A favor...
 

We are looking at an interesting, very interesting, project. What I need from the SEIV crowd, is a list of what you liked and disliked about SEIV.

Is that enough info?

Thanks.

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Actually the ORIGINAL out-of-the-box SEIV felt like a demo.
But what it became was fantastic. The players mods took it from 8 to over 300 empires (different types, ship sets, etc). Player mods extended the artwork. Player mods took it from a small universe to many times larger and added many map variations. The AI was modified.

But the game internals were great. And I think the reason I loved it is the same as my love of Dominions 3 and many other games. The start-game parameters were extensive. And the empire-settings were many and varied. All of this added up to a LONG LONG time exploring all of the possible variations. Lots of replay.

Oh and I like turn-based also.

Gandalf Parker

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Likes:

Ease of modability
2d graphics is fine
Not needing any 3d graphics experience

Dislikes:

Use .png instead of .bmp files
SE IV needs facility limits one per planet/system/player/game.
-needs leaders like MoO2
-needs to have way more than 255 systems (more like 1000+)
-needs more than 20 AI players
-races/abilities that only the AI can control.
-Map like Borth of the Federation. Click on star on galaxy map which will display planets.

More thoughts later...

GB

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Apologies for double post...

-invasion of new race by random event
-conversion of enemy of friendly population to X resource as a special ability
-more abilities than listed in abilities.txt. Add abilities tag one (or x number) per planet, system, player, or one (or x) per game.
-Add money to game (keeping minerals, organics, and rads).

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What I missed in SE IV was more possibilities to modify the AI performance. That is much better in SE V.
Second the combat was very unfair: first all defender ships fired before any of the attackers could make a single shot.
I missed a little bit the possibility to change the size of solar systems. In general more modding possibilities would be great for SE IV.
I liked very much the low computer power SE IV needed and was absolutely satisfied with the graphics!
I liked very much the huge number of ship sets available.

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Two more things I liked in SE IV:
1.) Race characteristics setup by percents.
2.) Specific targeted intel projects. What I missed there were specific success chances for different intel projects, that would be modified by counter intel, race characteristic, defence facilities between 1 and 99%.

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No? More details, pls. :popcorn:

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Well, I'm getting some of what I wanted. This is good. Don't stop now. I guess what I am looking for, is if you could ask for SEIV 1/2 (not SEV) what would you want to see in there that isn't and what would you not be willing to live without?

Regards,

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One basic request.
I know that some programmers have abit of a godhood complex (Ive admined some of those). But hopefully you have one that can recognize their limitations. Basically, ANYTHING the programmer feels is not their best area, rather than leave it short please consider opening it up for player additions. Whether that is content, graphics, sound, documentation, events, whatever. And I would rather see a game go with open or older formats even if it lessens the games features.

Also I want to put a note in for Linux. For a player base of course it goes Windows, Mac, then linux. But if this game has multiplayer capabilities please consider at LEAST a non-gui command-line switch heavy version of a host program on linux. I feel it vastly increases servers.

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Not give up?
Hmmm... I guess part of what keeps me coming back to SEIV is its friendliness on my computer. Ive bought lots of the newest greatest games since then but they tend to want to take over the machine. All of the cpu, all of the memory, change the graphics mode, full screen only, take over the speaker settings, slow to load, wont drop to the taskbar quickly, wont come back quickly. Generally rather obnoxious and making it hard to split my day between work then game then some chores then some game then check email and back to the game. The fancy graphics, sound, features I get with new games are nice but SEIV fills a niche that keeps me coming back. Of course those features also mean it runs on any old machine and portables.

I have a number of games that are very old and just will not die on my machines. They are part of an initial load to every new computer. And things they have in common are extensive game setup but then its fast in, do a couple turns, drop out. That fits the way I do my day.

Oh and I dont mind long hosting times if it provides better game (such as larger maps and better AI). Even better if its a game-setting option for those who prefer faster hosting for small MP games. Long hosting times make sure I remember to take care of things in the real world.

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More abilities to finetune the AI. Something like scripted events. For example, if you encounter this schemer race then replace everything from research slot #2 on with counter intel. Or if you count more than 10 mines, focus on minesweeping. Scriptable special attacks like planet invasions, blockades.

Programming the AI could be more user-friendly and intuitive.

More than 255 Systems maps.

Better AI use of training facilities and other planet-wide facilities. Or change them to system-wide if the AI is unwilling to park their fleets over training facilities (and similar facs).

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I'm surprises Fyron or SJ haven't spoken up. they have modded enough to know most of the guts of this game.

One that comes to mind is ship/fleet experience. ATM it is completely hard-coded. Being able to mod what happens at what experience level would be very nice.

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This doesn't have anything to do with an open-source project started by Ken Musante, does it? "SE4.5" is his codename for the project, until we can come up with a better name... and I never heard anything about his contacting you!

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Additive modifiers must be purged.
50% and 50% should equal 75% (or 25%) not 100%.

The additive XP scheme is the one thing that sticks out with a sharp and unfixable point to me. All the rest of the additive stuff I was able to fix with mods, external apps and social rules, but +50/+50 hardcoded to an entire fleet kills the game after a few hundred turns.

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Even at the risk of repeating myself:
The one thing that stopped me playing SE IV and changing to SE V was the AI. At a certain point of the game, when the AI could, especially in the team mode, still easily defeat the human player, it gets extremely passive and leaves all initiative to the human player. And there is absolutely no possibility to change this. In SE IV you have no modding possibilities of the AI fleet composition, attack locations, attack frequencies, colonization orders, facilitiy manangement. This is the main improvement IMO in SE V and would be the decisive factor for me to buy any SE 4.5.

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Intelligence is broken. I don't know how to fix it, but it is very broken.

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Just a pet peeve, but no mini-portrait conglomo-bitmaps please!!! :P (Components.bmp, Facilities.bmp, Planets.bmp, etc.)

I HATED those things - in order to add any graphics to the game, once you had your nice graphics made, you had to shrink them down to 36x36 or whatever and line them up JUST RIGHT on the grid... and since they were indexed by numeric ID's, not by filenames, that just made things even more confusing... :mad:

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I agree with Ed. Change the BMP's to JPG and save space in files. One picture should be scaled down by the program as needed. They do this in other games, no need for different sized pics. One pic does it all. After all, how many times must you hear that the "glitzy" graphics do not make the game.

MAKE SURE that all formats relating to already useable mod work remains. Do not go and change all the file formats to an unusable one, say like .x!!!

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No JPG! Use PNG for lossless compression. With JPG, you cannot re-mod graphics (without original lossless sources), since every save adds more distortion and destroys more color data. Not so noticeable in massive photograph files, but it is a huge detriment to any low resolution file. As a web developer, I've run across these problems way too many times!

The data file format is absolutely atrocious. It would be really easy to write a conversion script to reformat old mod data to a newer, saner format (like XML), so don't let that be any excuse!

We've already posted way too many things in the various SE5 wishlist and feature improvement threads. Concerned parties should go read those!

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Haven't played SE4 in a very long time, but it was always enjoyable where the replacement, to me, is not.

SE4 appeared to have many limitations based on size of variables.... 256 (8 bit) for example. Design the new version with larger integers! There is no reason to allow max array size to drastically limit, for example, the number of systems or planets or ships or mines.

Please don't go towards real-time strategy... hate that. Cool graphics and a combat replay might be nice once in awhile, but I prefer real time strategy to hold my attention because of the mental challenge, not because it is a click-fest.

A slightly better model of who shoots first in the tactical turn based environment, where defender gets advantage in places like warp point defense but attacker gets advantage in battle-line situations. Perhaps a weighed initiative system like the old X-Com used?

Mostly make sure it works on most machines - I could never get over the horrible frame rate of SE5.. it is just too painful to play.

Steve

Re: A favor...
 

I wonder if Mr. Brooks found what he was looking for.

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I like that SE IV was modifiable.

Game play I enjoyed the detail and many control options that allowed for an in depth style of game play that both inspired and excited me.

I liked that we could design our own ships, bases, fighters, satellites, mines, weapons platforms, and troops by choosing our own components.

I like that there were planet ans system restrictions available for facilities.

I would have enjoyed the option to lay out my planet surfaces and put my facilities where I wanted too though.

I would have enjoyed the ability to set a facility, component, ship or anything in the game to one per empire.

I like the simple way the GUI worked. The lay out, albeit dated, had been laid out in such a way that it was easy to maneuver and understand.

I did not like the all blue GUI color though. Depressing.

I like how the system map was the primary focus with a galaxy map being the minor focus.

I would have enjoyed the option to have more than one galaxy open to exploration.

I liked how the ships worked. It would have been better if they were true 3d top down views that were scalable though. This way we could get a real feel for the size of a ships, bases, fighters.

I like the top down combat but felt that again, 3d models, scaled to size would have been better.

I like the mineral, organics, and radioactive production system for the game but wanted more options for economy, population growth, and planetary ecology.

I wanted to see populations react to planet conditions, effecting revenue and production.

I did not like the political system of SE IV. SE V's is much more involved.

I like the tech tree concept of SE IV. The sky was the limit.

I did not really like the INTEL system.

The game needed special resources, wonders, and 3d planets that rotated.

I liked the scale of the GUI system view. I like how when I clicked on a planet I got good useful information about that planet and what was on it, around, and being built on it.

There were a lot of really great ideas implemented in SE V that might have a better bearing on this topic than not.

Task Forces,
Political system
3d planets and ship combat -
ground combat
obsolete hulls
etc

Re: A favor...
 

1. The ability to set one per empire limitations on facilities, components, ship hulls, etc.
2. Raise the 255 limit on mounts to infinity or higher
3. Raise the limits for star systems, ships, mines, satellites, etc to infinity. Let the player decide the limit from 0 to no limits.
4. AI improvements that prevent the AI from cheating its way past restictions that human players must abide by. Restrictions for components on ships.
5. The ability to SET specifically what component the AI must have on its ships as primary, secondary, alternate, and open.
6. The ability to SET out own name for our own home system from game start.
7. The ability to set our starting facilities for the AI and humans. What each player starts with based upon their race.
8. More options for Mini / Max
9. A political system that works.
10. Rare resources like metals, ores, gems, etc.
11. Unlimited options for minor races to inhabit uncolonized worlds. Right now that limit is 20. I'd like to see planets inhabitted with primative species that can be exploited, enslaved, rebel, slaughtered, etc.
12. Planet conditions that affect population growth and production.
13. A real economic system that can be turned on and off depending upon players choice.
14. A real trade system. Establish a trade with another race, planet, must build transports as needed.
15. GROUND COMBAT that looks good and is effective.
16. WONDERS. Players should have the option to build unique wonders.
17. Characters - The ability to add characters or not.
18. Rotating planets.
19. More than one galaxy. Make the galaxy frigging huge too. 10,000 star systems with 100,000 of thousands of planets, moons, etc each. Make it epic.
20. Options like star gates - must be placed or built on planets and will allow small amounts of troops and such to pass between the planets via the network. Space Gates, built in orbit that allow for larger cargo to be transported, like fighters, small ships. FTL drive, Hyperspace drive, Dimension drive (For traveling to other galaxies.) Wormholes, warp points (Natural and artificially made).
21. The ability to mine black holes for rare resources needed to build large scale artificial warp point, wormhole, and dimension drive gates.
22. The option to have build slots both on the planet and in orbit over the planet.
23. The ability to have different types of build yards. Ship building, troop building, fighter construction, etc. Currently they are all linked and the expansion yard exploit must be used to simulate this effect. I want to see the ability were we can say that TROOPS are build or trained at this facility, ships and what not here, and armor or fighters or other here or there. A code or special modifier that we can use to lock an item to a facility.
24. The ability to set more than one weapons type damage to one weapon. Damages both shields and weapons. Targets both engines and weapons. Etc.
25. The ability to mine nebula for resources.
26. The ability to set the size of the image to be used manually. IE, 36x36, or 64x64 depending upon what it is the size calls for. This way (non 3d) ships, bases, etc can have scale.
27. The ability to set one per empire limits on everything from facilities to components. - very important
28. The ability to obsolete a hull. Destroyer Hull 1, Destroyer Hull 2. When 2 becomes available, then you can obsolete 1.
29. The options to player specific intel mission types via characters or scenarios. Send This hero to fight uprising or insight uprising.
30. A true Intel and counter Intel system. Intel shouldn't be just driven by the number of intel facilities you have. It should require the need for income based mission limitations. You need X amount of money to run this mission with spies in this range to perform the task. The ability to designate X amount of intel points to counter intel operations or offensive intel operations.

Re: A favor...
 

I like the Mods that were available for the game. Especially the TDM modpack, and some of the others... I would like to see all the races from the TDM modpack and the one with the monsters (can't think of the name right now UGH) ... also the star trek ones, but i would guess the star trek ones could have some patent problems to get them....

More races and blood thirsty, tough AI players and for the AI to build the larger type ships like some of those do in TDM etc, also carriers like SJs carrier mods....

AND, a good ground combat system on the order of the old Star General game.

Re: A favor...
 

Still finding it. Thanks for asking. We are trying to compile this into some orderly fashion... We will continue to monitor this thread. Any questions for me?

Yep. Three questions and two suggestions:

1) With the ideas gathered here and other ideas, is Shrapnel actually going to develop SE 4.5 (I guess Shrapnel has the legal rights)?

2) Barring complications, could this product be out by Christmas 2010-2011?

3) Will you let us know when you will stop taking ideas en masse (when the code gets 'nailed down')?

Suggestion One: Diplomatic affinities (moddable) at beginning of game. Example: Race X likes race Y but hates race Z at beginning, but can change as the game progresses...

Suggestion Two: Ability to determine home system and planet in aigeneral.txt

Just my .02

GB

Re: A favor...
 

Less bloated, more secure turnfiles!

That is, instead of sending all players everything in the game every turn and relying on the client to filter out stuff that the player can't see, create an individualized savegame for each player with only that stuff IN it in the first place! This would save lots of bandwidth and eliminate even the remotest possibility of cheating!

Also, integrated PBW support and working TCP/IP play :D

edit: oh, along with that, how about sane combat replays which can be calculated client-side... don't save the position of EVERY bullet 20 times per second in the savegame!!! :mad: OK, that's a SE5 thing, not SE4, but I suspect SE4 worked the same way and we just never noticed because of the granular nature of turn-based combat as opposed to real-time!

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Yea, Tim. I was wondering if the hot redhead in the red dress :o from the "Dom 3" ad works for Shrapnel? And if she does, how in the world do you get any work done over there!!!!!!!! :D


:doh: Savor the moment....

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Three small items I would like to see:

1.) Hexes instead of squares for the system map.
2.) Possibility of objects to occupy more than one field (sphere worlds).

But keep the possibility to have one planet and nine moons in the same field without any graphics flickering as in SE V.

3.) Retain partial damage of components, units, facilities after the end of combat and make repair work on kT per turn not on components per turn.

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This is a big one for me... I'd like to see Tactical ground combat and ground units like space faring units... different weapons / damage types etc.

And intelligence seems way too much to me.... I mean how do spys from one race really steal info from others? They might not even breathe the same atmosphere let alone look even vaguely similar... Not really a good option for sneaking around is it?

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Don't let petty realism get in the way of game mechanics.

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I agree 100% with that!

Regarding intel: the general concept in SE IV is quite good IMO, at least much better than in SE V. The problem ist the all or nothing effect. As long as counter intel is sufficient you are 100% protected, once your counter intel is depleted you are 100% exposed. My idea is to give any intel project an basic chance of success/failure that is only modified by counter intel (or other factors). Even in the complete absence of counter intel a ship rebellion would not always succeed. Even with tons of counter intel it might sometimes be successful but only seldom.

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Another suggestion...get rid of the circles as system on the galaxy map. Replace it with a grid (which can be toggled on/off) and stars (and other features as needed) instead of circles. Much more aesthetically pleasing without hogging resources.

GB

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Actually Mac, the best part of SG is the ground combat.

Your trying to create two games in one. While I agree that the ability to design your own ground units should be accompanied by a playable sytem. The stats for xp's and rank really aren't needed. Artillery and air units will just over complicate the system and require more time on the user part to finish battles. Not to mention the AI resources added to the program to run the AI controled races. Some simple combat system where you can just watch your units roll over some enemies 'or not' would be nice.

Cosmic Balance used a system where you could fight your battles in Breach 3 and import your results into the game. If you didn't want to go that route, the game would just use some simple algorithms to resolve it.

An idea for a game add on!

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To go along with that;
- An open PLR/orders format.
That way, people can write their own AIs which act just like real players.

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The solo-play drastically needed some repair as far as smarter trading with AIs. I would have enjoyed it far longer if I hadnt figured out that I could trade and get the ability to colonize all world types. And even get an AI to give me their homeworld. Ive gotten AIs to trade me their ONLY planet which immeadiately created the message that they were dead in the game.

Re: A favor...
 

Not really. We don't own the code to any of our games. We partner with our developers. This is a game that will be more like SEIV than SEV, but will be its own game engine. This is a joint project -- more on that once everything legal is in place.

Really just too early to tell. Once everything is in place we will have a better idea on this. Of course, we plan on this not being put out until the beta testers say it is ready.

Definitely.

;)

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Good luck with that...

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Just a point mention was made that pictures could be any size & program could scale. Take care here not so important unless textures & 3D but big files increase game overheads which has been stated as a plus of the game, so bitmaps are a no as large files to start with. Any spare memory can be freed up for use by the AI as what makes or breaks many games is the AIs capabilities.

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I would loved to see added:

Ground Combat, it's something I've always felt is missing from SEIV, hell, any 4X game. If you do make a 4X, the addition of ground combat would make me a happy bunny.

Also,
Leaders, (with rudiamentary stats at least) who would step in when you hit that Autoresolve button, for good or bad. Would be nice if they just care of themselves, but you could move them around if you had a better place for them (leading this task force or that diplomatic mission).

Expand the max Universe size, I would love a game with 1000s of stars.

Expand the Solar system size. I liked how you could expand the sizes of the solar systems in SEV (by modding), made scanner ranges and cloaking more important, playing cat and mouse with fleets and forcing design and use of scouts.

Also, one of the best thing about Space Empires is it's just so moddable, we see spectacular stuff from the community, vastly extending the game life, and sales - I have a friend who recently bought SEIV just to play Atrocities Star Trek mod.

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AST mod, good choice! :cool: Then you'll just love the new SE4.5... ;)

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Wow! I'm really anxious to see/read what Shrapnel is cooking.
I've read this whole thread and couldn't find these suggestions/wishes (of course I might have missed it... brewski...):

- Warppoints whit a working weight limit
- Traveltime between warppoints (in stock SE IV traveltime between two warppoints would be zero)

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Ehh... have I just zombified this thread? :D

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I think it was slowing on its own. Most of the opinions seem to have been given unless Tim Brooks spurs again. Maybe a specific direction.

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Yeah, you're right Gandalf.
But another wish comes to mind:

- Firing arcs (shield arcs?)

Perhaps my namesake can give us some more info about this intersting mysterious project? :angel

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Sorry, but firing arcs, directional shields and armor would be for me a reason not to buy this game: to much micromanagement and the AI would be almost certainly incapable to deal with it.

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The same reasoning applies to overcomplicated ground combat.

You've got to limit the scope of scales you're dealing with, and not go overboard.

You could have SE4 style with the focus on grand strategy and the combats automated, and the capturing simple.
Or you could have a game focused on combats where the grand strategy is simple automated territory changes based on who wins each round, and the players run a series of fleet battles against each other with boarding and captures being detailed but automatic.
Or a similar ground combat game where the space battle is automated and you can call on reinforcements if your team is winning in space (at the expense of distracting from the space fight).

Trying to do all three of those games in one would make SE5's turn processing look like a blink of the eye.

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Hmm... okay, scratch firing arcs. It's no use have a AI that can't cope with certain options. :o
But I do hope my first two wishes are endorsed.

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Yes, this project will hereby be known as SEX. Were going to skip to ten rather then go to 6 as SEX looks better than SEVI. :D

OR

SE Project X ' The Return of the Icon' :D