Yeah, definitely a bit too early, but first feedback bits are:
f*ckin' impressive, a rather beautiful piece of work, the ideas behind it are almost too much for the EVO engine to cope with.
To me, it really does seem to give an impression of what early expansion within the Sol system may be (have been) like - from multinational-turned-interplanetary corporations replacing political governments in significance, right down to the Early Spacer's loneliness you experience going through all those empty - erm - jump points.
But I definitely haven't had the time yet to explore all the details (rest assured - I shall do so at leisure!)
So I can only tell you about my decisions so far with my first pilot:
1: Favorite system government? - more or less stumbled into siding with Galaxy, haven't decided yet whether I really like them.
2: Favorite Earth Government - so far, Russia - at least they don't turn up all over the place making a total nuisance of themselves (once again: praise to you for accurately reflecting the current role of the US on Earth.....)
3: What ship are you in right now? - oh sh*t, forgot the name (and I don't want to have to re-write the whole post going to look it up!), it's the destroyer-type ship generally available from quite a few shipyards - I worked very hard getting lots and lots of oil from Venus to outlying planets/asteroids and deuterium back. Don't know yet whether that's the most efficient trade opportunity, but I got there in the end.
By the way, don't you think that a few other commodities might be of interest, such as nice food for outlying asteroids, etc. (always presuming that food replicators haven't been invented at that time).
4: Favorite freight ship
5: Favorite fighter
6: Favorite capital ship
7: Favorite all-around ship
Can't really answer 4-7 yet, as I haven't tried all of them.
8: Favorite weapon - haven't experienced all of them yet.
9: Favorite personal item (can include hand weapons) - so far, headless teddy bear. Do hand weapons play any other role apart from improving your chances at taking over disabled ships????
10: Are you taking the challenge? - No. (at least, not yet!) My attitude to EV/EVO (and plugs) is that if the missions aren't challenging in themselves, there's not much point in artificially creating a "challenge" by setting yourself conditions. I rarely play the "super-advanced" levels in other games, either, because I hate having to run around frantically doing everything at the same time.
The last point brings me to combat conditions in GE: some people may disagree, but I find that the general (high) speed of ships makes combat very confusing, and although the aspect of decreasing energy levels adds a realistic touch to battles, it's also rather tiresome for a computer game (larger battles tend to turn into situations where ships are sitting across one another for ages desperately waiting for their generators to recharge, occasionally exchanging a shot or two. Also, if you want to keep it that way, you should give AI ships the possibility of recharge upgrades, otherwise all one needs to do is evade missiles/torpedoes and wriggle about for a while to get the opponent to use up all energy, then come up close and finish them off sitting-duck style).
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Oh, and while I'm at it: a question:
How do you DESTROY a planet?????
I'm on the Galaxy mission where you're supposed to go to Planet X after the colony's been exterminated, finish off all pirates in the vicinity and then DESTROY the planet. You don't mean "dominate", to use a good old EV expression?
I'm just completely lost in this. A hint would be most appreciated.
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