SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List [Archive] - Page 5

Sinapus

May 7th, 2004, 06:31 AM

Originally posted by Tanus:
I'm sure it's probably been said before, but I'll throw it in anyway.

I'd like the option to set cloaking/detection 'distances' - kind of how long range scanners work.

Eg. Level 3 detectors would be able to see a cloaked ship up to 3 sectors away, level 4, 4 sectors away, etc. This would get more complicated as you add different cloak levels as well, but that's the general idea. System wide detection eliminates pretty much all 'stealthy' options and misdirection I proposed an idea like that awhile back. Though I was thinking more of having a scanner level combined with a sensor range, to make the different scanner types in SEIV be a bit different. Scanner level would scan out to the range, and be able to detect lower level cloaks further out.

Essentially, a Lvl 4 scanner w/range 2 would be able to detect cloak lvl 4 and lower at range 2, lvl 3 and lower at range 3, lvl 2 and lower at range 4. It would also detect cloak lvl 5 at range 1 and detect cloak lvl 6 if in the same sector.

Also wanted the cloak levels to stack, but only one particular component (or sector level obscuration) to work. So, you couldn't mount two cloaking devices to stack their cloak levels, but you could stack a cloaking device with stealth armor and hide in a sensor-obscuring nebula system or a sector-sized obscuring storm.

Paul1980au

May 7th, 2004, 10:36 AM

Good ideas re cloaking - with the unlimited tech levels proposed it will be itneresting to see how they do cloaking and possibly enhance it.

Atrocities

May 7th, 2004, 10:46 AM

For Planet Capture:

New Weapon - Planet Population Converter.

A weapon conponent that converts the population either over to the side of the attacker, or assimulatest them simular to the way the Borg do.

Can be two types of weapons.

Starhawk

May 10th, 2004, 03:08 AM

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but here a few of my ideas:

1. Make population be more important to the ability to construct ships/units for example World A has a population of 400 million while world B has a population of 8 billion, YOU want to raise 400 troop units and a Base ship but in SEIV you'd only go by which world would build what faster...

Instead I was thinking maybe have troops and ships cost population as WELL as the money so say a base ship costs you 1 mil population while 100 troops costs you 1 mil

SO when world A builds the base ship it will have a population of 399 mil left

And when world B finishes the 400 troops it will have 7.6 billion people left because you hust raised 4 million people into your armies.

I don't know if I worded that correctly but I would just love to see a planet's population that actually matters to what you can do with it.

2. I would like to see TRACTOR BEAMS muahaha, no seriously I would like to see Non-combat tractor beam projectors so that you can rescue crippled ships or tow a crippled enemy ship back to your base so you can board and capture it. I mean I'm sure we've all seen that jewel of enemy alien technology that was crippled by another player and go "I WANT IT SOOO BAD!" but lose it because we can't two it to a base.

3. Better planetary militia: I mean I know they are not supposed to be able to stand up to troops but I really enjoy those planetary invasions where it becomes a real nail biter and I'm going "Can my troops pull it off" right up until the end.
I would also like to see planetary milita count as a certain percentage of the population.

4.Pirates!!! I mean random alien "or your own species" pirate ships come out of nowhere and raid a world or two and not have them tied to anyone, And say every now and then a pirate fleet comes out of the warp and invades a planet or two so that you can actually have to send out your military every now and then to retake your own worlds or just to counter the occasional pirate threat.

5. FTL drives: I'm talking short range warp point openers that you can place aboard your ships, say make this tech come along in the late game and only have a range of like 50 light years or something.
It's just that I'd like to see this because once you get warp point openers they can open anywhere in space unless you have those gravitic shields but that also ruins YOUR ability to warp so I think just making a short range ftl drive would be better for everyone.

6. Deathworlds! Okay maybe this sounds dumb to you guys but I'd like it if say every now and then you find a world where everything wants to kill your colonists from the animals to the plants and that this way <A> you'll have to use some security force or something to help with the initial colonization and [B] okay if your colonists survive after a few years the population gets bonuses say in maybe reproduction and strength and the like....but anyway this is just a sort of random thing.

7. MEGA sphereworlds: Okay say you have a trinary system and you have all 3 stars with sphereworlds around them I'd love LOVE to be able to connect all three of those sphereworlds and make a mega structure that dwarves other sphereworlds and becomes something that would take dozens of troop ships to capture and all that fun stuff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

8. Real TIME battles would just be a lot more fun in my oppinion depending on how they are run I mean i hate it when I have 3 troop ships loaded with soldiers but I can't capture a world because it kills off each troop one at a time and regenerates it's milita for the next force of troops coming in.
I want the ability to drop all 3 troop ships on a planet if I so choose.

joeljermon

May 10th, 2004, 11:52 PM

I'd really like tactical combat to be more fun. I thought MOO2 did a much better job on tactical combat. I suggest making the ships significantly bigger, move faster (I don't mean more spaces, just not make it take so long to move), and an easy way to indicate range.

[ May 10, 2004, 22:52: Message edited by: joeljermon ]

Aiken

May 11th, 2004, 12:29 AM

A couple of ideas that I'd like to see implemented:
1. Get rid of facility slots. They could be replaced with livable area concept for planet and area occupied for facilities. IE, livable area for breathable medium sized planet is 100000 units (acres, km2 or anything), then area occupied for SY could be 50000 (concurrently, it can be allowed to have 2 SY per planet, with 2 constr queues), research complex - 5000, etc. So you can build 2 SY or 20 research complexes, or 1 SY and 10 research complexes on this planet. That's right, it could function like ship designing in se4, with its tradeoffs and restrictions. Livable area should depend of planet size, atmosphere type and planet conditions.

2. Slightly different scheme for warp opening: you should have 2 ships(bases) to be able to open new warp - one for each end of the warpline. Also you have to keep both vessels in these sectors to bear the artificial warp point, if one of these vessels is destroyed - poof - no warp anymore.

Paul1980au

May 11th, 2004, 01:48 AM

Temporary wormholes the 2 ship concept but if the enemy captured or destroyed one of the ships the warp point would close

Also what about a device that opens a warp points for 3 turns only to a random system on the game map - you could have a fleet or ship waiting to go through but you would not know where the warp point had opened to until you went through - it could be one of youre systems, uncolonized system on the far map side or an enemy core system..

Perhaps though make this a unique alien tech like massive shield depletor or something - one per game ?

Suicide Junkie

May 11th, 2004, 02:08 AM

3. Better planetary militia: I mean I know they are not supposed to be able to stand up to troops but I really enjoy those planetary invasions where it becomes a real nail biter and I'm going "Can my troops pull it off" right up until the end.
I would also like to see planetary milita count as a certain percentage of the population.A fraction of your population IS militia. Not anything like a whole 1% though... that would just be crazy. One "division" of professional armed, armored militia with good tactics per X million people, rather than just ten million sidearm-wielding couch potatos running out as cannon fodder...

For good militia in SE4, go into settings.txt
1) Set # ground combat turns to 1.
2) Set population per militia to 1.
3) Set militia hitpoints to 30+
4) Set militia attack power to 1-10, depending on how difficult you want it.

Now try taking planets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Still too easy? Try SJmod... against a bloodthirsty race who enjoys it when you land troops for them to butcher http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Timstone

May 11th, 2004, 07:30 AM

Big shipportraits. That way the effort of the people who make the models is better visible. Gives you the feel that everyone can see your ingenius design.

Atrocities

May 11th, 2004, 08:54 AM

Ship Construction Idea:

Have the option for ship designs in the vehicle text file as we do for components. This way a ship may have multiple Version of its class and the obsolete Version can be hidden from view like Components.

Example:

Escort I
Escort II
Escort III (Or listed as Heavy Escort)
Escort IV (Or listed as Heavy Escort 2)

When Escort II becomes avaible then Escort I is not longer shown in the Vehicle Type window unless the player wishes to see it by turning off Only Current Designs.

By having this feature players could add several levels of ships to one class. Each class could boast additional improvements like stronger hulls, more KT, etc without having to go to a new class or have your ship list window filled with ships.

This would keep the ship list window neat and orderly while providing an extra level of moddability to the game.

The current ship lists would remain. Escort, Frigate, Destroyer, etc, but with each of these a player can add mulitiple design types in addition to new hull design types like Cutter, Scout, Juggernought.

If a player wanted to they could have 3 levels of Escort hulls, 3 levels of Frigate hulls, etc. Each hull being gained at X tech level or something.

Loser

May 11th, 2004, 08:49 PM

hot-keys.

spoon

May 11th, 2004, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
hot-keys. customizable hot keys.

Paul1980au

May 11th, 2004, 10:25 PM

Customisable hot keys are probably going to be in the game i would think !

xevioso

May 12th, 2004, 07:10 AM

Here are some specific must-haves. These are things that I think would really work for the game. They would not be too hard to implement and would increase the realism and usability of the game tremendously.

1) Movable and closable windows. This is absolutly the most important thing from a UI perspective. I have two monitors and I would love to be able to move windows and keep them open on my second monitor. But even for the vast majority of people, making windows movable and maybe resizable would be very helpful. That way you could have more than one window open at a time.

2) Rotating planets. Please make the window in which the planet that you are looking at be much larger, and ideally the planet would rotate. This is not hard from a coding standpoint; many games do this. This would would make the game very realistic, expecially since much of the game focuses on planetary resources.

3) More random planetary information. I like the idea of viewing a planet and having a host of information available about the planet available, even if 90% of it is not useful from a gaming perspective. It makes it very realistic. There is a current trend among graphic designers to put lots of random, meaningless technical information in a design; this makes it look more realistic in some people's minds. I would love to see weather, climate, flora and fauna types, magnetic field strength, day and year info, tilt, albedo, % water or land, mineral makeup, density, and so on, even if the ONLY thing useful is what we already currently use. This is random information that could be put into a txt field...and if displayed properly, would be very very cool, and make each planet more discernable from its neighbors. It would also be nice to do this for stars or other astronomical objects.

4) More customizable useless information. I would like to be able to name generals and individual ministers, and also preferably star systems. If I capture a system, why the heck can't I rename it? More importantly, I would love to be able to name a general of a fleet, or a captain of a ship. This makes me grow more attached to a particular ship or fleet, and makes me care more about what happens to General XXX of task force XXX rather than merely task force Alpha Beta or whatever. In the best world, you could transfer individual generals (say, only one general per fleet) across fleets, giving them better attack capabilities. As it stands now, the game is very impersonal. That is normally fine, but adding SOME SMALL element of individual personalization to the game other than the name of the emperor would make the game that much cooler. Even though most people would not use these features, making them available for the micromanagers among us would be great. What would Star Wars be without Vader and Luke?

5) If I could have anything other than the detachable windows, it would be a true 3d environment from a galactic perspective. I don't mean just 3d ships and such, but a 3d galactic environment with a freaking Z axis. Maybe they are planning on doing this for the game already, so slap me already, but if not, PLEASE look at Homeworld and how they did their Z axis...it's very cool. I know other games do this as well. This would be great.

Well, maybe these items have already been said. Sorry for the long post. I hope I'm taken seriously.

--Jeremy

Atrocities

May 12th, 2004, 04:32 PM

Again it seems that many good suggestions are being glanced over without being considered. A list must be organized in order to insure that everyones contribution to this discussion is recognized. This would also avoid duplicate ideas, and save us the trouble of re-inventing the wheel every few hundred Posts.

So many great ideas have already been buried and forgotten that if one were to mine this thread, one would akin to an arceologist (sp) exploring the a lost and forgotten planet with mulitiple extinct civilizations.

I still think my anicent ruin of a system wide mine field was a good idea but how many of you remember that post let alone any of the previous Posts dating as far back as the beginning of this thread and the many threads that preceeded it?

Aiken

May 12th, 2004, 07:08 PM

All we need is a bit of planning and some volunteers.
A. Split overall wishlist into the subject areas, ie:
0. Game physics.
1. Visual appearance and Interface.
2. Game startup and empire creation.
3. Empire infrastructure and economics.
4. Research.
5. Intel.
6. Diplomacy.
7. Ships and units design.
8. Military operations.
9. Space combat.
10. Ground combat.
11. AI.
12. Modding (graphics, AI and main data files).
...{it's a draft afterall}

B. We have 70 pages in the wishlist topic so at least 4 volunteers are needed - each one can parse 18 pages in the topic. The more people we have (but 10 max) he faster we got the compiled wishlist.
C. Each member of the team scans his portion of the tread and once he find a suggestion he should categorize this suggestion according to structure above, evaluate it (to avoid sh*t in wishlist, but be unbiassed) and copy it to the appropriate section of his file.
D. As soon as the partial wishlist is ready, team member should send his file with suggestions to the coordinator/maintainer. He should collect all the files, remove duplicates and post the merged list to the separate sticky tread. From here he should track the main wishlist tread and maintain the compiled wishlist.

Before posting new suggestions it will be strictly recommended to read the compiled wishlist to avoid duplicates.

What do you people think? Any comments? Volunteers ? As for me, I'm ready to parse about 1/4-1/5 of the tread.

Fyron

May 12th, 2004, 07:22 PM

Again it seems that many good suggestions are being glanced over without being considered. How can you say that? Have you seen the game yet? No. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Aaron has stated on several occassions that he keeps ALL of the suggestions he receives via email in a huge table, to be looked at when he starts working on whatever part of the game they apply to. He has also stated that he pays attention to this thread...

Tanus

May 12th, 2004, 09:26 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Tanus:
I'm sure it's probably been said before, but I'll throw it in anyway.

I'd like the option to set cloaking/detection 'distances' - kind of how long range scanners work.

Eg. Level 3 detectors would be able to see a cloaked ship up to 3 sectors away, level 4, 4 sectors away, etc. This would get more complicated as you add different cloak levels as well, but that's the general idea. System wide detection eliminates pretty much all 'stealthy' options and misdirection
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I proposed an idea like that awhile back. Though I was thinking more of having a scanner level combined with a sensor range, to make the different scanner types in SEIV be a bit different. Scanner level would scan out to the range, and be able to detect lower level cloaks further out.

Essentially, a Lvl 4 scanner w/range 2 would be able to detect cloak lvl 4 and lower at range 2, lvl 3 and lower at range 3, lvl 2 and lower at range 4. It would also detect cloak lvl 5 at range 1 and detect cloak lvl 6 if in the same sector.

Also wanted the cloak levels to stack, but only one particular component (or sector level obscuration) to work. So, you couldn't mount two cloaking devices to stack their cloak levels, but you could stack a cloaking device with stealth armor and hide in a sensor-obscuring nebula system or a sector-sized obscuring storm.
Definitely... I was really tired, and didn't explain clearly what I meant.

My thought (now that I'm awake) was something along these lines.

Detection 1 sees cloak 5 at range 1, cloak 4 at range 2, cloak 3 at range 3, cloak 2 at range 4, cloak 1 at range 5, and uncloaked at range 6

Detection 2 sees cloak 5 at range 2, cloak 4 at range 3... etc

All numbers are just examples of course, but the point is that the better cloaks allow you to get closer without being seen, but not totally invisible - eventually you'll be so close that no matter how good you're able to suppress the signature of your ship, it's just too close to miss.

Also, as you can see, just entering a system does not allow you to see all ships. Planets should show colonies, as that's harder to miss, but in the scale of a star system, a single ship is beyond minute, and a ship with no detection should not be able to 'see' a ship on the far side of the system.

Hope that makes a bit more sense.

Also, having the different types of cloak and detection work properly would be make for a lot of different variations on the theme.

Paul1980au

May 12th, 2004, 10:42 PM

Im sure that aaron is making a cataglogue of this thread and will even come up with a few of his own ideas.

Karibu

May 27th, 2004, 10:06 AM

Suggestion of how to use mines in SEV (adds propability to get through minefield without damage and adds minesweepers a propability to fail at minesweeping -> mines are not always automatically swept when going through the field).

One thing to make mines better would be so, that when you sweep mines, there would be certain percentual for one sweeper component to sweep a mine. Also so, that bigger minefields are easier to sweep. For example:

1 sweeper component of level 5 has five shots. 1 shot has 10% basic chance to sweep a mine. In this case this component would have 5 shots of 10 percent chance each of them = 1-(0,9^5) = 0,41 mines/turn.

This number would apply in... lets say a minefield size of 50 mines. Now this percent grows linear up to 20% chance when the size of the minefield is 100 mines. This is logic, because more mines in one sector means they are closer each other.

So, lets say a ship, which has 20 components of level 5 minesweeper components goes into minefield of 100 mines. Then it sweeps like this:

1 component sweeps: 1-(0,8^5) = 0,67 mines/turn.
20 components sweeps approximately 13,4 mines/turn.

So, in this case you would need approximately 8 ships (20 components in each of them) to sweep every mine in the field in one turn. Yes, this is a quite many ships, but also mines would have a propability to hit one ship (not automatically, like now). The mine hit propability could be for example 50%. In this kind of minefields, enemy could pass it taking some damage, but it would not sweep all the mines at one sweep like now.

The sweeper components could also become more accurate in upper levels and mines would have better hit ratio when more developed. Sure these numbers I presented needs some refinement, but I think the idea would be great. Mines would be quite more usable and they would have this unpredictable element which they have in real life also. You rarely find all mines in one area in one day (or month, for that matter). You need to inspect the area very closely.

Starling

May 27th, 2004, 05:40 PM

I agree with Karibu, I think that mines need some adjustments along those lines.

An additional factor I would like to see is the probability of a mine field correctly identifing a ship entering the mine field. Currently in SEIV, a mine field always correctly identifies the owner and allies, and always correctly identifies those who are not. Suppose, there is a 99% chance of correctly identifing any ship entering the mine field as an owner, ally or not. For example an non-allied fleet entered your mine field. Each ship would be queried by the mine field. Any ship that is incorrectly identified would be treated as an ally for this turn. The same would apply to the owner or allied ship entering the mine field.

I believe that this would more closely reflect the realities of a mine field.

Maulkye

May 28th, 2004, 07:10 PM

- A trade agreement means *trade*, not military occupation or land grabbing. (America has a trade agreement with China, but that doesn't mean they can move an entire column of tanks into downtown New York.) If some of the features of SF were implemented (freighters, traders, and pirates) then those ships would mesh wonderfully with trade arrangements.

- Diplomacy needs work in general, more granular selections, more reasonable responses, and more continuity in behavior would be excellent.

- Where did the invisible walls in space combat come from? Is Q around here somewhere? Let's make space real, and connected... even in combat. There are many ways to do it: real fuel limitations to explain stopped ships (better save some fuel instead of moving all that distance in strategic mode) could work nicely.

- Let's put the 3 back in 3D (at least for combat). It has significant bearing on tactics in multiple ship combat. MOO2 was great, but the combat got stupid after a while. Obstacles and a third dimension add flavor and variety. I have the same issue with Star Fury, but I still enjoy the game immensely anyway.

- Bigger or zoomable system maps, sizeable windows, and improved interface navigation tools. They're pretty good already (I've seen MUCH worse), but just need some touch up.

- Quick key for "End Turn" in combat.

- Ground combat is pretty disappointing. I really don't see too much value in it. It's seems easier to just bLast the place from orbit.

- Smarter AI's, especially when it comes to finite resource management.

- Miniaturization and resource recovery techniques (ala Spaceward Ho!).

Some tidbits:
- Aliens & Monsters

- Expanded ores and resources (required for special equipment: like in Fragile Alliances)

- More varied economy and trading involvement

- Leaders & Heroes

- More interesting and *good* events (GNN - MOO2)

- Campaigns and story lines (like Star Fury)

- I honestly think that an expanded Star Fury and Space Empires, could be completely married into one game to make the ULTIMATE 4x gaming experience. I'm not sure how the logistics would work, but it gives me chills just to think about the possibilities.

Maulkye

Maulkye

May 28th, 2004, 07:18 PM

One "division" of professional armed, armored militia with good tactics per X million people, rather than just ten million sidearm-wielding couch potatos running out as cannon fodder...HAHAHAHAHAHA... that's hillarious!

Of course, in some instances, it makes some sense. More militant races (like Americans) might actually have a population of Gunslinging Couch Potatos. Of course, ten potato men might equal only one regualar troop.

metro637

May 29th, 2004, 12:09 AM

Please make the fonts BIGGER. I can barely see the ones in SEIV.

Better diplomacy. This is not just options but conflicts occurring over real issues that have viable options for negotiation. Example: Discovery of a lost colony in space claimed by different empire. Lost of prestige or etc to occur to the side that capitulates.

Suicide Junkie

May 30th, 2004, 09:20 PM

An interesting idea from IRC was a trait for a "Freedom Fighters" type of thing.

It could have results like:
- double militia on all planets
- adds new militia every ground combat turn.
- spontaneously generates 1 militia per 5 million people on ANY world
(even your people on enemy worlds, so if they don't have enough troops/militia to keep the people down, you capture the colony spontaneously)

Magnum357

June 1st, 2004, 01:12 AM

One thing I would like too see is Military Alliance in Diplomacy lowered just above a Non-aggression pact. You can have an alliance with someone without having a Trade or Research Alliance with them.

As a matter of fact, how about editable diplomacy statuses? You could agrange the diplomacy statuses the way you want or add some new ones. On the other hand, that could be complicated to code in for Aaron. At least editing the order of Alliancees in the game would be nice. You could still have War, None, Non-intercorse, Non-aggression Pact Hard coded, but the other treaties could be customizable.

As for 3D, I hope SE5 keeps too its Turn-based Strategic setup like preveious SE Versions, but I wouldn't mind seeing Tactical Combat in 3D format. And although Star Fury is neat for Single ship duals, it might not be practical since SE deals with large Empires and large Fleets. How about a 3D Tactical Combat system like Homeworld? You could still have many of the features of Starfury in it, but the control would be similar too how Homeworld worked for Fleet operations.

mac5732

June 1st, 2004, 03:41 AM

ai in sp to defend wormholes with battlesttaions, fortresses as well as mines and sats

Renegade 13

June 1st, 2004, 04:25 AM

Actually, in my current SP game, I encountered an Eee battlestation on a Warp Point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif This is a totally unmodded game, and believe me, it shocked me, as such a thing was supposed to never be done by the AI. I suppose it could have been brought there by a random ship movement event, but the odds of it happening like that would be pretty slim.

Karibu

June 2nd, 2004, 07:04 AM

I think this has been said before, but I am too lazy to read all 70 pages of this thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif . When having trade alliance (or higher) with someone, you should be able to "break" trade alliance without it causing any battles. If you break treaty now, your planets fight if you have planets/fleets in same location. It should be able to get decreased into "non aggression pact" instead of plain nothing. This way a lot of execuses would be avoided (in PBW atleast).

Gandalf Parker

June 2nd, 2004, 03:01 PM

Reading the whole thread may be a problem for Aaron also. In the Dom2 wishlist we had someone who organized it into quick, extended, and maybe for the Version after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Of course it mostly allowed the devs to disagree with the arbitrary Ratings of the ideas but the disagreement itself was movement forward.

edited: oh wait, I see this has been suggested before. No writer/organizer types? (I know Im not, but I hoped someone else might be)

David E. Gervais

June 2nd, 2004, 04:20 PM

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
You all should be interested to know that this list just got culled and forwarded to Aaron. Cross your fingers... Gandalf, as you can see GW culled the list allready. IIRC he culled the list when the post count was at or near 1000. (I found this post back on page 9 of this thread.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

P.S. I'm sure GW will keep this up to date, not to worry.

[ June 02, 2004, 15:58: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Kana

June 2nd, 2004, 06:10 PM

I'm sure these have been brought up already...but I might as well put it in to have it considered....

1. Retreating from Combat...like SE3

2. Ability to Recover/Land Fighters on Carriers
during combat. Possibly even be able to re-
load/rearm them, with single shot weaponry...
ie...missiles and bombs...

3. Transfer of supplies...similiar to cargo
items.

4. IF 3 is true...then bases could supply ships
on a limited basis.

Kana

[ June 02, 2004, 17:27: Message edited by: Kana ]

Gandalf Parker

June 2nd, 2004, 07:48 PM

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by General Woundwort:
You all should be interested to know that this list just got culled and forwarded to Aaron. Cross your fingers... Gandalf, as you can see GW culled the list allready. IIRC he culled the list when the post count was at or near 1000. (I found this post back on page 9 of this thread.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

P.S. I'm sure GW will keep this up to date, not to worry. <hr /></blockquote>Im thinking that the culled list would be a good stickie. Locked so that only Moderators could add to it but with a link for "to add or comment" sending people to this thread.

Atrocities

June 2nd, 2004, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by Kana:
I'm sure these have been brought up already...but I might as well put it in to have it considered....

1. Retreating from Combat...like SE3

2. Ability to Recover/Land Fighters on Carriers
during combat. Possibly even be able to re-
load/rearm them, with single shot weaponry...
ie...missiles and bombs...

3. Transfer of supplies...similiar to cargo
items.

4. IF 3 is true...then bases could supply ships
on a limited basis.

Kana They have, but it is always good to keep them on the front page. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Atrocities

June 2nd, 2004, 11:17 PM

I will have to redo my own list and post it again as well as email it to Aaron. Say does any one have a copy or comprehensive list of what has been suggested to date?

Fyron

June 3rd, 2004, 01:37 AM

David mentioned one by GW. Scroll down a few Posts and read David's.

Delirium

June 3rd, 2004, 02:01 AM

I don't know if this was been posted before but I would love the game to be simplified.

While all these suggestions are great, the game needs a balance between customization and simplification.

I mean for one, in trading star maps, do you really want to trade the maps of certain systems, or take the Civ3 approach and trade the whole thing.

Another thing would be why require three resources if only one is really needed much? Just make it one resource: money.

Or how about an option that tells when a planet's queue is finished and is awaiting orders.

Fyron

June 3rd, 2004, 02:09 AM

I mean for one, in trading star maps, do you really want to trade the maps of certain systems, or take the Civ3 approach and trade the whole thing.Yes, I really do want to trade individual system maps. I don't want the enemy to know about my core systems. Certainly, there should be an option to add all system maps to the trade offer, but the ability to trade only specific system maps must remain. I for one hate the Civ3 approach to this. It is far more of a problem than a benefit.

Another thing would be why require three resources if only one is really needed much? Just make it one resource: money.Although the stock game does not make very good use of the 3 resources, there are a lot of mods that do. Pirates and Nomands and Adamant mods do, for example.

Or how about an option that tells when a planet's queue is finished and is awaiting orders. You can see this with the construction window, which displays all construction queues. Click on the title of the field that shows what is being constructed. Now, empty queues will be sorted to the top. To make this even more useful, you can set the view to show number of facilities on each planet. Then, click on the column for the facilities, then the column for what is being constructed. This way, you get planets ordered by what is being built, then how many facilities are currently on the planet (ship and base SYs get sorted as 0).

Another thing you can do is create a unit, such as a small troop, named "_End of Queue". Add this to the end of queues. Each turn when you check the construction queue window, you will see which queues are meant to be buiding things, but are at the end.

[ June 03, 2004, 01:10: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Iansidious

June 3rd, 2004, 02:22 AM

I just thought of a new one for SE5. The Sticky Mine . A mine that sticks to the hull of a ship. You wouldn't know it but after a few turns a few of them would BOOM! Just a nice suprise for your enemies.

Paul1980au

June 3rd, 2004, 05:25 AM

Sticky mine - homing mine would be a great idea - you culd have some counter tech that could be put on ships to detect said devices (or perhaps a % chance of detecting said devices each turn)

Mines that target specific components but leave other ie engine damaging mines, weapon damaging mines, shield generator damaging mines - just for a bit more complexiveness.

Ed Kolis

June 3rd, 2004, 03:38 PM

Originally posted by Paul1980au:
Mines that target specific components but leave other ie engine damaging mines, weapon damaging mines, shield generator damaging mines - just for a bit more complexiveness. Some SE4 mods such as P&N and Adamant have special damage types on mines. The only ones that don't work right are the ones that have something to do with shields, because shields are automatically ignored by mines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Gandalf Parker

June 3rd, 2004, 04:07 PM

my wishlist for SE5 would be for a hosting exec that will run on Linux with no GUI.

Suicide Junkie

June 3rd, 2004, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Paul1980au:
Mines that target specific components but leave other ie engine damaging mines, weapon damaging mines, shield generator damaging mines - just for a bit more complexiveness. Some SE4 mods such as P&N and Adamant have special damage types on mines. The only ones that don't work right are the ones that have something to do with shields, because shields are automatically ignored by mines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif <hr /></blockquote>They work just fine, if you keep in mind that the shields are always at zero strength at the time of impact.

Iansidious

June 3rd, 2004, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by Paul1980au:
Sticky mine - homing mine would be a great idea - you culd have some counter tech that could be put on ships to detect said devices (or perhaps a % chance of detecting said devices each turn)

Mines that target specific components but leave other ie engine damaging mines, weapon damaging mines, shield generator damaging mines - just for a bit more complexiveness. Sounds good. I like the % change of disabling sticky mine. Hopefully Lady Luck will smile on youe empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Fyron

June 3rd, 2004, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Some SE4 mods such as P&N and Adamant have special damage types on mines. The only ones that don't work right are the ones that have something to do with shields, because shields are automatically ignored by mines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Shield Generator Damaging mines work great. There are no "4x to shields" or "Only Shields" mine warheads in those mods.

Ed Kolis

June 3rd, 2004, 10:36 PM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
my wishlist for SE5 would be for a hosting exec that will run on Linux with no GUI. SE4 has that, doesn't it? It has a command-line hosting mode, and it runs under Wine... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ June 04, 2004, 13:36: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Ed Kolis

June 4th, 2004, 04:13 AM

I dunno, I never actually tried running SE4 on Linux; I've never found the need to, seeing as I haven't actually run a Linux-only box... yet! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

(BTW, you DO know there is a quote button, it's right next to that darn edit button, and much less confusing for people reading the thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

edit: this was in response to this post by Gandalf Parker... no, I'm not telepathic, he just edited instead of quoting my post first http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

My reason for asking is the ease of webbing a site. I havent tried wine yet. Would the results be just as accessable? Can you cron it? 

[ June 04, 2004, 13:54: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Gandalf Parker

June 4th, 2004, 02:35 PM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
I dunno, I never actually tried running SE4 on Linux; I've never found the need to, seeing as I haven't actually run a Linux-only box... yet! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

(BTW, you DO know there is a quote button, it's right next to that darn edit button, and much less confusing for people reading the thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) Yes the stupid thing is right next to the edit button. I would definetly change that layout if I could. Sorry about that.

I will fix my part of it.

[ June 04, 2004, 13:38: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Gandalf Parker

June 4th, 2004, 02:37 PM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
my wishlist for SE5 would be for a hosting exec that will run on Linux with no GUI. SE4 has that, doesn't it? It has a command-line hosting mode, and it runs under Wine... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <hr /></blockquote>Thanks for the info. I will look into it.

My reason for asking is the ease of webbing a site. I havent tried wine yet. Would the results be just as accessable? Can you cron it?

Loser

June 4th, 2004, 05:05 PM

I would like to be able to mod the New Technology message to add a large amount of flavor text specific to each new component, hull or facility and ideal for each new level of technology.

If you're reading this, Aaron, and you don't care to add that much 'favor text' to the stock game, check out my work on the Play by Committee (http://invirtuo.cc/se4/) game. Use 'spectator' as both the username and password. Drop me a line.

Oh, and hotkeys of course. I want to be able to play this whole game without ever touching a mouse.

JLS

June 4th, 2004, 07:38 PM

A an option to remove all ships that are MOTHBALLED from the [F6] ship/unit display

DarkHorse

June 4th, 2004, 11:10 PM

How about spreading out the cost of retrofitting ships over the number of turns it takes to actually repair them. In other words, pay for each component retrofitted as it is repaired, instead of all at once.

This way I can designate say an entire fleet to be retrofitted, without having to go broke for that first turn.

Aiken

June 5th, 2004, 10:20 AM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
my wishlist for SE5 would be for a hosting exec that will run on Linux with no GUI. I think that's a great suggestion. Actually this idea can be expanded into the new server-client architecture, so the game could consist of 2 separate programs: CLI based server (with simple graphical games management frontend, maybe) capable to make turn computations only and graphical clent which will "draw" the turn delivered from server and provide actuall game interface. In conjunction with improved tcp\ip mechanism this could make game hosting much easier. And sure, the server side should be written to be easily ported to another platforms (*nix, mac, whatever)

Grand Lord Vito

June 5th, 2004, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by DarkHorse:
How about spreading out the cost of retrofitting ships over the number of turns it takes to actually repair them. In other words, pay for each component retrofitted as it is repaired, instead of all at once.

This way I can designate say an entire fleet to be retrofitted, without having to go broke for that first turn. I also like your suggestion.

Fyron

June 5th, 2004, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by aiken:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
my wishlist for SE5 would be for a hosting exec that will run on Linux with no GUI. I think that's a great suggestion. Actually this idea can be expanded into the new server-client architecture, so the game could consist of 2 separate programs: CLI based server (with simple graphical games management frontend, maybe) capable to make turn computations only and graphical clent which will "draw" the turn delivered from server and provide actuall game interface. In conjunction with improved tcp\ip mechanism this could make game hosting much easier. And sure, the server side should be written to be easily ported to another platforms (*nix, mac, whatever) <hr /></blockquote>I think that is a bit excessive (other than porting the game to other OS). SE4 already has a CLI based server mode that works just fine. It doesn't draw any pictures or anything. This is why PBW is possible, and it is fairly easy to use the host mode.

[ June 05, 2004, 17:09: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Iansidious

June 6th, 2004, 09:15 PM

I don't know about anyone else. I would like to see cloak stay invisable even with a partnership treaty. Or you allow your friend(s) to see your cloaked ships. Just something to think about.

Parasite

June 7th, 2004, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by JLS:
A an option to remove all ships that are MOTHBALLED from the [F6] ship/unit display I would say all ships with a speed of zero, whether mothballed or not. This would include bases and damaged ships as well. Possibly have a new button/option for showing these or not. Show "Moble" or "Not Mobile"

Power Man

June 7th, 2004, 09:18 PM

I do not know if this has been mentioned.

I would like to have a way of telling a planet to build and Launch mines and or satellites in one command. This is in addition to the current just build and store them command. This way I can give threatened or new planets some defences without having to buld mines and then remember to go and search out the planets and tell them to launch the stuff.
Or I can tell them to build up a stock pile so my layers can come in and fill up.

Fyron

June 9th, 2004, 06:13 AM

Although it is far from efficient, you can go through the Construction section of the turn log, visiting each planet that built mines on that turn. This is far easier than it used to be, as the log will remember the position it was in when you Last closed it. Saves having to go to the planets manually, and remembering which planets they were in the first place.

bearclaw

June 10th, 2004, 03:38 AM

Originally posted by Power Man:
I do not know if this has been mentioned.

I would like to have a way of telling a planet to build and Launch mines and or satellites in one command. This is in addition to the current just build and store them command. This way I can give threatened or new planets some defences without having to buld mines and then remember to go and search out the planets and tell them to launch the stuff.
Or I can tell them to build up a stock pile so my layers can come in and fill up. I do this by putting the mines/fighters/sats in the build queue, then give the planet orders to launch mines/fighters/sats. Then put the planet on repeat orders. Works in simultanious games quite well, but in turn-based, the planet has to have the approriate type already in storage. But it will work then too.

Ruatha

June 12th, 2004, 11:44 AM

No weapon that isn't counterable, i e no absolute Talisman!!

Fyron

June 12th, 2004, 07:10 PM

Originally posted by Ruatha:
No weapon that isn't counterable, i e no absolute Talisman!! One thing you can do in SE4 is to add a boarding defense ability to it. Then, add a weapon that uses the type Only Security Stations. Now, it can defile the Talsman and make it not work. You also get the benefit of having a new way to aide in boarding ships.

psimancer

June 13th, 2004, 10:04 PM

i suggest the following

1. scriptable command sequences
2. remote load/launch type and number selection

implementation
1.add to the view command box edit

2. when select launch remote i have to choose how many of each type to launch
and with a save package command like construction ques

example
item one i just set up a multi system cargo run Last turn but this turn i lost a system
all i really need to do is remove that system and maybe insert a move to command
since the editor is text i better know what system and what location for the move to
such as
moveto eurul (6,11)
simple stuff

item two
sample command script with launch selection
moveto eurul (4,6)
load fighters (erul IV,"charger v1.0",60)
load fighters (erul IV,"hawkeye v1.7",6)
load population (erul IV,oxygen,100)
load population (erul IV,methane,100)
moveto atuil (8,9)
drop population (atuil II,oxygen,50)
moveto atuil (4,5)
drop population (some planet,methane,100)
launch fighters ("hawkeye v1.7",1)
launch fighters ("charger v1.0",10)
moveto atuil (5,5)
launch fighters ("hawkeye v1.7",1)
launch fighters ("charger v1.0",10)
moveto atuil (5,6)
launch fighters ("hawkeye v1.7",1)
launch fighters ("charger v1.0",10)
moveto atuil (4,6)
launch fighters ("hawkeye v1.7",1)
launch fighters ("charger v1.0",10)
moveto atuil (3,6)
launch fighters ("hawkeye v1.7",1)
launch fighters ("charger v1.0",10)

this script would ring a planet with 5 fighter Groups each containing 10 combat fighters and 1 electronic warfare shield ship

until you can create multiple fighter Groups in the same sector by choice instead of movement this would be the procedure on a cargo movement run

oh and error checking is classic idiot proof if it cant perform an action it clears all orders and sits there

though i wish i could set an alarm in the script
example being

message ("awaiting orders")

which would show up in my end of turn Messages log
this being a user typed message not automatic
but if a error occured in clearing orders it would check for that command and execute it then clear command list

ps ii know command for load and drop could have location as parameters bu heyy im trying to keep this as simple as possible for demo purposes
heck you only need
7 commands total of all options about 40

moveto,warp,transfer,launch fight-sats-mines-drones,recover fight-sat,
load f/s/m/d/pop/wp,drop f/s/m/d/pop/wp,[begin repeat],[end repeat]

the attack stellar manip etc are all upper lvl decision commands
these guy suggested just allow for the creation of automated trade and migration routes

[ June 13, 2004, 21:15: Message edited by: psimancer ]

Paul1980au

June 14th, 2004, 01:45 AM

Psimancer - the error message aspect is a great idea - lets hope it gets looked at - lots of good ideas i guess we have to wait for the first beta test results or demo of SE5 to come out before we can really give some early feedback and positive and negative feedback on new features etc.

Aiken

June 14th, 2004, 06:21 AM

Yet another portion of dumb suggestions from me:

1. Implementation of variables in the config scripts: like %ShieldPointsGenerated (already present), %CompTonnage, %CompStructure, %CompCostMin(Org/Rad), %ShipSize, %WpnRange, %WpnDmgPointBlankMax(Min), %WpnDmgMaxDistMax(Min) etc. This will allow some very good and flexible computation, assuming we'll have formula based comp(weapon, esp.) descriptions.

2. Allow comments in the config scripts. // for comments and /* for new line comments for example. This will make even sophisticated code more human readable.

Paul1980au

June 14th, 2004, 07:58 AM

Good suggestions esp with the AI scripts coming in.

Sir-John

June 15th, 2004, 02:42 AM

Originally posted by Paul1980au:
Good suggestions esp with the AI scripts coming in. Ok just a newbe...
Better 3D style (high res Graphics) esp.in the (larger) combat arena can keep the 2d style for ease but how about parts being blown (in slow motion !!?) off or damage as combat ensues..

more on ground to ground combat.in a similar arena only ground based (with colour of planet as a background guide??)

and ground to air..space..etc the thoughts are endless !! a real full on BIG UPGRADE STUFF !!

and zoom and speed variable..as well as moddable..!?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Karibu

June 15th, 2004, 07:26 AM

Four suggestions:

One
Relative weapons. For example, a shield depleter, which reduces certain percentual of enemyship's remaining shield instead of fixed number. These kind of weapons would add totally new dimension in the fighting. This particular weapon would be powerful against unharmed ship and useless against battered and damaged ship.

Furthermore, you could make this kind of weapons to apply armor, internal structures, etc. Also there could be reversed Versions of such weapons, which would do very little against a ship of full health and be lethal against damaged one.

Two
Area effect guns. I would like to see some scatter grenades, which would damage not only the ship they hit, but all nearby ships too.

Three
Chain reaction guns. Organic race has electrict discharge. Why not have electrict discharge, which would hit one ship and do some damage and then continue some nearby ship, etc. The more advanced weapon, the more ships it would hit. It would imitate reality, after all.

Advanced computer virus. Instead of destroying the computer of one ship, it could spread random near ship with master computer after infecting the target ship. Perhaps somewhat weakened state. It would also imitate the reality.

Four
Devices which would make barriers in the battle field. I think how Q stopped Enterprise in Star Trek Next Generation. There appeared energy barrier in the space, which was impassable to Enterprise. Such barriers would add a lot of fun in combat, especially if you could not fire through one (except you would be able to launch missiles, fighters and drones), but you would have to go around to have clear sight. Also launched objects would have to go around.

The barrier could Last some certain amount of turns or it could have some hit points so that you could shoot your way through it.

[ June 15, 2004, 06:29: Message edited by: Karibu ]

Aiken

June 15th, 2004, 06:24 PM

Single suggestion:

Enable triggering of events on component (or facility) use, like this:

Name := Phased Singularity Channel
...blah...
Ability 1 Name := Trigger Event On Use
Ability 1 Description := Allow instant warping in random direction within range of 100 ly.
Ability 1 Val 1 := Ship - Moved
Ability 1 Val 2 := 100

That'd be cool.

bearclaw

June 15th, 2004, 09:15 PM

Space Hazards. When fighting in an asteroid field, the asteroids could be used to hid behind. Ramming an asteroid (or other hazard) would be bad (of course). Any enemy fire (or even seekers) that had intercepted a hazard would strike it instead of the target. In the case of asteroids, the could have damage amounts and could be bLasted through, if the firepower was significant.

DeadZone

June 15th, 2004, 11:00 PM

Have a simple question (will proberly never see the answer due to the fact Im a SF jockey mainly)

Has someone actually gone through all of this and made some sort of list of almost everything that has been done

Because with over 1000 replies Im sure ideas are being repeated at times, and others are being lost

DarkAnt

June 16th, 2004, 01:26 AM

ok, I'm guessing someone has said this a long time ago, but I really don't want to read 70 pages. I think it would be really cool to have the option to fight your battles turn based, but after the battle is over you are able to watch it in real time 3d. This would solve the whole turn based or real time issue.
-just a post from a long time fanatic (from SEII)

Gandalf Parker

June 16th, 2004, 02:52 PM

Thats helped in other forums. And would fit with the comments Aaron made when approached by Shrapnel for suggestions on how to bring him back.

I think I would wait until he says he wants it in email. The best method (and the hardest work) has been to create an easy to read wishlist with VERY short references. And if that was all that was done it would be alot of help, BUT if for each reference the person could include a link to any conversation thread about it then thats fantastic. Such a list can be posted every once in a while to this thread, or included in an appropriate stickie.

The nice thing about that is that it helps everyone to see what has already been brought up. And if they feel like they have something to add they can jump to the thread rather than discuss it in the wishlist thread or keep starting new threads on it.

Devs can zero in on the list and browse it, or someone might transport it to the beta area which works better for some devs to read the "short report" there. (the sneaky thing is that like most of us they might PLAN to only browse the quick-list but tend to get pulled in on some of the discussions)

psimancer

June 16th, 2004, 11:42 PM

gandalf thanks thats good advice

aiken interesting however i suggest your ability trigger event un use be modified

Name := Phased Singularity Channel
...blah...
Ability 1 Name := Trigger Event On Use %of time
Ability 1 Description := Allow instant warping in random direction within range of 100 ly.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 50
Ability 1 Val 2 := Ship - Moved
Ability 1 Val 3 := 100

in this case 50 percent of the time the item will
work

my intendended application as follows

Name := solar engines
...blah...
Ability 1 Name := Trigger Event On Use %of time
Ability 1 Description := solar engines requiere solar collecters to operate and have a 40 percent chance of overload in multi sun systems.
Ability 1 Val 1 := condition #suns>1
Ability 1 Val 2 := 40
Ability 1 Val 3 := destroy component

note solar engines have only 10 supplies (ie 1 move on battery power)but start out with 1 bonus movement per sun
reasoning well it takes an extra 20 kt to fuel them with solar collectors or a supplies hold (batteries) and they are less effecient in low light (ancient star systems and they only provide 1 movement no bonus

oo add conditions checking when stellar manip goes off
add sun causes condition loss to planets
change in distance to sun being a factor in how severe

AMF

June 17th, 2004, 01:15 AM

That is an excellent idea. I think that if we collated all the suggestion, deleted duplicates, and forwarded them to MM, they would have that much better a chance of getting into SEV...I would do it, but I really don;t have the time...

Originally posted by DeadZone:
Have a simple question (will proberly never see the answer due to the fact Im a SF jockey mainly)

Has someone actually gone through all of this and made some sort of list of almost everything that has been done

Because with over 1000 replies Im sure ideas are being repeated at times, and others are being lost

Aiken

June 17th, 2004, 01:22 AM

I have the feeling that SE5 should be a fulfeatured physical simulation to satisfy our wishes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
And obviously it would requre a supercomputer to run http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Paul1980au

June 17th, 2004, 03:24 AM

An extension of the Last couple of Posts =- a one way wormhole that sends youre ships to a random spot within x lightyears each term - so if you have a fleet and send em all through one turn they would end up in x systems - if the light year system is used then perhaps 100 - 200 - 300 - 400 -500 etc based upon rising tech levels.

Until we know further though what specifically MM and Aaron are going to include in the game we are sort of guessing i mean if we had a basic idea some of these ideas could be fine tuned to offer more specific advice to aaron - of course im expecting its system requirements would be hgih - so those with old computers may find it useful to upgrade lol.

DeadZone

June 17th, 2004, 04:59 AM

Here is an option I would like

The ability to have no warp points at all

And you traveled from system to system using using Jump Gates (which need to be built and can only be built in systems owned by you and/or allies)
Or FTL engines, which take X turns to go from system A to system B depending on engine speed

I say this because atm all you need to do is have a better defense on your border warp points than those wishing to attack

With the above, it would empazize the need for border patrols, having to think about your defenses more, and many other things

Plus, there is more danger of a sneak attack, a cloaked armada has sneaked past your border and arrives at your doorstep knocking with huge guns
Now that would be a rush

Oh and the ability to not see automated moves (gets dull when you have a fleet of X hundred ships on the move and you are watching for god knows how long)

Last thing
Give the option for combat to be in real-time, cos it is also dull watching your gunboat fire off like 20 weapons 1 at a time
Of course include the option for it to be turn-based as I know some people do prefer that.

TNZ

June 17th, 2004, 06:54 AM

The ability to disguise warp points would be good. For example, in a star trek mod, warp points in the main strategic window could look like two small arrows and in the tactical window they would not exist at all.

I think that combat in SE5 will be a bit like it was in Birth of the Federation. Well, that is the impression I�m getting.

Paul1980au

June 17th, 2004, 08:45 AM

A combination of all 3 - warp points to start the game - FTL later on (limited to a certain range - would need fuel and perhaps limited to smaller ships and specific special ships)

Jump gates ie master of orion 1 - you need to have say 2 huge planets only and the cost of production is slightly expensive so as to not have em everywhere - and you could have a fleet from one of youre back planets to youre frontlin - if they were put in SE4 for example they could take 20 game turns to build cost 50k resources - perhaps only allow them on specially built star bases ? or a specific racial ability ?

Ideas but until we get the basics of the direction of SE5 - lets consider it a theoretical discussion and see if we can generate ideas that MM can utilise. - Brainstorming session

Perhaps jump gates could be capture like boarding parties and (towed) away by an enemy to allow them to use them - but limited to their own use - ie you couldnt jump through to the other end and invade a well protected enemy planet

Usage could be limited to allies and youreself fleets.

June 17th, 2004, 11:35 AM

1.) Better combat placement.
The placement of the ships at the beginning of the combat in SE IV is rather weird, to say it politely. I have seen large combats with random outcome due to different starting positions in SE IV. Usually I think all ships/units/planets should be not in range of direct fire weapons at the beginning with the exception of battles after warping and if cloaked undetected ships are involved. And in tactical combat you should have the possibility to place your ships in a restricted area as you want them.
2.) "Auto move" and "auto fire" in tactical combat. In larger battles there might be situations were you want to control only movement or firing manually and let the computer do the rest.

IIRC both problems was handled better in SE III than in SE IV.

David E. Gervais

June 17th, 2004, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by Kamog:
I wonder if SE5 will come with a scenario editor? That would be wonderful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I grabbed this post from another thread and reposted it here. (where all good ideas should be.)

Thanks for the suggestion Kamog

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

DeadZone

June 17th, 2004, 11:15 PM

Wit my suggestions I feel 2 & 3 MUST be in

Seeing as the way SEIV does it, is simply the only reason Ive NEVER finish a game, cos I dont like staring at a screen non-stop for hours on end just watching things (unless its a movie)
And I dont have a g/f to occuipy my time while I wait http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Celegans

June 18th, 2004, 02:32 AM

My SE-V wish list items:

1. A Linux runtime!

2. Separate "jump drives" from sub-light drives. A jump drive component would be required to traverse a warp point, but gets you nowhere else. The sub-light drive gets you around the system but cannot get you through a warp point. The Highliner mod effects something like this, but its implementation is effectively a work-around for the fact that these two characteristics are combined together in SE-IV. Separating them would introduce interesting ship design possibilities such as the "System Ship" (ala MOO-3), or a Warp Conveyor that can do nothing more than shuttle non-warp-capable ships between two systems (the Highliner). What I like about this is that the system ships would be cheaper to build (no jump drive required) and have nore internal space for combat goodies (again, no jump drive required).

3. Pet peeve #1: Propulsion research should yield faster ships (every time).

4. Go a bit further with the synergystic facilities concept. SE-IV does this a bit (ie Robotoid Factories, Central Computer Complex). I'd like to see things that can only be created by combinations of facilities. For example, a Ship Yard facility, by itself, could create ships up to Destroyer size. A Ship Yard plus a Planetary Storage Facility allows the planet to make Light Cruisers. Add in a Space Elevator and now you can build Cruisers and Battleships. Toss in a Planetary Computing Facility and now you can make Dreads etc.

4.5 Pet Peeve #2: I'd like my ship's long-range scanners to be able to show me the details of a adversary's colonies (facilities, cargo). I think there was a missed opportunity here in SE-IV for interesting player strategizing. I would prefer, of course, to attack enemy colonies that host vital infrastructure.

5. Money. I would like to see money everywhere I look. Actually, I would like the modding capabilities to support the creation of arbitrary numbers and kinds of resources.

David E. Gervais

June 18th, 2004, 11:54 AM

REPOST From another thread titled "SE5 Progress." Strange that Aaron makes a post on the forums and gets very little feedback. So, I'm transplanting it here to fuel the 'Wishlist' thread.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Originally posted by Malfador Machinations:
Hi All,

No, I haven't forgotten about you guys! Its just that some questions came up in the Yahoo list and I thought I'd answer them. Since I'm finalizing the data file structure, seemed a good time to get some feedback on the layout from modders.

Here's what I posted in Yahoo about the current layout of weapons in the data file:

Name := Anti - Proton Beam
Description := Focused energy beam used as a medium range weapon.
Picture Number := 18
Maximum Level := 100
Tonnage Space Taken := 30
Tonnage Space Taken Inc Per Level := 0
Tonnage Structure := 30
Tonnage Structure Inc Per Level := 0
Cost Minerals := 50
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 10
Cost Minerals Inc Per Level := 5
Cost Organics Inc Per Level := 0
Cost Radioactives Inc Per Level := 1
Supply Amount Used := 5
Supply Amount Used Inc Per Level := 0
Ordinance Amount Used := 0
Ordinance Amount Used Inc Per Level := 0
Can Be Placed In Ship Sections := Inner Hull, Outer Hull
Component Type List := Technological
General Group := Weapons
Custom Group := 0
Number Of Requirements := 2
Requirements Boolean Evaluation := AND
Requirement 1 Type := Empire Tech Area Level
Requirement 1 Name := Energy Stream Weapons
Requirement 1 Description :=
Requirement 1 Operation := >=
Requirement 1 Amount := 1
Requirement 1 Amount Inc Per Level := 1
Requirement 2 Type := Design Vehicle Type List
Requirement 2 Name := Ship, Base, Satellite, Weapons Platform, Drone
Requirement 2 Description :=
Requirement 2 Operation := None
Requirement 2 Amount := 0
Requirement 2 Amount Inc Per Level := 0
Number Of Abilities := 0
Weapon Type := Direct Fire
Weapon Target Type List := Ship, Base, Planet, Fighter, Satellite, Drone
Weapon Damage Min Point Blank := 15
Weapon Damage Max Point Blank := 20
Weapon Damage Min Dec Per 10 Rng := 5
Weapon Damage Max Dec Per 10 Rng := 5
Weapon Damage Min Inc Per Level := 0.5
Weapon Damage Max Inc Per Level := 0.5
Weapon Maximum Range := 30
Weapon Maximum Range Inc Per Level := 1
Weapon Damage Type := Normal
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Inc Per Level := 0
Weapon To Hit Dec Per 10 Rng := 10.0
Weapon Reload Rate MS := 2000
Weapon Display Effect Name := Beam
Weapon Explosion Effect Name := Explosion
Weapon Sound Effect Name := apbeam.wav
Weapon Beam Burn Color := 110, 177, 240
Weapon Beam Duration := 50

But it was pointed out that the weapon damage at range design is not all it could be. So I revised it a bit and came up with:

Weapon Type := Direct Fire
Weapon Target Type List := Ship, Base, Planet, Fighter, Satellite, Drone
Weapon Damage Type := Normal
Weapon At Range Distance Increment := 10.0
Weapon Min Damage At Range := 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 0.0
Weapon Max Damage At Range := 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0
Weapon To Hit Modifier At Range := -10.0 -20.0 -30.0 -40.0 -50.0
Weapon Min Damage Modifier Formula := [%ListedAmount%] + (([%Level%]-1) * 0.5)
Weapon Max Damage Modifier Formula := [%ListedAmount%] + (([%Level%]-1) * 0.5)
Weapon To Hit Modifier Formula := 0
Weapon Reload Rate MS := 2000
Weapon Display Effect Name := Beam
Weapon Explosion Effect Name := Explosion
Weapon Sound Effect Name := apbeam.wav
Weapon Beam Burn Color := 110, 177, 240
Weapon Beam Duration := 50

So instead of those pesky Inc Per Level fields, we would now have formulas to come up with the new values. Of course, speed may be an issue, so it will require some performance testing once its in and working (no guarantees that formulas will survive that).

Progress is good on the game. The basic engine is up and running and I'm busy going through and getting screens working (which is a major time consumer with 50+ screens).

At present there's still a debate about Research and Intelligence. Right now I'm moving it back to an SE3 style with percentage allocation for research tech areas and percentage intelligence spending against each empire. With all the pros and cons, the final decider for me was that percentage allocation method greatly reduces the micromanagement (as you only need to visit these screens occasionally once the allocations have been set).

So if you have suggestions for the game, please post them. Nothing is set in stone, as the SE4 beta testers will confirm. SE4 changed radically during its beta test. And I do read the ideas posted here. In fact I copy all of the ones that catch my eye to a huge Word document.

Of course, I can't guarantee that everything will make it in. But even simple ideas can have a tremendous effect.

Aaron

primitive

June 19th, 2004, 01:08 AM

2 Comments then David http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
1: Wow, everything I wanted for weapon options http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
2: Looks like the 4th resource: Money ($, �, Ductats) didn�t make it, which probably will make SEV just as shallow an empirebuilder game as SEIV is. Luckily the war part of the game looks like it will be even deeper than in SEIV.

Fyron

June 19th, 2004, 01:10 AM

Hey, my feedback on the mailing list prompted half of the changes from the original method. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Ed Kolis

June 19th, 2004, 02:04 AM

I asked for a lot of the same stuff too, mind you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

TNZ

June 19th, 2004, 03:51 AM

Just a few questions about the �Ordnance Amount Used� entry.

When weapon components use this entry will they all use the some ordnance supply or can we have different ordnance supplies e.g. torpedoes, missiles, shell projectiles, energy? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Will we be able to have components that can make ordnance on bases and ships? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

psimancer

June 19th, 2004, 06:34 AM

i was placing my bases into a fleet to reduce screen and reading space worked great for me

if the formaation part had worked a bit better
allowing me to set a formation that affected the placement of my bases then that would have been absolutly wonderful

since i could then set up a formation like the diamond for my bases allowing them to provide combat support for each other instead of my defense base with 6 point defense cannons intended to protect my spaceyard being 8 spaces away with a max range of 5 works really well at preventing missiles and fighters ehhh

Paul1980au

June 19th, 2004, 09:00 AM

Formations need a bit of expansion - id like to see the AI make better use of the formations and perhaps extend a learning ability to countre youre moves - it could "learn" how to play better against you - could it be possible to give it the ability to become smarter vs human players.

I guess the AI scripting will help us develop better computer opponents.

psimancer

June 20th, 2004, 11:56 PM

well 2 points

1 for ai scripting and the ability to learn well might want to check the the people who made aa game called black and white
the game has an avatar that each player has to train to perform as desired

2 as for formations all i was saying was
allow them to affect space station placement
and return to allowing spacestations to be in fleets
reasoning
a. 1 allows me to place a station in a specific orbit
b. allows for specialty stations to be protected by companion stations
c. the formation may be placed halfway across the map from the planet it orbits BUT it still is a formation maybe it cant protect the planet yet at least it can operate as intended

Spectarofdeath

June 21st, 2004, 07:33 PM

Here's some of my thoughts...
1. Money Money Money
2. The ability to make certain races more friendly to certain other races.
3.Special facility's that give a bonus, but only one can be built through the game.
4.The wormhole thing....I think the few warp points, ability to build jump gates, are good ideas, but something else that could be done is different warp points, need different types of scanners to be detected. This will allow for the element of surprise when a fleet pops out of a wp that you didn't know was there.
5.If wp's do abound, weapons that can be fired into the wp to help soften up defenses on the other side would be very helpful. Maybe have probes that can be fired through that just detect whats in the vicinity of the wp so you know if it's defended or not.
6.Systems that "pop up" in the middle of the game, adding a sense of "star systems forming". In essence they would be there, but nobody can see them or get to them untill a certain time/date into the game.
7.A scenario editor.
8.A good Vs evil setting (your race glasses a planet, pushing you into an evil alignment. You find a planet with natives, and you relocate them rather then inslave or destroy them giving you a good alignment) and each alignment gives you different bonuses or technologies.
9.Trade goods. You research the tech, you then build the "galactic wonder" which in turn produces the trade good for you, you then can trade it, giving the race your trading it to the bonus you get, until the trade route is broken. Or let the trade good be like a resource, you can trade 5000 Titanium-a battle plate for $4000 and when they run out of the good they lose the bonus.

Kana

June 21st, 2004, 08:04 PM

Ground Combat

I don't know if GC is going to be expanded. If so. Some form of grouping might be considered. 'Fleets' for GC units, IE: Regiments, Divisions, Battalions, Etc... If this happens then these units, can be named and, might be able to accumulate some form of experience if the survive battles.

A possible thought might be a form of Planetary 4x game similar to SE. Keep this in mind MM/Aaron.

-------------------------------------------------
New Weapon Type: Temporary Movement Loss

IE: Some kind of energy web/field that prevents a ship from moving while it is caught in the effect of the web or field.

New Weapon Type: Space Barrier

IE: Energy Field that prevents movement/fire of weapons/and objects, like ships, fighers, and seekers. Will only Last for a certain amount of time. Can't move, and only so big, so objects can move around it.
-------------------------------------------------
I'm sure I brought this up already...but...

Abit more flexible supply logistics.

Namely. We have resupply depots, and supply bays. But there should be a way to create forward supply bases without having a colony, like a base, and or some form of tanker that can resupply ships in a fleet situation.

Supply should be a resource or some form of unit that can be used up and replenished.

Kana

[ June 22, 2004, 02:11: Message edited by: Kana ]

Traskelion

June 22nd, 2004, 04:52 PM

Okay, first the disclaimer, if this has been stated recently, sorry, and also sorry if this have been fixed in SEIV Gold, as I only have SEIV.

I once tried to see if the cultures were equal. I set racial points to 0 to make it easy, manually changed the stats to match the changes in stat each culture would make. Then I made the sub-final score from positive into negative, or vice versa, because a more positive score (which I would turn into a negative score), meant that the game considered yourself weaker now.

A lot of the scores were 150 to 300. All in all, not horrible, which a few exceptions. The second lowest score, interestingly enough, was Politicians with a final score of -20. (Coincedence?) But the worst by far was my favorite one to choose! Engineers with -450!

And before I hear the "Mod it!" reply, I did already. I just thought someone should change the default settings to be somewhat equal.

Note: I think the main thing that did this is that Space Combat adds its value to Agressiveness AND Defensivess, and that Production increases the stats of all 3 resources. (I'm am positive of this, I spent hours on this whole project just to see if it was equal (Goodness, I can be a nerd sometimes).

P.S.: I don't like the money idea. For those inter-planetary games, it's fine, as money is only compared in each country (or in galactic games, maybe planets or even empires). But with different races, ones money becomes irrelevant, you either can create those ships or you ran out, as all money stays in that race/empire, and as it circulates, doens't really seem to matter. (Hmm...this all makes sense in my head, but it sounds so unstructured when I try to explain it.) Anyhow, besides that, chances are that not all races use money at all! How many times has Star Trek (which seems to be a common mod thingy) mentioned how archaic money has become in the future?

[ June 22, 2004, 15:54: Message edited by: Traskelion ]

Paul1980au

June 22nd, 2004, 10:37 PM

1 only facility (looking at star trek here) ie super shipyard that yields in SE4 would be 10000 resources construction per turn (can only be built once per empire if they have discovered the alien ruins) and can only be built on the planet which it was discovered.

Could also be troops on built on planet x have a 300% attack and defense bonus.

Some other good ideas coming forward here ie specific classes of wormholes that need to be discovered with advanced scanners - perhaps they are long range warp point links to the far side of a big galaxy.

Also up to 500-700 systems instead of the max now of 255. Very massive empires would be wonderful

Spectarofdeath

June 23rd, 2004, 05:22 AM

Actually Trask, I understand your point, since all money is the same value, small trading empires could equal large militaristic ones. I was going to suggest some form of system to make it so your money's value to another empire depends on your relations with that empire and your score, but I figured it would take too much time and room in the game to put a system like that in. Honestly, the only real reason I want money, is if I get into a war, and have no fleet, or not enough of one, I want to buy it faster then normal production (here and now, not just cut back on the time) so if they would want to put a purchase option in (using resources instead) thats fine, thats all I'm asking for. Also, maybe some kind of battle history, where you go into it and it tells you how many ships were involved, you get the idea. (I'm sure alot of people won't like the idea due to the fact it will eat up room for something else to go, but it's just a suggestion). How about native (pre-warp like) civilizations that on their own, (assuming the numbers of players isn't maxed out) can become space faring, intergalactic powers.

Ed Kolis

June 23rd, 2004, 05:46 AM

Originally posted by Spectarofdeath:
5.If wp's do abound, weapons that can be fired into the wp to help soften up defenses on the other side would be very helpful. Maybe have probes that can be fired through that just detect whats in the vicinity of the wp so you know if it's defended or not.You'll be happy to hear that that's exactly what Aaron was referring to by "warp point siege weapons"... though I don't quite see how they would be much different from, say, drones... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Paul1980au

June 23rd, 2004, 09:06 AM

Up to 50 AI players would be good - this would allow for pre warp point civs, more rebelling empires- more netural types - pirate / nomad races etc.

Im sure with SE5 utilising modern computers capacitieis that this game could be pushed to new limits.

DeadZone

June 23rd, 2004, 02:47 PM

Actually I would prefer the ability to support hundreds of players

HOWEVER, due to the type of strain it could put on computers it would have to be something that editable in options IMO (so lower end comps can say, a game can have a max of X players, while higher end comps can choose to have more)

Oh, and if a civ gets destroyed, it doesnt remain on the player list, so, (like in SEIV when you have 20 players, no more civs can come about from rebellion) it will be able to happen that news race can always be created

However, I think it may have problems wit captured populations, so the workaround I suppose would be for them to be renamed to their new rulers but keeping their specific properties

Ok, the above sounded good in my head, on paper... well Im not so sure lol

Edit: Also how about allowing ANY tech to be exchangable/capturable

But race specific one are just harder to aquire compared to normal ones that anyone can have
Doing this, I could still capture a ship containing terran only tech, and be able to reverse engineer that tech to put on my other ships
But a downside could be, that it wouldnt be as good as the orginal (or a chance of it not being as good, while a chance of it being the same or even better exists)

[ June 23, 2004, 13:52: Message edited by: DeadZone ]

Alari

June 23rd, 2004, 04:36 PM

My wishlist:

Go watch every episode of Star Trek ever made, every series, and then make a game that can let me do everything shown, as well as everything not shown (the 'boring' stuff not suitable for TV, like charting nebulas [without running into some hostile alien] and such http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif =)

Yeah that pretty much covers it. ^.^

(It's what I'm WISHING for, not what I expect to get. =) But I can still dream.)

[ June 23, 2004, 15:39: Message edited by: Alari ]

Spectarofdeath

June 23rd, 2004, 05:46 PM

How about leaders for your empire, like in Moo2, or maybe even, ship crews, that when the crew quarters are lost, lose some of their exp.

Colonel

June 24th, 2004, 12:34 AM

simply more guns ( mass amounts of different weaponary) more ships more (sizes, more ship sets etc)
ooo yea one main thing that aggravated me in SEIV is when u build a vechile that builds ships Space Yard Ships, they take a long long long long time to build a ships and base etc especially bases i would say cut the time by say half just to make it so it doesnt take a good portion of the game to build a defensive base they may need
ooo and Black holes make them idunno like more deadly i got it if u in the sector u get two turns to get out or it over powers u engine and the end of each turn ur back in the middle

and i got carried away lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

and think this started off as a simple first post

~all for now Good Bye

Suicide Junkie

June 24th, 2004, 05:00 PM

Originally posted by DeadZone:
Edit: Also how about allowing ANY tech to be exchangable/capturable...
... There are mods which do that, but its not too popular.

PvK

June 24th, 2004, 05:13 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by DeadZone:
Edit: Also how about allowing ANY tech to be exchangable/capturable...
... There are mods which do that, but its not too popular. <hr /></blockquote>It would be nice if there were more control in mods and game settings for what is capturable, and what is not. The current options, even in mods (and even with a lot of complex work) are very limited to what you can allow and disallow.

It'd help a lot to have a a "Analyzable" flag for all components and/or facilities and/or unit sizes and/or tech areas.

It'd be even better to have a tech prerequisites for analyzing. I.e., a list of techs which are required to be able to analyze any given components and/or facilities and/or unit sizes and/or tech areas.

Even better would be an analysis system involving numeric values, so that it wasn't simply a matter of capturing one Zroc gun to suddenly be able to know all the techs that are required for a Zroc gun. E.g., notice how westerners were able to sell guns to native americans for hundreds of years without the native americans being able to duplicate them.

PvK

Kana

June 24th, 2004, 07:20 PM

Going off the Last post...I had a thought...scare I know...

We currently can trade Technology. Which give the person the ability to make the components that the tech level would give. You can trade ships...with the components on it that you may not know how to build...unless of course you scrap and analize it. But...

What if you were 'tech savy' enough to build a certain tech, but one of your neighbors gifts you the individual component itself. So lets say your buddy neighbor has cloak...for a certain amount he can give "X" number of Cloaking Components to put in any ship. You don't know how to make more...but some of your ships...the special ones...would have the cloak.

I guess you could treat this as a lesser Version of Technology trade...

Kana

Paul1980au

June 25th, 2004, 09:23 AM

Or perhaps depending on how far ahead the tech was from a captured ship compared with youre current level of tech the higher it is the lower the % value that you can get something from anaysising it and perhaps would have to use intel instead to get advanced tech

Ie i have level 1 cloak and yu capture a ship with level 2 cloak - anaysis success chance 80%
level 3 cloak - anasysis success chance 60%
level 4 cloak - " 40%
level 5 cloak - 20%

Somethign along those lines - well its all brainstorming so keep ideas coming.

But yes being able to stipulate at the beginning of the game the tech areas that are anaysisable from captured or gifted ships should be an idea.

Spectarofdeath

June 25th, 2004, 04:39 PM

I like the idea about making certain techs capturable, but not as good as the original. You might be able to make race specific techs that can't be researched by any one else, but you can capture it, but it will never be as good as the race that has that tech. Or maybe being able to make treaties that forbid certain technologies. And rather than complete surrender of a empire, how about making terms, (You can only build ships of XX tons, research XX techs) of course, keep unconditonal surrender as a option. And Civil wars, I think that would be a cool idea, rather then just planets breaking away, have a few systems and a % of your fleet create a new empire when morale gets to low.

Colonel

June 25th, 2004, 09:49 PM

Originally posted by Kana:

We currently can trade Technology. Which give the person the ability to make the components that the tech level would give. You can trade ships...with the components on it that you may not know how to build...unless of course you scrap and analize it. But...

What if you were 'tech savy' enough to build a certain tech, but one of your neighbors gifts you the individual component itself. So lets say your buddy neighbor has cloak...for a certain amount he can give "X" number of Cloaking Components to put in any ship. You don't know how to make more...but some of your ships...the special ones...would have the cloak.
Kana cough "rip off" Cough "rip off" lololol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

anyways i like that idea even though

well i was thinking about treaties and someone was saying only allow so many ships and so big well i will add to that have a way to limit there expansion like saying u can only go X number of sectors from ur closest homeworld or u could just limit certian sector completley off like u could confine them to one sector or to ten http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

psimancer

June 26th, 2004, 04:23 AM

back to the formations thing
the ability to actually assign formation positions to particular ships before combat (besides just leader) without having to empty the fleet then put the ships back in a particular order that dfoesnt always assign the correct formation position to the ship as desired y the player

Fyron

June 26th, 2004, 04:27 AM

Currently, ships are placed in formation in the order that the ship was built (each ship has a unique ID number in the code to identify it, most likely). It does not matter what order you put them into the fleet (other than the leader, which can easily be reassigned simply by clicking on a ship in the list of ships when you select that fleet.

Paul1980au

June 26th, 2004, 10:51 AM

A expanded formations and a smarter AI that uses it would help.

Spectarofdeath

June 26th, 2004, 03:54 PM

How about components for components (Like a shield generator, with the ability to add different power generators creating stronger or different kinds of shields)

June 26th, 2004, 10:13 PM

Relective Armor: A small amount of the damage hit is reflected to the attacker.
Multiatmosphere facility: does not convert the atmosphere but makes the planet "undomed" even in the presence of mixed population with different atmosphere types.

Abdiel

June 27th, 2004, 02:08 AM

Originally posted by Q:
Multiatmosphere facility: does not convert the atmosphere but makes the planet "undomed" even in the presence of mixed population with different atmosphere types. Good idea! But probably only for certain mixtures, I wouldn't want to light a match in an Oxygen-Hydrogen/Methane environment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Abdiel

Spectarofdeath

June 27th, 2004, 05:00 PM

Privateers. You build a ship, and sell it to civilians and they go and raid enemy shipping for you. Also, merchant ships, maybe have a few merchant shipping lines, and they place orders for ships, and depending on how many ships they have is how much trade you make. Or contracts from other empires to build ships, they give you the schematics and you build the ships and give it to them in exchange for resources. This could help the neutral races who get into wars with the major powers.

Spectarofdeath

June 27th, 2004, 10:44 PM

This is a suggestion and a wish more for the modders to do. Create a mod with BOTH Startrek AND Babylon 5 in it.

Paul1980au

June 28th, 2004, 09:12 AM

The modding suggestions sound good - bab5 up against the star trek universe - dont forget star wars races.

Alari

June 28th, 2004, 11:41 PM

How about the ability to load more than one mod at a time, and in the case of conflicts, pop-up a series of dialogues to resolve them and save the answers to a file for use next time that combination of mods is used?

[ June 28, 2004, 22:41: Message edited by: Alari ]

Paul1980au

June 29th, 2004, 03:04 AM

ALari getting a bit complex there if it could be done good - but the programming would be a nightmare. Unless you considered all moddible factors.

What about extra ship types and new tech areas specific to a player created mod ?

Spectarofdeath

June 29th, 2004, 05:22 AM

The ability to add your and your allies fleet into one huge fleet. Alot more situations with multiple races fleets involved in combat. The ability for two races to invade the planet at the same time. Maybe a diplomatic option to ask for help and if they say yes, they get to pick what to send, and it's sent automatically.

Colonel

June 29th, 2004, 07:11 AM

four ideas when u win the game instead of the game ending or u going on with no enemy why not have your empire go into a bigger map and have already made empires and u are connected to this bigger map by one wormhole so then and u can create more wormholes to connect as u can in SEIV

and i was thinking about cloaks, anyways what about makeing a more advanced Version that allows you to attack while cloaked and they can only see you for one combat turn after you attack so long as they dont destroy your cloak and for a little less advanced of a cloak have it so u cant attack while cloaked but can cloak and decloak in battle but they see you for two turns after that and little less advanced three turns after everyone and so on until u get to standard cloaks like in SEIV

the civilian raider idea is good but u would need to limit what types of ships to give them so that u wouldnt have Civilian Dreadnoughts that are undrestroyable that would just be cheap so i would say limit the ship size to 400 to 500 kilo ton so not to make it to powerful but enought o attack thing u dont\cant destroy but arent massive problem(ie enemy\ally colony u dont want where it is) edit: but have just pirates that create there own ships (with no limit\size) but dont have planets so u cant get rid of them and they attack any ship so u would need to defend everything- also have them have big star base ships that are hidden but if u get really advanced u can detect them with really advanced sensors-they have to be extemely powerful to so u would need good ships to beat them

i saw this idea a couple days ago and liked it alot so i think it should be mentioned again different types of wormholes and u need different techs to discover each type and some look like nublea(i know i cant spell) until u discover what it is and others wouldnt even appear as anything until u discover certian tech and others have it so they just have to be flown into to discover what they are

How about the ability to load more than one mod at a time, and in the case of conflicts, pop-up a series of dialogues to resolve them and save the answers to a file for use next time that combination of mods is used?

um if u get the SEIV mod launcher u can load more then one mod to the game u didnt know that its at
spaceempires.net

[ June 29, 2004, 06:27: Message edited by: Colonel ]

Suicide Junkie

June 29th, 2004, 05:54 PM

There is a VERY large distiction between having multiple mods installed and running multiple mods at once.

You don't need anything to have multiple mods installed for SE4. And any program to merge arbitrary mods in a logical way would be insanely complex, and there is no guarantee a logical merge will result in a playable mod.
Many mods are inherently incompatible because of their basic ideas.

---

1) NEVER overwrite your stock datafiles.
2) Put modfiles in mod folders
3) Use Path.txt (via notepad or modlaucher) to switch between them.

Spectarofdeath

June 30th, 2004, 12:36 AM

Having different universes is a good idea, like the win the game and it expands, but what about win the game, and your thrown into a alternate dimension where everything is completly different. (basically, your empire is still at least somewhat intact, as is your techs and fleets, but where XX empire is three times as big and strong as it was before, while XYZ empire which was the largest and most powerful has been invaded by ZYX which was the smallest. Just a thought, or maybe it could be added in as a catastophic event.

June 30th, 2004, 10:18 AM

Racial immunity against specific weapons:
Racial traits (modable of course) that make a race completely immune to one or several weapon types. E.g. energy life forms like the Eee would be immune to projectile weapons or certain organic weapons (can acid globules harm energy life forms?). Or mechanic life forms would be immune to allegiance subverter.
In the trait you specify the weapon families that have no effect and then you simply could not target the race with theese weapons.

Colonel

June 30th, 2004, 08:50 PM

Originally posted by Q:
Racial immunity against specific weapons:
Racial traits (modable of course) that make a race completely immune to one or several weapon types. E.g. energy life forms like the Eee would be immune to projectile weapons or certain organic weapons (can acid globules harm energy life forms?). Or mechanic life forms would be immune to allegiance subverter.
In the trait you specify the weapon families that have no effect and then you simply could not target the race with theese weapons. I only see one problem with this is how do the enemies know what each race is immune to what is it in the race report thing

Paul1980au

July 1st, 2004, 03:01 AM

Discussing race specific immunity to certain weapons i would prefer a reduced damage impact ie eee (would take 70% less damage in combat from certain energy based weapons)

But what about player created weapons via mods - you would have to have titles that modded to take note of weapon types.

Being a highly moddable game this needs to be considered but yes mechanoid races would be immune from allegience subverter but perhaps a virus equivalent (like computer virus)

As we said it is brainstorming and im sure MM will be creative in what he chooses and may take soem on and not others so keep the ideas coming.

Ed Kolis

July 1st, 2004, 03:48 AM

The racial immunity would probably be doable with the shield/armor layer system, at least from what I've seen from Aaron's Posts at the Yahoo group - just define each race's components as a separate armor layer, and make weapons the race is supposed to be immune to have no effect on that layer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Paul1980au

July 1st, 2004, 04:14 AM

That sounds like a good appraoch - racial specific armour would work well in that situation + tolerances % perhaps to certain weapons ie more damage done to their ships by missiles then beam weapons then perhaps other weapons types and make the whole thing moddible.

Traskelion

July 1st, 2004, 05:15 AM

I like the expanse-after-victory idea. Here are two ideas of my own. Please, please, PLEASE make the game give a confirmation message when clicking to save. I know it annoys most people. But sometimes I mis-click. I have never finished a game because of this! (I've only played AI so far). I made a backup folder, and when I made a mistake, accidently saved over the backup instead. I now have a backup folder, a backup backup folder, and a backup backup backup folder! (Yes, I really am so bad that I need this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif ). Or if the lack of it is something enjoyed, at least make it a game option.

Also, the idea has been mentioned sometime way ago, but I liked the idea of some warp points being smaller and only allowing ships up to a certain size through. Sounds like a needless pain, but could create some strategic situations.

"They will take the standard route through Sol, a ship that size has no other option"
"But a ship our size has other options"
(Wing Commander IV quote, (I can't get enough of that game)).

P.S. See above, confirmation dialog suggestion)

Colonel

July 1st, 2004, 06:15 AM

i like that smaller wormhole idea but what about wormhole creator things u could make them create small wormholes in the begining and as the componet gets more advanced make bigger and bigger until all ships can go threw

also i think there needs to be a ship that no matter what has one movement but is double perhaps even triple the size of a baseship lol like the size of a moon have it so u can construct certian buildings on it like planetary shields and have actual planet based weapons where u actually build them like any other buildings but the huge

psimancer

July 1st, 2004, 07:21 AM

reads colonel

*cough* 8cough* deathstar *cough*

heck lets just make warplanets to

i loved the comercials for those toys

Colonel

July 1st, 2004, 09:14 AM

yea so i want a death star so what i still want one maybe u could make extra large wormholes to accomadate it hey there have been far worse thing that have been wanted

ok this is a frinedly word of advice to all NEVER EVER EVER watch music viedos late at night or past 1 am its not a good sight really im serious DONT this is creepy

psimancer

July 1st, 2004, 04:26 PM

um first im not putting down the idea (i rather support it )
just clarifing it a little

second im going a bit further in that WARPLANETS comment

and even more in accordance with the test im presently conducting in a single player game i want the ability to move planets or at least moons or asteroid belts why you ask *wicked smile* i may have an interesting trick up my sleeve ask and i might tell you about the testing progress http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Colonel

July 1st, 2004, 08:51 PM

should be able to put a colony of sorts on astroids and be able to build stuff on it lik miner buildin but it shouldnt need a spaceport,i should think that Last part should be more or less self explanatory

i got a question is SEV going to be 2D or 3D, i only ask becaue alot of games coming out lately are in 3D even strategy games

narf poit chez BOOM

July 1st, 2004, 10:18 PM

Pauseable 3d on a 2d plane. But it's not going to be point and click rush build.

Spectarofdeath

July 2nd, 2004, 03:10 AM

The ability to cloak in combat, but only able to fire certain kinds of weapons while cloaked, any other weapons firing, would uncloak you. Weapons that have the ability to be fired in a certain direction (like a depth charge) to hit a cloaked vessel. Missile guidance for a certain range, but rather than just disappear, after their max range is up, they just continue moving in the Last direction they were facing. Mines in combat, with the ability to lure the enemy fleet into the middle of them, and order them to destruct with the enemy fleet sitting in the middle. Death star, yes. Engines on asteroids, the ability to arm asteroids and turn them into secret bases. Every race using unique weapons, rather then all beam weapons, have some prefer torps, some missiles, ect ect. More projectile weapons. Planetary defense weapons facilitys. Lots more ground combat options. Landing craft, VTOLS, Tanks, Mechs, Infantry, Power armor, APC's, Atmospheric attack craft (fighters) Hovercraft, Wheeled vehicles. The ability to send spies to a enemy planet who set up a resistance, which you can then activate when you invade. The ability to "lease" weapons or ships to other powers. The ability to "lease" bases, or planets to other powers. A option to fire on whatever, whereever you want in combat, thus being able to attack allied fleets just before the enemy fleet is destroyed. Cloaked sats for providing info on enemy planets (for a short amount of time). Different ammo types for certain weapons, HE, AP, Incindary, cluster, ect ect. Ability to change formations in battle, being able to decide what ships go where in the formation. Ability to give ships general orders (Hold, stay, move here, keep formation, break formation, ect). The ability to form "wings" in the formation with specific orders as well (Right wing, attack enemy left flank, left wing, attack head on, Center wing, provide combat support to right wing, ect). Of course leave the ability to control enemy ships individually. I think thats good. lol

Ed Kolis

July 2nd, 2004, 03:36 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
Pauseable 3d on a 2d plane. But it's not going to be point and click rush build. And the realtime element is limited to combat; the rest of the game is completely turn-based.

Colonel

July 2nd, 2004, 06:55 AM

how about a ship that appears smaller then it is like say it were a cruiser it could have a cloak type technolgy that would make it appear to be a smaller ship then as the enemy attacked thinking it to be weak and then they find out it was a big ship

another idea have Comets that u can move threw wormholes and go threw sectors anywhere just keep moveing, and make it so u can send a ship that can sort of colonize it but make it like a a military offensive unit, and make it so natrual comets could be sent off course and sent to hit planets and have it so they could natrually hit planets too randomly

i want something like a drone thats bigger and has different componets that can destroy wormholes\stars\planets\astroids\comets(as in my other idea but the down side to them would be that they are completely destroyed on use but the can go threw worholes and they would be able to put cloaks,stelfh armour scattering armour, quatum reactors, so that u could lauch them from your home planet sending them accross the galaxy

more later

Paul1980au

July 2nd, 2004, 09:33 AM

Armed asteroids hey - interesting a few expansions they could be used for (limit them to one facility)

Resupply
Listening post
Limited movement to 1 per turn
Tech to uncover if it is inhabited or a long asteroid
Cloak of facilities on asteroid
Special "weapons" that can only be constructed once per 10 game turns and youre ships would need to dock and take on this weapon - ie alien tech - massive shiled depleters and the like

Keep the ideas coming though - MM will have a field day with all these suggestions - possible overload but the more we generate the more he can add to future patches - upgrades etc.

Paul1980au

July 2nd, 2004, 09:36 AM

Special one way wormholes (1 per game) that move around into a different system each turn but if it appears in yorue system and you enter it with a ship or fleet it comes out on a random point

One way wormholes could be fixed also but with random exit points - which could be good or bad.

Colonel

July 2nd, 2004, 04:03 PM

i would make natrual astoids in combat and have them able to randomly hit ships in combat on all sides but they would be able to be destroyed but some wouldnt be seen

Spectarofdeath

July 2nd, 2004, 11:01 PM

Special ships, that can pretend to be the ship of a different empire, so you could get in deep behind their lines and hit them in the rear, but make it so you can only have a set number of them.

Kana

July 2nd, 2004, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by Colonel:
how about a ship that appears smaller then it is like say it were a cruiser it could have a cloak type technolgy that would make it appear to be a smaller ship then as the enemy attacked thinking it to be weak and then they find out it was a big shipCouldn't the Jammer Component be used in this fashion. Instead of just not showing what is inside the ship, but how about not showing the size of the ship...hmmmm...intersting

Kana

Atrocities

July 3rd, 2004, 01:00 AM

Captains / Admiral idea (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=012014)

Please read.

Sol_Invictus

July 3rd, 2004, 03:06 PM

Hi, my first post here, but I've greatly enjoyed SEIV and just wanted to add my 2cents to what I'd like to see in SEV http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Heroic Races, as a trait.

See, it always seems that in Sci Fi settings, Humans usually never win by sheer force of numbers, or greater production capacity, superior tec, etc, etc. It is always something 'heroic' that wins the day. Like in Babylon 5, Starwars, Startrek, and so on and so forth.

I imagine it would be quite easy to code. For example, if I was playing the Terrans, and chose a hypothetical 1500pt trait called 'Heroic', then every time I enter into space combat - there would be maybe 1% chance for one of my ships to gain a 'heroic' crew.

It would have to be a significant bonus - something like 200-300% extra on all stats. From that moment on, your empire has a heroic captain that can - in combination with other heroic captains - fight a war against superior odds and maybe, just maybe win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif 20-30 turns into a war, you might have an entire fleet of Heroic captains, and you could then lead this group into an attack deep into enemy territory, doing considerable damage.

I don't think it would be an overpowering trait, since if your fleet is destroyed in the first few turns, you likely will not get to have more than one or two 'heroic' ships. But it would make other races think twice about attacking a 'heroic' race, since if the war drags on, you might face much stiffer resistance than anticipated.

Maybe even add special abilities if a ship that is *already* heroic gets the random bonus again - for example super stealth, super shields, whatever. Well, just an idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'll post it in a thread as well, just to see what people think... this is probably not the place to discuss it in depth.

Spectarofdeath

July 4th, 2004, 01:21 AM

MM should have a game forum place to play SEV Online.

Paul1980au

July 4th, 2004, 08:49 AM

Lets look at specific improvements to tech types.

To start with missile weapons - standard missiles - sheild beating missiles (bypasses shields) - the facility missiles (space port, space yard, research lab and so forth) - guided missiles and random movement missiles - concussion missiles (greater chance of hitting fighters or unshielded ships)
Fast moving small missiles (less damage higher movement harder to hit) and slow moving big missiles (more damage but easier to hit) long range and short range missiles - missiles that target specific weapons and components.

Higher tech levels could make missiles faster and harder to hit instead of a base speed factor of 6 in SE4.

Production facilities for missiles (armanents angle) you would need to produce certain missiles load them onto ships but they would need resupplying otherwise the ship might have to rely on beam weapons etc. Just another angle - armaments resupply and inventory levels

Then storage components (missile storage) or special launchers to enable their use - seperate cargo types for units and ship araments.

Colonel

July 4th, 2004, 04:59 PM

i say specielty fighters

have one fighter a bit larger but is restricted ing weapons to have only this or this for example

Torpedo Fighter
~ would be able to carry standard ship size torpedoes and small shields no other weapons

also let there be a componet that u can add to a fighter so it can leave sector ie it can use warp points

psimancer

July 4th, 2004, 06:34 PM

first
i wnat to be able to either send more than one dispatch (politics message) per turn
or let me edit the message im sending
i mean heck i may need to supply more information as my turn goes on to a trade partner a ally an enemy etc and come on this is supposed to be a month per turn ought to be able to send 30 Messages

Paul1980au

July 5th, 2004, 09:43 AM

Multiple diplomatic communications per turn - ie request to share tech and a seperate one say asking for a trade alliance and then requesting military assistance at the same time.

Anthony Briggs

July 6th, 2004, 06:27 AM

I'm not necessarily all that fussed with this new feature or that new feature -- I'd like to see some user interface improvements, dammit! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Things like:

o being able to sort by multiple columns in table views, for example, by ctrl or alt-clicking on a second/third/fourth column header. (I think there are even some tables in the game that aren't sortable, but I can't remember them off the top of my head). Actually, I just checked - I think it was that you can't sort by planet type in the planets screen.

o mini-maps for some of the ship navigation (or waypoint setting?) screens - I can't remember which ones off the top of my head...

o Perhaps some sort of search facility at the top of tables (eg. Show me only the combat ships in these three sectors, only the planets with Replicant Centres, etc.)

o Having more detailed load/unload orders would be a *BIG* plus, particularly when queueing orders/shuffling pop around. ie. Load 30 pop from this planet, 60 from this one, drop all 90 to a separate planet. Or, load 1200 pop into a pop transport, and drop 100 pop here .. here .. here .. etc. Repeating that order could save about 90% of the work moving pop/troops/mines from place to place.

o A more detailed multi-add screen would also be good. Currently you can't do a one turn's worth of units, lather, rinse, repeat. Alternatively, you could have a build order for a fleet that would do much the same thing.

o Also, it would help if you could queue up ships before a ship-yard was built (ie go shipyard - ship - ship - ship in one fell swoop). Currently you have to wait until the yard's built before you can queue up ships.

o One more for build queues - the way that queues are reordered seems very strange to me - it would be a lot more intuitive to be able to (eg.) drag items into the right place, instead of having a separate menu.

o For research - I seem to recall that if you split points evenly, you can invest more in a tech than you need to. So if you have a cheap tech (5k) and an expensive one (50k), and 20k points to spend, you get 10k in each. I'd have to check that one to be sure, though. Probably the same thing happens for intel, too.

o Fleet management, particularly with fighters and other units - I can't merge multiple Groups of fighters in space without slurping them all up into a carrier or planet, and spitting them out again.

o Also, what about the ability to remotely launch fighters from a planet/ship? ie. launch them and select where to send them. Or a 'dock' command for fighters to rendezvous with carriers in motion?

o Another thought about tables - perhaps the ability to sort ships and ship yards by location (both system name and (x,y) coordinates)? It'd help coordinate space yards as well - ie. stop you from having to do the rename them by planet and sort by name trick.

o How about renaming systems? I guess that would be open to abuse in Online games, but the GM could always switch it off.

o Ooo.. and another minor niggle - you can't jump back to a sector screen (ie with planets and ships) from any sub-screen except 'details', which means you either have to click back on the main system window, or click back to details, and then go out.

o In some screens (ie from the detail view of a planet or ship) you can right-click on the flag to get a race report. This would also be very useful from a lot of the Empires screens, but doesn't seem to work in any of them.

o Empire comparisons don't seem to be very robust - they break in a lot of the Online games that I play. Not sure what's going on there - could be a game setting perhaps?

These sorts of things would definitely help - particularly in the really massive, 100-planet simultaneous games. Anything that helps make micro-management more bearable is a big plus in my book. I can probably come up with some others - I'll have a think about it over the next few days.

Anthony

Slick

July 6th, 2004, 06:44 AM

Some good ideas there.

o Also, it would help if you could queue up ships before a ship-yard was built (ie go shipyard - ship - ship - ship in one fell swoop). Currently you have to wait until the yard's built before you can queue up ships. This one has a workaround. See the FAQ:

4.4.15 Q: How do I set up a planet�s construction queue to build a spaceyard and then build ships without having to edit the queue after the spaceyard is built?

A: Normally you can�t add ships to a planet�s construction queue until after the planet has a spaceyard facility. However there is a neat interface workaround. First, go to another planet that has a spaceyard and add your ship to its construction queue. Then save the construction queue using the process in section 4.4.13 above. Now, when you colonize a new planet, you can set up the build queue to build a spaceyard using the normal method and add ships to the queue using the saved queue.

Slick.

Chronon

July 6th, 2004, 06:57 PM

Originally posted by Anthony Briggs:
Anything that helps make micro-management more bearable is a big plus in my book.I agree! Moddable ministers, lists that remember where you were, sortable statistics, detailed repeat orders, and anything else that helps me focus on grand strategy rather than tedious repetitive tasks like laying mines and shipping population around.

Also, I do hope we get some new artwork for the race pictures - especially the Phong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Gavinfox

July 6th, 2004, 07:25 PM

Well, a few things that I want. How about, when you are looking at any given specific planet screen, you can click a "next" or "previous" button to go to the next planet, without having to go back to the planet list and open up that planet?

Also, how about this idea: being able to do MAJOR planetary system changing. Don't like the fact that one system is full of a bunch of small moons? Blow em all apart, tow the resulting asteroid fields to a certain distance from the star (depending on what type of planet you want to have), create one big asteroid field from them, and use that to create whatever type of planet you like!! Use this to get rid of all of those tiny, unproductive planets and give you fewer, better planets in the late game. Of course, there is a problem with getting rid of all the facilities and population on your planet, but nothing that an experienced player shouldn't be able to handle!

Also, constructable space lanes that are like "roads" that lower the amount of points needed to get from here to there, inside a system and in between systems. This would be VERY useful!!

psimancer

July 6th, 2004, 09:01 PM

as a part of gavinfox thing about roards

when opening warp points allow me to set both the open point and the end point even if i have to make a secondary device that can be picked as the target point for the wqarp point if its in the target system

HP Delron

July 6th, 2004, 10:27 PM

Holy Honking Radioactive Ducks, this thread is huge! Well I certainly don't have the time to read through it all, so chances are i'm going to be giving some major repeats. I also don't know if some of the more minor changes haven't been added in the most recent patches as I haven't played in a couple of months. In any case, here I go:

Supply:

I'd love supply to play a larger role, and be a much bigger issue to worry about. First, I think that ships should take damage when at 0 supplies, and be unable to move at all. Secondly, every component on the ships should have minumum per turn supply consumption, so even if the weapons aren't being fired they take up a small amount of supply to be in ready to use condition.(perhaps there could be some kind of option to power-down indvidual parts with a supply cost to power them up again, to help stranded ships save on fuel). Also, i'd like to see more in the supply generation. In other words, "Reactor" type parts, that generate X Supply per turn, independant of any of other factors (like solar panels.. without the sun(s). Seconldy supply depots on planets should work simliarly, no more instant re-fill or all and any ships in orbit. They should, have huge amounts of supply generating capacity.. but not so much as to make multiple supply depots per planet, worthless for large fleets. This change would affect bases too, while they would have reduced supply demands and mabey even the ability to have larger more powerful reactors, so they can serve as re-fueling points as well. After all this, i think it goes without saying (but i'll say it anyway), that I want to see the Quantum Reactor Component gone, forever.

Space Yards:

I'd like the ability to have multiple space yards per planet. Each space yard on a planet would have its own queue but you could always have multiple space yards work on the same project for a pleanty to their overall production rates, since you would be constructing different parts of the ship at different locations on the planet. For example

Planet Z has 2 Space Yards, each of these space yards can construct at 1000 mineral units per turn. The player has put "Happy Cow Ship" for the two space yards to work together. Since this project is being completed at two space yards, it gets completed faster, but not at double rate. It might go at 1500 instead of 1000 mineral units per turn. If you had 3 working on that same project, perhaps 2,250, instead of 3,000. There could also be some kind of faclility such as "Construction Coordiation Building" (or something like that) would decrease the loss from having multiple space yards work in conjuction. It would also probably be a good idea to make it so that when space yards work together they have to work at the same rate, if one is at emergency build rate the others must be too, if one is at slow build so must the others be. Of course, multiple space yards on a planet could each keep indepedant projects with no loss to overall effiency.

Ground Combat:

I'd like to see this play a bigger role, and have more things invovled. Defensive faclities, being able to drop troops from multiple ships at once. More viable Troops designs.

Weapons:

More complex weapons system. Weapon and damage types, with proper armors and Shiels to resist them. Weapon types, would be like "Beam", "Projectile", "Seeker", "Burst" etc.., and would be based on delivery method for the weapon. Anti-Mater/Quantum Torpedos, Deletped Uranium Cannons, Shard Cannons would all be "Projectile" weapons. An actual projectile is fired from ship A to ship B, with the intent of harming it. Things like Wave Motion Guns, Lightning Rays, Tractor Beams etc.. woudl be "Beam" weapons things that send a stream of energy to the ship to harm it. "Burst Weapons", could be things like Meson BLasters, Null-Space Cannons, Telekinter Projectors, things that shoot some kind of energy ballish thing at the ship in attempt to make it go kaboom. Seekers would be well seekers. Different shields and armors would have different resistances to each type.

The second part of all this would be the damage type a weapon deals. Something like "Direct (phsyical), "Direct (energy)", "Explosive" etc.. A captail ship missle might do, explosive damage. While a meson bLaster would do Direct eneryg damage, and shard cannon did direct phsyical etc..

Each armor/shield type, would have a certain level effectivness vs each kind of weapon type and damage, and those together would detemrine how the damage was dealt, and how much damage was dealt. I won't try to speculate on specefic numbers here, as thats the kind of thing that really just needs to be balanced out with trial and error.

I have tons more ideas, but i'll save them for later. I don't wanna make any cluttered Posts.

EDIT: I inetionally left out the fact I would like to see area-damage weapons. As I know for fact there was no way nobody else wants splash damage in the game. Just consider this another vote in that direction.

[ July 06, 2004, 21:46: Message edited by: HP Delron ]

Colonel

July 7th, 2004, 02:54 AM

Originally posted by HP Delron:
that I want to see the Quantum Reactor Component gone, forever. NO

anyways i want to be able to set up bases that if placed right can easily be concealed like on moons or in astroids or storms where sensors dont work so then even if a sector is taken over it will be hard to detect without a combination of every sensor type including taychon

bearclaw

July 7th, 2004, 04:14 AM

Variable construction rates sort of like what was avaliable in SEIII. Instead of having a planet emerg build at 150% for 10 turns, perhaps you could choose to have it build at 90% or 115%? I also liked the idea of happiness being affected by increased construction rates in SEIII. Something like that would justify the racial point cost of the Emotionaless trait.

Paul1980au

July 7th, 2004, 04:18 AM

Jump gates (seperate from warp points) ie you build to jump gates on a planet (perhaps a limit of one per star system or 1 per every 10 or 20 planets a player owns)

Anyway you would (transport) one warp point to anywhere you wanted it on a special (jump gate transport) ie you could build in on planet 1 in system 1 and transport to a planet on the far side of youre empire (perhaps 10 systems away) and allow a x amount of ships to travel through it per turn.

This would be a middle game tech allowing you to transport ships perhaps from a back planet to a frontline planet or it could be a cloaked transport ship and go deep into an enemy territory and allow ships directly into the heart of his empire (although you would only be able to jump between the specific jump gates - other seperate jump gates at different locations built on different plantes would not be cross transferrable)

Anyway you would be able to send ships directly to the frontlin - but if the jumpgate was captured the enemy would be able to send his forces direct to youre planet of origin. (although you could destroy it if it was captured) closing the loop.

This would be useful say for sending colonizers across the galaxy to have distinct zones - although the tech would come before warp point opening and closing that would make the tech less strategic.

You guys get my idea

Paul1980au

July 7th, 2004, 04:21 AM

Variable consturction rates would be useful i think.

Yes and perhaps some racial trait that would allow it or increase the "time frame" you could do it over.

Paul1980au

July 7th, 2004, 04:23 AM

Area damaage would be a useful addition for the 3D battle engine.

HP Delron

July 7th, 2004, 05:15 AM

Currency

Money, seperate from building materials. It would be used as part of construction costs like other resources. But, it would differ that in for upkeep costs, there would be a set cost per type of ship, since it would just standard crew upkeep costs: Pay, Food etc.. So a Battle Cruiser that cost 10,000 units of currency to build, would still only cost 100 units of currency to maintain, just like one that cost 5,000 , 2,000 or 1 units of currency to build.

Each empires currency would have a different trade value. Currencieswould be compared against a meaningless stanard (don't wanna get TOO complex). So, if empire A is worth 1.0 vs the standard, and empire B is worth 0.8 against the stanard. and Empire B pays empire A 10,000 units of currency empire A would only get 8,000 units. To keep things simple these values would really only come into play during trade, costs and the amount of wealth the empire has would be shown in terms of the stanard. Since, i'm not sure if i'm explaining this correct heres an example of what i'm imagning in game. Well call them generic credits.

The Spotted Zebra Empire Currently has:
100,000 Credits

The Striped Horse Empire Currently has:
100,000 Credits

The spotted Zebra's Currency has a trade value of: 0.7

The Striped Horse Empires Currency has a trade value of 1.3

The spotted zebra empire wants to buy level 1 tech in "Awesomeness" from the striped horse.

The spotted zebras offer up:

10,000 credits.

This offer then gets multiplied by thier trade value 10,000 * 0.7: 7000

Then divided by the trade value of the Striped horses

7,000/1.3 = 5384 (realy messy number, so i rounded down)

rounding, will cause some spontanious credit loss in game, but its needed since. having .s of currency would be hassel.

So, the striped horses only stand to get 5384 credits, due to the difference in the currency values. None the less its worth it for just tech level 1 in "awesomeness". The deal goes through.

at the end of the deal

The Spotted Zebra Empire has:
90,000 Credits (and their new awesomeness level 1)

The Striped Horse Empire has:
105,384 Credits

of course these worth values would be applied to whatever forms of credit generation are used (probably taxes from colonies).

and, as an added bonus if an empire wanted to see how much money they had in terms of thier own currency they could probably look on the empire screen see something like this

Striped Horses:
Current Credits:
105,384 (81526 Horseians)

Spotted Zebras:
Current Credits
90,000 (112,500 zebrians)

A little more on what role money would play.

There would be some formula to determine what a planets product was. Lets give Planet X 100,000 units of currency passing within it. You'd then have a tax rate (would be nice if these could be set in the empire globally, and invidually for planets). lets call it 3% in this case. You'd get 3% of that planets 100,000 creds; 3,000 creds/turn. Taxing low, would keep people happy but give you less moo-lah. Heavy taxes give you more money, but can result in unhappiness or even riots.

Ships that didn't get their currency maitence paid, wouldn't take damage but would take hits to moral (see next section).

Morale:

Another factor in ships, that changes battle preformance ( like experience). Low moral results in negative to-hit and evasion modifiers. High moral, just the opposite. Moral could be affected by many things:

Things that might affect morale postively:
- Victory In Battle
- Presence of Other Ships from same empire
- Being in systems with high-happiness Planets
- Being on a "safe" ship (high shields/armor values)
-Things that might affect morale negatively:
- Retreat
- Large presence of enemy ships
- Being in systems with low-hapiness planets
- Being on a ship with suicide parts (sun destroys, cobalt warheads etc..)

more ideas later...

[ July 07, 2004, 04:26: Message edited by: HP Delron ]

bearclaw

July 7th, 2004, 05:37 AM

An easy way to determine 'trade value' of currancy would be to base it on each player's ranking. The player with the highest score would set the standard, and everyone else's currency would be a factor of the first place player depending on thier own ranking.

bearclaw

July 7th, 2004, 05:40 AM

IIRC, this was origially the intention for SEIV, but never got implemented.

Various sizes of Warp Points limiting the amount of traffic through it each turn. Eg: Tiny, small, med, large and huge Warp Point sizes (to match planets sizes) might only allow 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 ships total to go one way or the other in a turn. Would add a whole new dimention to warp point attack/defense.

Paul1980au

July 7th, 2004, 09:08 AM

Yes i would prefer a scaling on warp points of up to 10 size levels - in addition to the jump gate idea (mobile linked warp points as explained in the previous thread) build a matching pair at planet A - tow one out system to anywhere on the map (distances could extend the tech levels) - put 2nd jump gate somewhere then x amount of ships can travel either way per turn. if one is captured - perhaps the enemy can use it to send ships through to origin gate - although it could be destroyed etc.

Jump gates could be given as gifts to allies to move allies fleets to where the actions is - though each gate would only allow travel with its twin gate (ie if you have 2x sets of gates - you couldnt travel from 1A to 2A only 1A to 1B and 2A to 2B)

This could be an intermittant tech level before warp point openers and closers and would add another element to the game

With the currency - well it sounds like a good idea - a 4th resource type that perhaps could be used for armed forces wages, upkeep, tax levels could affect growth, happiness, productivity levels as another level over planet populations that are present now in SE4.

You could gift money to a planet to raise happiness or get a temporary productivity boost (sort of like emergency build) it could also purchase ships quicker or buy tech levels of allies. Bribe enemy ships - if we put pirates or merchants in the game it could be used to get them to do several coursair actions etc.

HP Delron

July 7th, 2004, 08:12 PM

Originally posted by bearclaw:
An easy way to determine 'trade value' of currancy would be to base it on each player's ranking. The player with the highest score would set the standard, and everyone else's currency would be a factor of the first place player depending on thier own ranking. Well, i don't like that idea since it only makes the strong, stronger in all cases. And, the biggest strongest nation isn't always the one with the most valuable currency (see real world). Thats why just the sort of imganiary standard.

bearclaw

July 7th, 2004, 09:03 PM

Perhaps currency could be a racial trait?

Some alien cultures may not have a concept of money, or may have evolved past the nessesity of it. Currency traits could have positive and negative aspects so not everyone may want to take it.

bearclaw

July 8th, 2004, 01:42 AM

Just thought of how currency could best be implemented. Instead of it being a resource or a trait, government funding in the form of currency could be represented as a Budget Slider.

Somewhere like int the Empire window, there would be an indicator that shows the portion of funding going to things like Ship Maintenance, Research, Production, Resource Extraction, Intel, Trade, etc.

If the indicator is left alone, then all aspects are produced as normal amounts. But if you needed a boost to one area or another, you would have to take it from another area. So if you needed to develope a new tech sooner, you could reduce funding to Resource Extraction and Construction to say 50% and it would boost your Research output up to 125%. Actual ratios would have to be analized to ensure game balance, but I think this would do the trick.

Perhaps a maximum/minimum funding could be set and be modded in the settings.txt. To go even further, there could be an option that certain planets have various funding amounts or it could be applied system/empire-wide. Funding could affect happiness as well. Underfund a planet too long and they won't be happy.

while some may say this will add too much micromanagement, this would also have the benifit that you wouldn't have to use it. If you wanted to just leave everything alone, you could and everything would stay at normal output amounts.

Paul1980au

July 8th, 2004, 04:29 AM

Well it would seem to be a alteration or idea worth pursuing ?

HP Delron

July 8th, 2004, 11:49 AM

Originally posted by bearclaw:

while some may say this will add too much micromanagemenno such thing. The more the better, I say.

[ July 08, 2004, 10:50: Message edited by: HP Delron ]

DarkAnt

July 8th, 2004, 10:23 PM

so who is the poor sap who is going to have to go through all these ideas anyway?

Me Loonn

July 10th, 2004, 06:27 AM

What i really would like is add something like "production clusters" - similar to ship fleets, but for planets :

- They can have planets added/removed just like ships in fleets currently

- The cluster acts as one planet does now, removing an item from the cluster window removes the item from the production queue of every planet in the cluster (ALOT easier to build defencive units, ships and fill the remaining fac slots)

Examples :
- If some planet has max facilities, the facilities are not added to the queue, as in now when using "fill queue" - lists.
- If some planet has no more cargo space, the units built are wasted, just like they are now (multi-add or fill queue).

IMHO, these "small" changes would remove TONS of boring, needless micromanagement that no one in their right mind wants to do. It gets really old when theres 300+ planets and 500+ baseyards around.

This combined with some changes in simul-move gamesystem - like choise how many units to launch, scrapping facility type that actually DOES scrap them and wont magically re-apphear by next turn - would make this game alot more fun.

For me, anyway - cant speak for anyone else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Paul1980au

July 10th, 2004, 08:50 AM

Ditto the Last post esp ad multi queues for the same item to x amount of planets like multi upgrade now.

Being able to choose a specific amount of fighters to build to - ie enter a specific number.

hobospecialist

July 12th, 2004, 06:21 PM

Well, here's 2 emails i sent kinda late to malfador about SEV, but it has a lot of my ideas.

Email 1:Hey, this is from a really big fan of SE series. Wow, i can't believe you're coming out with a SE V. The fourth one was cool, but it had some problems. This is a HUGE list of things i'm thinking of that i would like in the fifth one. I'm sorry if these ideas are kind of late. Let's start with the map editor.
Ok, so I could make my own map in the fourth, blah blah, everything still happened the same way (research and dominate). Maybe you can make it so you can already fix what ships are already on the playing screen, right? Then you could start out with only one ship and, i don't know, but there are so many possibilities of ship placement.
The next thing is, there should be in-game briefing Messages like the training level in SE 4, but I want it so that they have triggers, not just pressing next, and whatever. Like, if there's an enemy species if I kill them there should be an in-game message made in the map editor for that specific level, or if I attain who knows what tech level to give me a message.
Basically, if you've ever played starcraft, I want the map editor kinda like that. So say I wanted the player to eliminate all the other species then the game would recognize that, and a trigger i could make in the map editor would make my view zoom in to a system and show me an unknown ship use some tech the player's never seen before... ok, i'm lost... the point is, I really want an in-depth map editor, not just the map editor. Again, i'm only trying to give you ideas of what i think would make the game great that i've seen in other games, i'm not trying to ruin your pleasure of programming.
Another thing, now for map customization in the editor. I want to let one player use this kind of tech with a limit but i want another player to have less a limit for more of a challenge, to put it one way.
Can you also add some sort of campaign, even if it's loosely affiliated? I like having different objectives for different levels sometimes. And you know what would be cool in the game? You don't see the systems you don't have a link to unless you know about them or the map has it unveiled. E.G. Super aliens with supertech from a system ive never seen comes and invades me would have a great twist to it.
Ok, now for the A.I. Let them use all of their research points, not just up to four researches at one time. And how about they ask me for things and i ask them for things in return. I want the inteligence levels and things like that to affect how much i can take advantage of that race in trading.
I never could figure out how to do this in any simple modding for SE 4, but I would really like it if the weapons could be specialized to target every kind of component or facility, like only kill resource generating facilities, etc. I would like in the combat mode if i have a really big ship (Battlecruiser) to see that it's a lot bigger than a little escort my opponent has. Hmm... let's see, what else.
Oh yes, about the tech tree. Come on, how did my race already learn warp travel, heh? And how did they find out about propulsion? I think all tech should start as five or six different categories put in theoretical techs, and you research from there and you get more general tech that way. Here's another thing, I think there should be some kind of experience, like in SE 4, but every time you get experience points (your race evolved a little) you get to improve their stats a little.
A really important thing, I really love just destroying everything in a system and making it a gas cloud, but i can't run a race off the gas? Shouldn't there be tech that lets you do that (gas mining, etc)
And to the cultural traits in the beginning, ive tried editing the TXT's but there is no way to give them a requirement. It should be in some sort of order, kind of like a tech tree, only, a cultural trait tree. One thing leads to more options, some costing more than others.
Ok, about researching. I think that it should take more than one research completion to get different kinds of other tech areas and technology. Say you have temporal studies at level 1 and propulsion at level six, you should get a higher propulsion that the other race, unless they have temporal studies at level 2 maybe?
When i find tech it's not really worth it, with the supertech. I mean, yay, i have 5000 shielding for my planets, so what? How about that new tech starts a whole chain of new techs, eh? then you can combine it with other techs you find for an even longer chain of techs. Maybe an ancient race had super-shield draining tech, another one had super propulsion, and a Last one had really good EMP tech or whatever. Those could be combined in a new tech, say EMP Rockets, which have a really long range,say 35, but travel kinda slowly, only 5 per turn, but did a huge amount of damage to shields and disabled the target ship's weapons for five turns when it hit, that would be cool.
One Last thing, that is JUST and idea, i don't even think you'll have the time to do it. How about making the planets RTS places? Like, as an option, i could have the game automatically (in 5 seconds) decide the winner of the planet when both our races are on, or i could build a base, use resources and the techs i have to build units and get rid of the invading enemy, or invade the enemy with my elite technology. This is just an idea though.
Ok, that's gonna be all for tonight, i might email again tomorrow if i think of anything.

Email 2:Here are some other ideas that i've thought about in the Last few hours. Maybe when you make an alliance, there should be something like big countries have the U.N., there could be something like that. Or maybe if a race is so powerful, when it has alliances, it can make the rules for the other races, like no this kind of tech or no colonizing this planet, etc, but if you set those rules, you follow them too, like you can research the tech and hide it, so they won't know you have it, and then use it to kill everyone. You could also set taxes for the other races.

Yeah, i have a lot of ideas, don't i http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Kevin Arisa

July 13th, 2004, 10:18 AM

I was just thinking that it would be a good idea to make plagues attach themselves to population and ship crews. It would cause a player to be very careful about a plagued planet. Quarentine (sp?) will be a very important tactic to prevent the plague from spreading to other planets. When a plagued ship resupplies at a planet the plague is transferred. Also, medical facilities and components should have a percent chance per turn of curing a plague instead of a set effect. The component should have a much lower percent. Also, I think the percent chances should stack. The plague effect itself should run on a percent of infection instead of the entire planet instantly becoming infected. I think this would greatly improve this area of the game.

Paul1980au

July 13th, 2004, 10:28 AM

Yes perhaps a % chance depending on medical tech level and plague level. Yes it would add a strategic element to the game also as it would force you to limit said fleets exposure.

Suicide Junkie

July 13th, 2004, 12:41 PM

There was a run of Posts about plagues a while back, where we also discussed including detailed effects:
% with no symptoms
% incapacitated
% dead

# turns for incubation
- (plague is infectious, and spreads to ships but no signs of danger until the timer expires)

Possibly even with the % incapacitated greater than 100%, since the sick have to be tended by the healthy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
A nasty plague would be one with almost no deaths, but 300% incapacitation and a long incubation period... it could shut down a system or two incredibly quickly after it breaks loose, leaving the system vulnerable to invasion, and maybe even disabling a pile of defense ships (from the crew losses)

Tnarg

July 14th, 2004, 06:01 AM

Shot in the dark but worth a try.

Is there any possibility that multiple data files (from seperate and distinct mods) can be used at once. Or a way to have several directory paths in one game.

Example:
The Star Wars Mod II, Star Trek Mod, and base SEIVG are completely different in the lines of tech trees, hull sizes, and other items make them distinct and obviously uncompatible. But wouldn't it be neat if in one game there would be completely seperate tech paths for different races. It would in my opinion bring the concept of unique and "alien" to the game as far as extreme difference between races.

Kind of in the lines of the first two mentioned Mods that specific races can only reseach special technology akin to there race, but every thing else is available to them as well.

Shot in the dark, but hopefully some one might see the light in this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

FLX

July 14th, 2004, 12:15 PM

I wish a more user-friendly ia config, for strategies creation.

PeterD

July 16th, 2004, 06:58 AM

I'm sure this has been suggested before but I'd
like a more agressive AI.

I often see fleets of enemy ships wander past my
colonisers or outPosts and leave them alone.

If I setup a base in one of the AI's systems he
will quite often attack it but not all the time.

Surely its not difficult to have each system
tagged as one to attack or leave alone depending
on whether it belongs to a friend or foe.

The AI also sometimes sends a stream of single
ships through a warp point instead of forming a
fleet which would easily defeat the guard ships
I have there.

Cheeze

July 16th, 2004, 09:58 PM

This has probably been said before.

I would like to see the Repair system changed so that the Space Yard and Repair components repair by tonnage, not by component. It would lead to a more effective and relevant repair trait and be more reasonable. After all, does it make sense that you could have 8 100kt components repaired in the same time as 8 10kt compenents?

On the flip side, I imagine that would be far more difficult for the game to track and maintain.

Ed Kolis

July 17th, 2004, 02:31 AM

No, not by tonnage... by a NEW field, called Complexity! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif So a tiny but highly complex alien device would be harder to repair than a huge simple factory yard.

What, I'm serious! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

HP Delron

July 17th, 2004, 03:21 AM

Multi-Hit weapons

Such as:

Super Machine Gun
Range: whatever
Damage: 5x30(150)

So, it would do 150 damage total. But for the purposes of emissive armor, or some new kind of armor that just reduced damage done (see a post below about damage/weapon types), it would be severly reduced or not damage at all. to better give the clue, lets look at two weapons:

BIG CANNOn
Range: whatever
Damage: 100

fired at a ship with emissive armor that takes off 25 damage. 75 damage is done to ship.

BIG MACHINE GUN
range: whatever
Damage: 30x4(120)

fired at ship with emsisve armor that takes off 25 damage, it winds up doing 4 hits of 5 damage.20 damage. So even though it has more raw firepower vs a target with no armor. It winds up doing less overall.

Cloaking with different devices to hide from different types (already moddable in SEIV). Perhaps racial abilities to give free sensor types (as in a a race with the ability to sense gravitationl disturbances would get lvl 1 gravitic scanning on all ships)

July 17th, 2004, 06:55 AM

Originally posted by Cheeze:
This has probably been said before.

I would like to see the Repair system changed so that the Space Yard and Repair components repair by tonnage, not by component. It would lead to a more effective and relevant repair trait and be more reasonable. After all, does it make sense that you could have 8 100kt components repaired in the same time as 8 10kt compenents?

On the flip side, I imagine that would be far more difficult for the game to track and maintain. Good idea!
A new line for each component like:

Repair amount = 5

could make this pretty easily.
This component would then count as 5 components for repair.

Aiken

July 17th, 2004, 07:48 PM

Masses (actually, me) want full-featured simulator, with all types of game's nuances and manual starting points placement.

Ed Kolis

July 17th, 2004, 10:25 PM

Originally posted by HP Delron:
Multi-Hit weapons
(snip)Combat in SE5 will be real-time. So instead of arbitrary, discrete combat turns, you can specify a weapon's fire rate in milliseconds. Thus, you could do something like the machine gun effect you want by specifying a very rapid fire rate, such as 50 ms, which would give 20 rounds per second. Granted, there would be no reloading between clips of ammo, but it's a start... heck, for an example of how this works, check out SJ's P&N mod for Starfury, which also uses real-time combat. (Not his P&N mod for SE4, that's something completely different!)

Ruatha

July 19th, 2004, 11:00 AM

Someway to make plug-ins like in VGA planets.
I e a plugin that adds for example a new type of space monster, a new type of weapon, a new type of aliens.
Not modding, but a way to incorporate new effects and commandos into the GUI.
Maybe a MISC button with a settable code, that can be sent to a plug-in that then generates a response, wich effects the hostrun.
The Modding capabilities are great, but the plug-ins of VGA planet was much more versatile (But harder to make than modding though), even though it became a hassle to keep track of hundreds of diffent "friendly-codes" to send to plug-ins and that plug-ins generated as response.

There wehere plug-ins with aliens that took over population and ships and spread, plug-ins with new space anomalies that transformed ships, multiplied ships.. Plug-ins that made it possible to travel with a ship between different games, connecting them (I,e a ship from player 1 in NGC4 warping into Adamant 009 for player 1 there for example..) and much more...

[ July 19, 2004, 10:02: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Paul1980au

July 19th, 2004, 11:27 AM

Here is a possible in between way to do plug ins - perhaps MM could call for the would be programmers to do plug ins - and those that get put into the game (best ones etc - the author could be paid a small amount and aaron could put out monthly realises of the best plug ins perhaps as a pay per download on the website (ie best 20 plug ins for $5 US perhaps and the authors get paid 20% of all revenues with the rest going to MM and the plug ins then becoming the property of malfadour as the contributors have been paid off - perhaps a legal agreement to cover this also)

Could get some interest adn quality contributions at the same time making money for those that contribute useful ones and making some extra money for MM.

Just some brainstorming to play with

AI scripts are another area this could be worked at. Perhaps offical ones included for download via MM can be paid for and lesser quality un-offical ones can be put up on seperate websites

Or perhaps this is to offtrack and should be ignored and considered a bad idea.

Emperor Fritsch the Dense

July 19th, 2004, 02:17 PM

getting rid of combat turns? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOO. i dont wanna play another click fest. keep combat turns omg.

Suicide Junkie

July 19th, 2004, 02:53 PM

It has been said many times, and will continue to be said:

real time combat will not make a clickfest...
You'll need only one click to start and one click to end. Same as you do in SE4 for strategic combat.

For tactical combat, a pause key or a system where you dish out a round of orders between every X seconds of realtime simulation, would be quite nice.

Kana

July 19th, 2004, 07:34 PM

Ok...you all are scaring me...

When you mean 'Real Time' combat...do you mean its going to be like an RTS type of combat...?

Which would suck...turn by turn combat is what makes the SE franchise what it is. Without it...I'm not sure it will be quite the same.

Kana

Ed Kolis

July 19th, 2004, 08:38 PM

Yes, I do mean real-time as in RTS. But remember, only the COMBAT will be real-time. NOT the resource gathering and other aspects of empire building! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif You know, sort of like MOO3, only better executed? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

DeadZone

July 19th, 2004, 09:47 PM

Better???

This is Space Empires we are talking about, it will blow that thing out of its grave

Phoenix-D

July 19th, 2004, 10:53 PM

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but events should be able to occur more than once per turn. Maybe have the number moddable, and/or based on the size of the galaxy? It doesn't quite make sense that a 10 system 'galaxy' is going to have the same number of events as a 255 system one..

Renegade 13

July 20th, 2004, 12:30 AM

And hopefully the 255 system limit will be removed in SEV!

Gandalf Parker

July 20th, 2004, 01:23 AM

Hopefully the simple txt file and bmp structure for easy modding will remain. Even expand.

Id like to see ALL of the text files have an impact on the game. Such as the way RacialTraits and Cultures gives pluses and minuses. Id like to see Demeaners, EmpireTypes, even EmperorTitles cause AI's to treat you differently.

Starhawk

July 20th, 2004, 04:49 AM

I'd like to see Convoys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I would Love it so that when you build a spaceport it creates a "freighter" that runs automatic routes to find your nearest "processing" world.

I'd love to have it so that you have to build freighters to increase the ammount of resources being brought into a precessing world and so that you have military and civilian kinds of thigns for example:
Freigters and transports are built at spaceports as they are rather civilian ships.
And warships are built at spaceyards because if you think about it why would a planet only be able to build 1 ship at a time?

Anyway it would be GREAT to have convoys play a part in trade as well, like say if I want to transfer 100kt of minerals to player A I'd need to send a freighter to him/her because I always thought it was funny that you'd have miracle trading going on and the like in the middle of a big war.

Freighters would add a whole new level of strategy to the game because I'd love to be able to say "hmmm I'm at war with player C who is between me and Player A maybe I should from my freighters that are trading with player A into convoys!"

Or on the flipside of that I'd love to be able to send a raider squadron to capture freighters or assault convoys and rob resources! muahahahaha!

And I don't think this would be too hard to impliment because something similar was used in Starships Unlimted which is a far less complex peice of programming then SE and done by a far less resourceful group of people.

Maybe something that makes smaller ships useable for example in RTS games small ships are often great to use as escorts because if you sent that Battleship out on it's own it would easily fall to a squadron of destroyers escorting a cruiser....but that's enough detail for that because this has been brought up b4.

Starhawk

July 20th, 2004, 04:51 AM

Double post sorry:

I would also love to see Q-Ships if the freighters are implimented because I would just laugh my *** off if I saw a frigate closing in on a group of "unarmed" freighters and all of the sudden a Q-ship starts popping shots into it's backside as the Q-Ships shields come on line http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I know it's sick but I have a wierd sense of humor and would just LOVE to see a "freighter" take down an enemy frigate or destroyer that thought it was gonna get an easy pay day.

[ July 20, 2004, 03:52: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

DeadZone

July 20th, 2004, 05:12 AM

Civilian traffic would be great, but not the type which you watch while your turn is processing

Imagine it
***News Flash***
Yesterday afternoon a Abbidon civilian passenger liner was raided by pirates

Starhawk

July 20th, 2004, 05:24 AM

Meh passenger liners would be cool instead of just the bulk transports that are used in game I mean think about it a civilian transport would not be the same kind that you'd use to pick up 10,000 troops with.

But yeah to add specifics to what i was saying, every starsystem would have a single space-port in it just as in SEIV but instead of just a mysterious form of resource conveyance you would actually have to send freighters to that world to pick up whatever resources were brought there during the turn (the transfer of resources to the spaceport would be automatic not involving any freighters) and bring them to the nearest refinery world or to whatever other destination you tell the freighter or freighters to go to.

And you can form a convoy much the way you'd form a normal warfleet except you would be able to give it orders like (proceed to the nearest refinery or in the case of an alliance proceed to X race's nearest refinery) and they would automatically begin heading in that direction.

Starhawk

July 21st, 2004, 12:14 AM

You know what else would be cool?

Messenger skiffs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

As in if you want to send a message to another race you have to send a courior ship but meh that might be going too far.

Cheeze

July 21st, 2004, 01:46 AM

I'd like SE5 to allow you to review, edit and cancel Messages you send to other empires. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Ragnarok

July 21st, 2004, 04:16 PM

Originally posted by Cheeze:
I'd like SE5 to allow you to review, edit and cancel Messages you send to other empires. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I agree, this is a must in SEV.

Stavetor

July 22nd, 2004, 08:38 AM

Here's my $0.02:

1. Currently, bLasting a planet's inhabitants into oblivion from space and then setting up a new colony is much easier than invasion, so much so that building troops and troop transports is, IMO, basically a waste of time. To this end, I'd like to see ship-based weapons (with a few exceptions, like Planetary Napalm) made less effective vs. planets, and troops more effective and both faster and cheaper to produce.

2. Expanding on that idea, I'd like to see an option for some kind of tactical planetside combat. It doesn't need be anything complex, but it would be nice to watch (and direct) as my forces take the enemy world's capital.

3. Maybe different planet types, e.g. volcanic, barren, terrestrial, oceanic, etc. I always thought "Rock, Ice, Gas Giant" was kind of a weird, arbitrary selection.

4. On the RTS combat issue, I think it would be a very interesting option, adding an interesting new twist to the gameplay, but the keyword there is "option". God forbid that it become the default. That would be one of the signs of the Apocalypse, wouldn't it?

5. Modular ship construction- each size ship would have a certain # of hardpoints for Weapons, Engines, Armor, and Other (Bridge, Life Support, Crew Quarters, Shields, etc). Weapons would have firing arcs determined by the hardpoint position they occupy, and the ship's various sides would also have armor Ratings, meaning that hitting a ship repeatedly on the same side will be more effective than from all around. On the flip side, maneuvering one ship around another to expose different flanks will be a viable defensive strategy.

6. Ship movement in combat would be a matter of maneuverability as well as speed. Depending on size, engine quality, etc. ships must move forward (or reverse?) a certain distance between turns, depending on their speed at the time. It just seems odd that right now, given the same type of engines, a dreadnought is just as maneuverable as an escort.

7. This could easily be done now with a simple AI mod, but has anyone noticed how the default AI never seems to accept Subjugation treaties? They will surrender to you completely, but they never let you Subjugate them. Weird.

8. Somewhere else, I saw the possibility for "either/or" tech requirements mentioned- i.e. research in tech X requires a certain level of research in either Tech Y or Tech Z, but not necessarily both. Also, this same poster mentioned the possibility of exclusive techs, meaning that you could research "Good" or "Evil", but once you go down a certain path, you can never get any techs belonging to the other, even by trade or conquest. These are cool ideas, and I support them.

-Stavetor

Chronon

July 22nd, 2004, 03:13 PM

Originally posted by Stavetor:

3. Maybe different planet types, e.g. volcanic, barren, terrestrial, oceanic, etc. I always thought "Rock, Ice, Gas Giant" was kind of a weird, arbitrary selection.
Excellent idea! I'd also like to see more penalties for worlds with harsh environments - so there is more incentive to use the climate change facilities. Also, I think that lifeforms coming from rock planets should never have undomed colonies on gas giants and vice versa - the conditions are just too alien for them to thrive.

Suicide Junkie

July 22nd, 2004, 07:07 PM

IMO, troops are too powerful right now... they win or lose pretty much instantly.

Managing the troops you have is somewhat of a hassle, though...
More flexible capture-related strategies are needed, and some troop-strategies for ground combat would be good too.
- Hold out for reinforcements
- Bombard & Defend
- Neutral/Normal
- Full assault

Having population produce "mobile" militia each turn automatically would be cool. If you strip them off too fast, happiness and creation rates would drop...
A bunch of mods add infantry troops, which are pretty much what this would be.

Experience for troops? Oooh, that would be cool.
Collect and promote the veteran infantry and tank commanders for the homeworld push http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Colonel

July 23rd, 2004, 03:43 AM

Originally posted by Starhawk:
Meh passenger liners would be cool instead of just the bulk transports that are used in game I mean think about it a civilian transport would not be the same kind that you'd use to pick up 10,000 troops with.

But yeah to add specifics to what i was saying, every starsystem would have a single space-port in it just as in SEIV but instead of just a mysterious form of resource conveyance you would actually have to send freighters to that world to pick up whatever resources were brought there during the turn (the transfer of resources to the spaceport would be automatic not involving any freighters) and bring them to the nearest refinery world or to whatever other destination you tell the freighter or freighters to go to.

And you can form a convoy much the way you'd form a normal warfleet except you would be able to give it orders like (proceed to the nearest refinery or in the case of an alliance proceed to X race's nearest refinery) and they would automatically begin heading in that direction. ok this is good but in order to get rid of the micro management this would cause i would suggest a screen where you spend X number of X resourses to set up a convoy to X system-must have spaceport

Klebdog

July 23rd, 2004, 03:10 PM

Gentlemen,
First I want to say "Thank You" for making a product that has given me and my friends years of enjoyment. It is truly satisfying playing you games (SEIII, SEIV) and having the ability to mold it to our wants and needs that keeps it interesting on so many levels. We are very excited about the prospect of SE V and we are eagerly awaiting it's release. The reason I am writing though is to propose some ides that we have talked about that we would like to see. All of these idea's come from a compilation of several
games that we have played over the years that had some cool features but never seemed to be able to put them all together. Your game is the only one
that I have seen that has been able to even come close to this.

1. The idea of a Galactic Senate or Forum (Someplace where races can setup sanctions, outlaw weapon types etc)
2. The establishment of Neutral Zones on races borders (Someplace where races can setup trading stations to maintain communications with other races, like Babylon 5 or Star Trek)
3. Pirates and Privateers (Birth of the Federation had a cool feature that required you to guard your trade routes or they could be
raided. This would prolong the life of smaller type ships and allow other empires to openly disrupt trade between other races. Also, it would
provide another source of income for the empire. 4. Visible trade routes (with a on/off toggle for viewing purposes).This would be the second part of the Pirates/Privateers idea. Like I said
I saw the idea in a few games but Birth of the Federation had the best use of it. It required no ships to be built to travel the routes it just
established the actual routes they would travel if they could be seen. The only ships seen were the escort ships protecting the routes or the pirates raiding them.
5. Weapons Arcs, another cool feature that I have seen in quite a few games is weapons arcs of fire. Pax Imperia "Eminent Domain" had the best Version of this but it would balance tactical combat for smaller ships more true to life. Larger ships move slow and have heavier more
damaging weapons and smaller ships strike faster and more often and can out maneuver larger ships. I think this is a dynamic that SE V could exploit to it's advantage in the combat model, of course this would work better in turn based combat but Pax Imperia pulled it off in real time to some extent.
6. Turret Mounts, SE IV made excellent use of mount types, but I think turret mounts would tie in nicely to weapon arc features. Turret mounts could allow more weapons to be mounted on the outside of the ship and cover a larger arc. But these weapons could also be easily targeted and
damaged before other critical systems or spinal mounted weapons.
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player. Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need).
8. Some type of war weariness program. The endless AI wars waged against players, even when the AI is losing horribly still wage for decades. Even the most war like race (with maybe the exception of a hive mentality or Klingon type empire) would pause to re-arm, re-fit and re-train.

These are all just ideas that me and my friends have "what if'd" and have tried to MOD into our own Version of SE IV to see if we could get them
to work. I still think you guys do an awesome job at what you do and look forward to seeing the end product no matter what!

Chronon

July 23rd, 2004, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by Klebdog:
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player.Klebdog, I think you've got a very good point here. I would like to see much smaller fleets in SE5. Fleets of 100 ships should be very hard to build and maintain, and every ship should count. Perhaps a much steeper curve on the costs of the hulls and a higher cost for the larger mounts would help. Larger ships should be very expensive to maintain relative to the overall economy of the empire.

All the excellent ideas here about captains, crews, and admirals, would benefit from having smaller fleet sizes as well - each ship and crew would be more heroic and "real" and less of a statistic. And naming ships would be more rewarding, too (BB 0312 is just so uninspiring).

Plus with real-time combat, smaller fleets would be easier to manage (and easier on the CPU, too) - especially if there are going to be weapon arcs and directional shields, etc.

Colonel

July 23rd, 2004, 07:04 PM

I think there should be a ship componet that would resupply ships in space but it would take to much space for a use on a ship size. So you could use space stations,star base, and battle stations as stageing points-if built off away from planets

astruskustuvas

July 23rd, 2004, 11:30 PM

Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need).
to improove it make it not planet dependant but by ship count. Lets say every 2 x ships lets you build 1 y ship or something like that.....Or even make it modable that would be great.

dont be hash on me im still learning english http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Ed Kolis

July 24th, 2004, 03:11 AM

Encrypted mods! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

What I mean by this is, in SE4 everyone can see the full game settings. But what if you want to have a real "feeling of wonder" in your game, so you go and create a mod for people to play (or write a script to randomly generate one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif see http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=012091 and look at the "d" operator!), and compress/encrypt the files into a single mod file that is not human-readable! Of course the game would still need the ability to read normal mods, but the encryption would make for a more exciting game... you never know what surprises lie in store!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Renegade 13

July 24th, 2004, 05:43 AM

Originally posted by Klebdog:
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player. Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need). I would disagree with this. I really like having thousands of ships (or at least hundreds!). Although some people would obviously like limits to this, so the best option would be for it to be moddable. That way I could have my thousands of ships, and other people could limit it to a few dozen if they felt like it.

On second thought, the limit exists already. In the game setup you can limit the number of ships per empire, so this is basically what you were suggesting for SEV! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ruatha

July 24th, 2004, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by Renegade 13:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Klebdog:
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player. Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need). I would disagree with this. I really like having thousands of ships (or at least hundreds!). Although some people would obviously like limits to this, so the best option would be for it to be moddable. That way I could have my thousands of ships, and other people could limit it to a few dozen if they felt like it.

On second thought, the limit exists already. In the game setup you can limit the number of ships per empire, so this is basically what you were suggesting for SEV! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <hr /></blockquote>Nope he was suggesting a limit based on ship sizes, I second such a request, user settable.

Alneyan

July 24th, 2004, 12:33 PM

I would like the ability to add variable values in the game for modding purposes. For example, I would love to be able to index the cost of all research on a certain variable (say, number of planets), making research more expensive as your Empire gets bigger.

It would be something a bit along these lines: the user sets up a variable value (Number of planets here), and then makes a table that would list the effects of a given value of "Number of planets" on the cost of research. So, for instance:
- Under 100 planets: modifier of 1.00 to research cost
- Between 100 and 199 planets: modifier of 1.20 to research cost
- Above 200 planets: modifier of 1.50 to research cost

One of the purposes of this kind of values would be to make maintenance or construction more expensive as an Empire becomes bigger, thus lessening the importance of expansion. It would also reduce the gap between huge Empires and their tiny, helpless neighbours. But there would be quite a few possibilities with altering values dynamically this way.

Hmm, my explanation isn't exactly what I would call clear... *Grumbles*

Renegade 13

July 24th, 2004, 03:25 PM

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Nope he was suggesting a limit based on ship sizes, I second such a request, user settable. I stand corrected. I too would be in favor of such an option, as long as it was user settable. Next time I guess I should read the post I'm replying on a little more carefully!

Colonel

July 25th, 2004, 07:11 PM

What about different planets with resourses that you need for building certian more advanced technolgy(ship comoponets)----It would add a more strategic point to the planning of your empire and build up of ships

Loser

July 25th, 2004, 11:00 PM

Hotkeys.

Cheeze

July 26th, 2004, 04:38 AM

In the cultures, I agree that a "Warrior" culture can enjoy a combat bonus to attack and defense, but the Bezerker should suffer a defensive penalty (-5 or 10%) to go along with their attack bonus.

This was probably already mentioned, but I just didn't look through all 80 pages of great ideas here.

Paul1980au

July 26th, 2004, 07:57 AM

How about a berkerser warrior class - offense, defense and building increase BUT

Lowering of research, intel, resource gathering and perhaps limits on special racial abiilties.

Shane Watson

July 26th, 2004, 08:49 AM

This is I would like to see in the new game:

First: Keep it turn based. If you go real time the game will lose a great deal of it's appeal. Real time games are fine for shoot'em ups for kids. But I like to think that SEIV/V has a little more going for it than that.

Second: Keep the ability to customize everything, but expand upon it. For example, allow players to name systems they don't own. We're not out in space, but we've named just about every dang star we can see, so why can't the players? The only real important thing as far as game play is concerned are the coordinates of the system. Not the name.

Allow for Languages. If you can't speak Nloam, you don't know if they want to give you their riches or their plasma beams. Include a basic language generator that allows you to generate your own language based on Consenant/Vowel/Consenant structure. Use this to create unique language text files for use in planet, ship and character naming.

Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy.

A little more reliance on spatial sciences, including planetary science. Planetary physical descriptions that include diameter, AU, Atmospherics, Hydrographics, gravity, etc, which affect the various races. True random gerneration of planetary characteristics based off of a percentage system.

Individual governments for individual planets, which can later break away or revolt (and have a chance of succeeding).

A functioning economic model that includes resources that you can actually use, combine to create new resources and trade. Manufactured trade goods. Raidable (and displayed) trade lanes. Trade ships. trade centers. Something to do while you are building your empire other than blow something up.

Don't center the game so much on combat. I'd like to see more attention paid to the worlds and politicians that make up your empire. For example, world leaders are never really in total control. There are *always* dissendents, either in the underground or in another political party. Bring them into play to create political infighting in your own empire - if it becomes too much infighting your empire begins to crumble (and what I mean here is something along the line of the former Soviet Union and the way it crumbled). Let these guys be charactes with their own personalities and names taken from your own name file.

The ability to elect or appoint named governors with individual characteristics and personalities that are randomly generated. PM me or email and I can go into detail if need be.

Don't overkill the graphics eyecandy - I'm sick of games that look like they were geared towards 12 year olds. Use realistic graphics for ships and planets, but keep them small and to the point. Planets from IV were for the most part okay. Ships and races by and large needed work.

Take the game out of the Warp Point box. This has been one of my greatest frustrations with an otherwise cool game (aside from the lack of tradeable resources). Include stargate technology or something akin to that, but lose the warp points. Or at least allow for interstellar travel.

Include differnt types of propulsion: Solar Sails, Ramjets, Ramscoops, Ion, Nuclear, Jump, Warp, etc.

Allow players/races to join mid game as break away governments of existing races. Combine this with new player/races just developing interstellar travel in an unexplored part of the map.

*BIG* maps. Space is HUGE. Allow for 10,000 stars or more. Set it up so that there are areas that really never will be visited by the players. It helps create a sense of mystery. Our galaxy is 30,000 light years across with trillions of stars in it. Even if we had space travel, we'd *never* get out there to all of the stars.

Allow multiple games to be hosted in the same galaxy at the same time. Crossovers *could* happen if players are close enough. Players that like to play more than one game at a time would find this aspect interesting, I think. Run it something along the lines of SimCity's Regions with multiple cities that can interact.

Consider a low res 3d map instead of the old style 2d map. I've not seen this done before except in some stellar mapping programs Stars (not the game). That alone would set the game apart if you forced your players to think in 3d. Allow for zooming in and out, and rotating the map.

Change "Facilities" to "Colonies" or "Cities". Allow for randomly generated planetary maps that can be viewed, which show resource and colony locations (player can designate where to place colonies on planets). Have POC's (points of control) on planets so you can actually have a planetary conflict. Keep the maps simple, but versitile.

Show fleets and ships as a simple ">" or some such. Tactical icons can be low res graphics.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

Cheers,
~Shane Watson

[ July 26, 2004, 07:52: Message edited by: Shane Watson ]

Paul1980au

July 26th, 2004, 09:11 AM

That is a big wishlist but some good ideas there that havent been thought of before esp crossover of PBW games in the same galaxy.

Id say expand the game away from just warp points - but make jump gates more a mid to mid late game technology - i have expanded upon this in this thread. Warp points would be the mainstay but jump gates could provide more strategy in protecting them - but you would build two haul one out with a ship and then have to defend it - but it would allow a limited number of ships per turn to travel from the backwater planets to the frontline - think airports in civ ie limit it to perhaps 8000 kt worth of ships per turn per gate ?

Do you send through a small fleet of lots of ships or a few large unprotected battleships to the frontline.

Diplomacy and a upgraded resources aspect of the game.

Big maps yes for sure 1000 star system games

Revolt and rebellion - perhaps allow whole systems to break away or perhaps if one planet breaks away until you quell the uprising or sign a permanent treaty or have x amount of ships in system there is a sliding scale % chance that other planets will switch sides

If a AI player is removed from the game allow a rebelling race to take their place.

Allow upwards of 50-100 races per game - great for massive systems with massive PBW games. - in said cases allow allainces to win if they take over the whole galaxy. Allow team play ie team 1 with 2 players - team 2 etc permanent game long co operative alliances.

Somehow upgrade the ground based combat system - imperium galatica alliances 2 comes to mind as a base to work from.

Shane Watson

July 26th, 2004, 04:45 PM

Yeah, it is kind of big, isn't it? haha. didn't realize it Last night when I posted it. Trouble is that's only a small portion of what I have in mind.

I think the biggest thing that I would push for is some serious realism. For instance, if you are traveling at sub-light speeds, then you are moving at a fraction of lightspeed and that should be shown in system.

For example, break the map legends down thus: -I'd have to look up most of these distances, but they're easy enough to find and or figure.

In System maps:
Light Second - smallest measurement
Light minute
Light Day -largest insystem measurement.

Out System Maps or Stellar Cartography

Lightyear
Parsec -3.26 lightyears, btw, but could be converted to just 3 lightyears for gameplay.
Sector: A sector could be handled in one of two ways. 1. It could be a predefined measurement in the game consisting of say 100 square parsecs. 2. It could be player defined on their tactical map (something that I'm actually in favor of.

Take this idea another step and say that anything that is not a physical constant in the game can be player defined.

Keep the game open ended. Provide a basic physical structure for the players to customize (beyond mods - allow in game changes to government, say, or to policies. Allow players to set up abstracts like puppet governments that have a certain amount of autonomy but are ultimately controled by the player, but eventually can break away - but that doesn't mean they do.

Other thoughts:

[edit] I keep forgetting this: CREWS FOR THE SHIPS with a nameable character* Captain.

Governors characters (I think I mentioned this in my Last post, don't recall): Allow for the governmental figures to be characters that are personality driven with their own agendas who can be appointed, fired, assinated, defect or rebel.

*Names for characters can be taken directly from a pregame generated language file for the player/race.
--- [end edit]---

Allow for racial development based on the planet's physical characteristics, which influence evolution. For example, things to take into account would be the type of star -- how much radiation is the planet getting based on how close it is to its primary. If the planet is outside the biozone - the area that is far enough from the star for water not to evaporate, but close enough for it not to freeze, variable by star type - closer for cooler type K and M, further out for G and F stars - it's simply not going to develop life.

Give planets classification types based on physical characteristic. I can provide an extensive typing chart if needed/wanted. For example:
Class A: Asteroid
Class M: Mulitple Climate Rocky world.
Class J: Jovian World
Class C: Cold Rocky World
Class I: Ice World -- which, btw, would technically be a frozen water world. And, why the hell can't I colonize a frozen world if I can colonize a rocky one? Where is the logic in that?.

And so on. There are more that can be further defined.

Has anyone here played Marc Miller's RPG Traveller? I did a lot back in the day. They had a very elegant and very simple method of keeping track of literally TONS of data. They used a method call the "UPP", which was the Universal Planetary Profile. It used the same basic structurre as their character profiles. So, for instance a world listing would look thus:

Vland 0307-A967A9A-F
After the name, the first four digits where the location in the subsector of planet. Each of the following digits corresponded to a chart outlining what that classification meant. So, fter the dash would be listed, in order:
A: Starport Classification - A being best
9: planetary size - 9 was larger - earth was 7
6: Atmosphere
7: Hydrographics - in this case, literally 70%
A: Population level - in this case, billions - you could go from tens of individuals to 10's of billions on a planet.
9: Government Type -- They had *so many* different types of governments it was unbelievable, including everything from corporate, clans, hive, democracies, republics, dictatorships, etc. But they wheren't just labels. They directly affected the given planet with +'s and -'s.
A: Law Level: potentially impractical for strategic game play, but interesting to note.
F: Tech level. -- Each world had a local technology level dictated by a crossreference of it's population level, starport classification, government and lawlevel. An intersting note I'd like to see carried over. Just because you know how to build something doesn't mean you *CAN*.

Also usually included after the tech level would be trade codes - what was available locally. For example, some of the basic trade classifications for planets were:

Agriculture
Asteroid Belt
Barren World (no one there, produces nothing)
Desert World (0%-10% Hydro rating)
Water World
High population
Ice Capped
Industrial
Low Population
Non-Ag
Non-Industrial
Poor - essentially a third world environment
Rich
Vacuum World - no atmosphere

There were further specific trade goods that were availble, but I think that goes beyond the scope here for the moment.

That said, I'm not suggesting that you rip Traveller for game mechanics, but I am suggesting that we use a model similar to theirs because it worked very, very well.

Digressing back to 10,000 systems for a moment from my previous post - before I found SEIV I played a game called XPACE. You could literally go up to 10,000's of star systems, with planets. It was huge. Epic, as a matter of fact. I loved it. Unfortunately, my computer was old and crashed and killed the program. I've not been able to find a replacement copy. My point is I know it can work because I've seen it done.

One way that the volume of stars could be handled is not to generate the stats until the player visits the system. So you've got the basic top level information such a location and spectral type, but nothing beyond that until someone goes there.

---

Okay, enough for the moment. I've got to get to work. There will be more, I'm sure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Cheers,
~Shane

[ July 26, 2004, 16:17: Message edited by: Shane Watson ]

Colonel

July 27th, 2004, 06:04 PM

I don't think this has been mentioned, Have Pre Space Flight Planets that can Randomly evolve into a space fligt planets .

In order to commuciate with them you would have to enter orbit of the planet. You could advance them with your technolgy tooo

This would be good with this idea of, There was one of these planets behind enemy lines and if you got a ship to this planet you could give them technolgy if they agreed to attack the enemy.

Next with the idea of getting rid of warp points, I would say keep some of them but you need more advanced tech to discover them but they wouldnt connecting sectors but rather be out anywhere but they would be rare and connect far sides of the map\Galaxy.
As for the Size of Sectors keep the same with a grid line showing them.

Also someone mentioned being able to rename sectors---heres my thought (sorry if its been mentioned) Have an underlined name you cant see so it would be digits so that coorinites wouldnt get messed up so you wouldnt even know that the name was even there and you could name it BUT you could only name it if you were the first or conquered it unless no planets were there in that case you would need to build something there to rename it..

THats my idea

Suicide Junkie

July 27th, 2004, 07:37 PM

I hope to see some sort of "export to video" option, and the player written movies that will inevitably be created from that.

Spectarofdeath

July 27th, 2004, 10:11 PM

Race Specific buildings that can give you a bonus, and some kind of commodities that can be sold that can give bonuses.

Antonin

July 28th, 2004, 12:12 AM

Originally posted by Shane Watson:
This is I would like to see in the new game:

First: Keep it turn based. If you go real time the game will lose a great deal of it's appeal. Real time games are fine for shoot'em ups for kids. But I like to think that SEIV/V has a little more going for it than that.Absolutely. Please, let's not have SE become a kiddie game.

Originally posted by Shane Watson:
Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. .Again, yes.

Originally posted by Shane Watson:
A functioning economic model that includes resources that you can actually use, combine to create new resources and trade. Manufactured trade goods. Raidable (and displayed) trade lanes. Trade ships. trade centers. Something to do while you are building your empire other than blow something up. I've longed for a deeper economic model since I began playing SE4.

Originally posted by Shane Watson:
The ability to elect or appoint named governors with individual characteristics and personalities that are randomly generated. Absolutely. If I'm an emperor, let me appoint and dismiss governors.

Originally posted by Shane Watson:
Don't overkill the graphics eyecandy - I'm sick of games that look like they were geared towards 12 year olds. Use realistic graphics for ships and planets, but keep them small and to the point.I agree 100%. If the screen shots for SE5 look like the game is descending into cuteness, I won't buy it.

You and I have many of the same ideas on how we want SE5 to look. Unfortunately, I doubt that much of what we want will ever make it into the game. Computer game designers these days invariably choose to aim their product at the teenybop market.

Gandalf Parker

July 28th, 2004, 12:59 AM

I have no problem with developers wanting to do a real-time game. But there are too few good PbEM games for me not to cringe at the idea of turning one into a real-time arcade game. Let the Xbox people cover that territory. The possible improvements to SEIV is still a fertile area without trying to cross genres. IMHO

Phoenix-D

July 28th, 2004, 01:13 AM

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I have no problem with developers wanting to do a real-time game. But there are too few good PbEM games for me not to cringe at the idea of turning one into a real-time arcade game. Let the Xbox people cover that territory. The possible improvements to SEIV is still a fertile area without trying to cross genres. IMHO No one is talking about a real time main screen, just real time combat. For PBEM play that would be 100% IRRELEVENT, as you don't (can't) use tactical combat anyway.

Suicide Junkie

July 28th, 2004, 03:18 AM

Although the main screen would be rendered real time and in 3D, that's for zooming in on planets when you click 'em and showing the ships in orbit and all that good stuff.

Definitely turn based, still. Just real time eye candy.

Renegade 13

July 28th, 2004, 04:19 AM

Originally posted by Antonin:
Computer game designers these days invariably choose to aim their product at the teenybop market. I don't think that will be the case for SEV. Look at the people who visit these forums...most are in their 20's, 30's, or even 40's. Turn based strategy games invariably appeal to those who want to actually have to think a little bit to play the game. If Malfador went for the "teenybop market" they would lose the niche they have found here, and the game would sell very few copies, due to the fact that it probably won't be very well known to your average gamer.

Fyron

July 28th, 2004, 05:48 AM

Unfortunately, I doubt that much of what we want will ever make it into the game. Computer game designers these days invariably choose to aim their product at the teenybop market. Malfador Machinitions is not in any way, shape, or form like big name game developers. They actually listen to the fans, and consistently implement fan-submitted suggestions into their games. Assuming they are practical, your suggestions have a fairly good chance of making it into SE5, especially if other people request similar features.

I can practically gaurantee you that SE5 will not be aimed at the "teenybop" market. That would drive away 99% of SE4's fanbase, which would ruin MM.

Paul1980au

July 28th, 2004, 09:06 AM

MM are doing what they do best - making SE5 the best game possible - and im sure with the quality and diversification and feedback of the older 20+ fan market it will be one of the best 4x space games out there that isnt real time but turn based strategy.

Cheeze

July 28th, 2004, 03:19 PM

Originally posted by Paul1980au:
How about a berkerser warrior class - offense, defense and building increase BUT

Lowering of research, intel, resource gathering and perhaps limits on special racial abiilties. How is a beserker race not already a warrior race? What else would they be beserk about, organic farming? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The beserker should take a penalty to defense because they obtain a great offensive bonus. That is their defense...that they will hit a bit more often and an opponent may not be in any shape to hit back effectively.

Colonel

July 28th, 2004, 04:25 PM

This idea goes along with getting rid of wormholes for the most part-keep a few-and createing vast open sectors

How about a nebule or spacial storm that spans a couple sectors and they would be like nebule in SEIV

Black Holes that can effect sectors around them but less effective the farther away you get untill its so far where there is no effect

Different idea, if you capture a planet without destroying it you start occupying the planet and there is a chance that they can revolt and become a new independant planet or rejoin there orginal culture, and if you move out\or kill off 50% of the population then the planet becomes part of you culture------Occupation

[ July 28, 2004, 17:04: Message edited by: Colonel ]

Gozra

July 28th, 2004, 06:29 PM

I would like to reply to Shane Watson. I like all of your Ideas. I am in a game Last Man Standing. I have over 1080 planets in 90 systems and 3500 ships and 500+ space yards. It takes 2-3 hours per turn just to get it all done. I think this is the biggest problem in any 4e game you get so big that the tools you use to manage a 10 system empire are inadaquate for 90 system or even 25 or so. I think the biggest acheivement would be to fix the ministers so that you can design them to work for you. And reduce the emperors admin time.

Colonel

July 28th, 2004, 08:23 PM

Minor add to my Last post

In SEIV at the start you can choose to only be able to colinize home planet type and breathable atomshere i think you should make another option of being able to colinze moons so you would have a third choose mainly i want this because i always put both options on and that annoys me playing and haveing useless moons

HAve the ability to capture a ship and steal the componets off them so say you didnt have cloacking technolgy and you captured a ship you could retrofit a cloak on a normal ship

EDIT:Have a weapons Trade between empires that would going along trade routes and can be raided and with this weapons trade it would give some sort of offensive and defensive bonus to both empires, and if a ship raids one of those lines then that ship gets a offensive bonus to represent that they got weapons from raiding

Have empires that are complete traders and will never make aggresive moves but still able to defend themsleves

[ July 28, 2004, 22:31: Message edited by: Colonel ]

Shane Watson

July 29th, 2004, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by Gozra:
I would like to reply to Shane Watson. I like all of your Ideas. I am in a game Last Man Standing. I have over 1080 planets in 90 systems and 3500 ships and 500+ space yards. It takes 2-3 hours per turn just to get it all done. I think this is the biggest problem in any 4e game you get so big that the tools you use to manage a 10 system empire are inadaquate for 90 system or even 25 or so. I think the biggest acheivement would be to fix the ministers so that you can design them to work for you. And reduce the emperors admin time. hey Gorza, I've been in that position haha.

Right. The way around this imho is the use of governors. Right now, the way the game is set up you have ministers that are, well, to put it delicately, stupid.

Ideally, you would be able to set policy and let them work it out for themselves - but there-in lies the catch. If my suggestion is implimented, say, these guys are not only going to have a personality, but their own ideas (believe it or not, I've thought an easy way of pulling this off based off of Briggs-Meyer persoanlity typing of all things) and motives. So unless you are tight with your govenors, which in larger games is going to ultimately be impossible, someone would get miffed and start trouble.

So now, you've not only got trouble on the frontier from the pesky aliens who's territory you are moving into, and some of the core systems are starting to slump economically, you've got a govenor starting crap for you in some of the outer colonies.

Do you fire him? And appoint someone else? Is the planet under self rule, or direct Imperial control? What would be the fall out if he is removed? Would it ultimately make more political sense just to off the SOB as a reminder to other governors to stay in line? Would that ultimately back fire if the planet in question found out you had them assassinated or executed and would they lead a rebellion against you for being an overbearing dictator?

Better beef up the local garrison of Imperial Marines just in case...

More later.
Cheers,
~Shane

Antonin

July 29th, 2004, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Malfador Machinitions is not in any way, shape, or form like big name game developers. They actually listen to the fans, and consistently implement fan-submitted suggestions into their games. Assuming they are practical, your suggestions have a fairly good chance of making it into SE5, especially if other people request similar features.

I can practically gaurantee you that SE5 will not be aimed at the "teenybop" market. That would drive away 99% of SE4's fanbase, which would ruin MM. I hope you're right. But I've been playing computer games for a long time--I'm in my late 40s--and have found that there are fewer and fewer games each year for people like me who are not interested in "shoot stuff, blow stuff up, make huge pretty explosions."

Most games I see in the stores today--the few that still carry computer games--are for the instant gratification, short-attention-span, pretty-picture crowd. I've watched several game franchises sink down to that level.

I have not read all the Posts in this thread, but I'm sure there are several that say "SE4 is lame! SE4 is boring! What SE5 REALLY NEEDS is, like, a 3D engine, d00d!!!" Or words to that effect.

Me, I would love to have more commodities, better diplomacy, governors of varying degrees of competence that I could name (the same way I can name ships) and appoint and fire, etc etc. I like micromanagement, but sometimes I would like to give broad powers to a governor. Assign a number of planets to him/her/it.

You know what I'm talking about. I want to be Cleon II (Asimov's Foundation series), or the Emperor in Dune. Don't you?

I have always dreamed of a computer game that was a complete but very customizable empire/government simulator. SE4 is the closest anybody has ever come. It's a game that will never leave my hard drive.