Space Empires 5

[Nodachi]

Smarter combat strategies. Programmable perhaps? Write your own strategy using pseudocode?

I love this idea!! Almost infinite flexibility!

A lot of these ideas are great but I don't want to see this game turned into a micromanagement nightmare either. Make some "improvements" optional.

I'd hate to see the game turned into a resource hog too. 3D is fine but don't go overboard, I don't want to have to rebuild (again ) this Frankenstein computer of mine.

I'd like to see additional and more flexible abilities for modders to exploit... er, use.

But I think the most important thing would be not to rush the game to developement. I think that's what is killing a lot of games, rushing to get a product on the shelves rather than working to put a quality product on the shelves.

[Tnarg]

Editors, more and user friendly.

The excisting map editor is great, but incrediably time consuming.

A couple of fellows are working on component or mod editors that are starting to make modding much more friendly to the computer illiterate types, such as me.

If perhaps one big editor where compiled so that an individual could easily create new maps, new planets, new components, facilities, ships, scenerios(so one wouldn't have to actually play the computer player to get them advanced and established while keeping everyone else at bay) ect.

Yeah, that would be nice.

[Pax]

[quote]Originally posted by geoschmo:

Ooo, I like this idea now. I don't want to wait for SE5. And not just for space yards, do it for planetary yards as well. You actually wouldn't need to allow multiple yards, just allow the person to move a project down in the queue without losing acculumlated work done on it.

Originally SEIV had something like this where you could move a project up and the work already done would get applied towards the new project. That was taken out because it was considered a way to cheat because you could start work on an expensive ship that you never intended to build, and then switch it at the Last minute to an expensive ships that you wanted, but didn't have the tech for when you started. This would eliminate that cause you couldn't change the design once it's in the queue, but still allow flexibility. As long as you didn't take the project completely out of the queue it could keep the work accumulated while you work on other projects that you start from scratch. Much like intel or research quese now operate.

And if you could have the excess construction left over after one ship was done to go towards the next ship in line...

Geoschmo

Better yet: change the Construction Queue interface to mirror the Research and Intelligence Project queues. Instead of a list of Research Topics, you get a listign of your current ship / base designs, or facilities, or units. Same 12 slots, the option to repeat build projects, and the option to divide construction capacity evenly.

Possibly even allow only 4 build projects for Shipyard I's, 8 for Shipyard II's, and all 12 for Shipyard III's. (maybe 8, 12, and 16 for the Emporal Shipyard I, II, and III respectively ... ?).

[lfoater]

SE5

NO 3D, NO REALTIME

Would like to see

Game startup 0ptions:

Ability to scramble Race/characteristics ie: When you meet the Norak, early on you know its missles, missles, missles and plan accordingly.
Darleks you know intell is coming, It would be interesting to not always know what the race you met was like.

Trade: It would be nice to have something for transports to carry back to the home system. Dilithium chrystals, EEEE spice, stuff like that.

Research: Occasional blind alley research, Physics doesn't always lead to PPB, maybe its astrophyiscs or stellar harnessing. Have it as a variable if this option selected. It would make research more interesting.

[Psychic 5]

Nice ideas, but I think there are more key features:

- Citizens that eat and can starve.
- Governments, please: different types of politics, economy, religion, etc. that can be changed during the game (revolution problems and anarchy included). Political factions and the like.
- Allied victory.
- Retreating from combat (with the possibility of being caught depending on speed and crew experience).
- A form of currency along with the 3 resources.
- A peace treaty.

Facilities, technologies... all can be done editing txts. I think the above is more important.

greetings

[DirectorTsaarx]

I agree with:
- changing the squares to hexes (in all map levels)
- adding turning radius (and maybe firing arcs)
- making asteroids colonizable again
- components that generate resources
- jump engines (or jump reactor, or something); along with at least an option (or racial ability) to have a jump-capable ship carry other ships through the warp point

I'd also like to see more uses for sensors; maybe special sensor components that can improve offense/defense for an entire fleet (or even just ships within a given radius); sensors that can disrupt (or enhance) targetting systems on seekers; and require special sensors to look at a ship's design during combat. That Last could be tricky, since it should also include the option to "fill in" information as the ship performs certain functions (firing a weapon is a pretty obvious indicator that the weapon exists & what Version/mount it's using).

I'd like to see the ability to tow ships/bases around the map (using a special "tug" hull, maybe).

Along with diplomatic options mentioned by others, add options to have races get angry about the use of certain weapons (star destroyers, black hole generators, etc.), angry toward races that "glass" planets, angry at particular races just because of history/racial abilities/demeanor/culture; have races get happy towards races that destroy black holes/storms/nebulas or create stars/planets.

Improve the AI so it actually takes advantage of training facilities, remote mining and ring/sphereworld generators. (I think this is more hardcoding than AI scripting, since it's easy to mod the AI to build the above items, just hard to make the AI use them effectively).

Components that allow for population growth, and have that population affect the efficiency of components that generate resources (and affect efficiency of space-borne shipyards).

Since SE4 already requires spaceports AND a path back to the rest of the empire to make generated resources available to the empire, add two things: first, the ability to store those generated resources locally and either transfer manually (freighters) or automatically once a spaceport/path is available. Second, add a requirement for at least one space station or colony in all intervening systems for a "path" to be established. In other words, you'd have to build a space station in a nebula system in order to gain resources from the colonies on the other side of that nebula. This would make black hole systems a problem for everyone, not just the AI...

[Tnarg]

Weapons that have an area effect damage. Something to break up tight formations, screw up fighter swarms, and just plain wreak havoc.

[Suicide Junkie]

- Allied victory.

This is exactly the same as the "Peace for 0.1 years" victory condition.
It requires that all empires have met and have trade alliance or better with every other race.

[Will]

Ok, a lot of what I would like to see in a possible attempt at SEV has already been said. So, to keep from being a broken record, I'm going to attempt to rate them on likelyhood.

Likely:[*]Expanded population properties - populations have specific environmental tolerances, abilities, attitudes, etc., that remain with them throughout the game. No more getting a different empire's population, which automatically becomes clones of your own population that breathes different air. Some attributes of population: size (space-faring mice, or perhaps elephants?), strength (one elephant can drag a tree... how many mice does it take?), *I can't think of any others at the moment, but you get the idea*.[*]More Detailed Planetary Stats - related to the one above. Planets should have varying amounts of space (with population, cargo, and facilities taking up the same space), gravity (with certain populations only tolerating a specific range of gravity), atmospheric gas DENSITY (a population might need X density of methane, but anything more than Y density of oxygen is poisonous, and total density has to be more than Z, etc), temperature, radiation or lack thereof, planetary volatility (think earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, etc.).[*]No limit on total empires - I'm not saying allow 100 empires on game startup (although some might want to do that for one insane reason or another). Currently, if through the course of a game, the total number of empires that ever existed reaches 20, no more may come into existance. Change the setup of empires to be contained in a linked list, instead of what now appears to be an array. Perhaps have an option for a completely new AI to pop up around turn 150 in some forgotten corner of the quadrant.[*]Randomness to damage - As it is now, weapons either have a direct hit, or a direct miss. I would just once like to see that APB cause 17kT damage instead of 30kT, because of a slight targeting mistake. Have the ability for components to be disabled (well, you slagged the torpedo tubes pretty good, but you didn't destroy that Last 1kT, so it can magically shoot at you still), with different components having differing amounts of tolerance to damage. Also, differing types of damage, i.e., flinging a big chunk up depleted uranium at high velocities is going to cause quite a different type of damage than, say, a beam-type weapon, or an explosion. Have shields work on a % basis... A DUC pellet comes flying in, shields are weakened a little, and take some damage away from the impact. A beam is partially blocked, but some gets through, etc. The different damage types, and % defense would actually probably be in this next section, though...

Hey, it could happen:[*]Seperate AI engine - Whether it be a more complex scripting thing (more work for Aaron, to make an interpreter for it), or somehow using outside programs/DLLs, have the ability to directly manipulate the AI. One AI in a certain situation could think it's in "Infrastructure" phase, and another in the same situation could think it's in "Attack" phase. One could have this pattern of movement, another could have that... It would be nice to completely model the AI behaviour, but I don't think it would be done. Definitely more likely for a combat-only than for the rest of the game.[*]Coordinate system for maps - this would be an awesome improvement to the current grid system. However, I don't think it's too likely to happen. For one, this was requested a lot for SEIV (along with hex-grids, if it had to be grids), and it didn't happen there. When you think about it, it's just a whole lot easier to make a grid system than a coordinate system (or a hex-grid).[*]Newtonian Movement - the coordinate system would be made just that much better if ships, units, etc. had inertia. Coordinates and inertia, I think, would be a possibility to SEV. Add in gravity, and it gets really iffy... but that would be really cool. If all of that's put in, it only makes sense to have stellar bodies orbit. But I know how much work it would have to be to create a system like that, and I'm quite content with Q-N movement at the moment

WOW! That'd be neat, but it's not going to happen [*]Firing Arcs - coordinates are pretty much a prerequisite for this to work, and I've already said I'm not counting on coordinate-based maps when/if SEV is released. It would be very cool to have firing arcs, but there's the extra work needed to make such a system, and the problem of creating an even bigger learning curve for the game; for both humans and AI.[*]3-D anything - I just don't see this happening. It's gotta be hard enough to work it in just two dimensions, and then you have to figure out a way to present it. Aaron seems to be limited to two dimensions, from looking at all his work thus far.

And, just some other things that I'm not going to rate/comment on, and would like:[*]Area effect damage[*]Simultaneous construction projects[*]Starting tech levels (ok, small comment; perhaps just allow X amount of research points that are allocated to various areas BEFORE 2400.0, AKA first turn. Instead of X tech levels)

Things that are just yuck:[*]Real-Time (difficult to pull off correctly, and "correctly" varies greatly from person to person)[*]Government modifiers (this should be handled with the individual races, IMHO. It would basically be another "Culture modifier", and anything beyond that is way too drastic).[*]Tactical Ground Combat (I always thought that this would basically be either a seperate game within the game, or completely useless, there is no real happy medium)

I've missed quite a few things, but I like most of the ideas in this thread, so that gives a general idea

[Phoenix-D]

"More Detailed Planetary Stats - related to the one above. Planets should have varying amounts of space (with population, cargo, and facilities taking up the same space), gravity (with certain populations only tolerating a specific range of gravity), atmospheric gas DENSITY (a population might need X density of methane, but anything more than Y density of oxygen is poisonous, and total density has to be more than Z, etc), temperature, radiation or lack thereof, planetary volatility (think earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, etc.)."

Why. Can we say "micromanagement HELL?"

Newtonian movement and gravity: I know of very few *sims* that even try, and these guys only have to deal with a few ships at a time. SE needs to deal with hundreds (and don't even suggest dropping the scale just for this..)

"Coordinate system for maps - this would be an awesome improvement to the current grid system. However, I don't think it's too likely to happen. For one, this was requested a lot for SEIV (along with hex-grids, if it had to be grids), and it didn't happen there. When you think about it, it's just a whole lot easier to make a grid system than a coordinate system (or a hex-grid)."

How is this any different than what we have now? A grid system is just a slightly modifed cordinate system with low grain (i.e. you don't get 1.45352653, just 1)

Phoenix-D

[ July 12, 2002, 05:39: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]