Next Patch wishes....

[CW]

Atraikius beated me to it. I also want to see a much improved combat and ship building AI. The current one is so stupid that it would charge head first into a cloud of murdering hot plasma thrown up by the enemy. I would like to see my AI admiral knowning things like:

If the defense on a planet is too tough, then stay out of range, move in - shoot - move out.

If there is a self-destruct device on an enemy ship then don't try to board it until it is destroyed unless ordered otherwise.

Other things that I would like to see is a ship building minister that is responsive to enemy designs; AI that doesn't keep sending single ships through known defended chock points; and most of all, if possible, a script language for AI modders.

One more thing, interface improvement. All of my friends who tried their hands on this game think the game interface needs extra work. The first thing that comes to mind is setting colony type. I can never figure out why this function can't be directly accessed on the star map, instead we have to click "colony" -> find the planet -> click "set colony type" -> find the planet AGAIN -> choose one from the list. Why not just make the "Colony Type" entry on the main screen (in the planet info that appears when you click on a planet) a choose box?

The other thing is to make the Esc key on the keyboard do what is expected. Let's say you clicked on the "move" button, but then you decide against it. Currently to cancel the select destination prompt you have to either click on the originating planet or click on a button that opens a window. Most people would expect that a simple push on the Esc key should do it.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 14 August 2001).]

[Atraikius]

Thought of another one - inclusion of formations in the xxx_AI_files, with making the position type work in restricting that formation position to certian types.

And, making the AI demand surrender/subjugation/etc... work, and enableing the pop. required for operating facilities.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

nature shrines should get back their system wide abilities, pleeeaaase

---

Um, they do have system wide abilities... at least AFAIK (v1.35). I'm playing a "finite" resources game, and with a nature shrine in my home system I get the bonus to all planets.

In fact, with a nature shrine III, my homeworld gets 3,000 *0.03 = 90K resources per year. I dig only 13K out each turn with a monolith & mineral miner, so my homeworld's value is quickly rising to infinity
In fact, it's even better than that, since I've got a pair of Value improvement plants 2. 3,000 * 0.07 = 210,000 of each resource each year.
And my resource increase goes up (ie. resource acceleration) by 15,000 each year! The power of compound interest is staggering...
But, that's even more off-topic.

[Baron Munchausen]

There are a bunch of small interface fixes that would make the game so much easier to play and be far less work in programming terms than all the new abilities that we all want so badly.

- Keep the 'place' you are at in a scroll box, like the planets or colonies lists.

- Make [Enter] and [Escape] operate like the [OK] and [Cancel] buttons. This is Windows standard behavior but MM had to write all custom interface for the game for some unguessable reason.

- Make it possible to jettison a SELECTED amount of a given cargo type, rather than all or none of each type.

Oh, and let's add the ability to SCRAP stuff in a planet's cargo area so we can recover something from our obsolete WPs and troops.

- Add a "global weapons toggle" to the combat interface so you can turn ALL of the usable weapons of a ship/base/satgroup/ftrgroup on or off at once instead of having to scroll through them and click each one. This is a HUGE pain with large sat and ftr Groups!

- Seperate options for automatic movement and automatic targetting in combat so you can have one when you don't need both under manual control. This would save some work in combat, too.

- Allow formations to be turned ON or OFF without losing the settings. So, you could de-activate formations and fight a melee with a group of ships without getting your maneuvers screwed by automatic movement, then reactivate and move your ships to engage another group of ships or bases or a planet or whatever.

- Increased range for all weapons would be cool since mounts can make large base/WP weapons nearly as long ranged as missiles. Could a second row of 'boxes" be added and max range for seekers extended to 40? This might require major changes to combat code. But seekers are much less valuable now with direct-fire weapons able to approach their range.

Oh, at present there's a bug with the 20 range anyway. If you fill a weapon's reange out to 20 the Last box will be blank. I'm not able to figure out if this is a damage bug (the range 20 damage doesn't occur) or just a display bug. I only use the full range 20 with Plasma Missiles. There's a general problem with seekers at max range, too, and this confuses the issue. Guess I'll have to make a range 20 direct-fire weapon and test it.

Anyway, I'd expand the size of the combat box again if possible. Probably double the width/height (4 times the area) and then double weapon ranges as well. Then it would be much harder for "hit and run" tactics to be used with the proportion of ship speed to weapon range changed. You'd have to play in a much more 'naval' fashion, really committing your ships to take fire if you want to get into a fight.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

- Allow formations to be turned ON or OFF without losing the settings. So, you could de-activate formations and fight a melee with a group of ships without getting your maneuvers screwed by automatic movement, then reactivate and move your ships to engage another group of ships or bases or a planet or whatever.

---

This can be simulated by removing the fleet leader from the fleet, then giving it back the title.

Stage 1) Fleet is normal, and follows the leader.
Stage 2) Select the leader and hit CTRL-0 (zero), or use Orders->Clear group assignment.
The fleet leader is now a nobody, and everybody will do their own thing as if there was never a fleet.
Stage 3) Select the Ex-Leader, and choose Orders->Set Group Leader-> etc.
Now, when the leader moves, all his minions will fall into line. You may need to move slowly for a turn or two in order to allow individual members to find their position in the formation again.

I often use a quick Version of this to fix my fleet formation whenever I forget to change it from the default before going into battle.

[Sinapus]

Have the AI go over the facilities built on a planet and if something new (like a robotoid factory, etc.) becomes available that is listed higher on the priority list then scrap a facility that is on the end of the list for that planet type and build that new facility. When it has filled out everything on the priority list to the maximum level, *then* the AI can ignore the list for that particular planet.

Especially domed colonies, so they can build the atmosphere converter and have the planet become something useable when the atmosphere converts. Actually, domed colonies should build a research center or intelligence center first, then follow the script. So tiny domed colonies won't build the space port and cripple a system if the AI did scrap something on that colony to make room for the converter.

(I tend to build extra research centers on worlds in anticipation of future expansion when I get the right tech level. Amount is dependent on the size of the planet.)

Hm. If the AI can be made to do this correctly, then it might be able to juggle things easier than a human can. I tend to build research centers on intelligence compounds until I get applied intelligence and make contact with a spacefaring race. Then I scrap all the research centers on those planets and start building intelligence centers. Manually going to each planet, scrapping 1 facility and building another one would be difficult for me, but the AI might be able to do that.

I'm also hoping this might help the AI with homeworlds somewhat. Or at least have it rebuild the spaceyard facility on the homeworld if it ever gets destroyed.

------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited 15 August 2001).]

[CW]

Launching units - current there is no way to to launch or recover a portion of the satellites/fighters/mines carried by a ship, it is either all or nothing. This is really anonying not to mention it doesn't make any sense. Same thing goes for transfering cargo, we can't queue up an order like "transfer 5 out of the 10 troops on board to the destination planet".

[dogscoff]

QUOTE:
- Make it possible to jettison a SELECTED amount of a given cargo type, rather than all or none of each type.
/QUOTE

Good idea. I nice way to implement it would be on the cargo transfer screen. Just put in an extra cargo location called "jettison". To get rid of units, just move them into "jettison" in the same way you move things from planet to ship.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"

[This message has been edited by dogscoff (edited 15 August 2001).]

[Atrocities]

From a thread a long time ago about the same thing.

quote:

---

1) What about an extra technology to cover personnel training. Much like Fleet/ship training this could be used to train individual captains for ships depending on what you want to use them for e.g. tactics, warfare, exploration, trading. The result would be trained pilots that could be placed in a ship and would add to the ship in some way. This could also personalize your favorite ships or fleets.

2) There are a few things wrong with the battle viewer in my opinion:
There is no way to skip a tactical battle mid way and get to a strategic battle, this would be really useful when you get into a battle you don't want to bother playing all the way through.

2a) Also its difficult to arrange new formations for ships whilst in a battle, you have to keep reassigning all the positions every time. I'm sure theirs a better way this could be implemented. Can you not introduce an auto new formation command where all ships are automatically reassigned positions in the formation based on strength and value? Or can't you set up formations for various types of ships e.g. one for front line ships, another for escorts and traders etc.

3) What about introducing non-static backdrops. E.g. if you fight in an asteroid field what about having asteroids moving around you as you fight? Also in map views what about moving planets and moons? Should be simple enough to do in a turn-based environment like this and would really add to the game.

4) I would like to see stars larger than one sector in map view e.g. red giants. Also gravity should have an effect in the battle view much like the black holes in the maps. Your ships should have to fight against gravity in battle when near planets or stars etc.

5) What about unmanned probes to be able to be sent out to the further systems in the map view.

6) Other ideas for the battle viewer screen include:
1. Decoys to be launched to redirect missiles as missiles are far too deadly at the moment; being able to paralyze ships temporarily to board them using energy sapping weapons or the like;
2. Mines in the battle view are useless why not change them to effect a radius right around your ship instead of placing them on a square. This could in effect keep ships away from you.

7) A nice idea for the map view would be being able to run your ships or fleets silent using a special command similar to cloaking. Similarly being around a planet you should be slightly less detectable. Such running silent effects would effectively mean you could leave ship fleets in a system, using fewer supplies in wait for passing pirates or enemies. The down side would be that it would take a few turns to get into the silent running mode.

8) Allow me to break up Groups of units! Having all of my SATs in one pile sucks big time. Launching Fighters with different speeds?

9) Another wish, "Add Computer Controlled Race" in the players menu. I hate forgetting to edit to computer control the races I have chosen for a game.

10) How about remembering preferences for starting a game, so I don't have to re-pick '5000 race points', 'low bonus' etc at the start of every game. Gets tedious looking for the exact random system to start a 'perfect' game in. Like Moo2 I usually start about 5-8 games to find a setup I like. Eagerly awaiting the map editor

11) I'd like to see active sensors disabled in cloak, passive sensors should be unaffected.

12) Lets get a civil war going

13) I would love to have a real time feature.
What I mean by that is, the game does not require me to conduct a turn. It does it automatically.
From what I gather, the game's date indicator is set up for this feature, but it has not been implanted yet.

The benefits to this added feature are great. The game would continue even if you walked away. Everything would progress as you have ordered, and the game would take on a more real time feel.

Games with such a feature:
Rebellion
AOK
AOE

14) The ability to set the starting Tech level for each individual race.

15) The ability to set the exact number of Computer players. Right now it's low, medium, hi.

16) The ability to TURN off Quantum Reactor in the Exclude Tech function. (If there, please omit.)

17) A new facility that prevents new warp points from being opened within the system its has been constructed in.

18) A feature in the construction Que. that will add, "build this" on all planets. (This feature would allow you to build troops on all planets at once without having to select each individual planet and add it to that planets construction Que.)

19) Added feature that allows the player to select that they want all their planets for the empire they are going to play to start within one system.

20) The ability to set up allied play. (Example: in set up, the player can establish that player 1 and player 6 are allies. Player 2 and Player 4 are enemies.)

21) A bribe feature to the Diplomacy control. Set BRIBE type. Would effect other races willingness to improve relations.

22) A feature that would allow you to TELL the ships of a specific class to UPGRADE class at nearest shipyard.

23) Another feature of SE III I miss is the way counter intelligence works. It was far easier in SE III just to define the percentage of your intelligence points for counter intelligence. If you spend more points for defense than all your enemy spends against you, you are protected otherwise some of the enemy projects will succeed. I really don't see any advantage of the way SE IV handles counter intelligence now. The offensive Intel projects are fine apart from some balance IMO.

24) Just the usual requests for interface improvements -- anything ranging from the ability to import/export text-based command files and data (e.g. it would be NICE to be able to write a Perl script that simply automates putting atmosphere converters on every planet that needs it in a 200-planet empire, including queuing scrap-facility orders when necessary...) to implementing numerical input boxes for more tasks (such as specifying unit production and so forth). ;-)

25) AI to use baseships in game.

26) AI to use troops to invade & capture planets.

27) AI to use captures ship feature.

28) No Range Error's.

29) Add a new Hunter/Killer Race, hates everyone & everything, Super Aggressive, bloodthirsty, Super Xenophobic, small chance of making deals with, Destroys or captures planets, wants to exterminate all life, believe they are the ultimate higher order.
For Category 2 type additions for expansion pack
Pirates
Locust type race
Civil War
No Neutrals (or at least all races to expand)

30) I too would like to see a massively destructive race, one that most AI's hate too.

31) Option for Orbiting planets/asteroids (sectors that are moving on the system map; circulating the star - very much like ships automatically do in a black hole system).

32) For the AI to be smarter when building ship components or facilities that have more than one ability.

For instance, if you tell the AI to build a facility that has the abilities of a PORT and a facility with the abilities of a SHIPYARD, and you have a "multi"-facility with both abilities... it will build TWO of the "multi"-facilities, NOT one!

Same thing happens for components (although care would have to be taken with supply storage and cargo space, perhaps adding new lines for both of these abilities).

33) I just want all abilities to be available for components/facilities/etc

34) Oh, yes and get restrictions (fully) working!

35) 1. Improved AI ship construction: The various races have a good initial ship component list, but no variety. Once you discover a race's ship building weakness it's a piece of cake and they don't adjust. Maybe add a tiered approach to the ship construction. Then an attack ship or fighter could have a primary ship design and at least 2 alternates with a percent set for each design. Then a race could be 40%, 30%, 30% in different attack ship designs with 10 ship increments. Do the same with defensive ship designs and you can get a very could mixture. In the above example, the AI would build 4 primary, then 3 1st alternate, then 3 2nd alternate, and then start again with 4 primary. This would require adding a percentage to the ship construction field. An example would be to have 40% have shields with beam weapons and 30% have armor with beam weapons and 30% have shield with missile; then a PPB would not be a race killer. Other examples would be 40 Organic, 30 missile, and 30 beam. The defensive ship could be PD 80%, smart bomb 10%, and plague bomb 10%. Various AIs could have different percentages and different designs, but the key point is the various ship designs could compensate each other's weakness and build on the strengths making a much more deadly fleet-like what a human does. Do the same with fighters. I think one of the reasons the AI gets easy is because ever ship it builds is the same with the same weakness. A mixture of different ship designs would increase the difficulty of the AI.

36) Improve the ground combat. See previous post.

37) Positive Random Events. Events that benefit the player. IE-new technology discovered by accident. Derelict ship discovered with new technology. An Eco event has IMPROVED the value of a planet.

38) SEIII style starting tech levels would really be nice

39) Along with the Civil War I'd like to be able to play with more than 20 races at a time. At least give me the option to so I can play with all of the great custom races in one big game.

40) I would like to see the AI build troops, and uses them to invade their enemies and defend their planets. I have yet to see it do either at this point

41) I think any of the Intel operations should be able to happen as a random event. That way you aren't sure if another player is messing with you

42) Resolve combat peacefully" option: i.e. like "resolve combat" but without destroying enemy planets / ships which are ripe for takeover.

43) "Wait N turns" command for ships: Very useful for setting up repeat orders.

44) 1. Buttons in the tactical combat window that toggles each types of weapons systems on /off. 4 buttons should do it - I.e. All, PDC only, BEAM only (direct fire), Seekers only.
Being forced to select the weapon states to OFF or ON for weapons is particularly cumbersome when you have multiplex and want to target multiple ships. Some examples: targeting weapon platforms at a ship, large fighter Groups, heavily armed ships, PDC dedicated ships that you are manually firing your PDC at enemy fighters with.

45) An AI that adapts its strategy and ship designs as the game progresses

46) Ability to switch to strategic combat from tactical combat- watching a Resolve combat can be a long wait in large battles.

47) Increase the number of cloak levels and sensor levels (I have created a mod for this - including adjusted AI research files)

48) Increase the number of levels in Advanced Military Science to allow for more levels of hyperoptics and the top level to allow a player to visually detect mine fields. (I have added 6 levels - in part to adjust for the more cloak levels and to allow mine detection at the top level).

49) Allow fleets to be multi-selected when they are not stacked in the same sector - so you can attack from several directions when initiating tactical and strategic combat.

50) Improved Intelligence window, more slots for Intel projects - better explanations of what has happened to your empire when resources are stolen, tech is sabotaged etc. right now the reports in the logs are very ambiguous.

51) More tech types found in ruins

52) Ability to start a new AI controlled empire by granting colonies their independence.

53) Surrender not based on score.
54) Ability to create new ship formations on the fly during the game.

55) The ability to sweep select Groups of ships in tactical combat to reassign their fleet numbers or un-assign them. Instead of one at a time selections or un-assigning all of them. This would be helpful in fleeting large numbers of fighter Groups after launching them in tactical combat.

56) Strategic and Tactical combat - fleets that are larger than 20 ships are haphazardly placed after the first 20 ships. there needs to be better control by the AI on ship placement before a battle. Clean up the ship placement to avoid congestion.

57) Construction queue (f7). Add a button that allows you to select a build item for more than one planet at a time.

58) A button that allows a player to voluntarily slow down the rate of build and resource expenditure at a planet/Shipyard. Instead of only allowing the queue to be put on hold to reduce resource drain in times of economic crisis.

59) I'd like to see Mines, Sats and Fighters automatically launched when produced on a planet that has no spare cargo capacity rather than destroyed.

---

------------------
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG
New Age Ship Yards

[Quikngruvn]

I'd also like to see the Culture modifiers more balanced-- less something for nothing when setting up your .emp.

Other than that, a great big ditto. (No, I'm not a Rush Limbaugh Dittohead, in case you're wondering.)

Quikngruvn

------------------
Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.
--from the RPG Paranoia, now my PBW mantra