Back after a long hiatus

[athios]

Wasn't sure where to put this thread, but since it's a jumble of mixed feelings, I figure the general ST2 forum was best. Sorry for the long post.

So after getting burnout from the initial alpha phase (mainly character wipes, bug hunts and the unending stream of typos ), I finally ventured back into the black hole that keeps sucking me in.

First of all, WOW, it's amazing how much things have changed. General polish, UI, long standing known issues. The amount of depth and variety that goes into ship upgrades and combat is much improved. And the game world feels a lot more fleshed out with the addition of story arcs. The (spoiler) Hunna Starport event was a shock to see, and I loved it.

I'm also very happy to report that ST2 is playing perfectly on my 6-inch display HuaWei P10 Plus. The buttons are occasionally hard to get at with my fat fingers, but a stylus can fix that. And it helps to have the game portable. Great when I'm commuting.

Some general comments and bugs v2.1.17 (not sure if reported/fixed or not):

[/u]
[li]In crew combat, when enemy was down to one person, a Soldier was able to fire Backline Leader. Is this supposed to be possible? [hmm, actually, now that I think about it, it's possible that I've confused it with Frontline Leader?][/li]
[li]In crew combat, when enemy was down to one person, I was able to accidently fire an AoE Talent that targets positions 2+3, which missed of course, cos there's no one there. The 'missed' text popped up on top of the remaining position 1 enemy.[/li]
[li]In regular ship combat, I keep seeing enemy ships trying to fire Blood Game, which doesn't do anything because it's not Mission-related.[/li]
[li]Captain's Log: 2nd entry for the Explosives Smuggler event: "We cut a deal with the weapons smuggler for his 25 units of Explosives, and they disappeared into our ship we hid the goods in our cargo hold before security arrived." (Explosives are for mining, not weapons, right? Also the wording had me confused, thinking that the smuggler had disappeared into our ship)[/li]
[li]Was playing an Explore card game for a Mission. Found some loot that was put in Stash, but I was focused on the Mission so I didn't touch it and kept playing. Finally landed on the Mission card later, and it tells me to click the Mission button. I suddenly remember the stuff in the Stash, and was worried I wouldn't be able to access it later, so I clicked Stash. After moving the goods, it didn't go back to the card game screen as I expected, and I had to redo the card game to try getting the Mission card again. Especially for newbies, this is not a good user experience. Either the Mission should auto-complete and launch the Mission accomplished screen after the Stash access, or the Stash button should be temporarily disabled if you get the Mission card.[/li]
[li]I was on a new game, and got to the point where I was supposed to (spoiler)pick up Val onto my ship. I got busy with ship upgrades and re-spec in anticipation of the upcoming hardships, so much so that I forgot to actually tell them "I'm ready now!" I didn't notice until I had jumped a Warpgate, and when I came back it was already too late because of lockdown. I'm not sure if it's feasible or desirable, but it would have been nice to get a popup warning either before leaving the planet, or before leaving the sector.[/li]

Comments
[li]VERY HAPPY that Respec is a thing now. It makes things a lot more versatile, and I'm more willing to experiment.[/li]
[li]Very happy that the entire 2-level ship layout of components is gone. The current display is much better and clear cut. Must've been a heartache for Andrew to dump all that artwork though...[/li]
[li]Very happy with the new Factions & Conflicts screen design. Can't even remember what the old one was like, but this is much better.[/li]
[li]Very happy to find out that I can buy Pardons and Gear with no Personal Rep required.[/li]
[li]Very happy to find that I no longer suffer from "random" (sarcasm intended) death of crew/officers from stray fire in ship combat. So far, I've only gotten one crew death when getting hit right before escaping.[/li]
[li]I love that ProBoards keeps drafts now! I nearly lost this entire post![/li]

Wishlist
[li]Still wishing for ability to plot waypoint when viewing Contact List, and also the Star Atlas Nevermind. I noticed the tiny button just now, after about 25 hours of gameplay. [/li]
[li]Still wishing for ability to (1) call up the Galactic Map from the Mission proposal screen when at a Contact, and (2) see on the Galactic Map where existing Mission destinations are, vs. where the proposed new Mission destinations are.[/li]
[li]Still wishing for ability to sort Talents, especially when choosing what new one to buy. (1) high level to low level, (2) by Job, (3) by function, e.g. Crew combat skills all grouped together.[/li]
[li]Great to see that the Cargo Hold now shows Highest Demand Economies. I wish that the text order between this field and goods description were consistently always listing zones from highest to lowest demand (e.g. for Power Generators, the HDE says "Refinery, Mining" but the text description on the right of screen says "In demand on Pop, Mining, Refinery, Lux Pop, Tradeway Zones.")[/li]
[/ul]
Keep up the wonderful work, Cory and Andrew! And all the other bug reporters!


P.S. I still hate Trade Embargoes. I ran into one during the very start of a game and it delayed my merchanting/upgrades by about 2 game years. It did force me to be resourceful though. That was nice.

[athios]

If I may add on further...

Comment
I've been passing through a quadrant with a Xeno Fleet rumor, and had the good fortune to run across a few Xeno ships. I think I've fought about 6 so far? At Demanding difficulty, even with a fully decked Frontier Liner, ship combat is still very difficult. Most of the time, after each battle the majority of components are ~50% damaged. I think the worst case scenario took >33 weeks for repairs to finish, LOL. No one has died yet, but I imagine this will change on higher difficulty. In contrast to the early alpha days, I'm very happy to see that Xeno have turned into a significant threat again.

Wishlist
Why is Magnanimous Victory even an option after defeating a Xeno ship? It serves no purpose since you have no true Reputation stat with Xeno (assuming it's same as in ST1). Should be disabled in my opinion.
It doesn't help that Victory Talents appear to be ordered randomly after each Talent fire. I wish they weren't, very inconvenient. One time I was wanting to activate both my Battle Damage Repairs, but due to reordering, accidently clicked on MV. Those were the luckiest Xeno in the galaxy.

[Cory Trese]

Welcome back!

[fallen]

Thanks and welcome back!

Fixed some typos. Fixed Magnanimous Victory appearing for xeno.

Combat Talents all compress as characters die on either side. Everything you reported sounds as expected.

We can't give players warnings about every story event when they walk away, decide to ignore or forget. We'd be constantly on your case.

Will work on the Stash button.

[T-Dog]

With Xeno being a mortal enemy of all factions, would it be nice to have a small rep gain? +1 with all factions, or + 5 with the owner of the quadrant where the battle is fought? You're doing a service to all gravs/traders.

[contributor]

You actually get a big rep bonus with the quad owner faction for destroying or salvaging a xeno ship. Actually I think it applies when you salvage it.

[T-Dog]

Ah cool. Thanks. I always try and avoid, escape Xeno conflict.

[fallen]

@t-dog - well, if you can beat them there are some nice rep and $$ bonuses waiting for you! A big risk tho!

[athios]

fallen - okay, fair enough about the Story Event Reminders. Especially as more events will be added in over the long term, I can totally see your point.

Thanks for fixing the Magnanimous Victory. This reminds me of why I like being here. Report a problem, and the fix is included in the update released the next day.