Suggestions for Space Empires V

[Kid]

I would like to see the component list scroll when I hold down the mouse. All the clicking is getting to me.

[douglas]

Kid said:
I would like to see the component list scroll when I hold down the mouse. All the clicking is getting to me.

Once you satisfy all the requirements of the design (bridge, CQ/LS, cargo/colony/fighter bay requirement, etc.), the mouse wheel scrolls the component list in SEIV.

[Kid]

douglas said:

Once you satisfy all the requirements of the design (bridge, CQ/LS, cargo/colony/fighter bay requirement, etc.), the mouse wheel scrolls the component list in SEIV.

So it does. Thanks!

[Kid]

henk brouwer
I like your idea. I think it could work.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Partial damage to components. Say, a 400kT Space Yard can build with 400 resources of each type per turn (just as an example). A weapon hits with an impact force of 100. The Space Yard is still mostly intact, but it has received 100 points of damage and thus is less efficient - it constructs with 300 resources per turn. Then, it receives a hit from a weapon with 50 damage. This time though, since it's already damaged, the efficiency reduction will be more drastic - it can now only construct with 200 per turn.

This way, you can disable components without destroying them, which has an impact on boarding action and its importance - since the component is not yet fully destroyed, you can repair it even though you may not have the required race technology.

This could also balance out severely unbalancing components like the Talisman and, to a lesser degree, Combat Sensors/ECM, since they can now be damaged without actually being destroyed enabling you to repair them and either use them in combat or analyze them for better techs.

You could have weapons that specifically only damage components and do not destroy them. This way, you can simply use swarms of cheap Escorts with these damaging weapons and boarding parties to take on high-tech enemy Dreadnoughts using their defense bonuses to their advantage against an otherwise far superior enemy.

[dogscoff]

Partial damage to components. Say, a 400kT Space Yard can build with 400 resources of each type per turn (just as an example). A weapon hits with an impact force of 100. The Space Yard is still mostly intact, but it has received 100 points of damage and thus is less efficient - it constructs with 300 resources per turn. Then, it receives a hit from a weapon with 50 damage. This time though, since it's already damaged, the efficiency reduction will be more drastic - it can now only construct with 200 per turn.

A better way to implement this would be to have "stackable" spaceyard components. Jusst as having 6x10kt engines on a ship rather than one big 60kt engine allows you to lose some (but not all) of your propulasion in combat, having 8x50kt spaceyard components (each one supplying one eight of the build rate) instead of a single 400kt component would allow you to lose some (but not all) of your construction ability.

What I'd like to see (and I've said it before) is to have the ability to use warp points brought out of hard-code and put into a component/ hull ability. This means we could mod interstellar fighters, warp-incapable system defence ships, and also allow 'uplifting' of neutrals and primitives who lack the technology to escape their own system.

[Suicide Junkie]

Starfury has the components degrade in ability as they are damaged.

Eg: A 400-point shield generator which is 50% damaged will only put out only 200 points.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Suicide Junkie said:
Starfury has the components degrade in ability as they are damaged.

Eg: A 400-point shield generator which is 50% damaged will only put out only 200 points.

Yes, but I meant also being able to mod in exponential efficiency decrease with linear damage. That way, if a powerful component (say, a Talisman) is damaged only, say, 10%, it would be rendered ineffective, yet if another empire who does not have Religious tech captures the ship, they would be able to repair, e.g. *use* it.

[MrSnuggleBunny]

Dear Santa,

When SEV is released I would like to have...

1) Maneuverability - It just doesn't seem realistic that a unit can go from dead stop to full speed and make a bootlegger's reverse (180-degree turn) all in a single turn.

Can we please have some mechanism to dictate the acceleration and decceleration of a unit? Nothing extravagant but something along the lines of: a unit can acel/deccel 1/2 of its total current movement allowance in a single turn.

Limiting the number of turns a unit can make in a single turn should be reduced as its speed increases, i.e. at a dead stop a unit can make a complete 360-degree revolution, at half speed and can turn up to 4 facings at full speed it can turn up to 2 facings (assuming a square map with facings being the four sides and four corners collectively).

2) Firing Arcs - One aspect of this game that makes it so entertaining is that the vast expanse of the tactical battle map and the limited range of weaponry means that maneuver actually matters. If a ship gets hammered on one side the commander should have to manuever to reposition his ships to present a new broadside. Designating firing arcs at time of construction would be a plus. The tonnage allowed by arc could be set ratios of the overall unit tonnage.

This would be particularly helpful whn making planetary assaults. Let's face it: attempting to take a planet with troops while the planet has a robust array of weapons platforms mounting missiles and point defense weapons is all but an exercise in futility. Why should platforms mounted at the south pole be able to hit me if I'm concentrating my forces at the northern pole?

Dividing a planet into quadrants for the purposes of basing platforms and troops would be nice. Troops could be limited to moving to one new quadrant per strategic turn.

3) Stacking Limits - I can understand that stacking all of one's units in a single space could lead to some lop-sided tactics but can we have limits on the tonnage, say 500 to 800 kT? At least allow us to move a unit through a space occupied by a friendly unit; sometimes the AI will designate a movement path for a unit that costs me 1 or 2 movement points and ruins the calculated movement I had planned.

4) Customizable Formations - A formation editor and some method of designated which units are 1st, n 3rd etc within the fleet would be really keen.

5) Customizable Weaponry - Can I trade range for damage/rate fo fire/etc? Weapon mounts allow me to trade range and damage for tonnage; let's make a good thing better.

6) Interstellar Travel - besides warp points. A system 2 sectors away can take less time to reach than a system 10 sectors away depending upon the placement of warp points within a system. What if I want to cut "cross country" to save time? Such movement could also balance us mid-tech slobs against empires that can open and close warp points at will.

7) Planetary Orbits - I exploit the fact that planets do not revolve around their suns by picking planets equidistant betwen/near warp points to place military installations. MAKE ME STOP! In real life the planets would be orbitting the sun thus denying the use of "permanent basing."

8) Auto-Retrofit/Upgrade - If I lewt ministers handle upgrading production facilities they tend to onle upgrade one facility per turn...over the entire bloody empire! Fire these bums. How about upgrading one facility per planet per turn? Designating units to auto-upgrading ship/base designs as a particular technology improves would be nice.

9) A Pony - I promise to take care of it, and brush its long silky mane and name him Buttercup and I'll be good forever and ever. Puh-leeeeze!

Anyway, that's my wish list...

...for now.

[Mylon]

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to modify ship components/building facilties with technologies as opposed to having to create a new component for each possible combination of technology.

Thus, one could have the Mega Uber Laser, research up on lens technology to make it do more damage, research up on minituraization to make it smaller (and thus fit more on the ship), research manufacturing methods to make it cheaper, ect... And this is all just one component. None of this model I, II, III, ect...

Old ships would still use the outdated versions until retrofitted, which I imagine would make things a lot more complicated since the ship no longer is a collection of components and now the game has to remember the individual stats, but I think it would be more rewarding as a whole.

Imagine, say, the cities in Proportions where all of the mineral extraction, research technologies, shielding technologies, storage technologies... _Everything_, made the city better in some way.

Second is unset ship sizes. The ability to use a simple slider/text box to scale the size up and down to any value desired, as governed by some non-linear function. Ideally, hull technologies will increase the sizes that can be used before cost becomes incredibly prohibitive. So no more cases of having unused space on the ship becaue of odd-sized hull components, plus there's less concern with the enemy getting dreadnauts first. Everyone can build dreadnauts in the beginning, it's just a matter of how much they're willing to spend. This better reflects the mentality that _anything_ is possible with enough manufacturing capital, it's just that technology is what makes it feasable.

Finally, I'd like to see better upgrade management. In SEIV, upgrading from one facility to the next only halved the cost of the new facility. Thus, in games like Proportions, it was cheaper to build a minor city (cost of 15kT across the board) and upgrade it to a metropolis (cost of about 200kT across the board, saving a total of 85kT of production) than it was to build the metropolis outright. It'd be nice if the current facility only applied, say, 80% of it's value to the new facility.