A favor...

[Tim Brooks]

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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

[GeorgiaBoy]

Originally Posted by Tim Brooks

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.

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

[GeorgiaBoy]

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).

[Q]

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.

[Q]

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%.

[PsychoTechFreak]

Originally Posted by Tim Brooks

Is that enough info?

No? More details, pls.

[Tim Brooks]

More details, pls.

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,

[Atrocities]

Originally Posted by Tim Brooks

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,

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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.