What new abilities would you like to see?

[dogscoff]

I would like to get rid of all the warp points. Hyperspace Jumps should be possible only to the nearest system (to the fringes of the system), so you'll still need to make several jumps to reach an enemy homeworld.

I don't think it would be a good idea to do away with warp points cmopletely, since they provide interesting tactical situations and they have been at the core of SE for a long time.

However, the option to mod them out in favour of other ftl types or to combine various ftl methods all in the same game would be a good thing.

[Graeme Dice]

Most of these do not actually require new abilities, and can be easily modded with what we currently have available.

-Hyperspacing should be both component and hull based.

A hull can already have just about any ability that a component can have.

-Every time a ship or fleet hyperjump there should be a small hyperjump flash and sound, so it doesn't feel like now, when the warp points are barely a door to the next room.

Special graphics and sounds for routine events are kind of pointless.

-The ability to limit cloaking to a maximum size.

See the pirates and nomads mod, where all ships have gravitic cloaking based on ship size. Beyond that, there's no reason why cloaking should be limited to small ships, as all ships are small when compared to space.

-Fighters shouldn't have shields (too small to fit)

Then mod them to not have shields. Of course, if you do so, then you then you are making them pretty much useless without some major changes to their stats and abilities.

-Some sort of diference between bombers and fighters. Bombers should need escort from fighters.

This is another modding problem, and not a required ability. It's also a simple one. Make larger weapons that can only fit on larger fighters, then make these fighters easier to hit, and with lower to-hit than other fighters. You now have bombers that need escort.

-Underground facilities and bunkers, that can't be destroyed from orbital bombing.

For this, all you need to do to create something close is raise the amount of damage needed to kill a unit of population, as facility damage is directly related to population damage.

-Stealth Spy satelites to check on planets. (Deployable by cloakers)

Put a cloaking device on a satellitte, and you have exactly this.

-Exploration: Systems shouldn't be explored by just jumping to it. Visiting a system should only reveal the number of planets, size and location, but not resorce value or ruins. To explore a planet a vessel should visit the planet, and have a planet scanner component or explorer party on board.

This is kind of a pointless and silly requirement. Any group that can send a ship across a solar system in a month can perform spectroscopy on a planet to see what it's made of. Just think of ruins as what Earth would look like with all the cities abandoned.

-Trade: we should be able to see what the AI or other players have. And to know how much they want.

This is a terrible idea. Allowing others to see what I've researched or built is the same thing as free intelligence.

Oh my, i forgot that this thread its not for wishes.......

Sure it's for wishes, but you should really check out what the game is capable of already supporting before asking for new abilities that already exist.

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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I don't think it would be a good idea to do away with warp points cmopletely, since they provide interesting tactical situations

---

That's the whole point. Eliminating all those warp point defenses.

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
See the pirates and nomads mod, where all ships have gravitic cloaking based on ship size. Beyond that, there's no reason why cloaking should be limited to small ships, as all ships are small when compared to space.

The good thing about cloaking its that it have the potential to make small ships valuables to the very end. When you make large ships capable of cloaking you throw that away.
I just don't like the "bigger it's better" aproach.
Also, big hulls should be desproportionaly expensier than small hulls.
Check out what happened to Battleships after WW2, when they became nothing more than ultra expensive missile launching platforms.
And of course history doesn't repeat itself, and what happened after WW2 doesn't need to happen again.
But its a good balancing twist.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Aloofim:
The good thing about cloaking its that it have the potential to make small ships valuables to the very end. When you make large ships capable of cloaking you throw that away.
I just don't like the "bigger it's better" aproach.

The thing about it is that it's almost universally true that a bigger ship will be better at the same tech level, simply because you can fit more onboard.

Also, big hulls should be desproportionaly expensier than small hulls.
Check out what happened to Battleships after WW2, when they became nothing more than ultra expensive missile launching platforms.
And of course history doesn't repeat itself, and what happened after WW2 doesn't need to happen again.
But its a good balancing twist.

The Nimitz is considerably larger than any of the Battleships floated in WWII. It displaces 97,000 tons, while the Missouri displaces 45,000 tons. Modern ships are nearly twice as large as WWII ships.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Aloofim:
That's the whole point. Eliminating all those warp point defenses.

Warp point defenses are a _good_ thing, and are hardly overpowered as they currently stand. You absolutely need to have some way to defend your territory, and individual planet defense is not possible due to the speeds with which ships have to be able to move to make the game finishable in less than six months.

[Andrés]

SE4 ships are ridiculously tiny when compared with most sci-fi ships.
I feel that there's not enough incentive to build really large ships.

Actually larger ships should REDUCE cost.
Large crentralized systems and reduction of redundant parts allows for a significant reduction of construction and operating cost.
The only cost advantage of small ships is that you can build them one by one, while you cannot build 1/4 large ship.

On the other hand you're right about components such as cloaking devices, you should need a larger more powerful one to achive the same cloaking level in a larger ship.

[orev_saara]

Actually, this is not hard to mod! I've been using this solution to fix the way the same size master computer runs a frigate and a starbase, here's how it works:

1 You make the cloaking device as big as you want for the big ships with appropriate supply usage, etc.

2 You create a series of mounts that make cloaking devices cheaper and smaller and use less supply, but give them all the appropriate maximum size field.

EDIT: Example
Cloaking device costs 5000 minerals, 3000 Rads, uses 100 supply, takes 100kT. Small ship cloak mount reduces cost to 30%, reduces kT space to 30%, reduces kT structure to 30%, reduces supply usage to 30%, has maximum vehicle size of 350kT.

3 The AI uses the lowest applicable mount in the file, so they should go from largest to smallest in this situation.

VOILA!

Hardly ideal, takes a bit of work, but it does do what you're looking for.

[ February 18, 2003, 17:51: Message edited by: orev_saara ]

[Andrés]

Yes I know.
The same concept of mounted engines.
Mounts can have max and min set so only one scaling is available for each size, no matter the order.

IMHO MC should be smaller anyway, it doesn't sound realistic that even if you need to control a whole starbase your computer will be larger than a house.

[ February 18, 2003, 18:49: Message edited by: Andr&eacutes Lescano ]

[Phoenix-D]

"IMHO MC should be smaller anyway, it doesn't sound realistic that even if you need to control a whole starbase your computer will be larger than a house."

It doesn't just have to control the ship; it has to -think- as well. Compared to the sizes of the other components, it's quite reasonable.

Phoenix-D