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You guys rock. Period.

I've been playing the alpha, and in 1.0.21/23, the immersion is a huge leap from previous versions.  Combined with getting familiar with the interface, new concepts of jobs/skills/talents, and basic tips/tricks/traps from the forum, I've been able to play thousands of turns, explore double-digit quadrants, establish familiar trade paths intra-sector and across sectors, and know a couple of contacts I just have to get back to once I have enough experience, a better ship, or what-not.

But I need a pencil to do this.

I came across a thread tonight in the ST2 section, called "Legality" (here), where xdesperado  was frustrated in hauling a bunch of fertilizer to a Farming colony, only to find it was illegal, regardless of trade permit or faction.  It's kind of like chewing gum in Singapore. You can't buy the stuff there.  Anyways, in the post, there was a thread that really caused my lightbulb to go off (stick with me for this, lightbulb caused by the bold text below:

My reply was that it would be great to be able to learn this fact "one time" (ie. Once you know the farming colony outlawed fertilizer, you won't come back here down the road). A great fact that I need to grab my pencil, note the planet and "no fertilizer/pesticides".  Other examples are, "Lots of alien artifacts", "left my stash of xx here", "Trade Route #2, next stop xx planet or yy planet", "Triple-crossed contact's mission, do not land".

I really like the idea of a 'notepad' that can be opened on the planet screen (where you can see the planet and landing sites).  Press a button called 'User Info' and a semi-transparent notepad/textbox opens that let's me type anything I want about the planet, anything that I would normally use a pencil for (or on a desktop, the notepad app ironically). A set of buttons at the bottom (Edit, Save, Delete).

To let me know that this planet has 'special information' added/saved by me, we could add an additional 'indicator', similar to the city/wilderness/contact/mission 'indicator'. It could point South to make it stand out, and perhaps be a contrasting color (orange-ish?), so when looking at a sector map it's easy to see which planets have notes on them, even when zoomed out a bit.

By extension, it would be helpful for a hover (on the sector map) to include at least the first few bits of the note, but I'm going beyond my initial lightbulb thought.

Anyway, the problem I was trying to solve is how I can eventually play a satisfying, really deep and complex game (taking into consideration all the features to be and all) without using a pencil, and being able to "learn once".  I figure a Southern indicator on a planet with notes might be able to do that.

Just some more thoughts.

I've been thinking thorough playing the alpha at this point on both desktop and mobile, and how important (to game flow, decision making) the ability to hover is.  On desktops I can quickly 'scan' for things like where a nearby farming or industrial planet is, because I have goods I have to unload, for example... 

I know we've discussed, and are all looking forward to the ability to 'press and hold' to bring forth the hover information, but had a thought last night.  If there were an 'info' button (on the quadrant map for example), pressing this button would display all the 'hover' bubbles on the screen. Zoomed in on a group of planets, we could see all the hover information, and move/finger swipe around the map to get the hover information for the planets we are interested in looking.  Of course zooming out could be messy, but tapping the info button would turn all the extra info off.

I suppose that this 'info' button could be used similarly between turns of ship battles and crew battles too.


Just some more thoughts.  

I was offered a mission to Exchange Secret Messages.  In the summary, there is a typo and missing descriptor.

1.1 Exchance Messages [should be Exchange Messages]

2.1 Return Message to ____________ <- should have contact's name here



Upon going to the Diplomatic Meeting to get the message, I lost the Command + Charisma test, am told "we were unable to complete our business", but I was paid and able to return the message and get paid the return fee.  I'll gladly take the boo boo, but think the mission should have been cancelled at that point.

The new Rules Explanation clarifies it nicely, thx again Cory Trese for helping clear things up in my game example..

That's awesome, no need for apologies.  I'm a coder, so actually like the alpha testing process... normally I'm having to do it for/by myself, happy to help make ST2 the best it can be (which will be amazing) 

restarted the game and everything cleared up. (contact nub on planet appeared)

I deleted everything prior to installing 1.0.21, this game is on 1.0.23, but started it on 1.0.21

Perhaps delete everything and start over?