Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">BTW, If Aaron says "give me an example", point him in the direction of Civilization 3 and Galactic Civilizations. I've never played either game but I've heard that in each of them there are special structures you can build which give you "cultural influence" and can actually sway nearby populations to join your empire; also, in GalCiv, there are a lot of random events and ruins effects which actually require the player to make a choice - for example, you might
discover a planet with a race of sentient whales, and you have several options: enslave them (free labor, but causes unrest), exterminate them (you can now colonize the planet, but makes other races dislike you), or set the planet aside as a sanctuary (gains points with the environmentalist factions).

Say, I read about this laptop which supposedly has the ability to display real 3D images! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Assuming this is R2D2-secret-message-from-princess-Leia type stuff and not the cheap gimmicks you see on credit cards, this would be a really cool feature to incorporate into SE5... just imagine the space battles you could have! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif (I might even accept a 3D map then! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

that link gives an 'object not found'.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are you talkin to me? You TALKIN to me? Are YOU talkin to ME?

My humor is free and sometimes it bites. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

..Sorry I couldn't resist.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I have a good handle on both those games, along with some of the other 4X's (and I think MM probably would too) - but I reckon Space Empires could do it better than any of them. Working on it now for fun. If it works out OK I'll send to 'em and see what they think. It's probably a bit too complex to go into here, though.

[ October 16, 2003, 00:52: Message edited by: Ran-Taro ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Dunno if this has been suggested yet (I've only read the most recent four pages of this so far...) but here is something that I am having a heck of a time trying to mod in SEIV: systemships. You know, non-starships - they can't travel via warp-point unless they are carried by another vessel. This type of ship is common in SF and in SF games, and introduces all sorts of strategic wrinkles, especially if the "jumping" equipment is massive/bulky/power-hungry enough to put starships at a disadvantage against ships not carrying the jumping equipment.

I've been trying them as a variant of Fighters, and not pleased with anything I'm coming up with yet - so how about putting them in SEV?

SpaceBadger

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Yay, I'm a Corporal now! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Umm, should my feelings be hurt that I've now made 51 Posts and Narf has never offered me any cheese? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

SpaceBadger

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Ok... heres "Yet More Ideas", part MCMXXIV.

1. Capturing planet with resource / cargo storage facilities also gets you the cargo / resources that should logically be there.

2. New component / facility flag: "Makes Obsolite" ! Same as the req, but it makes all them listed obsolite once this has been researched. Means they wont show in Designs / construction windows when the "show only latest" is on.

[ October 16, 2003, 01:25: Message edited by: Me Loonn ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

i can't get everybody!

*offers Spacebadger some cheese* belated welcome to the forums.

anyway, somebody's already done system ships. check out highliner mod.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Yum, we Badgers just love a nice hunk of cheddar. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I will check out Highliner mod - I don't think I have that one yet. Thanks for the tip.

SpaceBadger

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I would like an "Upgrade Facilities" button to work on one planet. That way I would not have to upgrade everything when I just want one almost complete shipyard to complete as a lv2-3. It seems a shame that I can refit my whole empire, but not just one planet. Note I am talking about stuff in the build queue, not stuff already built.

I would also like a way to upgrade all items in an empire, but not change the build queues. I hate upgrading everything to lv3, then going back and changing all the queues back to lv2 so they can build one a turn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Does anyone else start a factory at lv1, then put the queue on hold for that Last turn or two while you get the lv3 tech?

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sometimes, when the AI has me outclassed everywhere else. I think that might be on the 'gamey' list, though.

[edit: Since the Robotoid Factory is the Last thing I build on may resource worlds this is not a bad plan. You just leave the 'held' queue sitting for however many turns it takes you to get Comptuers 3. Of course, it's a good idea to put Ship Yards on every world, so you might need to free that up prematurely if you get a surprise from your neighbor.]

[ October 17, 2003, 20:10: Message edited by: Loser ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

The single greatest improvement I can think of would be to enable us to save partially completed turns! Especially late in game, with dozens of systems to manage, I'd love to be able to save, transfer the file to my laptop, work a bit, and so on...

One other more nice twist would be to have the ability to review old turns. Go back and re-read those Messages you sent and received. See who broke promises, etc. Something like a cumulative turn file that builds up as you execute turns (not something you would want to have to download each turn from PBW of course!)

Ships that are fleeing from pursuers and have the same speed should not get caught. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Why have one fleet shoot all their shots first? Order of combat should depend on each ship's "initiative", which should depend on weapon tech, experence, special technology! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ October 18, 2003, 04:47: Message edited by: Merry Jolkar ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Just tried that man. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Please forgive my ignorance, but I think you can do this now. I often save my turn files when I am only halfway through them because the phone will ring or something else comes up. I think return later and finish the turn then process it.

OPTION - Save Game

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

In the construction que list a column with radio buttons for "hold" wolud be great. It is painful when you have hundreds of planets / bases and need to put 50 or 60 on hold.
Another column for "emergency" build rate would be great too!

[ October 19, 2003, 02:18: Message edited by: Quasar ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

One of the things that I would love to see for Space Empires V is the race contact system improved.

I feel that if "discovering" a race and having full contact with it before they open com channels is not something that I like.

How can I explain this. Lets say two ships from differant races meet in a neutral system and combat occurs, NO information regarding the victor should be gain except for the knowledge that there is another race out their. On the Political screen a shaded out figure with say a Question mark would then be vissable.

The way to establish contact would be to send Messages, and attempt to find their homeworld.

Now if a race has full scanners and they survive the combat, then the sensor information can be used to build a racial profile. BUT communications must be established before any treaty offers can become available.

The reason for this is for anaminity. Remember in DS9 where ships were being lost in the Gama Quadrant, and it took many months before the other races knew about the Dominion and that it was them that who destroyed thier ships. Even after they knew of them it took several more months to open a dialog. They had no intel on them except to that they exsisted and basically what they looked like, but nothing else.

Having a system like this increases the need for scanners, intel, and diplomacy.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

How about a "randomized" tech tree? I remember suggesting for SE4 something like MOO3 has, where you might need level 5 of Physics to get Hyper-Death BLasters one game and level 7 the next, but why not also randomize the effects of the technologies? There could be up to a 10% or some amount settable in the data files variation in all numeric attributes associated with any technology, so a DUC-5 might do 36-44 damage, have a range of 4.5-5.5 km, fire every 0.9-1.1 seconds, weigh 27-33 kT, etc. depending on who built it (or maybe even on which spaceyard it was built at!)

Also, even if this is not implemented, it might be helpful to measure the mass and hitpoints of smaller vehicles in tons rather than kilotons, both for realism and precision - it's kind of hard to have a 10% variation in size or a +25% increase in damage from a mount when your component is only 2 kT! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Regarding tech again, a more interesting model for analyzing vehicles (and facilities? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) might involve a list of possible tech areas you can get from analyzing something, along with a % chance, a range of points (not necessarily a whole level!), and a max. level you can attain (so you can't get level 12 propulsion by analyzing a bunch of C-T engines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) Also, you'd get a chance at tech for every component, not every ship... so a WMG-3 might give you a 50% chance at up to 50,000 points in High Energy Weapons up to level 10, but also a 25% chance at up to 20,000 points in Propulsion up to level 7 (what you need to get High Energy Weapons in the first place) Then you might get both... or you might get nothing! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Something that would be great to have in SE V would be the ability to convert facilities from one type to another.

So maybe you could convert all your Research centers to Intel centers after you have completed all possible research, for say, 50-70% of the cost of a brand new Intel center. Right now, as far as I know, you have to go individually to every planet with a research center and manually scrap it then build whatever you want instead. It takes a long time and is kind of annoying. It'd be great to be able to press a button and choose a new type of facility to convert all your now useless research centers to.

Thought this idea might be a good idea to implement when SE V rolls out. (Hopefully soon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Actually, you can scrap all Research centers everywhere at once in the F5 Colonies window. Of course, you still have to go through all the now lightened colonies in the F7 Construction window, but if you sort them by Facilities and then by Construction you will have them all in a row and be able to work through them fairly swiftly.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I am new to SEIV, and don't have the time to read through this entire thread at the moment, so I'll post a couple ideas that may be repeats.

It would be nice to see a winning condition whereby you form something the equivalent of the UFP out of Star Trek. The idea being that your race sets out to build diplomatic relations and unity to an extent that is reflected in some kind of scoring, the member races of the "Federation" you put together scores based on their individual scores. Not surprisingly, the computer players (some any way) should be trying to establish their own form of this.

Another idea would be to have a pausible real time system for ship combat ala the old Microprose game, Task Force: 1942. The elegance of fleet control and firing would be a natural fit to the SE style of play. Now, I am not a fan of RTS play, but this is one model that "feels" right.

I know it has been suggested before, but I would also like to see the system view resemble the orbiting, isometric style of MOOII.

[ October 21, 2003, 14:10: Message edited by: Monolith ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep, I knew you could scrap them all at once, but that's a small part of the whole process. But thanks for the faster process for adding the items to those many, many construction queues. I hadn't thought of that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Renegade

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

ability to retro all ships at once or select them from a list for retro.

and build ships at this yard to join x fleet....

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Now, if only I could do it all with the keyboard, then it would be automated.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

don't know if anyone's posted this; it was inspired by some comments in the devnull thread about retrofitting. retrofitting should be like building a ship; it should take time based on number of components and cost.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Scale mounts that are built into the game engine, like in MOO2. SE4's scale mounts that have been modded in have the awkward problem of requiring the base component size and cost to be very large, so you get "Ion Engine I is 1000 kT and costs 30,000 minerals?!? WTF?!? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif " And you also have to go to the trouble of selecting the scale mount from the mount list every time you want to use a scaled component. Instead, how about allowing percentages or multipliers in the Components.txt file, so you could say

Component Name := Ion Engine I
...
Tonnage Size := 10% <- relative to size of hull
Tonnage Structure := 20% <- again relative to size, so for a 100kT hull it has 20 HP
...
Cost Minerals := 300% <- again relative to size of hull, so for a 100kT hull it costs 300 minerals

or, even more flexible but less readable & harder to implement & design a component stats window for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif :

ComponentName := Ion Engine I
...
TonnageSize := [Hull.TonnageSize] * 10% <- the Hull object refers to the hull this component is mounted on
Tonnage Structure := [TonnageSize] ^ 2 * 0.1 <- increases as the SQUARE of the size for some reason http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif a 100kT ship would have a 10 kT / 10 HP engine, a 300kT ship would have a 30 kT / 90 HP engine...
...
CostMinerals := [TonnageSize] ^ 2 * 3 <- there's that square again, remember the "Economies of Scale Mod"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

would certainly make my mod easier.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Okay, I am almost certain these have been listed... but...

- A "web" plasma field weapon ala the Tholians from the original Star Trek series

- Leaders with traits ala the MOO series for Fleets/Ships/Systems

- A Space Elevator as a component to complement that Space Yard facilities to speed those puppies up, or possibly some other use. It just sounds so cool to have, I just want it in the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

- Greater range of racial characteristics

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you mean a facility to improve the construction rates of your space yard? If so, you may already do so with SEIV. There are such facilities in the Adamant mod, and another mod as well IIRC. In Adamant, you have to build a "project" of expansion of your space yard, for any of the three resources, and then upgrade the project into a working extension. That way, the limit "only one space yard per colony" is forgotten. (I believe it is the purpose of the project facility, but Fyron will have to confirm this supposition. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

[ October 28, 2003, 19:01: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

How about a fog of war? You know, where you don't even know where the next warp point will take you? The thing I like about Galactic Civilizations is that you have to explore the entire galaxy to know what's out there. I kind of like that, instead of knowing what the galaxy already looks like, but just not sure of what each sector looks like until you come out of the warp point.

Also, speaking of GC, how about having objects or discoveries out there that you can come across, like an ancient ship relic. I know there are planetary ruins, but how about finding an advanced ship with wonderful new technology?

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

And don't forget the mystery traders who travel at impossibly high warp speeds so you have to plan your trade ships' routes carefully, but if you do manage to catch them, you're in for a big surprise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I'd like to see the Minimum Chance to hit raised to something like 20%.

I think this will curb a lot of frustration I see new players suffer from when their 100-ship fleets get squashed by ten ships with max defense.

In any case, both Minimum Chance To Hit and Maximum Chance To Hit should be something modders can tweak.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

IMHO, the there should always be 5% change to hit or to miss - it worked so well in fallout 2. Its better that way since there would be more unique battles, even the best ship CAN miss (even with the talisman).

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

What would be nice would be if the AI had predisposed demeanor settings.

You choose Aggressive / Cunning and the game automatically uses a preprogramed AI that is aggressive and cunning. Of course you can always edit this and tweak it or add new combinations.

The nice thing about an option like this would be the ease of pick and choose your AI type without all of the guess work and lack of actual benefit of a races predisposition that we currently have.

The Ai will know that it is to attack in X way if X predisposing is selected. IE if the AI is set to Friendly / Peaceful, then it will not declare war upon you the instant it meets you like the AI currently does.

The problem with the current AI is that it does not understand demeanor, race definers, or mood settings such as peaceful, hostile, etc.

If we had preestablished parameters for the AI to use, that could be edited of course, then the AI would have a solid foundation on knowing how it is suppose to react. Oh sure you can make the agreement that we have this ability now, but the truth is we do not. All AI's, regardless of settings, seem to act an awful lot alike.

The second thing I thing should be included as a must have improvement is something that I have discussed many times before. The addition of the AI to understand Demeanor in diplomatic Messages. IE if I send a message and tag it as friendly, then the AI knows it is a friendly message and will respond accordingly. Now if I send a hostile message then the AI will understand this and our relations will grow strained.

Couple these two ideas together and you will have an AI that will act like it is told to act, and will respond accordingly to other races demeanors and tones.

So when I select Gun Boat Diplomacy as an AI setting along with Aggressive, the AI will know that I expect it to respond aggressively and with force to any unsatisfactory diplomatic situation.

The reverse is true for a race that is set up to be Peaceful and Polite.

Just my two cents worth.

"If I had two cents, I'd spend it." - CW

[ October 29, 2003, 20:31: Message edited by: Atrocities ] dogyams

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

The current "100 mines per sector" limit seems rather arbitrary; here's an alternative way to curb uber-minefields, borrowed from Stars! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Mines have a decay rate! Each turn, some percentage, say 2% (of course moddable in the data files and modifiable by racial traits, mine hulls, mine components, etc.) of every minefield, spontaneously detonate / run out of supplies / whatever. (Perhaps if they spontaneously detonate this detonation could be detected by enemies, alerting them to the presence of a minefield?) Anyway, so suppose you manage to build a 1000-mine minefield. You don't have 1000 mines for long, though, because you lose 20 the next turn, and just in order to *maintain* the minefield, you have to launch 20 new mines! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif There could always be some minimum value like 100 for which no decay occurs, so smaller minefields wouldn't need to be maintained and they would work like in SE4.

The same logic could be applied to satellites and any other kind of units that are deployed in space in large Groups for a long period of time... though it's a bit less evident why a satellite would spontaneously self-destruct... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif (it might run out of supplies though)

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

After playing the Dominions II demo (wow, can't wait for the full game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif I wonder if it's moddable like so many of Shrapnel's other games?) I got to thinking, "gee, there are a lot of cool ideas in here that would fit into SE5!" (Really! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) Here are a few that I can think of right now:

-Morale in combat - OK, we don't have individual soldiers running around on the battlefield, but we could apply the system to ships' crews, so when a crew runs out of morale points (which could be affected by taking crew losses, losing friendly ships, or by special weapons - the Psychic tech tree would become even more interesting, and the WMG is pretty awe-inspiring in itself:D), the ship automatically turns and flees! Of course, installing a Master Computer would mean your ship never flees (unless some modder designed to create master computers that are intelligent enough to have morale http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) Morale could also be affected by a racial trait, either the Happiness trait or a separate one.

-Save in the middle of a turn - OK, I know, it's something we've been bugging you about since SE4 was released, but this just gives me an excuse to bring it up again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

-Artifacts and special items that can be assigned to units. In Dom2, certain units can construct special weapons, armor, rings, etc. by using magical crystals. Or, you can find them, win them in contests, whatever. These items can then be assigned to units (usually commanders since they can make the best use of them). The way this might work in SE5 is, you might have your standard Anti-Proton Beam which can be constructed at any old spaceyard. But there might be some experimental Version that can only be constructed at a special lab and retrofitted onto a ship there. Or instead of finding Massive Ionic Disperser technology at a planet, you find three or four Massive Ionic Dispersers... you can try to analyze one or more of them and gain the technology, but that could be risky - they could blow up, or you might take them apart and still not be able to figure anything out... or you can take them to your Xenotechnology Lab and fit them onto your flagships...

-Mercenaries! Bid on them and the highest bidder gets to order them around for a few months, and if enough survive, they go back to auction! Or do it the Merchant Prince way and you pay them a salary every turn based on how many are still alive, but the auctions are more fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Also, I have an idea for making supplies & maintenance a bit more interesting & realistic without making the game too cumbersome (like some people say Stars! is, with the shuttling minerals around):
Get rid of "supplies" and instead let ships carry around resources (min/org/rad or whatever SE5 uses) to use as supplies, just like they carry around cargo, with the full range of transfer commands. Yes, this sounds like Stars!, but wait - There's also a global pool, like in SE4! Merge the functions of "spaceport" and "resupply depot" so wherever you have a spaceport, your ships can stop to draw resources from the global pool to use as supplies (or return them if you need them for construction). Maintenance costs would then be some value assigned to each component and hull in the data files, independent of the construction cost, and maintenance would be deducted from each ship's supplies/resources every turn. But how do you get your resources to your planets to build things? Well, there would be a two-tiered system: local resources and global resources. Local resources are like in Stars! where you have to move them around; any fresh colony starts with a few generated from scrapping the colony ship; make sure you build a spaceport first! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Global resources are like in SE4 and come into play when you have a spaceport in the system (which isn't blockaded, and your planet isn't blockaded either http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) Construction would use global resources first, saving the local resources for times of shortage (like a blockade). So all in all, most of the time you wouldn't *have* to micromanage your resources (due to the global pool), but there'd still be the strategic element of laying siege to a system by blockading the spaceport! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

that stuff about supply's made sense. but i still want moddable types of supplies. probably a few people here who want a whole economy going, to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I'd like it if you could have more than 255 systems

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I know it's pure eye candy, but the 3-D map of MOO3 is quite nice and adds flavor; surely SE V will have it right?

Disclaimer: I do NOT play MOO3!

[ November 02, 2003, 14:46: Message edited by: Monolith ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wow, it did? It barely made sense to me when I was typing it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
Yeah, I'd like moddable types of supplies and resources, too; no reason my idea would be incompatible with that...

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

here is one i would realy like to see.

Game Setup

Quick setup .... ( you know what we have now )

Or Detailed setup.

Where the admin picks the number of planets the player starts with and either a random generation of locations or they can go into the map and pick the planets., What tech levels the player starts with, The starting number KT of ships and KT of units that are available. What events they want to occur and when ( and/or quick pick default types ) Be able to select the cost of each research type and what levels are available. And alter any component or facility costs abiliites or what ever. So if it is available in the game it is available for manulpilation at the game set up screens.

Then the Player on turn 2399.9 gets to go through and place what ever facilities they want on their planets, Design and deploy all ships and units in their controlled space.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

adding more...

the ability to determine what can be traded , analyzed in a game at setup. the ability to set up what level the fog of war will be ( no info on alien races to complete info )

And the ability as an admin to go in and check an empire out or the whole map, what current orders are and what went on in communications. for current and previous turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

A treaty level where you trade tech without having to click on every tech every time and the ability to set up payments or loans to empires and charge interest. So a credit system. So players can buy ships , planets resources off each other using credits and the credits could be used to purchase resouces ???


I have mentioned some of these ideas before...

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

I emailed parts of this to Aaron already, but here it goes again with some other ideas thrown in for good measure! I'll probably be repeating ideas in other Posts, so I'll apoligize up front for that.

If it would be possible when staring a new game to check box one of several Faster-than-light drive playing styles. This would really capture the majority of Sci-Fi universes for modders like me, and it might be do-able in your existing executable files.

1)The standard warp point movement system.

2)The outside edge boxes of each system linked to the corresponding outside edge boxes of the neighboring systems to simulate Star Trek style of movement. All warp points and warp lines are invisible, but all movement to the edge of a system will move you to the edge boxes of the next system in the map. Engine mod inter face to determine how far and how fast engines can travel per turn so you can simulate the differing capabilities of the various warp engines. The no warp points in this movement style or the warp points are invisible to the player would simulating the feel of Star Trek movement style.

3)A check box to only allow a warp engine/generator component to open warp points to various other systems based on a distance setting in the component text file. Warp points are not used in map construction; they exist only when generated by a warp capable ship. They would also close and disappear when the ship move is complete. This almost exists in the game now but implementation is slightly different. This could simulate Babylon 5 or Star Wars movement styles.

An ability to play in much larger maps > than 255 systems. And the ability to specifiy the scale of maps. I.E., this one is one light year per square, this one is one parsec per square, etc. This would be for the campaign creation aspect. 3D maps would be nice too. Like the freeware program CHview if anyone is familiar with it.

An ability to setup scenarios, i.e. the ability to setup multiple starting points, home worlds, fleets and research already progressed to a point specified by the scenario designer. The ability to specify reinforcements. Basically to step into a SCI-FI game/world that already under way instead of starting games from the "beginning? as it were.

And no offense to anyone, but cleaning up the TCP-IP implementation to let the computer handle all the proccessing would be a real help. Just push the next turn button and sequence any combats and have it all simultaineous and invisible to the players.

The ability to link mutiple maps for immense campaigns. And the ability to transfer units and such between maps for campaign continuity.

An AI that would be able to kick butt while playing the proportions mod (which is my favorite although I've modded Star Trek and other SCI-FI universes into it)

And to really step off the edge, it would probably be way too much work to make a separate ground combat module to better simulate that aspect of Sci-Fi. Possibly similar to a typical board style hex map wargame. Remember Fifth Frontier War for Traveler by Game Designers Workshop.

Hex or Square map for garden worlds, cratered vacuum worlds. Unit counters that are produced just like components for Vacuum troops, Mechanized forces, militias etc.
A separate time-scale maybe to blend into the main game. Logistic considerations to show the real complexity of future interstellar ground combat. These thoughts would allow players and modders to simulate game universes like Starship Troopers or whatever they’re into at the time.

Any one remember their first Space exploitation/exploration game? Mine was this little ASCII Star Trek game on a PDP 1170 home made "Home" computer, forget the name of it though! I think it was about 1977/78. Just after that it was a cheap little board game called Warp War, then Starfire whish SE4 reminds me allot of.

Oh well, I better shut up now!
Larry the wishful thinker, and the dismal programmer!

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet already but how about warp point 'ownership'? (maybe once an outpost/starbase/whatever is built there??) In this I mean an Empire owns that specific warp point and can charge $$ for other Empires to use it (tarriff) or can even refuse entry (even to allied Empires, refuse colony ship access etc , this could of course raise that empires anger level or even have the empire decide to shoot its way though ,etc) or grant entry though defenses (even though a treaty is currently not signed to avoid a fight etc). I would just love to keep my systems MINE, enough of the overly friendly AI colonizing planets in my system!

That and AI's that will actually go through with their threats (ie, break treaty with race x or we will punish you....etc)

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It should. Aaron cites it as his main inspiration for the Space Empires series. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Admiral Wunderbar, take a look at Starfury for an idea of what combat in SE5 will look like. (With a lot more ships you can order around, of course! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) Does that address some of your concerns? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Haven't read everything, but here goes:
- Event Scripting!!! Such as:
+ If Player2 is in quad21.sect1821 then
++ Set victory Player2
or
+ If PlayerX has ships then
++ For ShipNum from 0 to PlayerX.MaxShipExisting DO
+++ If Ship has ResearchAbility then
++++ PlayerX.ResearchPts += blah blah

- Unified abilities, in such that doesn't matter if the star destroying ability is in a facility, inherently in a ship or in a component, it's still computed normally.
- Multiple effects in intel projects -> as in an ability list for a facility.
- Divide points evenly in Research window will not attribute more points to a project than it needs to be completed
- Spacial Colonies: a kind of ship or base that can grow (be added to) and support population as a planet (with all the inherent modifiers) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
- Even in 2D, lots of animations for weapons and it's effects.
- In combat screen: fog of war. You don't know what's hiding behind that planet! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
- Ship turning counts as a movement. Either by 45 or 90 degrees as 1 move-point, depending on the ship mass.
- Inertia? Acceleration and de-acceleration takes a toll, like in first round moving you have max-speed /2 and to move less or stop you have a minimal speed after reaching the maximum speed.
- 3D RT rendering of some actions, like fighter launching, huge cannons destroying a battleship, etc.
- A pill for my digressing tendencies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

>ASCII Star Trek game on a PDP 1170 home made "Home" computer<

WOW!!! I remember seeing that in the bookstore in 1980 or thereabouts when I discovered D&D in high school no less. I remember thinking "cool" when I saw the cover, then I was like WTF is this about, it's all asteriks and pound signs, not a Klingon in sight... hard to imagine I knew so little about computers then, but even harder to imagine it's how I make my living now.

Yes, I AM an old fart who plays computer games. Wanna make something of it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[ November 11, 2003, 13:05: Message edited by: Monolith ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is what it does now... you just hit the next turn button and it makes and sends the next turn. But, removing the ability to keep track of what is going on (ie: sending/receiving turn/player files) would be a bad idea in the extreme.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why would anyone do that? There are quite a few of you around here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[ November 11, 2003, 16:06: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

[QUOTE(ie: sending/receiving turn/player files) would be a bad idea in the extreme.[/quote] Please Explain why? Maybe there is something I do not understand.
I would think if you could allow the computer to perform all functions in the tcp/ip host and player windows, like the process turn/play turn function and just allow the human to play, you know just use the next turn arrow. It seems like it is an play-by-email sort of solution. My context by the way is for LAN get togethers at home, maybe play files could be archived by the computer in auto-saves. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoy the game and give plenty of credit to the designers for a great classic game.

Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
 

Removing all of that info from the host is bad because all of that info is very, very useful while hosting a game. Forcing turns to process without host intervention is bad in general. There could be options to run the game like that, but forcing it to run with total abstraction is a bad move.