SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Naranek]

These are some ideas, and a few problems I met in some games, specially in multiplayer. It's a long and probably unsorted and bad explained list, but I hope you can understand these ideas:

- Waste of construction capability in spaceyards. Having 4500 of capability when building --for example-- monoliths means each 3 turns the spaceyard 'loses' 3500 construction points of capability (4500 * 3 - 10000). It would be desirable that the construction have a similar behavior to research / intelligence queue projects, with the "ability" of placing other objects in first position of the queues without losing completely the unfinished / partially built objects.

- Fixed planet position. I would like to see how nearly all objects (planets, moons, asteroids... ) rotate around the star(s) of the system. Objects like nebulae or warp points should not be affected, or affected in a very small amount. In tactical combat, also moons should orbit around their planet.

- Poor tactical options in a fleet. In this point, I have some ideas:
- It would be desirable to have different squadrons in the same fleet, each one with diferent orders. For example, escort, bombardment,command, attack squadrons, each one operating independently of the others.
- Some squadrons will have some bonus. For example, an escort squadron can provide defensive bonus against every shot which should traspass it to attack other vessels behind it. The command squadron can provide ofensive bonus for all attack squadrons in battle.
- The posibility of place every vessels in a fleet in any squadron, every squadron with different formations and every ship in the position in the formation wanted.
- A formation for each squadron and a formation for all squadrons in a fleet.
- Special "components" for command vessels, as "fleet command bridge". From it, the "admiral" pass the offensive bonus to the attack squadrons.

- Line of sight.
- Some objects in tactical mode (planets, moons...) should block LoS from the other side of the object. Aditionaly, big artificial ship/bases (like starbases or baseships) should block LoS for smaller objects. Only "ELINT" vessels can "see" to the other side of the blocking objects.
- Some objects in strategical mode (planets, wormholes, stars...) should block LoS. Only "ELINT" vessels can "see" to the other side of the blocking objects.

- Satelites should not be grouped staticaly in a unique point of space in tactical mode, but they should encircle the main body, orbiting it. The same should be applied to bases. If the satelites are placed in an empty sector, they also should be "orbiting" an empty point, or at least, be placed in a "loose" area of space.

- Planetary shields should be a general, costly, technology avaiable for everybody, and be a lot more powerful than the ship component equivalents.

- The imposibility of upgrading units (satelites, weapon platforms, troops, mines...)

- The surface combat mode is too simple, comparing with the space combat mode. It should be a bit more complex, with special buildings as fortress, bunkers.... Some ship weapons like planetary napalm could be used in special mode of orbital support. �Perhaps a tactical "ground" mode similar to the tactical "space" mode?

- The Point Defense Cannon is too much effective. It should be more loose, specially against fighters. The same for the Talisman. �Perhaps 2-3 levels for talisman, making it an overpowered combat sensor?

- Special damage mode of Area of Effect. It would work in a similar way of real artillery barrage. Some powerful AoE weapons could create an impassable/harmful area of space which could disipate in a few tactical turns. Some weapons should be able to target regions of space, not enemy fighters/vessels.

- The stealth mode is a bit strange. One sensor is able to discover every possible form of stealth, and one component is able to hide with every possible form of stealth. It should be done a more complex way, with stealth components too bulky so they are unsuitable to attack vessels, or passive and active sensors. The Last ones should add a defensive penalty for these 'ELINT' vessels, and "active" sensors make any "hidden" ship highly "visible".

- The idea of infinite supplies limits a lot the strategy from the half of a game. There should be only some supply ships which can pass supplies from resupply depots to ships/fleets. It should be transferred from/to the
supply ships in a similar way to the cargo.

- Only a sort of "supply" thing is a bit strange. For engines/energy weapons, it's admisible. For missiles it's a bit strange, except if there is a sort of builtin missile factory in every ship. Also there should be a diferent sort of "food" supply. The "matter" weapons, as the DUC, should have a different, cheaper, supply source.

- Having heavy repair components in ships. A ship should be able only to repair some 'minor' components (armor, some light weapons, a few engines...), but not able to repair, with time, all damaged systems in any
ship. For costly/bulky components, the damaged ship should go to a repair base.

- 'Free' repairs. Every repair should cost a percent of the undamaged component.

- Master computers too much 'effective' and affordable. Past certain tech levels, the ship designs are a lot better (cheaper) with master computers than with bridge/crew quarters/life support combo. Combat ships should
receive a penalty for having exclusively computers aboard, and they should not receive experience for combats. Also, they should not receive "neural net" bonus.

- The minesweepers should have a posibility to fail. Having only one ship with 20 minesweepers per enemy per fleet is enought to avoid every possible minefield in the game. The minesweepers should have a posibility to miss some mines in each turn, and/or make the mines a lot cheaper and increase the minefield size limit to make passing through a dense minefield a costly and time-consuming task.

- The fighters could have the posibility to carry heavier antiship weaponry, as missiles, torpedos or 'free-fall' bombs, so the idea of doing 'fighter only' raids against enemy fleets far beyond the fleet anti-air
defenses sounds more interesting.

- Newtonian propulsion. It's odd that having only 40TM dedicated to propulsion (2 QEIII and a SolarSail III), a baseship can move at the same speed than a cruiser, having the baseship 3 times the mass of the cruiser.

- Also, the solar sail shouldn't give its movement bonus in tactical combat.

- The spionage system is a bit strange. I don't know well how to resolve it, perhaps with "spy" agents more than a so abstract thing as "spionage points". Add the posibility of having double agents.

[iaen]

Naranek said:
- The surface combat mode is too simple, comparing with the space combat mode. It should be a bit more complex, with special buildings as fortress, bunkers.... Some ship weapons like planetary napalm could be used in special mode of orbital support. �Perhaps a tactical "ground" mode similar to the tactical "space" mode?

I have some difficulty imagining what surface combat is going to be like, what with tactical combat being realtime 3d and all. If the surface combat from SE4 is used, you'll probably have to pause the tactical combat or otherwise things will get confusing. That means you'll just have conquered a planet in a matter of minutes.

I'd prefer a system where you'd just drop the troops in tactical combat, and when you are back in strategic, you'd have to manage your forces on the planet. That way it would also be easier to let firmly entrenched planets drag the battle out for a year or more. That seems a bit more realistic to me. And then you can also get stuff like reinforcements for whichever side. Big tough planets could also produce their own reinforcements for a while. Ofcourse the population's happyness is also going to be sinking fast. And something like a log message each turn updating amount of enemies defeated, casualties suffered and collateral damage (population/facilities). Hmm, reminds me of the Messages you get with plagues.

Looking back at it, I don't even think it would need to be the micromanagement hell most of the things I think of become. It would work with a simple surface combat system like there is now, only slower. Features like orbital support fire etc. could be added reasonably well.

[Timstone]

Naranek:
I think you're losing the point of this wonderful game. It's supposed to be an EMPIRE building game, not a micromanagement adventure.
Many of the things you suggest are good points, but don't forget that this game must be accessable for the more inexperienced people too and one game shouldn't Last a couple of months.

[Fyron]

iaen said:
I'd prefer a system where you'd just drop the troops in tactical combat, and when you are back in strategic, you'd have to manage your forces on the planet. That way it would also be easier to let firmly entrenched planets drag the battle out for a year or more. That seems a bit more realistic to me. And then you can also get stuff like reinforcements for whichever side. Big tough planets could also produce their own reinforcements for a while. Ofcourse the population's happyness is also going to be sinking fast. And something like a log message each turn updating amount of enemies defeated, casualties suffered and collateral damage (population/facilities). Hmm, reminds me of the Messages you get with plagues.

Looking back at it, I don't even think it would need to be the micromanagement hell most of the things I think of become. It would work with a simple surface combat system like there is now, only slower. Features like orbital support fire etc. could be added reasonably well.

You can set that up in SE4. Make militia a lot stronger and more numerous and set ground combat rounds to 1. Only one round of damage will be done, and you will need a lot more troops. Both sides can have a chance to send in reinforcements, and it can take quite some time to conquer the planet. Pirates & Nomads, Gritty Economics, and Adamant Mods do this. I think Proportions might, but not sure on the length of ground combat. Ground combat in stock SE5 definitely needs a lot of improvement. It would be great if things like range and rate of fire actually mattered...

[Suicide Junkie]

Note: Strong as-in-hitpoints, not damage.

In GritEcon, I used values on the order of:
1 round ground combat.
100% damage factor.
Militia: 1 damage/30hp. 1 militia per million population
Infantry troops: 1-2 damage, 50-70 hp (depending on design and cost) Average build rates are hundreds/turn on planet yards.
Light Tanks: 10-20 damage, 200-300 hp. build rate of a handful per turn (5-10 or so)
Heavy Tanks: 50-100 damage, 300-400 hp. About one a turn probably.
Artillery: 300 damage, 50 hp. A turn or two each.

Two evenly matched infantry squads would give you trench warfare Lasting forever as they wear each other down at the same rate.
Basically, you need bigger tanks or artillery to kill things, and you need lots of infantry reinforcements to act as cheap ablative meat armor for your tanks.

When dropping from ships, the bigger units have the most damage per kt-space, but lack in hp per space and are the most expensive by an exponential factor.
You need to either drop a pile of infantry first to sop up the massive hits from the defenders and establish a beach head for your heavier units, or drop mixed troops from your boats

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As an extra bonus from the 1 round GC, having lots of small, lightly shielded transports deploy your troops is a valid strategy. The idea being that the enemy can't nail all of them, and they're cheap enough to replace often. It works because you know your troops won't all be killed before the single round of GC ends and next transport drops its troopers

PS:
Making orbital bombardment and glassings expensive and time consuming is a key part of the scheme. Otherwise they'll just sweep through, glassing and recolonizing. The troop hitpoints above help that a lot. Adding some heavy-armor "bunker" platforms to boost planetary hitpoints can help too.
Just be sure to remove planet-based weapons. If you leave them in, players will have way too much trouble getting their transports to attack, and they'll be forced to use a glassing strategy. Without planet based weapons, the transports will merrily charge in and drop while the orbital battle rages.

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In one game against SkyAshton, we did some nice fighting over a chokepoint system. I surprised him with an early assault on a key spaceyard planet before he started building infantry. Then with waves of ships duking it out across the system, I had my transports running in with infantry. Ground combat broke out on most of his planets, effectively blockading them from the inside. Meanwhile, in space my fleet was held off, and with a massive maintenance defecit, they fell apart. As I worked at home to rebuild the fleet with more maintenance-efficient hulls, Ashton has the chance to fight back (build cost is proportional to size cubed while maintenance is constant independent of size).
He started with only the infantry he could Ebuild before my waves of troops hit, and his militia would have been getting thinned out pretty badly by now.
However, now that he held most of the system and could dump reinforcements from his homeworld and its stack of BSYs, time was on his side.
The spaceyard I had captured managed to fight off his attack, though, as it had been busy building some anti-ship fighters and sats(modded 50kt base hull). I came back with carriers full of anti-ship fighter-bombers and a few medium warships. With the help of the spaceyard I pushed him to the warppoint and held there while I flooded the system with troops in an attmept to secure it.

Most of the planets had fallen to my light tanks by the time Ashton had come up with another counter; kamikaze rammers.
Since I was close to his homeworld, he could pump out tons of tiny ships and not be killed by the maintenance costs, since they would all die ramming huge holes in my ships on the same turn.

The game ended before he had a serious chance to attack the chokepoint system again.
Overall this was about 50-70 turns, about a third of which was pre-meeting expansion and buildup.

[Timstone]

Cool story of the game SJ. I like that.

[Getix the Cromist]

Weel, maybe a basic AUTODESIGN for ship.. Like Colony Ship & so on..

It is funny to design BA, BC, DN.. it is not funny to design Colony Ship..

Then a Research like Moo2: when you finished in Shields, you can go on and have a miniaturization bonus (don't know, 5 tech level = 5 less Kt, stop this when component is 50% smaller tha original).

A "Fill queue" for all planets, so i do't have to manually buld 10 LC at 10 differente planet by clicking on them.

A more realistic land combat -> land combat like space combat.

For now, that's all.

[Suicide Junkie]

Although not typically exciting, Colony ships are trivial to design. Throw on the basics, and hit upgrade when you need a tech update.

You could turn the design minister on for a turn to get a basic set of designs, or even tweak the designcreation file for your shipset to get just what you want automatically as tech improves.

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There is a "Fill Queue" button already. Just fill one example queue, and you can save that list of projects.

[Baron Munchausen]

Since 'heros' have been confirmed in the chat I want to make some points about how they ought to work.

The first thing that worries me is that he is saying their inclusion in the game will depend on the artwork getting done. I sure hope that the current design doesn't call for huge 'unique' portraits for each 'hero' like some sort of RPG game. This is not MOO II. These 'heros' are going to be only a small part of a really huge and complex game. They don't need individual characterization beyond a name. They are simply slightly more talented officers/politicians among vast numbers of more ordinary operatives. I would be perfectly happy with a 'generic' image for all ship commanders (captains, admirals, or whatever you want to call them) and a generic image for all 'governors'. Don't hold up this useful game feature for the sake of fancy artwork. The scale of this game is completely different from MOO II where each leader could be a unique character.

Since I'm not concerned about the portrait or other 'RPG' features of these 'heros' I hope we'll have more than a few of them? The limit of four of each type was OK in MOO II but that was a small game with only 80 systems max. I'd say about a dozen will be the absolute minimum required for SE V given the scale of the game. It would be best to provide for the possibility of every single system having a 'hero' governor and every single fleet having a 'hero' commander. Not that we should _expect_ to always be fully staffed like that... But the game should allow for it. That could mean hundreds of them.

As for their effects in the game, I hope we don't go 'overboard' like MOO II and have magical renaissance erm, creatures who can do everything from fleet strategy to engine repair to original scientific research. They should have specialities related to their 'profession' (fleet strategy for the fleet commanders, population management for politicians) and not much else. What would make them interesting is if they have loyalties to their species and their home planet/system -- and populations should have loyalty to them, also! -- so that they can have reactions to events in the game and their reactions can have effects in the game.

[Ed Kolis]

Aaron said there would be a minimum of 3 leader portraits per race. 3 isn't a lot. Presumably this would have to cover, at a minimum, one fleet commander, one planetary governor, and one other type of leader (master spy? general? system overlord?) So I think the leaders are going to be fairly generic, as you wish.