Small Fixes

I've created this thread as a way to track some of the small things that I think would really help add polish to the game. Hopefully everyone can chime in and we can get a decent list going. These aren't balance changes, they aren't content, and they aren't bugs, they are just little tweaks. Things like grammar corrections, small UI improvements, just generally easy fixes that would benefit the game. Someone in another thread mentioned how the jump recharge indicator is great but it should just use the jump button, this is a great example and I will include it here.

Here are mine:
1) Jump recharge doesn't need a separate indicator, just use the jump button.
2) The repair beam is green, make repair drones use green beams to match. This way we can differentiate between hull and shield repair.
3) Repair should prioritize capital ships over drones. (As a behavioral change that affects balance, I'm not actually sure this belongs on this list, but it's important.)
4) Use the same scaling for hull and shield bars.
5) The vulcan cannon stats show that the rof changes with one of the upgrades, but it doesn't.
6) The Repair Beam repair amount upgrade says it raises repair amount by 10, but it actually raises it by 20.
7) I noticed that there is a really cool animation for fighters and drones launching and docking from the capital ship that never really gets used. I really like this, it reminds me of the viper launch tubes from battlestar galactica. I recommend making the fighters launch from the capital ships after you jump, and dock when all the enemies are destroyed instead of jumping with the capital ships. This would look amazing!

If anyone else can think of small fixes post them here!

8) Some turrets take longer than others to start firing when you warp into a sector.
9) Turrets always rotate back to the neutral position when they switch targets. It would be cool if they didn't have to do this, it's slightly distracting.
10)Lasers of all kinds get swept around when they start firing or switch targets, just doesn't look right for lasers. (I think this might be related to #9?)

Much appreciated! Regarding 8, the different turrets have different cooldown times. So it is the cooldown time that determines when it will shoot a first time.

This was added to give more strategy to the game. The party that is waiting in a sector has the advantage to shoot first, while the party that is jumping into a sector has the advantage to choose where in the sector to jump into. So the ones waiting in a sector can shoot immediately, since the one jumping has steered all the energy into FTL and needs to recharge turrets when entering a sector.

Would be nice if you add range and reload time upgrades for tractor beams....they become very useful.

Thanks for the explanation Admiral, that actually makes sense and is a really nice touch.

11) Show all the stats for modules. Drones and fighters especially are lacking many stats.
12) Let the player call in whatever ship they want for reinforcements. This is another reason it is hard to use gunships, you can't build a fleet of them!

Some of these arnt small fixes but I figured I would still include them.

-The health status bars that boarder the screen after taking damage needs work. Since it comes up with little damage, I find myself ignoring it. Can you make the bars blink when damage gets critical (less than 25%)?
-fighters seem to fly by the target and then turn to fire. Unfortunately, they are often destroyed before firing a shot (drones don't seem to have this problem).
-there are numerous grammar mistakes in the English version (see my beta test results for specifics)
-nuke missles are too slow and WAY to easy to shoot down. They are essentially useless in the game.
-sector 4/4 on hard is way too easy. I'm not saying make it impossible but if you make it to sector 4/4 on hard, I should be running for my life, biting finger nails and praying for some luck at some point. So please, please make it harder.
-the game needs some type of ship upgrade and customization system. It would be nice to have a permanent stat upgrade as a reward (speed, hull, shield, ftl cool down time reduction, ect). It would give the game more re-playability and encourage players to use different types of ships.
-ships that you buy should come with different colors or patters so it is easier to distinguish which ship is which especially when all 3 ships in your party are of the same type
-secondary weapons seem to have a targeting bug. Sometimes they fire immediately and other time a missle or ship will fly right by me and the Gatling guns never fire.
-also, suggest adding a ship that has the fighter bay on the left side so that I can balance out my formation. Currently all ships have the fighter bay in the front or on the right side

+1 for stats. especially actual ROF of a weapon. for example it takes time to notice that Flak shoots 2 bullets, effectively doubling DPS, which makes it borderline OP weapon. Same for Bolter PD and many other weapons.

Actually... is there a document with current stats you can share. Maybe there is a wiki?

13) please increase the speed of fighter and shield "recharge" after a fight. With 4 bombers it may take up to 48 seconds to "recover".
14) if you hit "jump" while it's recharging, the game should pause right after it's charged.
15) animations that focus on a container or a trap put the game on pause.
16) ability to always pause when jumping in.
17) see indicators of ships that are about to warp in, so we don't have to hunt for that moving blue dot.
18) ability to set everything to focus on a given target - with 6 fighter groups I need 7 clicks to send them.

The point 3 (capital ships need repair more than drones/bombers) is a good one. It's annoying when your fighters are flying past you and your capital ships badly needs a repair. If a drone or bomber dies, it respawns after a few seconds for free, when it gets repaired it costs scrap to do so, I really don't want to waste scrap on near pointless repairs :/

Point 9 is another good point. When the turret keeps turning back and forth while waiting to recharge, it only adds extra time to each cycle, surely it would make sense to stay in the same position it last fired? at least until combat is over.

I would also very much like to be able to see each ship in detail before I choose it. I want to know how many bays it has, and how many point defence slots. Currently, you can only see how many red weapon points it has from the "overview" when choosing your ship.

I'd also like to suggest adding a system to the weapons/loot. Basically, it's much like most MMO games where a weapon can be a standard white item with basic stats, then a green version with slightly better stats, then a blue with yet better stats and finally a super rare yellow version with higher stats again and perhaps some special thing about it (like being able to upgrade one stat one level higher than normally possible, or each shot has a 5% chance to do 25% extra damage). Getting something super rare and awesome is a rewarding feeling

I think and "infinite" mode would be cool too. So you start the universe again but it gets harder on next playthrough, and harder again until eventually it's flat out impossible due to overwhelming numbers.

One more suggestion I have is that when you're in a zone and there are no threats or enemies, that engines, capital ship turn speed, shield repair and hull repair are maybe doubled. It can kind of suck when there's no danger or threat and you just want to move your ship near a station, or repair your ship so you can warp somewhere else. I've thought about this and don't see any way someone could misuse/abuse it, but I might be missing something

Oh, also like 16 and 18 in the post by MrrVlad.

finished a hard game with all carriers (6 squads). I'd say it was too easy.

Seems like death rays are rarely equipped by unknowns now and the quantity and quality of their ships decreased significantly. Basically once you get through first map it's very hard to die. Had to emergency-warp only once.
When you have carriers, photons on the last map are irrelevant, since fighters can soak all the damage and unknown/silae death rays/lasers dispose of enemies fast enough. I feel like current "hard" is easier than normal before the patch. at the end of third map my weapons were mostly energy - lasers, ion 2, 1 energy Gatling, 1 mega-plasma.

So, please bring back the hard, or makes a few extra difficulty levels

Consumable suggestion: emergency warp - instantly finishes cool down on your FTL and warps away.