Has anything really changed?

[Phoenix-D]

More flexible? SE4 had 20 damage ranges. SE5 has five HUNDRED.

You can do the SE4 system in SE5. It's just a bit more fiddly to create. And if you don't want a perfect match, its easier.

anti-proton beam XII, SE4:
Weapon Damage At Rng := 65 60 60 55 55 50 50 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Same thing, SE5: 65 - ([%Range%] / 2) - iif([%Range%] > 80, 10000, 0).

The difference is you have to do it ONCE in SE5, if you do the forumla properly, and in SE4 you'd have to input it 12 times.

SE5 has a built-in mod loader. SE4 does not.

SE5 has modable damage types, planet types, and unit types. SE4 does not.

SE5 has a much more flexible way of making components available. Want to make it so you can research Physics OR Chemistry to get a certain component? You can do that.

SE5 makes the "Tech grid" approach of SE4 look clunky. If you want to, say make missile damage dependant on one tech, missile speed on another, and missile range on a third, you can easily do that. In SE4 it was a tedious process involving HUNDREDS of components, which meant you could only do it for a few items before the file got too large to load.

SE4's combat speed for ships with Strategic Speed /2. In SE5 you can define combat speed seperately, along with acceleration, turning, etc.

Do I need to go on?