Non A.I. issues for upcoming patch

[Q]

1.) I think master computer can very well be corrupted by intelligence operations e.g. with a computer virus program. So I would not change that. I agree that the crew insurrection is at the moment to powerful, but if you increase it to level 4 intelligence operation there will be absolutely no defence against it at the moment because you only have counter intelligence level 3! I would prefer specific counter measures like a special loyalty component for ships and facility for planets. These components or facilities would greatly diminish the chance of a successful enemy take over of the ship or the planet by intelligence operations. The component or facility would however be expensive, so you would reasonably install it only on the most important ships and planets. Unfortunately I have not figured out, how to create this. I am not even sure that it can be done at the moment.

[Atrocities]

If at all possibable, could MM please add a feature to the game that alows the TURNS to process automatically after a set amount of time in SINGLE PLAYER mode. Let the player determine the time that they would like the turn to process at. I.E. 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc.

ORBITAL RESEARCH FACILITIES. Please consider designing a component that can be placed onto StarBase (2000kt weight) that would add a bonus to research within a system.

A feature that would display the type and amount of ships an enemy fleet has so that the player can determine if they WISH to engage the enemy. (In other words, when it says "Enemy ships in that sector. Do you wish to enter" Have a feature that allows the player to see how many and of what type of ship the enemy has in that sector so they can determine if its prudent to enter.)

I have not found this feature in the game, but if it exsisits, please forgive me.

I would like a SCRAP ALL FACILITIES OF THIS TYPE feature. So that when your research reaches a certain point, and you no longer need "X" building on your planets, you can scrap them all at the same time. (For example. When I max out on research, that is I have researched everything, I would like the ability to scrap ALL research facilities throught my empire on all of my planets at the sametime.)

The reverse would be, BUILD THIS FACILITY on every planet feature. In other words, you have a ton of non breathable atmospheres, and you want to start converting them one that your people can breath, you simply use this feature to mass build Atmospheric converts on all planets that you inhabit that are not your type. (Provided you have an open building space available)

Add a few things to the RANDOM events. Such as PIRATES, and ROUGE FACTIONS. Say you have a system that does not have any ships in it. To me, if I was a pirate or a rouge, that system would become ripe for the plucking.

A way, if at all possible, to set the TECH level of EACH empire at the set up screen. So if you want a few AI players to be advanced tech, and you beginning tech, you can set the game up that way.

More Single Planet Neutral players. I would love to enter a system, and fine that at least one planet has life on it. Now expand that to say 20% of the game galaxy having one or more planets with neutrals on them. You can establish trade, peace packs, conqure them, or just leave them alone. Right now, the neutral players are few and far between, and in a galaxy with 250 systems, it would be nice to have a ton of neutral AI races. (ONE planet up to ONE system)

These are just some of the features I would love to see added to up coming patches. Thanks for your time.

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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards

[This message has been edited by Atrocities (edited 14 January 2001).]

[SirDarwin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
More Single Planet Neutral players. I would love to enter a system, and fine that at least one planet has life on it. Now expand that to say 20% of the game galaxy having one or more planets with neutrals on them. You can establish trade, peace packs, conqure them, or just leave them alone. Right now, the neutral players are few and far between, and in a galaxy with 250 systems, it would be nice to have a ton of neutral AI races. (ONE planet up to ONE system)

These are just some of the features I would love to see added to up coming patches. Thanks for your time.

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Yes seeing more neutral little empires spread through out the galaxy would defenitly be cool, providing a variable in the settings file for the percentage of systems with life would be a nice touch.

[Barnacle Bill]

>I would prefer specific counter measures
>like a special loyalty component for ships
>and facility for planets.

The Political Officer component and Secret Police Station facility?

Seriously, there should also be a "Psychic Shield" component a la Traveller to counter the loyalty subverter weapon.

>a feature to the game that alows the TURNS
>to process automatically after a set amount
>of time in SINGLE PLAYER mode

Does this mean your turn would automatically end after some real-world time interval? I would HATE that! If you mean a time limit on turns generally, sometimes there is just a lot of micromanagement to do. For example, the turn you discover atmosphere converters you have to hit every domed planet in your empire to add it to the que, often having to scrap an existing facility to make room. If you mean the turn ends automatically after a certain period of no activity on my part, well with a wife & kid I often have to walk away without warning and can't get back for hours. I don't want to find the game has gone on without me when I get back!

>A feature that would display the type and
>amount of ships an enemy fleet has so that
>the player can determine if they WISH to
>engage the enemy.

You have this today, except for going through a warp point when you have no ships or colonies in the system on the other side (in which case you SHOULD be subject to a surprise). Stop one square short of the enemy fleet in question, then left on it. You will see the ships listed by name (for AI ships or human ships that have not been manually renamed, that will be class name & "hull number"). Right clicking on any one of them reveals its class (useful if it has been renamed), hull type (destoyer, etc...) and hull size in ktons. Actually, that works regardless of range as long as you have something in the same system that can "see" the contents of the system. If you have a ship with long range scanners that is within long-range scanner range of the enemy fleet, you get all sorts of additional details when you right click, like how much damage it has, the ability to look at its components to see what they are & which are damaged, etc... So, you can look before you leap.

>SCRAP ALL FACILITIES OF THIS TYPE feature

This already exists as well. Bring up the Colonies screen (left click on the icon of the white dome on a green base near the upper left corner of the screen). On the menu forming the right side of the Colony screen is a button labelled "Scrap Facil Types". You can scrap every example of a given facility empire-wide with this. It won't stop the AI Minister from building them again, though (I'd like a way to do that!).

>More Single Planet Neutral players

I second that motion. Similarly, I'd like there to be a bunch of "generic" _main.bmp files (the ones with the empire flags) so that planets could rebel and become independent. Rebel planets would keep all the same race & ship graphics as the race comprising the majority on the planet, but use one of these "spare" _main.bmp files.

>A way, if at all possible, to set the TECH
>level of EACH empire at the set up screen.
> So if you want a few AI players to be
>advanced tech, and you beginning tech, you
>can set the game up that way.

You could do this in SE3. You could independently set tech, number of starting planets and homeworld characteristics independently for each player, including a generic setting to apply to random AI players. I think this should be added back into SE4.

>Add a few things to the RANDOM events. Such
> as PIRATES

I was thinking about that same thing in some detail Last week. The random event would create a pirate fleet made up of troop transports loaded with troops and warships BC or smaller heavy on boarding parties (but not so heavy they can't shoot). Pirate ships would all have an small inherent repair capability (maybe one system per turn, affecting only the ship itself). Pirates would be built with the best "general" tech available to any player at the time the pirate fleet is generated (nothing that depends on racial traits, though). The pirates would have a natural stealth which would cloak them against the best sensors. It would hide them if going through minefields, satellites (except at planets), etc..., but not from ships or bases IN THE SAME SECTOR. The pirates would select a fleet or planet they can beat within the system they appear in and attack it, without regard for who owns it. Captured ships would be scrapped on the spot (pirates wouldn't need a shipyard). Planets would be invaded an pillaged (scrap all facilities & cargo), but would revert to the previous owner's control as soon as the pirates leave. The proceeds from all this would go into a special "account". When the pirate's account reaches two times the original cost of the pirate fleet, the pirates disband. Pirates will move to an adjacent system after each raid, and look for a new target (taking ships/fleets that appear as targets of opportunity while in transit). They would lay low in the same system (or select another target there) if exiting means engaging a superior fleet that is blocking the warp point, though. To catch them, you'd have to either lay an ambush with cloaked warships at a likely target(assuming the pirates lack the sensor tech to defeat your best cloak) or beat around the system where they Last struck (and adjacent ones) with fleets hoping to bumble into the sector they currently occupy. Or, wait until they get enough loot to disband. If a pirate ship is damaged such that its strategic movement capability falls below 3 and the pirates can't get all ships back to at least 3 in one turn of repair, the sluggards will be split off into another fleet that will try to catch up later after it is repaired.

[Jubala]

Bill, like your pirate idea.

I want a way in the construction window to apply the orders I just gave to one planet/space yard to all or some I select. Very tedious to fo into 20 base space yards and give them orders to build the same ship at emergency rate and repeat. Lots of clicks. I want to copy queues to other places. Somehow.

[Kimball]

I would like to see "Starting Tech Levels" at game setup so that each human player can select their staring technology levels, like in SE III.

[Taqwus]

Hrrrrrrrrrrm.

More neutral AIs? I'd worry that, from a human perspective, they're going to mean precisely one thing: free tech, particularly colonization tech. There is, after all, no apparent diplomatic penalty from bullying the small and weak in this game, or, for that matter, for simply genociding them. I'm not sure that the AI is nearly as good as exploiting them -- in my current game, for instance, the Noraks appeared to have simply annihilated the Cluk-Ruks, with no evidence of using them for their atmosphere (Methane; Noraks use O2) as a human might have. I only found out of the C-R previous existence since the Norak ships (carrying missiles as their main armament) left behind a C-R satellite they couldn't shoot (apparently the combat AI doesn't know about shooting sats with PD).

If there were a penalty -- perhaps interfering with a helpless neutral should cause a LOT of unhappiness, at least for peaceful types then it might not be as tricky an issue.

As for pirates, I'd rather not have practically undetectable fleets wandering around. It's a bit bizarre (that's more advanced tech than anybody else can have), and leads to gamey aspects (because somebody *will* capture one eventually regardless of self-destruct, master computers and so forth -- and then arguably should get such advanced tech. But then, it can't be allowed to happen because it'd completely unbalance the game...).

If you want to give them nifty abilities, some might be --


* high base experience (otherwise, they wouldn't have remained alive as outlaws for that long)

* Innate power conservation, learned due to life on the run (same reason for repair skill)

* ability to move components from ship to ship, damaging them in the process (again, life on the run, in space, without planetary support is going to require some DARN good mechanical skills to stay alive. This would be used for taking components from captured ships and using them in their own. So instead of necessarily coming from an advanced culture from the start, they salvage parts, even if it results in some extremely weird ship designs -- like ships with organic armor and allegiance shifters and so forth. Actually, the stranger, the better... So they take whatever components they like, siphon off the supply, and blow up the rest.)


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night