SEV DEMO IS OUT!

[Atrocities]

Captain Kwok said:

That's not in SE:V.

Much to the disappointment of many I am fraid.

[Q]

MarkSheppard said:
How do we email Aaron about our suggestions?

Go to the MM website and hit the "contact" button.

It is funny that on the MM site the demo is still listed as unavailable.

[wilhil]

Dont know if it went through properlly so reposting my long long message...

Now a honest, complete, and unbiased view of SEV (well not complete unbiased, I am a big fan of the SEV series, I just mean, looking at both sides of everything and not looking at it with rose color glasses!)

Had my game up to 100 turns, (tried looking in save game for hex value of turns then put it back to 1, and changing all the 100's to 300's in the exe, but no luck, although the game ran fine with no problems, no idea what them 100's where! I would have more of a look later, but I have to much work to do and I have waisted a day playing!)

anyway, my oppinions, It will take A LOT of getting used to, and some of the buttons need to be changed, for example stop needs to be a main one whilst some of the others can be taken off. Maybe have steller manipulations as one of the advanced orders as it will not be used by half the ships.

I would love to see the attack order removed, and instead you just had move and like in SEIV, if there is a enemy, once you get there, it will say enemy in sector... or, what I would love even more is just a smart move, when you are choosing the sector to move to, if there is a enemy there, then it simply says do you want to attack target?, and it will do the same thing as clicking attack, meaning it will auto go in to combat with statics and chase ships. (and save up a button on the panel!)

The game will take a lot of getting used to, and I found my self not doing as many things as I would do in SEIV such as mainting colonise and putting the correct mining facilities as it was awkward to see the value from the construction screen.

The game would be much better if it was just a SEIV with updated graphics and content meaning reasearch, components, and everything else but keep the back end stuff the same such as filters/tables as it is annoying in colonies I can do empty and colonizable, but not filter out system to avoid.

Overall a good game, but I wish the demo was unlimited but just had the settings locked. I wanted to do steller manipulations and just generally have a full game.

It will take a lot of getting used to, but it is good, however I felt myself not doing tasks I would of done on SEIV due to it taking longer or to hard to do such as maintain a constant supply of ships to a warp point, upgrade them, decomission... (you know what I mean), but I just didnt feel like I was playing the same as I would of done if the game was SEIV.

I really like the survey systems in early games as later on you can almost scan a whole system in one go, I just really really love the idea of starting with nothing (low powered guns) later on extending to being able to blow up planets/suns, laser weapons and shields...

I love epic battles and tried a sim with 10 maxed out ships with 12 weapons on each against 300 little ships... I wanted to test the engine! it ran fine for ages, then I got a access violation, and had to quit... of course I forgot to save after creating the big design

I also got a access violation during one time playing when it went to combat and I accidently pressed the windows key.

During my first game, I never selected a empire style as I never realised you were meant to (I did new game rather than quick start). It came up with errors and nothing had a strategy. With the lack of customising available in the demo, I really think that it should have quick start and only quick start as it is unnessicary confusion to new players.

I had a few graphics bugs, however alt tabing then reloading seemed to solve it (unlike other games where alt+tab breaks! including starfury!). I think however the cause of these problems were other applications I was running. sometimes alt + tab did not work and I saved, quit and reloaded, and that seemed to work. I never got any errors before an hour - 2 hours of game play, so even reloading eventually caused it.

There were a few minor bugs, which I have written all over this post, but there was nothing that made the game unplayable (thanks beta testers!)

I did not figure out what makes combat end, I am guessing a distance from your ship and target, but once it quit whilst in the middle of just attacking a planet.

Unlimited research is brilliant and what I always wanted, it is probably one of my favourite features as I love doing research in the game and often how I provision most of my colonise, however more balancing is needed with components.. such as Ion engines more efficent than building supply storage (and cheaper)

the funny thing is at diffrent points, in game help, title screen, it says about a manual, however this is missing from the release!

a annoying feature is some components are unbalanced and seem stupid. I wrote about Massive mounts and the first mounts (cant remember name). one has 200% damage, 50% weight increase, the other one 500% damage, 200% weight increase. Without range increase, it is better to build loads of little ones, unless my maths is wrong :S

I could go on more but I will finish with...

Will I buy the game... honestly, not at first, I may wait a year but I 100% will buy it eventually. The game is bloody good it plays like SEIV only much better, the combat is brilliant and I did simulator so many times because it was just fun and looked wonderful. I can only hope that all the layouts tables and filters go from SEIV to SEV as that is my main complaints, I would love to just be able to use the SEIV tables (and I would like the ability to copy the built in tables and start from that... not edit them, but start a new one with the defaults of another.) There were no big problems other than the general hard to migrate feeling of leeving SEIV and using something new, over time I will get used to everything new, there is nothing bad, it is just really diffrent.

Why wont I be buying the game? a) there are minor bugs, but knwoing how well SEIV was looked after, they will be fixed soon, however I would still buy it if it wasnt for b) my company is taking up increasing ammounts of my time, I waisted a whole day playing the demo and posting here! if I buy it, I know I will be addicted and not get on with any work. provisioning time doesnt work as I will try to sneak in a game, and before I know it, I have waisted a week playing! (happened before, with star trek mod...)

to finish off in these words.

"good game, very minor problems but nothing unfixable", 27% rating from me

I deducated 70% because I was not selected as beta tester! real rating, 97%


I hope I didnt repeat my self much, it is 2:40AM and I am about to go to bed! taken me ages typing this up, and my arms are killing!

[wilhil]

well, before the weekends done, i thought I would try another game.

I clicked explore on a ship, it went through a warp point and stoped in the new system with movement points left, I then clicked explore again, and it has found gone on to a new system but not moved properlly and it did a lot more moves that it should... basically really weird behaviour and I can not explain it. :S

[frightlever]

"Please do not blame the beta testers for this..."

I didn't. I blamed the beta-testing process. If big AH doesn't want to take your advice there's only so much you can do.

Wilhil - 97%? There's a solid 80% game lurking under a 50% interface. I played for about 3 hours this morning and I'm over my issues with the system display. I still want to see it changed but it's not annoying me so much anymore.

I opened SEIV up again to see what so different with its interface. Take the SEIV display and replace the 2D display with the 2D/3D display of SEV and you've got everything you need. Move stuff like the Deconstrucion sub-options to a separate screen (like in IV) to reduce the number of icons on screen and you won't even need to add that many extra icons.

Look at ship designs. I want to see my units - in IV I click on Units in the Design menu while in V I click on Filter, click on non-obsolete Unit designs and click close. Why? Theres room on that menu for Our Ship Designs, Our Unit Designs, Enemy Ship Designs, Enemy Unit Designs and a toggle for Hide Obsolete. There's no need for a filter option.

In fact the whole design philosophy seems to have been to hide the meat behind Filter and Layout options. The custom layouts are a good thing but the basic report layouts should just be a click away not three clicks away.

[Suicide Junkie]

StarShadow said:
Well I just noticed something on this topic. Engines do seem to be the best way to add supply storage to ships...bases are a whole 'nother thing. You have to add supply storage to bases (ordinance too if your weapons need it), as bases no longer seem to generate their own supplies. Without supplies your base is just a sitting duck...no shields, can't fire...

Is this a bug? Shouldn't bases generate supplies for their personal use?

Resupply depots deliver 500 points to vehicles anywhere in the system in addition to generating them.

The real problem is that bases don't give much indication that they NEED supply tanks.
In GGmod, I just give all ships a design requirement that they have supply.

[StarShadow]

Yes, I like that new feature of the resupply depots. What I meant though was that bases should function like their SEIV counterparts and generate their own 'endless' supplies.

[Q]

After about 12 hours playing with the demo I overall like SE V in spite of the problems with insufficient and unpractical interface and displays.
The possibilities of modding seem very exciting to me and I trust that MM will fix the major points of critics. The combat is excellent in my opinion and in contrast to many reports here, I had not a single malfunction of the game. However I am concerned that apparently the voices of many beta-testers have been ignored.
I am still not sure how good the AI is, because the demo works with medium AI difficulty. And the intel system seems as bad as in SE III and IV.
Anyway I will buy the game and trust that MM will hear and respond to our suggested improvents.

[Suicide Junkie]

There is no longer infinite supply generation.

And, of course there is no reason why you can't add a generation ability to bases. Solar panels work well.

99% of the time, bases will have plenty of supplies and ordnance stored anyways... the only time they wouldn't is if the enemy lays siege to them, in which case the limited supply is a feature.
Throwing enough cannon fodder at your bases that they run out of ammo is a VERY expensive way to win a battle.

[wilhil]

To add to my very long post, and @frightlever, 97% really was to game play and I was tired when writing.

I think honestly and from a profesional side, the game how it is deserves a 85-90% because it is extremly playable and works well however as a SEIV player, I would give it 70% and to get higher it really needs to have the SAME filters, coloumns and info as in SEIV, I still think SEIV is much better in this area and I wish that it was put in.

If this was added, I would easily and happy give the game a 95%+ as this is the only thing that makes it less playable as it is extremly awkward on long lists and tables to filter and view.

AGAIN, I want the same tables, layout and other info as in SEIV as I honestly think this is what made the game last so long for me, how easy it was to quickly look at info. Right now for colonising, I cant filter avoid systems, I have to change to see what planets are what, then see if there are ships on route at the same time. It is annoying and I have on more than one occassion sent two ships to one planet because I was to lazy to switch between list and ships on route as it takes a while to get around the menu system.

It is bad design when as a end user, you do not do something you can and should do becuase you feel that you cant be bothered to go around the process of changing it.... if you know what I mean.