SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Fyron]

Those would indeed be useful hotkeys.

[Timstone]

Isn't it a good idea if you guys make a list of the stuff that's proposed/wished here?
Would make Aaron's life a lot easier.

[Atrocities]

I have a new idea for SE V,

Raiding missions.

A ship is armed with a raiding party component and when attacking a planet will raid it rather than capture or attacking it.

Raids can yeild technology, resources, population, etc.

Whatever the cargo holds of the raiding ship can hold.

[Asmala]

Originally posted by Timstone:
Isn't it a good idea if you guys make a list of the stuff that's proposed/wished here?
Would make Aaron's life a lot easier.

Yes it is a good idea but it would be such an enormous job that I doubt there are volunteers.

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by Asmala:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timstone:
Isn't it a good idea if you guys make a list of the stuff that's proposed/wished here?
Would make Aaron's life a lot easier.

Yes it is a good idea but it would be such an enormous job that I doubt there are volunteers.

---

If you read back about a billion pages you will see that I started to do this, but the task is so fricking huge and so complicated by the nature of the Posts that it would become a full time job for any one who wished to pick up where I left off.

Note this thread is not the only place ideas have been posted. There are many other threads with many more great ideas.

At this point, the only way I would attempt such a thing would be if I were paid. Otherwise it would simply take to long to accomplish.

Remember you have to organize, sort, proof read, etc over a 1,000 Posts plus all the linked to threads and such.

[Atrocities]

(Currently on Page 25)

LONG POST!

All of the suggestions, ideas, and such below are from this "offical" thread created by David "The Avatar King' Gervais. I tried to list them as they were posted, and some suggestion my be copies of others. You guys did not make this task easy with 33 pages of Posts to mill through, so please keep in mind that duplications are likely. I managed to get through about 6 pages and have over 200 items. I stopped at the Top post on Page 27 (currently raynfala post posted February 14, 2003 19:22)

I did this because I think a comprehensive list was needed. There are many many more suggestions out there that did not make it into this list. Some of them are contained at the links below.

Old Thread - Pole Thread
Old Thread - Old Ideas Thread

=============================
THE LIST
=============================

01. My biggest wish is that whatever new and cool ideas Aaron adds to SE5, the game still have a simultaneous turn, PBEM play option that is compatible with PBW.
02. When viewing a system show what ships and colonies are in the system the Last time the player could see it
03. Fix bugs and add more control to ship/fleet orders (ie allow player to specify what max range is)
04. Satellites spread all around planet
05. Fix bugs in comm. System (ie gifts accepted but not received)
06. In simultaneous game show some detail on ground combat results (such as shown in single player game)
07. Components with intel and research abilities
08. Ability to edit Messages after they are sent
09. Easier to use map editor (ie ability to drag and drop planets and systems around)
10. Additional warp points types. (ie Temporary would be good for simulating warp/hyper drives. Create warp point, go through and next turn it collapses)
11. Allow human to set anger level towards other human (and possibly prevent treaties from being broken when anger level is low ie 'bortherly)
12. Mines that do not hit 100% of the time.
13. Make Intel/Counter intel more sophisticated instead of just X no. of counter intel defeats X number of intel.
14. Save kT destroyed for individual ships instead of just class
15. When AI agrees to do something (ie declare war) make them do it
16. Show the damage to ships in combat replay for simultaneous game
17. Facility that adds facility space to a planet
18. Starting technology levels for each race individually in the game setup
19. Race specific anger modification in the AI anger.txt file
20. Ability to save default game settings for subsequent single-player games
21. Get restricted racial traits working
22. More mount options (ie to change rate of fire or Armour mount)
23. User interface enhancements (ie mouse wheel support)
24. Add more resource types. (ie certain components could require exotic materials to build)
25. Facility to increase max population
26. One of the things that I (and several other people) wanted was open-ended research. instead of progressing according to statically defined components, each component would include a formula for improvement. maybe linear, maybe parabolic with deminishing returns. this would make component families easer to create and mod, and would provide truely 'limitless' gameplay without starting a new game. arm's races could Last thousands of years. in theory.
27. Another biggie, is vector based movement. thrust and velocity would be nice to have. but even without thrust and velocity, get us off the grid!
28. For the candy factor, truely modled starsystems were frequently requested. planets that orbit. maybe outer planets orbiting slower than inner planets. more on the eyecandy factor, is planets that are animated pictures that rotate. even a rectangular bitmap that scrolls by, rather than a 3d rendered sphere, if thats too process intensive.
29. Another biggie that was on the old lists, was the ability to save your turn files before the end of the turn. you spend 30 minutes working on a turn, run out of time, and your not done. currently, you cant save the state of your orders and then come back to them later. It would be very nice to be able to do this.
30. Customizable turn simulation for non-human setups, like setup 10 ai races, let them grow for xxx turns or until a specific event has happened. This would make up a kind of scenario editor or ai test.
31. Fuel/Energy feature for components and facilities with abilities which depend on the level of energy, e.g. Talisman is filled with 100% divine energy (refuel at Fate Shrine or such), energy and to hit bonus decreases by ... I do not know yet
32. Ability to turn off/on facilities, would be a nice feature for finite resources games or for embargos against allies?
33. Different kinds of shields beyond phased and nonphased.
34. Systems with orbiting planets would be cool.
35. Replace atmosphere types with a slider. There would be the atmosphere types (oxygen none argon methane hydrogen etc,) each representing a number. Your race would then have a number on the slider. The closer a planets slider is to yours, the more facilities/population you could have, the easier it would be to mine, the faster your population would reproduce. Eventually, the planets slider gets so far away fromy your number the colony becomes domed, or you can't colonize at all.
36. Space monsters, space pirates.
37. Shipping lanes that appear as some dull line and go between the spaceport in a system, all planets in that system, and the spaceport in the next system over. Then the ability to blockade that shipping line and steal those resources.
38. Make tachyon sensors have range like scanners.
39. Switch the construction quee to be for one entire sector, and then make it similar to the research que.
40. Change the research method back to SEIII's
41. Keep warp points!
42. Keep Opening and closing warppoints.
43. Everyone has always been salivating over the idea of having colonies in deep space. building massive space stations (called 'sides' that will eventually break away from the Federation and form the Principality of Zeon...) that can hold population and generate research, intel, and resources. This could be addressed by having components of those types being added to ships, even without the ship actually holding any population. likewise it could be addressed by enabling some sort of 'lesser' stellar construction that did not have to be built around a star. or, perhaps in the far future of Space Empires, ships / bases will be able to hold population and have facility type abilities.
44. "Off-road" travel (move in interstellar space without using warp points)
45. Support for *.avi (or other animation format) in place of any *.bmp used in the game - probably unnecessary though if there is realtime 3D rendering!
45. Even more moddability, made possible by plugins - you don't like the resource system? Implement your own in any programming language you like, just make sure it links to the rest of SE5 using some standardized API - or maybe something like Stars! Supernova Genesis' "RDL" (Rules Description Language)
46. Realtime rendered ships & planets - yeah I know it's already in, but they're cool! (You say that cuts down on moddability? Just make it some standard format - most of us use some sort of 3D program or another, there's got to be a converter for Moray to DXF or whatever you use!)
47. Better sound effects! [Big Grin] Even SE4 Gold's "enhanced" sound effects, to be honest, aren't all that great
48. Some sort of prioritization system on the SitRep (stole that right off MOO3 [Big Grin] it means the turn log) - color coding or different font sizes for different levels of urgency, perhaps? or filters - show only urgent Messages, etc.
49. Ability to order cloaked ships/units not to fight when they enter a sector containing enemies they can see, or those enemies enter their sector... annoying when those fancy unarmed spy satellites initiate combat with an enemy battlecruiser
50. Ability to queue orders in turn-based games - "I want you to load satellites here, drop them there, and repeat - oh crud the ship already executed its orders! now it won't repeat anything!
51. Planet Classification Schemes, like in MOO3 - give a planet up to 3 (or whatever #) designators such as "Mineral Rich", "Frontier", "Research Colony", etc. and have AI templates for facility construction on those types of colonies such as "Mineral rich colonies get 1 spaceyard, 1 robotoid factory, and the rest miners" or "Frontier colonies get" - the trouble would be to get the AI to reconcile planets with multiple classifications - what proportion of miners vs. research facilities vs. farmers
52. Facilities that take up multiple numbers of facility slots
53. Combination of facility slots, cargo space, and maybe even population space on a planet into "surface area" - you CAN have more defenses on a planet, but you have to sacrifice facilities or population, conversely you CAN make it a mega industrial complex but there won't be room for weapons platforms
54. Multiple spaceyards per planet!
55. Realtime 3D combat! :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys: No really, I'm serious, they're doing it with MOO3 (well not the 3D part) - the way it works is, each of your fleets is divided into 1-8 taskforces, and the taskforces are what you actually control in combat, instead of piddling with the individual ships, which can be a pain when you have 100 ships on the battlefield! So early in the game, your TF's might be 1 escort, but later on your TF's could consist of, say, a troop transport with some heavy beam battlecruisers flanking it and PD cruisers on the edges of the formation. Then you just order the TF around - "attack enemy taskforce X" and they attack it, but each ship chooses its own target without having it manually specified. Sort of like a more advanced Version of SE4's "Formations"
56. Populations and facilities that actually consume resources! (Organics for most populations except mechanoids, none for autotrophs (populations that gather solar energy for food), and all resources for facility operation)
57. ** Custom moddable resources - you want Ironium/Boranium/Germanium instead of min/rad/org? You want "special resources" that are found only on rare planets and required to build exotic technology? You want to model every element known to man in the game so you need Titanium to build armor and Hydrogen for fuel cells? You got it!
58. Variable tech tree - like in MOO3 (a lot of my ideas are from there :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys: ), just because it says you need level 12 Particle Physics to get Phasors doesn't mean you'll actually get it then - there's a random factor and you might actually get Phasors at level 11, or level 14!
59. Ability to put multiple damage types on a weapon so it can be 1/2x to shields but once it pierces the shields it's armor piercing, or damages only engines - some sort of checklist in the data files like "Damages shields? Yes, how much? 50% of normal? OK, how about armor? Oh, it skips armor...
60. Component/facility/unit(?) mods (generalization of weapon mounts) that modify any ability of a component, specified by name - "This mod increases the 'Firing rate' of your weapons, cutting it in half. (Works best with real time combat :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys And this one doubles the 'Cloak level' of your stealth devices..."
61. Firing Arcs and Shield/Armor/Component Arcs!!! My phasor can only fire 90 deg. forward and I'm shooting from an angle of 325 deg. relative to your cruiser, so I'm going to hit a hole in your shield and probably hit your engine, since it's on the left!
62. Real leaky shields/armor - my shield has an 80% deflection ratio, meaning that on average, 20% of shots will pass right through! (or maybe 20% of each attack will penetrate)
63. Something I've always wished for in a space game - the "Lego" ship design model! (I believe I suggested this when SE4 was in development :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys Basically what it is is, your ships are designed modularly - you simply drag components onto a grid, where each component must be connected to another component at specified connection points. Each component has a size and shape in grid squares, so a laser gun might be a 3x3 square with a 5-square line projecting from one side, while an internal component like life support could be represented by a simple block. Each component would also have a weight, which may or may not be proportional to its size (a 20 kT cargo bay will be mostly empty space so it's larger than a 20kT meson bLaster). Then various calculations are done on the ship to determine its vital statistics - a to-defense bonus/penalty could be calculated from the overall size of the ship in grid squares, for instance, while the ship's acceleration would be the thrust provided by the engines divided by the mass. (Could even have retro thrusters for backwards movement and rotational thrusters for turning...) Then, when the ship is damaged from some particular direction, the components on that side are hit first. Of course, this is probably more trouble than it's worth to begin with, both from a programming and a gameplay perspective
64. More realistic/sophisticated planetary habitability and sensor models - take a look at LINK I cooked up for the "Universe" project - hey, even something like the temp/grav/rad model from Stars! would work, if atmosphere were thrown in as well!
65. Remote terraforming!
66.
Planets, ships, and units of fairly continuously varying size - instead of planets being "Large", they would be "24,500 km" and population and storage capacity would vary as the square of the radius. Ships could be built in any size you want, with QNP (or even NP, for combat!) ratios calculated automatically, and shipsets would no longer be "this is an escort, this is a frigate" but instead there could be "lines" of ships (customizable in some text file of course) - standard ships, transports, carriers, colony ships, bases, etc. and your basic shipset would have pictures for various ranges in each of those categories - who needs a neostandard when you can say "this picture is for standard ships from 100-149 kT, this is for standard ships from 151-200 kT, etc." ... of course, this might play havoc with mods that change the basic component sizes for realism or sci-fi universe purposes - Aaah, I decreased the size of components, now all my ships look like escorts! :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys:
67. Realistic unit sizes - 20 kT fighters are ridiculous! :insert smiley here, I ran out of smileys: How about modelling down to the ton on units?
68. Keep the modability, add to it.
69. Simultanious multiplayer, like SE4 is now only improved (save before end of turn ability, especially)
70. Real time combat is not worth sacraficing PBW style multiplayer. However, AI-run real time might work, and RT as a replacement for the current tactical mode would. As long as strategic is still there. Getting rid of the one fleet fires then the other situation is a Good Thing.
71. Ability settings for most/all abilities. Say you could make a Self Destruct that works 50% of the time when the ship is boarded, a better one that works 75%, etc.
72. Real-time rendered models are OK, but it's not important. Especially since programs like DOGA or Bryce will -not- be able to export to these (even with a filter- waaay too many polygons)
73. Better intelligence system
74. More free-form treaties. Say I want to offer just resupply and radioactives trade, for example.
75. Have the AI ignore things it isn't set to respond to. For example currently you can ask it to leave a system and it will say yes or no. However it never does anything either way, so it should just ignore.
76. The current system and planet view works fine. Maybe a few more (hidden?) details.
77. Another thing from the SE4-planning days: Techs with "ors" and maybe even "nots" as well as "ands" in their prerequisites - so maybe you need either Particle Physics or Wave Mechanics to get EM Radar (I seem to recall posting a similar example a few years ago when SE4 was in development [Eek!] ), or you can either research The Light Side Of The Force or The Dark Side Of The Force, but once you research one, you can't get the other!
78. ** Money. A more advanced economic model.
79. Diplomacy that actually works (steal the model from EUII):
a. Your ally has been attact, join the war or suffer the consequenses (drop in happines and reputation)
b. Peace treaties where the winner of the war (need a point system) gets some concessions from the looser.
{Note by Phonenix-D: Maybe one but I don't want to see the second at all, except as part of a treaty system I mentioned earlier. No point systems for treaties! If one player wants concessions they should -demand- them. You can do this now in SE4 for example.}
80. Also I remember somebody wanting a tug ship ability, pull thing to other location like stations. Oh maybe fighter that can attack ships and troop targets.
81. And also maybe use a number base for shield bypass level, like cloak has.
82. Save mid-turn games.
83. AI's that don't forget about you after you've closed a warp point for 1 turn!
84. A 'programmatical' combat system and rules: IF...THEN...ELSE, CASE, etc. similar to VisualBasic or something like it)
85. Don't sacrifice any current gameplay for 'eye candy'. Graphics are nice, but most of us don't play this game primarily for graphics...
86. Cloaking that is percentage based instead of level based. That way, you never really know if your ship slipped past his sensor grid until his fleet pounces on it... To elaborate:
Cloaking becomes a new ability tag "% chance to remain undetected", one for each type of cloaking (i.e. Active, Passive, Psychic, etc). It is, of coarse, a value. Cloaking components/sectors/systems have a positive value, cloak defeating sensors have a negative value. These values should NOT be cumulative (or better yet, make that moddable in settings.txt with a simple true/false line). The basic sensor ability (before any research) is just the cloaking tag attatched to the hull size. It should probably be about -50% (or 50% chance to detect normal ships). Colonies get an inate sensor rating of about -25% chance to remain undetected. That should be moddable in settings.txt as well. The values, of coarse, aren't set in stone....
If you wanted to get really elaborate, you could have seperate tags for "% chance to remain undetected" and "% chance to detect". Then you could make it so that (for example) the cloaking values don't stack, but the sensor values DO stack. (which IMO would be unbalancing, unless the sensors didn't have a high value...) I think it would also be kinda neat if there were two kinds of sensor tags, System wide, and sector wide. Then you could make all sorts of interesting cominations! (System wide sensors having a lower max ability than Sector specific sensors comes to mind...) Now comes my favorite part. [Smile] A check is made each turn to see if your ship is detected using the following formula: A - B = C where: A = Highest available cloaking % B = Highest available sensor % C = % chance of detection. As an example, we'll use my numbers above. An uncloaked ship enters a system in which you have a single colony. 0%(cloak)-25%(colony sensor)=25% chance that you will detect the ship THIS TURN. The game does a quick random number generation, and determines whether or not the ship is detected. Next turn, assuming that the ship is still in system, the game goes thru the whole process again. That way, just because you slipped past the sensors Last turn, they might detect you this turn. The opposite is true, as well; just because you detected that star destroyer as it entered your system this turn, that doesn't mean that you will be able to detect it next turn!!! [Eek!] Even better would be to make the turns between sensor checks moddable, too. Yet another line added to settings.txt.... [Roll Eyes] You could also mod a highly negative valued sector % chance to remain undetected tag onto Warppoints, if you wanted. That way, you see the cloaked ship enter the system (since it activated the WP, which would probably be notice). But as soon as it moves away from the warppoint ... I hope you had sensors researched... I provided a few examples of how versitile such a cloaking model would be. Hopefully, Aaron is convinced now. [Wink] (yes, I know he probably will never see this thread...)
87. Improved strategies and combat. SEIV strategies are not entirely intuitive (to put it diplomatically) and some of the selections don't do much of anything. Make more real options available like having a capture ship skirt around the battle to capture the enemy's repair ship or troop transports that will drop troops in the heat of battle. Make it more likely that several ships (not just one or two) will be targeted. Improve the combat movement algorithm.
88. Add an order, something like the sentry order, that will attack enemies entering the system during the turn. This would be especially useful when warp openers are around. Does you no good to defend a warp point when the enemy is more likely to open his own warp point and ravage your planets while your far superior fleet stands by and watches.
89. Cloaking that has a range, so you can only detect things close to the sensor array.
90. The ability to keep a race's attributes when they become part of your empire! It was always fun (if a bit of micromanagement) sending all my Psilons to the mineral poor worlds so they could do research and spreading out the Silicoids so they'd take all the space nobody else wanted on the planets...
91. Parasite Spore Bombs that initiate ground combat as if troops were dropped - against organic races, at least... mechanoids would need special computer viruses... allow computer viruses to be used against units as well...
92. How about Terra-Forming? Change a planet from one type to another? (not just the atmosphere!)
93. Also, I would like the population (and max # facilities) of a planet to be based on more than just the size of the planet and atmosphere. (I mean, even a moon sized planet (tiny) should be able to hold a lot more facilities!) Maybe some planets could be restricted to 'automated' facilities. (too hostile to hold population!)
94. Research & intell componets - that generate, on orbital structures [Eek!] .I wish it was in se4gold [Frown] .
95. Better AI - with diplomatic sense/ compassion/forgivness replys to human player?.
96. Better intelligence system - .See Phenoix.
97. Rouge alien trader - alien request 100000 minerals,and player selects alien componet/ship/or teck available.
98. Stars in background - of planet systems that flicker/go out.
99. Save/printout- of begining game settings setup.Example With this game setting then playing this game, i may Lose or maybe Win.Know i can go back to a saved settings file, to see what i set, and what changes i need to adjust, so i can play another new game with better performance.
100. Make ftrs still worthwhile in later in game
101. AI's as strong or stronger then the TDM and the other mods...
102. Some new additional races
103. Neutral AI's having the ability to expand outside their home systems
104. A very super Xenophobic Race, Hates everyone and everything, very seldom trades, makes deals, bent on total annialhation (sp) of all other races
105. Keep Moddable
106. New additional planet types and atmospheres
107. New additional atmospheres
108. New additional types of maps, including those like FQM, and others
109. I would also like to reiterate the request for 'space lanes' or cargo / logistic routes for civilian / non-combattant traffic. these lanes should be able to be intercepted / blocaded.
110. customizeable treaties. take all the components of each of the other treaties, and let the player mix and match. they can trade, but ships can still fight when in the same sector. they can share intel and resupply, but not trade. they can see each others telemetry, but do nothing else. and sliders for anything percentile, so trade can have teriffs where you are not willing to give more than x percent, even if you could be giving more. or subjugation/protectorate would have a user defineable percent of resources to cough up.
111. It's pretty frustrating that the game has passive and active EM sensing, but they behave identically. I had a great idea for a mod wherein all ships naturally have some passive EM cloaking if they're not broadcasting, or targeting, or anything. If the Passive cloaking could be set to deactivate whenever any of those things happened, that would be awesome. Also, if the "drop troops" ability were implemented, that would be good, since of all the unit launches, putting troops on a planet is the only one that demands specialized equipment. Not so much for, say, mines.
112. When moving cargo, there are options for move five and move ten. What I want is an option to move one hundred. Yes, I play this game too much.
113. Additional Resource types (money, SPice, etc.) added via mods. I think SE4 is close to being able to Mod the DUNE universe - SPice would be part and VERY rare, but you also need the ability to have an AI race that would act as Navigators. SHips would have no ability to warp - they would have to load aboard guild heighliners (Obviously this would need REALLY big ships)
114. Obviously, Intel needs to be greatly improved.
115. Saving Game in turn (as others state) needs to be in an upcoming patch. I spent 2 hours doing a turn the other day and got a phone call that made me run out - I left the PC on but it locked up while I was gone [Frown]
116. I would like planets to actually ORBIT the stars in a system. Maybe not in Real time, but they would move around a bit in between turns.
117. MOre Strategys that work. Abilityt o have sub-fleets (aka Task Forces, within fleets with different orders).
118. Sats should spread evenly around planets!
119. A note taking system built into the game - I want to be able to add notes to Races, planets/systems, fleets, I forget sometimes what my long term goals were for any given "thing" and this would help facilitate that. Especially in PBW, where some turns don't run for 2-3 days. I don't think that would need to be incorporated in the .GAM file obviously.
120. Edit Messages already sent and be able to send multiple Messages to other players.
121. Ability to export current tech levels. (the list that is, so I can print) Maybe even the ability to compare to a Partners for trading purpose.
122. Bring back the "Armor/Outer/Inner" Hull section for ship designs from Space Empires III! This was one of my favorite ideas from SE3 that I'm really mad that didn't get added to SE4. And to add to this feature, on damage points hitting Outer hull components, have an option in the game allowing the Last point of damage (if more then one point) "leak" through the Outer Hull to inflict damage in the inner hull.
123. Speaking of "Leak" Damage, it would be nice if their was some option to add "Leaky Shields" to the game so that a small portion of damage in a volley of fire could "leak through" the sheilds and hit the hull. The ammount to cause a leak would of course be optional in .txt files.
124. Bring back the old system of Fleet Management tactics from SE3!!! I like the new fleet formations and new tactics section from SE4, but I think the old SE3 tactical management of fleets was a little better then SE4 is someways. It would be nice if SE5 did base some of its Tactic options on both SE3 and SE4 and combine them together in SE5
125. Pirates, revolutions/independence wars, better ground combat....still would be great!
126. Wouldn�t it be great, to get an option to build up the formation of my fleet individually? Say...,my battleship should be flanked by this two destroyers ... , and this battleship should always be on slot number 3, the destroyers on slot number 4+5.everytime, when it comes to battle, this specific battleship would be always guarded by this to destroyers, even if the whole fleet counts 100ships.... or in short words, it should be possible to give ships in a fleet a specific place/slot!
127. stronger AI. i like singe player very much so this needs work. maybe even a special mode where the choices are limited (limited tech, full resources and so on) so that the ai doesn't have to much areas where it can f*ck up. this can probably be done by making a mod?
128. Improve the intelligence system of the game.
Escpecially the defense system seems to be weird. You should be able to complete a defensive project that then would be stored. In other words, it doesn't disappear after completing but get stored.
129. In combat, turn the sats to face the enemy. I hate it when they appear on the other side of the planet. they are useless there
130. Randomized damage--listed damage +/- X%. Adds at least a little variety in combat.
131. Different types of warp points. I remeber there was a thread about it sometime ago, but I'm to lazy to look. Also I still the mod script lang idea.
132. In simultaneous single-player games, computer players that take their turns while the human player does!
133. The one thing I'd most like to see changed/added/improved, other than eye-candy issues, is: Race Habitability. Take a look at Pax Imperia 2. Though most of that game IMO sucked (the demo was better, argh), race design is a true gem. First off, you could spend more points to breath more than one atmosphere type. Second off, a planet's habitability was based on comparing the planet's atmosphere and temperature against what your race could breathe (a simple yes/no) and against your race's temperature-tolerance band (a weighted value; the closer to centerline you got, the better). Thus, a world might be absolute hell for player A's colonists, and a pure paradise for player B's colonists. Player B will therefor value that planet more than Player A will, when negotiating colonisation rights in a border system -- though Player A would be best served by determining what player B likes, and pricing that world accordingly. And so on.
134. So; comparing to SE4/Gold ... allowing the selection of (for race points) additional atmosphere types would be great. Inserting a habitation value for temperature would be great. You could even go a step further, and add one for gravity, and end up with three variables to consider. Next up, and also from Pax Imperia 2, is an issue I terribly miss in SE4: the issue of flag-versus-shipset. PaxImp2 has TWO seperate places to select those; your flag is one issue, your ship style is another. IOW, picking the (for example) Sallega shipset would not REQUIRE you (barring a customised copy) to use the Sallega flag. PaxImp2 has some 20-30 flags in it, most quite nice. Then maybe a dozen ship styles, also fairly nice (if only game play didn't suck).
135. Now, on to somehting I desperately wish could be added even to SE4, but would wait for SE5 to get if I had to: NEGATIVE PREREQUISITES. Sorry for shouting, but this is something that most 4X games don't currently model: the concept that at certain key junctures (not every tech level, but every now and then), you get the option to "turn" your entire racial technology "paradigm" in one direction ... or another. You can't do both. You can't have it all; research is no longer like Pokemon ("gotta tech 'em all"). If you get component X, you will NEVER have the option to get facility Y ... or vice versa.
136. Change the way minefields work. Make one "mine" built actually representative of a certain strength of minefield ... when it's laid into a sector (or whatever), that sector gets that strength of minefield. Based on the strength of the minefield, EVERY ship entering, or spending an entire turn inside, the field has a CHANCE, not an absolute, to take damage, based on the initial mine built. If they do, there's a (muchly reduced) chance to take MORE. And so on, until they stop taking damage. Each impact reduces the overall strength ofthe field by a little. Minesweepers reduce the strength within a random range. Um, here's an example, with out-of-thin-air numbers: Say each mine built at a world and deployed by a ship or base represents ... 20 points of "depth" for the field. Two minesweeper2 enter the field, able to sweep ... say, 4-6 apiece. Okay, let's say they get exactly average, and sweep 10 from that field. That leaves a "depth" of 10, still. If we suppose the chance for a ship to be hit is equal to the field's depth, then each of the sweepes now has a 10% chance to impact a mine while sweeping. Let's say both do, but aren't damaged (they're heavily armored). Now, they each have a 5% chance to strike a SECOND mine; let's say only the second one does, and it survives, but is crippled. Now it has a 2.5% chance (rounded however the program likes) to strike a THIRD mine (which might kill it); let's say it doesn't, however. Three strikes happened; field depth is down by 3 more, and stands at 7. Next turn, the defending player lays one MORE mine unit, increasing the strength by 20 more ... to 27. Obviously, those two minesweepers, ESPECIALLY the crippled one, are in trouble. You can then introduce "decay", and even dispersal. Presume some fraction of a field is lost every turn, at a minimum; let's say 1/20th, or 5%. A 20-depth minefield, not swept and not run into, becomes a 19-depth field for the start of the next turn. If a single ship hits a mine, that satisfies the minimum of one mine gone, so ... no extra loss occurs. Dispersal can be modelled by increasing the decay rate, for any non-ship entity in the field (planets, moons, asteroid belts, wormholes, etc, etc). And/or decreased by the presence of minelaying ships or bases (who can tend to the field, retrieve strays, and so on). Decay-and-dispersal represents mines simply drifting away, having their electronics packages go dead, hitting random spacejunk and going "boom", and so on.
137. Other than that ... well, 3D graphics isn't really a big requirement for me; "pseudo3D" would be fine (3d-looking, but still using 2D graphics). I must admit I like the idea of an animated solar system (again, see PaxImp2 for an example, complete with Warp Points). Obviously, in a turn-based game, the animation would be sort of stop-motion, but ... *shrug* ... You could have the planets move at their own speed during the simultaneous-move replay. You could put a ring depicting the orbit of the planet, and brighten/darken/thicken/etc a segment to represent the planet's expected movement during the next turn.
138. Lastly, KEEP THE MODDABILITY OF SE4. That's what prompted me to buy SE4/Gold, it's what keeps SE an actively-played game.
139. By far the most annoying thing about SE4 is having a superior fleet beaten in simultaneous combat by the crap AI that takes over this. I would like more control over this. Such as when defending a warp point let me set my initial ships position. And somehow give me more control over what my ships do in the combat.
140. More options for stellar manipulations:
a. Create Stars from Nebulas (Hey, that's how they form in real life!)
b. Create/destroy organic infestations/warp rifts/other new system types added in SE4 Gold
141. Do not allow mining on ringworlds/sphereworlds. Farming is OK, but mining?!? you BUILT the thing and now you expect to MINE stuff out of it???
142. Population Management:
a. Population restrictions based on "population centre" facilities, not atmos type. Of course, non-breathing populations would need special domed "pop centres", which don't hold as many ppl...
b. Autonomous population migration: Civilians should be able to move around the galaxy without the help of Imperial Population Transports. For example, whole planetfulls of ppl might move away from conflict if they are peace-loving, or toward it if they are warriors/ beserkers=-). They could also be also motivated by things like plague, economic conditions, planetary conditions, overpopulation & the desire to explore. They should even be able to move across imperial borders if necessary, settling in neighbouring empires.
c. The above could lead to refugee crises- overpopulation of a planet should be possible, and it should lead to serious problems (Plagues, riots)
d. Underpopulation should also be a concern. Please enable the minimum population per facility! (although proportions mod does a good job of this already).
e. Plagues need to be more complex (ie less predictable) than just "level 1 medbay cures level 1 plague."
f. Captured populations should keep all of their racial modifiers! A planet full of one species shouldn't suddenly lose their +10% minerals extraction just because they have a new govenment! This would introduce interesting choices when it comes to relocating population.
g. More structured empires: Yes, I'm talking about imperial capitals, regional capitals, trade routes, cities, localised resource pools... Rather than micromanage these things, let the game decide where they are and how they grow. All the player has to do is defend them=-)
h. Less predictable intel: More factors need to be introduced to make it less cut and dried.
i. More complex and competitive ground combat. How about giving a positive modifier to races fighting on their "home" terrain? (ie gas races at an advantage when fighting on a gas giant).
j. Less rigid distinctions between different game objects, allowing modders to blur the boundaries between (for example) planets and asteroids, or between ships and planets, or between fighters and troops, or between ships and bases... the possibilities for modders would be limitless.
k. The ability to warp (ie denying warp travel to neutrals and fighters) controlled by a moddable ability rather than hardcode. This would be great for modders.
l. Ability to build treaties in the same way you build trade packages (I'll give you access to my resupply bases in exchange for research alliance.)
m. Advanced order queues for ships: adding boolean operators into order queues would enable us to automate loads of ship operations and reduce micromanagement.
143. Ships and planets that take up different number of squares/hexes/whatever on the combat map? Currently all ships are 1x1 and all planets are 4x4... MOO2 had 1x1, 2x2, and 3x3 ships, and 3x3 through 7x7 planets, IIRC... SE5 could go one better and have moddable ship sizes that don't even have to be squares!
144.Improved micromanagement features:
a. Be able to give the launch order to planets from the colonies list.
b. Be able to send ships or fleets to waypoints, give launch orders to waypoints or pick up and drop troops from the Ship/Units list instead of having to go to each individual ship
c. Allow sorting in the retrofitting menu and the ship fleeting menu.
145. Almost no facilities:
You set sliders (priorities) to determine what is built. You could still have a research center 3 facility, however you wouldn't be personally building it on the planets. This basically means you could have it the old way, but a planet governor controls based on the slider. You would click Y/N on some checkboxes for SpaceYard and Supply Depot. Terraforming would not be a facility, but one of the priorities that you set for a planet. Also, population moves automatically between planets (sort of - see below)
146. No direct control of Population Transports/Troop Transports/Fuel Ships
Instead, like MOO2, you have freighter fleets for those areas (or one, I would suppose if you prefer). You might capture a new Oxygen breathing race in combat, and since they are living on a Hydrogen planet, you would tell the planet administrator to move them to an Oxygen planet and replace them with Hydrogen breathers. Based on the size of your population fleet (and how many other demands you have placed on the fleet), will determine how quickly the population on the planet is replaced. Troop and Supply fleets would be a bit different. Your fleet/ships will have a support cost. The support cost goes up or down depending on how close you are to a supply depot. You might also totally cut off support, if there is a blockage between the fleet and the nearest supply depot (which would make the raiding of supply lines - a key tactic in warfare - a valid strategy). Keep in mind this support is not for just fuel. My vision is that when you invade planets, troops from your ships crew do the invasion, not a separate troop unit. So if your supply line is cut, you do not have any more troops being replenished on your ships. Also, through combat and normal attrition, troops die, so in theory you could have pilotless ships if your supply lines are cut off long enough.
147. On the main screen, show icons to indicate if a planet has a supply depot or spaceyard. Would make life easier than clicking on all of the planets in a system.
148. Reports that are sortable...
149. The ablility to name ships and planets and systems what ever you want and only you know...
150. The ability to add facility slots. Ex: Build a level facility I on panet X and you just added 2 more slots. Think of what a level facility M would do [Big Grin] .
151. Also be nice if you could make people a resource. Ex: Small fighter requires 3 people, pilot and ground crew, while a large ship needs 1,000 people, and a Planet ship yard I 15,000 people.
152. Someone mentioned money... Well I personally like the way money is being represented in MOO3. (Yeah, I always have to bring up the MOO games don't I [Razz] Well they're GOOD - and Aaron did mention that MOO was one of his inspirations for the SE series! [Big Grin] )
Anyway, the way money is implemented in MOO3 is that you collect taxes from your population, as well as collecting money via trade treaties, tributes, and a few other sources I can't think of off the top of my head. Also, production and research don't occur automatically - you have to fund them, with a diminishing returns effect. So say you have 10,000 industry and 20,000 research. It will cost 1 AU (Antaran Unit, the MOO3 unit of money) for each industry or research point or research point you want to fund - up to your maximum; if you don't fully fund your industry or research then the extra points are wasted. Likewise, you can overfund your industry and research, but remember that diminishing returns effect? For every multiple of your industry or research, the cost per unit doubles. So with your 10,000 industry, if you want to get 30,000 production done this turn you will have to spend 10,000 AU for the first 10,000, and 20,000 for the second 10,000, and 40,000 for the third 10,000, for a total of 70,000 AU! So it's possible to overdrive your production or research, but very very expensive! (This system would also work for intelligence operations, assuming they will be done on a points basis like in SE4; MOO3 isn't using the system for intel because it uses a different system - you hire and train individual spies to carry out your dirty work.)
153. A colony icon for planets that have space left for new facilities.
154. A search tools for colonies, that can mix several filters :
155. I want all my colonies with a spaceyard, not building something.
156. I want all my colonies not building something, and having more than 300 kt free in their cargo space.
157. A pop-up message when you re going to erase a fleet, by removing the Last ship.
158. Possibility to attach notes on a ship (usefull for transport missions...)
159. I�d like the construction yard to be changed
into a more realistic ability. Now you are CONSTRUCTING predefined DESIGNS.
It is more realistic to construct its components and then give the order to ASSEMBLE.
Space Yard Facilities will then be used for constructing bridges, CQ, LF, Engines etc etc.
The �surplus� of one turns build would be stored on the planet. (Ability 1 storage 2500kT).
Cargo facilities can enlarge the storagecapacity. When you have made all components you construct (=assemble) the design. Assembling cost could be an ability (10 % of the total constructioncost of all items). You will be able to produce more efficient but it
will also mean a better planning and transport of builded items. Yard Facility on ships can work with a storage ability (500 kT and rising when achieving a higher techlevel). If not sufficient you will have to use more ships !!
160. I would like to have a button in the system screen:
a. If you do an intelligence you can put the info right where it belongs. A button next to the buttons Construction/next turn would give you a summery of al notes in all systems.
b. want the ability to build as many ringworlds and sphere worlds as there are
stars in a system. I also want to the ability to �upgrade� a ringworld to a sphereworld.
Maybe a new feature to put in a component.
c. When starting a new game you can choose how many units and ships you allow
to be in a game for a player (both 20000). Make this an inputfield where you can put
a number instead of clicking and clicking and clicking etc etc ..... or is this
being solved in 1.84 ? Haven�t looked yet.
d. Give Starbases the ability to move so i can position them on warppoints without the need of a ship yard. I�ll even settle for a movement of 1 sector in 3 turns or so.
161. A simple abstracted tactical ground combat "arena" somewhat like we now have for space battles. "2D" would be fine, but something more then now, {pretty please}. {So we can maneuver around a bit and seize stuff and occupy dirt and blow things up more personally. So much more satisfying, lol!}
162. A more interesting "boarding" battle combat arena also.
163. The ability to set the maintenance cost of each individual component. Either as a percentage of builds cost or, better yet, specific values for each of the resources consumed each turn.
164. I'd like to see colonized planets generate usable population points to a pool like resource that are used as a "resource" globally, to build units, man starships, man factories. The "men" required would be specified in the component text. We could have other technologies, traits, components or facilities that reduce these requirements and/or increase their availability.
165. A larger space combats arena and a better "retreating ship" design. Having to go and hide in the corner or run around trying to run the clock down to survive, while cute, leaves much to be desired. How about... If you are slower then the pursuing ships you get caught, and if you are faster you automatically get away. I know it's a bit more complex then that and yes maybe there could be techs that modify that basic concept but generally if you are slower you don't get away, unless the enemy chooses not to pursue. If you are faster you get away even if they are pursuing, barring the uber-secret long-range tractor beam or temporal glue your mad scientists just invented. [Wink]
166. For Aaron to magically change his mind about the real-time combat for SEV. If I wanted real-time combat, there are already fifty or so games on the mainstream market form much larger companies with flashier graphics that I could get. I know that the end of turn-based gaming is inevitable, but maybe you could put it off for another year or two?
167. More realistic planetary damage! Drop 100 nuclear bombs on a planet and all that happens is the weapon platforms blow up? [Roll Eyes] Every weapon in the game should have one or more "collateral damage Ratings" which specifies how much damage it does to population, planet conditions, troops, etc.
168. Maybe stupid idea, maybe not, but wouldn't a "evolution" research line be something? ... like research and intel. Ok evolution takes a lot more time usually, but space colonization also takes more time to do [Smile] . But for example, you are terran.. and go to space more and more, you lose physical strength a lot, but you develope (with added research: genetic manipulation, cloning, random factors) telekinetic skills and telepathic abilities. With the goal to ascent to a higher being? or like a very powerfull "ancient" space race that pocesses abilities beyond normal comprehension... (like shadows and vorlons?)
169. some more things to consider for SE 5.
1 System and Galaxy
1.1 Sector limitation
1.1.1 If i can put 100 mines TL 3 and 100 Satellites TL 3 in the same sector
then it should be possible to put more then 100 mines TL 3 in one sector.
Change the sector limitation into a maximum of kT instead a certain number
of units.
1.1.2 Moving ships/drones through a "full" sector will not be possible.
You will have to engage combat or go around it.
1.2 Asteroids and Meteorites
1.2.1 Asteroids and meteorites which move through the galaxy (on a collision course).
1.2.2 Asteroids and meteorites can be destroyed by all weapons by reducing
the damage resistance to zero.
1.2.3 Asteroids and meteorites will move 1 sector each turn.
1.2.4 Asteroids and meteorites will move through warppoints and will be
handled as a ship while passing through.
1.3 Components and Facilities
1.3.1 Massive Energy Shield
1.3.1.1 Promote the Massive Energy Shield to a facility in the tech area of shielding.
1.3.2 Standard Movement Power
1.3.2.1 Propulsion is based on standard kT Movement Power (MP). An Ion Engine will have
100 kT of MP. 6 Ion Engines on a frigate will give you (100x6)/150 is 4 movement.
1.3.2.2 MP will be rounded down to an integer. (eg 4.8 will be 4 !!).
1.4 Units
1.4.1 Troops
1.4.1.1 Combat with troops will be desplayed just like combat screens for ships/planets etc in a arena.
1.4.1.2 Troops will have to have the ability to move (see 1.4.1.1)
@capnq 1.3.3 Construction Yards
You�re right that it will increase the time to manage your construction queues. But the idea was to make it more realistic. Centralizing your construction queues to a few planets would compensate for the increase of management.
Normally i�d use 5 planets as maximum as construction planets. One facility and about 10 space yards do the job quite well. Combine this with the suggestion to use more slots for a even bigger construction yard and more cargo space and the possibility to have more yards on a planet. I think it will eventually make it easier to play the game and managing your construction queues.
170. Meets the same hardware requirements of SEIV Gold. I don't know when I'll be able to upgrade my computer, so if the hardware requirements change, I won't be able to play the game. And I so want to continue playing this game in whatever form the new game will take.
171. Tactical ship combat screen: bigger, and when a ship reaches an edge, it will appear in the opposite side of it, as representing a spherical sector of space. Its not very realistic to destroy a ship by cornering it.
172. Tactical ground combat: a ground tactical combat map! Yes you can also create your ground / air units bearing in mind mobility / protection / firepower. Maybe some combat like in Panzer General I, with several categories of units: artillery, infantry, armor, aircraft (and may be ships in worlds with oceans?).Of course, turn based, as it should ALWAYS be a good strategy game! Allow use of all kind of weapons (seekers!) and other componets (engines) for ground units.
173. Maybe some ideas may be taken from Star General(not a good game, but I liked the combination of ground and space combat, someone remembers it??). Of course if the player don�t feel like to emulate Erwin Rommel, he can resolve it the�"strategic way"
174. Fighters should be capable of operations on planet surfaces to support ground units from ground bases (the equivalent of fighter bays but on the ground), but perhaps they must not be allowed to go to outer space by their own propulsion, only when they are transfered to a spaceship in a "space strategic" turn.
175. Bigger stellar system screens, with more or less the same number of stellar bodies in it but more distanced, as a stellar solar system is in most part "empty" space. I dont think very realistic to send reinforcements from Earth to a base in Pluto in one or two months. Players wil be more careful when deploying their defense units.
176. A bigger universe map: allow more, much more than
255 stellar systems, maybe a higher proportion of un-colonizable systems, but it will make the logistics of space travel a little more fun.
177. Ship movement: move up the limit of 255 standard movement units for ships in order to allow more freedom in selecting a scale for Quasi Newtonian Propulsion use.
178. This is what come to my mind now, I am sure I will have more ideas in the next few minutes... Some of those ideas were already posted by other people in more or less the same words, but I think this reflects the fact that SEIV is a great game and it only needs some additions to make it THE PERFECT STRATEGY GAME!
179. Design the game with a client/server architecture, where clients would be:
* the user interface screen
* computer AI's
* ministersand the server would be the game engine & state.
This would allow (among other things):
* aspiring AI designers to implement their own AI's (virtually no limits on what the AI examines from its vantage point when making a move)
* avid players to code their own user interfaces
* avid players to implement ministers that do exactly what they want them to do
180. I would also like to see some expansion on the idea of trade. Right now, trade is completely transparent to the player. I would like to see trade ships which are not really under your control (since they are free traders) but do require protection. This would not really add to the micromanagement, and would add realism since a government has far less control of free traders compared to military ships. These autonomous ships would establish their own trade routes (viewable only to the home empire and the empire to be traded with). Both empires would share the responsibility of protecting their trade ships. You could fleet your ships with them as protection, but then fleet control would be turned over to the computer.
181. Trade ship construction would also not be under your control. It would be controlled by some sort of suppy & demand routine. Possibly the player could have a method to increase/decrease trade ship construction over the whole empire at the cost of lowering the empire's overall construction rates accordingly. An attack on an enemy trade ship would disrupt trade, and the movement of resourses & supplies around your empire. Maybe even be able to capture enemy trade ships. This would make the spaceport idea a little different in that you would need a spaceport and trade ships operating from that system. There could also be trade ship related research areas. These would not be able to give the trade ships any offensive military capabilities, but would be in the areas of speed, defense, capacity, increased exchange rate, etc. Trade should be linked to happiness and resource procurement at the system level. It should also fill the role of supply lines. If a part of an empire is cut off, it should suffer in supply, and its ability to send/receive resources.
182. It occured to me while adding SectTypes to my modding program that it might be nice if the descriptions for the planets actually had an in game effect.
You could perhaps add a bunch more fields to the SectTypes file so that for example on a "Tiny planet dominated by carniverous flora." people would be less happy and reproduce slower. or a "Huge planet which is rumored to be the home of ancient powers." would give a bonus to research facilities.
183. Warp point toys. For example delayed-exit warp points, moving warp points, randomly opening & closing warp points.
184. If you have static defences by a warp point, your enemy should have to fight them in order to go through it. As it is now, you can fly up to the warp point on the same side as the defences, start combat, spend 30 turns keeping out of range of all those bases/ sats, and then after combat has ended just warp through. AGH!
185. Change neutral empires to allow ships to warp after a human player takes over.
186. What about getting rid of the Warp points and allowing any capital ship to have an Hyperdrive to jump to any system in line of sight (not blocked by other system) within a 100 light years ? That would be far more realistic, would get over all those "warp point shock point defenses", and would dramatically change the strategy.
187. Re-balance the weapons using the fine work of the modding community.
One recurring example: (Progressively increase the structural points needed to destroy seekers at higher levels, or apply a progressive defensive bonus to the seeker).
188. Here's something: self-destruct devices. I really, really hate these things. One of my favorite elements of any space combat game is boarding actions. And they're in SE! Which is great, except they don't really work. Because of the Damned self-destruct devices. All anybody needs is level three propulsion and suddenly the whole ship capture system is useless. A much more useful model would be to include some sort of device that would set off explosives when boarded, and you could decide how many explosives you needed. An even better addition would be to give the self-destruct device some sort of percentage failure chance. Another good thing would be more incentive not to carry them, so a way for someone else to set them off? How many sci-fi movies have there been with some super-duper ship or space station that gets trashed by some guys sneaking on board and setting off the ever-present self-destruct device? Another good thing would be if the devices were connected to specific components. Suppose you have some shield technology that you don't want to fall into enemy hands, so you put a bomb in the shields so that they'll be blown up if the ship is boarded. Actually, I hate to say this, as I mostly don't believe that SE should emulate any other game, but MOO2 had a pretty good boarding model, even to the point of having breaching pods (assault shuttles) and specific missions for boarding parties.
189. Something little... but you know how trade grows by 1% per turn up to 20%, where the 20% is moddable (like in P&N it's 10%)? Well, how about if the rate was moddable too, and could be set for each of the individual resources and points - so you could have Minerals, Organics, and Radioactives trade growing by 1%/turn up to 10%, say, and Research and Intel trade growing by half a percent a turn up to 5%. Also, MOO1/2 had this and I think it adds a bit of realism - establishing trade or research treaties doesn't initially produce a profit - in fact it initially costs money to set up trade routes, but after a few turns you start making money.
190. The ability to analyze units and facilities for tech, not just ships!
191. Better implementation of TCP/IP
192. Making a new component call it a warp generator, with the abilites of the gravitational condenser and the grav. quantum resonator. Open and close your own warp points, maps would not need stars interconnected (If you wanted it like that) This would better simulate, babaylon 5 type movement.
193. Ability to choose square to square movement. Forget warp lines/points altogether. Better to simulate Warp speed (Star Trek) type movement. This might be mutually excludable with other Light speed styles upon choosing which to use on game start.
194. When ground combat was initiated, switch to a small hex map and play a simple board wargame with ground "counters" with odds rations, zones of control etc.. Make this a different scale of play--- Ten round of ground combat for every 1 "space" turn. Also adding a ground unit logistics model of some sort, so that every "space turn" could effect the ground supply situation. Create ground counter type units instead of the component type units with size Bn, Rgt, Div etc.
195. Allow for a component called "system ship racks" allowing for the piggy-back ride of ships not equiped with warp generators on ships with them.. Makes for interesting strategies.
196. Allow for map editing with name tags with possibly a dashed line, that would appear on the map-- neutral zone--Romulan border--etc.
197. Allow map editing for more than one starting point for each race--like homeworld:fully developed--Colony:minor development--outpost-- minimum development. allow for starbases to start the game already built in the map editor.
198. Create an AI that will use the "proportions " mod effectivly.
And do this all underbudget and ahead of schedule
199. A tech-list that go on indefinatly, like it does more damage every level and gets smaller, same for buildings.
200. Gouverment types, that make some things easier... dictatorship or maybe an advanced form of technocracy? and each give you a benefit and disadvantage..
201. More abilities, like create pocket dimension?
202. Warp points of varying sizes such that you can't send a ship through a warp point smaller than the ship. So do you attack the obvious route that restricts you to smaller ships, or use dreadnoughts but take the long way around? Perhaps longer warp-points would be smaller - sort of like Stars! stargates, you have to trade off distance for capacity - or the warp point creation components would have a maximum size as well as maximum distance..

This is as far I as I got tonight. Top post on Page 27 (currently raynfala post posted February 14, 2003 19:22)

[Timstone]

*Jaw drops to the ground. Stands in awe of the HUGE post*

I can only say: well done. Two thumbs up!

[Q]

My admiration and congratulation for your huge work Atrocities. May I suggest that you send it to MM.

[Tanus]

A couple things I'd like to see are - the ability to restrict warp point travel by component. Eg. You need to have 'gravity sails' or etc installed on your ships to use warp points. This lets you make pure system defence ships that don't use so much space the sails so have more room for weapons, or do you install sails and let them use warp travel, etc.

Also, perhaps not in the game, but the ability to create multiple supply types. I'd like to be able to distinguish between 'ammo' supplies and 'fuel' supplies when modding etc. You could then make components with variable combinations. Eg. Capital ship missiles that fire every 3 rounds and use 20 supplies, and capital ship missiles that fire every 2 rounds and use 40 supplies. (rough ex. but you get the picture) This way you're not using up your movement capability by using your weapons, just your ability to fire.

[Atrocities]

Thanks guys, but that was done six or seven or eight months ago and was never completed. Way to much work. Besides, Aaron reads the forum and the Beta Testers read this thread so I am sure Aaron already has an impressive list all organized and sorted by now.

SUGGESTION for SE V

Area: Analyzing Technology

A better option to the current Anaylyze system would be to have analyze option cost Resources and take time to accomplish in and of itself.

Call it reverse engineering.

You can not analyze anything until you have research Reverse Engineering and then when you do analyze something, it cost resources, % for which decrease as Reverse Engineering Tech increases, and each project takes time, again reducing as tech level improves.