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[zer0sum]

Hey guys, check out some new art. This is just the art, not a screenshot.  This is final art just to give you an idea of how the planet management screen will look.  The content is just placeholder stuff.

[Girlinhat]

A very enlightening screenshot, for being, well, not much of a screenshot.  As I've always advised and always done, never buy a game until you see gameplay footage somewhere.  Teaser videos are nice, but how many times have you watched a teaser only to realize it was a fantastic cutscene and the game itself is horrid?  Descriptions aren't enough, it's the Let's Plays and gameplay videos that get us to shell out cash!

So,
1: It's traditional tp put [ spoiler ] tags on images to avoid message clutter.
2: You seem to have your buildings and your ships mixed together there.  Is that intentional or does this need polishing?
3: All icons look the same, but I'm going to assume that's one thing that needs art so we'll write that off as "in-dev quirk".
4: There's two silo entries there?
5: What's the pencil and plus for?  Is that... adding one to queue or adding a specific number?
6: Fertility and Richness measures, rock on.
7: Is there, or will there be, a "net production" rating?  This planet is clearly producing things, but I don't see any rating that says "this planet is producing X units food excess".  Will there also be a spreadsheet type layout of colonies to view your production and usage, so you can better decide things like "this planet isn't producing very well, need to do something with it"?

That's all I've got right now.  Carry on good sir, and hopefully in a week or so I'll be able to shell out some monies.  It's always good to see new media though, nothing makes hype like a good video of the developer sandboxing around a little.

[zer0sum]

A very enlightening screenshot, for being, well, not much of a screenshot.  As I've always advised and always done, never buy a game until you see gameplay footage somewhere.  Teaser videos are nice, but how many times have you watched a teaser only to realize it was a fantastic cutscene and the game itself is horrid?  Descriptions aren't enough, it's the Let's Plays and gameplay videos that get us to shell out cash!

So,
1: It's traditional tp put [ spoiler ] tags on images to avoid message clutter.
2: You seem to have your buildings and your ships mixed together there.  Is that intentional or does this need polishing?
3: All icons look the same, but I'm going to assume that's one thing that needs art so we'll write that off as "in-dev quirk".
4: There's two silo entries there?
5: What's the pencil and plus for?  Is that... adding one to queue or adding a specific number?
6: Fertility and Richness measures, rock on.
7: Is there, or will there be, a "net production" rating?  This planet is clearly producing things, but I don't see any rating that says "this planet is producing X units food excess".  Will there also be a spreadsheet type layout of colonies to view your production and usage, so you can better decide things like "this planet isn't producing very well, need to do something with it"?

That's all I've got right now.  Carry on good sir, and hopefully in a week or so I'll be able to shell out some monies.  It's always good to see new media though, nothing makes hype like a good video of the developer sandboxing around a little.

It's important to note that this is just the art, it's not an actual screenshot.  I just got it from my artist and was excited and wanted to share it:)  It highlights all the UI elements in the planet screen.  So to the extent that the _content_ of the screen is confusing, ignore it.  This is just the art.

The ships and buildings each have their own tabs.  They will not be mixed in the actual UI.   The pencil icon is for the ships, and this launches the ship editor for that ship class.

The numbers next to the sliders indicate the net amount of food/prod/research per turn.  Excess goes into the storage pool, which is used to share resources with other planets or to rely upon in times of need.  For instance, you might need to max out production in which case your planet would eat into the food stores.  You can also apply that stored production to rush buildings.  The wrench/hammer icon there next to items in the queue will rush the item.

[Girlinhat]

Oh, what, not even a screenshot? D:  That's a lame pull...  Well, still, it looks like a solid UI right there, got all the right buttons and it's avoiding all the wrong fluff.  Though I can tell you already that you're going to have hardcore players, so an option for minimal icons would help.  The ability to reduce the construction queue to no image, just a name and a production/turn count would be worthwhile.  And that should probably be formatted like that, don't write things out for the hardcore players.  "250 Production (10 turns)" is great for new players, but once you've been playing for a while and you know what to look for, a simple "250/10" will suffice.  Being able to fit 3x as many things on screen by removing clutter is something most experienced players want out of every game.

But I'm getting myself sidetracked.  That's a great art and would make a solid foundation for a UI.

[Sirus]

Slightly off-topic: Am I the only one who thinks "Dragonball Z Abridged" every time I read "Space 4x"?

[RulerOfNothing]

Slightly off-topic: Am I the only one who thinks "Dragonball Z Abridged" every time I read "Space 4x"?

No, no you are not.

[Sirus]

Oh THANK GOD

[Rowanas]

I have two questions:

1: Mac version?
2: Will we be able to capture enemy ships? This was always my prime tactic in Moo2, and i'd like to see assault pods/docking for just such a purpose.

[MrWiggles]

Second on the Mac Version.

[Cheese]

Wow, I wish I had money to fund this. Looks great, much like Distant worlds did, which was a game I loved.

[Sirian]

I'm not a big fan of the overused "production/food/research" sliders thing. I wish there was a 4x with more micromanagement of planets. Colonizing a new world should be something big, not just a new ressource node on your screen.

Still, good luck with your game.

[MrWiggles]

With the over simplified resources, it seems like the game focus will be building ships and attacking. Which isn't a bad thing. I mean, AI: War, is just that, its quite the solid game.

Though for my own taste in 4Xs, I prefer being able to  manage my empire entirely.

My dream 4X would be a Civ to Moo 4x game. (Something of a hobby of mine to design on paper.)

Anyway! Question time!
--------
So whats with this Ground Combat thing? You said its tactal, but I'm curious how it'll play with the rest of the game, since its in real time.

[Rowanas]

Oh, I've got a third question!

Will there be an option to play it like a turn-based game, as seen in Baldur's Gate? (It pauses every round to allow you to place actions, like a more traditional turn based game)

[MrWiggles]

Oh, I've got a third question!

Will there be an option to play it like a turn-based game, as seen in Baldur's Gate? (It pauses every round to allow you to place actions, like a more traditional turn based game)

Or like most other 4X games? >.>

[zer0sum]

With the over simplified resources, it seems like the game focus will be building ships and attacking. Which isn't a bad thing. I mean, AI: War, is just that, its quite the solid game.

Though for my own taste in 4Xs, I prefer being able to  manage my empire entirely.

My dream 4X would be a Civ to Moo 4x game. (Something of a hobby of mine to design on paper.)

Anyway! Question time!
--------
So whats with this Ground Combat thing? You said its tactal, but I'm curious how it'll play with the rest of the game, since its in real time.

Managing a colony is a large part of the game if you want it to be.  There are a lot of options for what you can build on your planets and these choices will allow you to specialize your colonies heavily.  But ultimately, it does in the end come down to getting a few basic resources mustered so that you can build a war machine.

Ground combat is still a work in progress, but generally speaking it works like so:  you land your troops and this starts a countdown.  Your forces will engage at the end of the countdown, meaning you have time to land more troops within that window.  The plan is that combat will take place on a hex map with "turns" happening every 5 seconds whether you want them to or not, just like the main game.  Your forces will fight the battle on their own if you ignore them, but you can also go in and take direct control.  The mechanics and math of this is pretty much a Panzer Corps clone. 

I make the hex map out of the textures used for the planet; there are dynamically-generated city/outpost hubs which go into hexes depending on the planet's development.  You can bombard from orbit if you have a ship close enough that is not "in combat", which is a flag that gets set if a ship remains out of combat for 30 seconds.  You bombard onto a specific hex and depending on what you've got equipped on your orbital ships, you'll do x, y, or z damage and you might destroy whatever buildings or population is there. 

You can also tell your troops to just dig in and you can have an occupation.  Any building hexes they control are useless to the enemy, but the enemy is going to try and root or nuke you out of those hexes. 

At any rate, I'll be displaying this system when it's fit for consumption!