.
Now thoughts specific to HWR 1 and 2:
Don’t break your necks trying to get formations to work as they did in HWC1. While HWC1 ship behavior lent itself nicely to game-play, it did little for immersion, which is what truly makes the campaign stand out from the competition. If these ships were all robotic drones, then I could imagine them placing themselves in ridged, static formations for the duration of a battle. The pretense, however, is that is that each ship is filled with a crew which, while eager to follow orders, should also be trying to avoid getting killed and jockeying for good firing positions, as would be expected from individually captained ships. Yes, this makes the game sloppy, and gives an element of the unexpected to tactical situations. Space armada games are essentially a 3D representation of naval battles. Naval battles are sloppy; things don’t work out as planned, and victory goes to he who can react to and take advantage of the unexpected.
I am feeling rather similarly about the, probably accidental, current state of affairs with repair capable frigates and corvettes. Repair Corvettes used to be a cute little mistake a new player makes, never to be repeated. The inability of Support Frigates to use their repair beams on strike craft suddenly gives the Repair Corvette real utility they never before had. Repair Corvettes can now keep your strike craft swarms from disintegrating from attrition. Even as few as 2 have a very noticeable effect. Given the current behavior of strike craft; not pretending that they are tiny versions of capital ships; Support Frigates would be unlikely to be able keep up with strike craft to repair them in battle even were it an option.
Missiles: Is it possible to make the missile burst ability work? Just asking. The Turanic Missile Corvette is supposed to have this ability.
2D Mindset: My corvette captains seem to all be from the Khan school of maneuvering. Can we get them to use all three dimensions rather than just circling in a big corvette doughnut? Also, have corvettes face their targets so all, or most, turrets can be brought to bare, or at least have them able to fire at targets on both sides.
My Salvage Corvettes seem to be able to target Turanic fighters for capture, but not Taiidan fighters. I have only progressed to HWR1 mission 5, so not sure if this is mission specific.
Turanic Carriers do not seem to have any point defenses, let alone their once awe inspiring ion beams. Can we expect something to be done about this? I hope, in the long run, that all large; even static; ships/bases will be given some minimal level of point defense. It is not very entertaining or realistic otherwise.
Provide a little more nuance to ship/base capture: If a ship is too large to pass visual inspection for entering your mothership, do not allow it to be captured by Salvage Corvettes. Do make such ships capture-able by boarding vessels like the Marine Frigate. And make all ships/bases capture-able; if it is game braking to make a ship become part of your the player’s fleet, then make capture turn the ship/base into an ally or neutral that does not get carried on to further missions.
Hangar Space: Why is hangar space so limited? I feel we should be able to dock as many stike craft as we wish in the mothership. Maybe only have hangar space restrictions on carriers.
Also, can we please give all of our ships with docking ports the option of “Auto Launch” or “Stay Docked” just as our carriers have; maybe in the popup menus under special abilities?
Bugs I have noticed:
Audio settings: These settings seem to get forgotten from time to time, especially during cut scenes, and this can be very annoying when trying not to wake your girlfriend up. Opening the game menu seems to remind the game of the sound settings you had selected when this happens.
Fleet Info does not update consistently. One often must close and reopen the that popup to get accurate numbers.
Unit Caps are not consistent. Captured frigates count against the unit cap, but captured corvettes and fighters do not. One way or the other across the board would seem appropriate. Then again, why unit caps at all? In 1999 you needed to limit the amount of ships to keep graphic from overloading, is there still such a need? I find unit caps result in a rather artificial play style as one has to balance production with ship capture.
Loading Screen often get stuck at the halfway point. Minimizing and returning to the game seems to get it to load properly. It may be that the screen graphics get stuck, while the actuall loading process is proceeding as normal.
Mission 3 Assault Frigate capture: Probably not a “bug”, since I am sure this was a conscious decision, but I should like to persuade you in the opposite direction. No doubt, as you could not get one of the frigates to not join the fleet without causing the others to do likewise, you opted for none of the frigates joining the fleet. I would point out that there is no logical reason all the frigates, even the first, should not join the fleet. You are perfectly capable of adding other ships to your fleet through capture, for which you lack technology to produce.
Mission 4 Turanic Ion Array Frigate Maneuverability: Turanic Ion Array Frigates seem to have the painfully slow maneuverability that I remember from HWC1, except where concerns Salvage Corvettes. It seems as soon as a Salvage Corvette comes into view their crews really pull the molasses out of their asses and remember that their ships come equipped with maneuvering thrusters. Their entire ship suddenly turns faster than an Assault Frigate turret. I don’t mind the frigates turning fast if they were to do so on all occasions, but to have them do so only in the case of approaching Salvage Corvettes feels like the CP is cheating and breaks immersion.
Mission 5 Taiidan Resource Collectors are neutralized by Salvage Corvettes. You can shut down their entire resource fleet with one corvette just attaching to each Resource Collector in turn. They will never move again. I wonder if this has something to do with the mechanic involved in the Junkyard Dog?
I have only progressed to HWR1 mission 5; no doubt I will have more to comment on in future.
