Space Empires V post-mortem

[MarkSheppard]

I've tried many times over the years since it's release in 2006 to play SEV in single player mode; including some attempts with the latest 1.77 patch.

In all my attempts; they've ground to a halt after about 10-15 turns into the game; simply because of the ASTRONOMICAL time to compute a turn, even with the latest patch, compression disabled, and multi-threading enabled on a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Compared to Space Empires IV Deluxe, which I got for free with my SEV Purchase:

-- it takes a while to generate a quadrant map, even a small one; whereas with SE IV Deluxe, you can generate a large quadrant map in a second or two.

--running a human vs AI game in SEV is an exercise in sadomachoism, it takes at best 15-20~ seconds to generate a turn with 10 AI players, while in SE IV Deluxe with 17 AI players, about 2-3 seconds; depending on what happens; AT THE BEGINNING of the game.

This is critical, because at the beginning of a normal game; you are going to spend a LOT of turns waiting for R&D to finish developing, ships to be built, etc.

[Black_Knyght]

Regrettably, I agree with you completely.

These, and several other points, are why SE5 seems stillborn to me. It just never worked for me in the way SE4 did, and never had what it took to grab me and keep my attention and ongoing interest.

Too bad too, it could've had so much potential.:(

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I like games with long processing times. It keeps me from starving, starving my kids, starving my pets, exploding my bladder, etc etc. In other words I need games that make my look up and look around at least a couple times every hour. I can check work-windows and such.

But SEV still hasnt hooked me either. I admit I havent tried the latest patch or looked at the mod list yet. Are the mods for SEIV in SEV yet? Not specifically but do we have really large galaxies? Do we have lots of nations? I really didnt need the fancy graphics, sound, and box-on-the-shelf. Id much rather have had the more moddable version.
IMHO

[MarkSheppard]

Actually I like games with long processing times. It keeps me from starving, starving my kids, starving my pets, exploding my bladder, etc etc. In other words I need games that make my look up and look around at least a couple times every hour. I can check work-windows and such

The problem is that Space Empire's design as it is, ensues a lot of "Dead turns", where you're exploring solar systems at the beginning of the game, waiting for ships to be built (3 turns a ship), or waiting for your research to crank over, etc.

[Captain Kwok]

The movement phase is a lot more taxing in SE5 versus SE4. Not only are the systems 3 times larger and the average movement amounts 2 times more, the game also has to update the sight and pathing for each ship every single movement.

SE5 in simultaneous mode is a lot quicker than sequential. On a non-Vista system, it's not far off SE4 speeds.

[MarkSheppard]

SE5 in simultaneous mode is a lot quicker than sequential. On a non-Vista system, it's not far off SE4 speeds.

If by "not far off", you mean taking 3 times the length of SE4 speeds, yep.

It seems the only way to get a reasonably workable SE5 game is to start your games with SE4 Sensor settings: "Players can see all sectors of any system they are currently in"; which eliminates one of the major changes of SE5 -- making sensors actually useful.

[Fyron]

Id much rather have had the more moddable version.
Not entirely sure what that means, but SE5 is much more moddable than SE4. Formula-based data files, a scripting language for AI and events, etc. It's just much more painful to play.

[Q]

Sorry but 15-20 seconds is definitely not "astronomical" in my opinion. I spend much more time to make my turn than processing the turn, even in games as advanced as 2450.0!

[Hugh Manatee]

In all my attempts; they've ground to a halt after about 10-15 turns into the game; simply because of the ASTRONOMICAL time to compute a turn....running a human vs AI game in SEV is an exercise in sadomachoism, it takes at best 15-20~ seconds to generate a turn with 10 AI players,

You're like the guy who has to microwave a pop tart because he can't wait for the toaster :crazy:[/brianreagan]

[Spoo]

The thing the bugs me the most about SE5 is the system view. In SE4 I could clearly see where all of my ships were at a glance. Now I have to rotate and zoom/unzoom to find them all.

SE5 with SE4's graphics would have been a great game.

[Fyron]

That could actually be fixed. Reduce the hex sizes so the whole system fits on-screen at the desired resolution, then reduce the size planet objects and such are rendered, and voila!

[Makinus]

How would you do this kind of UI change? there isn´t any way to make a 2D UI in the SEIV style for SEV?

[Black_Knyght]

SE5 with SE4's graphics would have been a great game.

BINGO !!! That, in a nutshell, is exactly what I'd hoped for in SE5!:cool:

[MarkSheppard]

Sorry but 15-20 seconds is definitely not "astronomical" in my opinion.

Um, that 15-20 second turn processing time is for Turn 1, in 2400.1; with no ships for everyone in the game, just their starting planets. If it's THAT bad then, how bad will it be when people have 30-40 ships? :doh:

And this by the way is on a Quad Core Q6600; something that most definitely was not widely available or cheap in 2006; when Space Empires 5 was released; most people still had relatively older systems that managed to run SE4 turns in a reasonable amount of time; and then BAM, they were hit with multi-minute turn processing...

[Captain Kwok]

The first turn takes a bit longer than expected because the AI is designing their initial ships and units. Since this being run from a script being read into the game, it takes a couple seconds longer per AI.

Unfortunately, the foundation of SE5 was set prior to the widespread availability of dual/quad core units and Vista.

[Gandalf Parker]

SE5 with SE4's graphics would have been a great game.

BINGO !!! That, in a nutshell, is exactly what I'd hoped for in SE5!:cool:
Yes that was my hopes also. The upgrade of formats was bound to cause a loss in the modding community. But I was hoping it would eventually catch up.

[Fyron]

There are quite a few <a href="http://www.spaceempires.net/shipyards-g-SE5.html">SE5 shipsets</a>.

[MarkSheppard]

I think part of the problem is that controls are laid out badly. For example; I should be able to click on a ship and then hit TAB, which brings me to a zoomed in locked around that ship viewpoint, that I can then pan around to see the preeeeety colors or laser weapons fire...

[Fyron]

Tab is the wrong key for a camera follow control. Tab should be involved in switching between items.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Orthographic view. A lot would be better if Aaron programmed the system view to display orthographically.

[Atrocities]

The one thing that above all else that turned me off to playing SE V is that it failed to inspire me.

[Mephisto]

The one thing that above all else that turned me off to playing SE V is that it failed to inspire me.

Exactly. :(

[Black_Knyght]

Id much rather have had the more moddable version.
Not entirely sure what that means, but SE5 is much more moddable than SE4. Formula-based data files, a scripting language for AI and events, etc. It's just much more painful to play.

That's a sad truth. It's very moddable, but certainly a nuisance to play. The poor playability is what's a killer.:(

[Captain Kwok]

I think for a lot of SE4 players there is a threshold of playing time that has to be invested in SE5 before they become efficient enough to make the game enjoyable. Once they reach that level, they start figuring out all the small nuggets of info and shortcuts that SE5 makes available which alleviate a lot of the turn-to-turn management that SE4 has.

[Black_Knyght]

I don't know about that. SE4 grabbed me right out of the box, and kept my attention every since.

SE5 just never worked for me, and still has nothing to hold my interest.

There's just a certain combination in SE4 that worked, a combination that for me just never materialized in SE5.