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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Starfury does not run like "normal games" it runs exactly the same way SE4 does except now you HAVE to have the CD in the drive to play..yet autoplay still pops up the installer every time.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
On Windows systems, you can suppress autorun by holding down the shift key while you insert the CD.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Back to the decay things - what about solar cells for mines otherwise they might decay faster - perhaps needed a refuller ship to refuel any mines you have ? smart mines that are able to be set a small patrol route ?
Interesting ideas MM should be able to utilise new computer tech to its fullest when creating SE5 |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
One thing I noticed about Starfury is that while you can make the 3D models of ships and such, you still have to render them into a few bitmaps, which can be a pain if you don't have a renderer that's compatible with your modeller handy. What I'd like to see in SE5 is, if it has a 3D model, then that model is used anywhere it appears in the game, and no pesky bitmaps to generate. Or if the bitmaps are used for performance reasons, just include a simple renderer with SE5 (or even an addon for Starfury) that just lets you view a textured .x file and scale/rotate it, then save a snapshot as a bitmap. (With a bit more knowledge of DirectX, I could probably put one together myself... it's just loading a model, displaying it, transforming it, and saving the contents of a window to a bitmap!)
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Id like a renderer for both SEV and starfury that is simple to use. Making use of direct X to its fullest potential would also be good - lets see if they can come to the party.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
eh? starfury isnt real 3d, just quasi-3d bitmaps like in DOOM? after all that hype? so theres no point in using any one uniform 3d image, if you need to convert it to a bitmap before inserting it into the game? whats the deal with the .x extensions, then?
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
starfury is 3d objects on a 2d plane.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
I think its time to lock this thread, go through it and organize it. There are so many suggestions, ideas, concepts, etc in this thread that it will take weeks to weed them all out. I tried once and gave up after only 10 pages or so and nearly 200 items.
What do you say we lock the thread and someone with Broad band go through it and organize the contents into something that we can then send to Malfador. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
What I'd like to see:
-a GUI interface to help design game races. Currently you have to edit the text files. How about a race generator. -Palace/capital planet. When captured or distroyed your empire risks civil war or distruction -Recreate the availible weapon types. All weapons should have some benefits over others. Recreate weapons that are useless like Torpedoes. -GUI interface for creating new technology -Leader that give planets,ships,ect bonus. Kind of how MOO2 and Master of Magic. -Space monster & borg like invasions that threaten all races. -Improve trade. When you are looking for tech to trade with you should be able to view a list of tech the other race has to offer. Not what you allready have. -Recreate how Espionage is done. Maybe like the way it's done in MOO2. You have to build spy to infiltrate a race. Then choose a mission. All spy options are availible. Tech improves spy success. Keeping a spys home protects your empire. -Three types of ground forces Infantry- used to capture a planet Armor/Mechs- to distroy other armor/mechs, distroy buildings & defensive structures, artillary support for infantry. Air Force-to add bonus for armor and Infantry -Ground combat battle map. Each planet type has different advantages. Building are spread out accross the battlefield. Each side places their forces. Fight until there is one winner. -Different Government types that have benefits that can effect the game. Democracy, dictator, empire, ect. Ref. MOO2 and Civ3 -More victory conditions * Regicide-empire distroyed when your leader is killed. Like CIV3. * Political Victory-allies vote you as Galactic President |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Hidden warp points. Let me explain, You start in system A with one warp point that leads to B, B has one warp point that leads to C, C has two warp points one leads to D and one leads back to A. Now that you have traveled through the warp point that leads back to A you can “see” it to use it. Now A has two warp points for you to use. Think of the possibilities.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Whoa! Long list! Well, I hope these ideas are not being repeated but this list is far too long to sift through. Aaron sure has his work cut out for him. Anyway, here are 10 suggestions that I have to offer.
1: Combat should be real time but it would be just fine to leave the managment part turn based. The previous idea of attack Groups in fleets is good. Lets stick with 2D space just for simplicity's sake. 2: Keep with bitmap\gif\jpg style graphics. For ships they should rotate the flat image when moving similar to the way the ship in Asteroids does. That way all the great shipsets made now will be compatible with SE5. This also allows people who use uncommon 3D renerers to be able to create shipsets. Real time rendering would limit the total amount of shipset creators which is very bad. 3: Weapons should be animated by using bitmap sheets. One bitmap for each weapon or something like that. Similar to the way they were done in Star Trek Armada for example. 4: Lots and lots of weapon\component\facility abilities. You can never have too many. 5: Weapons should be able to have more than one attribute and many things like cloaking devices should have effectiveness percentages instead of levels. There needs to be an attribute for forward arc only guns and open radius turrets. Guns should be stronger but turrets more practical. Missiles Launchers should be the components you mount but the missiles themselves should be replenished the same way you replenish supplies. That is, of course, until you develop matter replicators! 6: Keep warp points but introduce a method of traveling without them. In a way that it will take 3 turns to go to a system 300 units away so if you can find a warp point you should use it. Something like that. Be sure to leave that option open so that the rate of travel can be easily modded. (I am formulating ideas for that already!) 7: Ground combat should be handled just like space combat. Facilities should be randomly arranged on the surface of the planet and troops when deployed should be controlled just like ships. Militia would just be little people that run about trying to kill your troops with little handguns. Fighters would be useful for both space and ground combat. Troops would need a form of propulsion like wheels, treads, and repulsors. Each having it's own advantage. This setup for ground combat would give meaning to troop weapon ranges, move rate, shields and armor. 8: Whenever you need to give something to another empire you have to load it up on a freighter and send it to them. Wouldn't that Xiati battleship just love to nab all that ore you are sending to the Terrans! More strategy is very good. 9: Pirates. We need some pirates that randomly pop up. They would start when someone steals something, whether it is a freighter or a fighter and escapes to a location where you can no longer locate them. The next thing you know you see that freighter attacking another freighter. So on and so forth, if you do not get the situation under control you could be in trouble. But of course, you would still have to worry about another species' pirates on top of your own. 10: Keep the sound in either wav or mp3 format. Those are the easiest to manipulate and we want to keep the game as modder friendly as possible. Thats it! I have added my 2, er, uh, 10 cents to this already massive line of ideas. I now close my eyes and pray. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
I mentioned morale in combat for ships like in Dom2, but I'd also like to bring up the topic of morale outside of combat... you ever notice how all your planets might be rebelling and forming new empires, but you can easily crush them with your massive fleets? So why don't ships and units ever rebel? Of course, one ship rebelling would stand even less chance than one planet, so perhaps they could rebel in some sort of group... all ships and planets from one empire that got really angry in one turn rebel together into one new empire, perhaps, with an increased chance of rebellion for ships and planets that are in insurrection? This would also help stem the "A breaks off from B, surrenders to C -> C gets all B's tech" problem, since A would be larger and thus less likely to surrender.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Ed,
I agree. But you could have it that all ships built at that planet would rebel (the assumption here is that all the crew came from that planet too) with the planet. Thus a player would need to keep their important space yard planets happy, or risk having all their military units "return home" when the revolution happens. Jim |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Mhmm. Ship crew origin could even be tracked. Some empires might try to mix crews from different planets, which could have pro's and cons. You could have situations like the Klingon ships in Star Fleet Battles, which have slave crews from subjugated planets, and then Klingon command crews and security stations to control the crew, and the ability to split their ship apart and self-destruct the slave portion if it comes down to that. Sounds a bit more complex that typical Malfadore fare, though. Having all the ships at a planet rebel might be enough. If a single ship mutinied, it might at least get a head start and be able to get away (especially if SE5 has improved ability to escape detection).
PvK |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
PLAYER COMMUNICATION
1) An in game chat system for TCI/IP (Not message by message, but one that is active like IIRC) 2) A way to send voice communications over a TCI/IP game. CONSTRUCTION QUE ideas/suggestions 1) A way to UPDATE all ques with a new design. IE you have 30 ques building Battleship type 1 and you upgrade the desgin to Battleship type 2 and you want all actively constructiong ques that are building Battleship type 1 to update all at once to build Battleship type 2. 2) A Place ALL on all button. A button that will place all of your ques on/off hold at the same time. GAME PLAY 1) When an empire surrenders to you, you gain the ability to build ships based off of that empires Race ship set. MODDING 1) A built in editor that will allow you to change AI settings in any AI file in an easy, intuative, mannor like the AI editor or Component Editor, but one that can also edit Construction Design, Research, etc. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Do people actually use the TCP/IP mode? It doesn't work through my NAT firewall, PBW works just as well and is far easier to set up and more reliable, and after the first few turns, it's much less convenient to try to get people to play together at the same time and the same pace.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
The entire point of TCP/IP is to have the people together at once, all playing at the same time. Thinking of it in terms of PBEM/PBW is a mistake.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Why not add a TCP/IP mode like Dom2 has - instead of requiring everyone to be together, one player sets up a server and the others connect to him to submit their turns - in other words, a private, built-in PBW? Then again, someone's already made one of those for SE4 (when PBW was down for months on end), so I guess the only reason for adding one to SE5 would be for advertising - you can't claim to support TCP/IP servers out of the box if they're only available as a user-created addon! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
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The more ways to play, the merrier, except for the time needed to develop and test all those ways. PvK |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
The sarcasm was about your response, not so much about TCP/IP mode itself.
PvK |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
I've only had a few successful games on PBW and that was usually with Fyron in a 2 player game with some AIs.
There's too many hiccups that can cause the whole tcp/ip not function correctly and that makes it not very useful. |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Sorry Fryon, if you were really just trying to help. Seemed to me like you were dismissively telling me my question was irrelevant, but I don't see that it is.
I don't see much that TCP/IP offers that PBW + IRC/email doesn't offer, without any development cost. TCP/IP forces people to only play when connected, but that's a limitation which could be matched by players' will or gamemaster enforcement, if the goal is to force people to all play at the same time. The performance gain is minimal - I've played PBW two-player games and the first few turns go by with hardly any delay. Is it just that people don't want to have to alt+tab to IRC, email, and/or PBW? Or the illusion that TCP/IP offers something that PBW doesn't? It seems cooler? The slightly improved convenience makes all the difference? Am I missing something? PvK |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
One thing that I think would be cool to implement in SEIV or SEV would be the ability to create unique facilities for which the player provides the description and which have no game effect. This would be entirely for role-playing and personal edification purposes.
For example, in one of my games I play a race known as the Exiles of Kor. They worship Kor. It would be cool if I could start a giant monolithic construction on one of my worlds, call it "The Great Temple of Kor" give it a cost (say 50Kt Min) and just build it. It would have ZERO game effect, other than to take up a facility slot, but it would have potentially LOTS of role-playing effect. My bitter enemies could try to sabotage it, I could be forced to keep fleets there to defend it, etc... Another player recently wanted to role play and international casino empire, well, they could do this in part by building a "casino complex" which, again, has no game effect, but has lots of role playing effect. It could be the destination of regular trading vessels, etc... if I ever survive the Klackons in my other game, I can tell ou I'd devote a lot of resources to building a giant memorial to the billions they killed on Earth... There are plenty of options. This sort of "role playing project" works to great effect in other games I am familiar with (see http://www.throneworld.com/lords/index.jsp). Now, those of you out there who are scoffing that "but why would anyone spend resources without any benefit? It's stupid!" may scoff away. But I can tell you that this free-form ability to role play can lend itself to a more satisfying role playing environment on many occasions. Thanks, Alarik |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
We do exactly this in the Play by Committee game. We have a Temple of Aaron and one player, a System Lord, is building a gigantic facility in his own arrogant honor.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
But how do you represent it in game-terms? Do you just chose a facility type and everyone calls it "X"?
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Head on over to the site and download the mod. We have added a few Facilities, and a few Components, and I regularly rename the components so that the differences between tech levels are recognizable. (i.e. Anti-Proton Beam, Carbureted Anti-Proton Beam, Large Bottled Anti-Proton Beam).
It's a very simple mod, and one that we change as we go forward in the game. Log in using spectator | spectator and check it out. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Allow all stellar objects to be colonized, and then include the ability to colonize each class of stellar objects as separate racial traits.
This would let you have different "classes" of life forms. It would be interesting to have Terrestrial (planets), Stellar (stars), Energy (storms), and Dimensional (warp points) life forms existing in a universe. I would advocate completely different tech trees for each class, sharing only the most rudemantry of componets and weapons. Even better, in the begining stages what reason would you have to fight other classes of lifeforms since your not competeing for resouces? You could have three different races occupying the same territory in a cooperative federation sort of agreement without stepping on each others coat tails. You would watch massive wars take place right next to your homeworld and not be bothered by it at all. Or we could make each lifeform class be xenophobic twords each other (A slide bar value in setup). In the later stages with tech advances perhaps allowing competition on various levels to exacerbate differances you would have epic wars between civilizations. Of course alot of game issues would have to be worked out to fully implement this. Would Dimensinal colonies occupy both sides of a warp point? What should the stats for Stellar colonies be as there would normally be one colony per system but we can't have them starting with shereworld type planets? A radical idea, but what depth of play it would add. |
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But you should read your own above words. But it could be that I am misunderstanding you, you are so young http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Hey,
Some more ideas. 1.) I would really like to see multi-tile ships. I hate that a starbase and base ship look no more massive than a dreadnaught or battleship (admittedly this varies from shipset to shipset). Multi tile ships would display just how massive these vessels would be and make formations much more important. It would go something like; Escort to Light Cruiser - 1 tile Cruiser-Dreadnaught - 2 tiles Baseship and above - 4 tiles I would use a similar scale for bases. Just imagine by the later stages of the game the mighty starships that would be roaming the starlanes. Movement and weapons would be difficult in a square based tactical map (HEXES PLEASE!!!). As for weapons, when desining these bigger ships you would decide what tile the specific componets are in. Those weaopns would fire with range from that tile, and the enemy could target a specific tile of a larger ship to get at certain compoents. 2.) I second the arch of fire idea. That you should decide what direction your weapons face. Maybe have different mounts like a turret that are more expensive but can fire in to adjacent directions. Would agian make formation and manuever important, as you could flank a ship to get into its defenseless side. I would do the same with shields, allowing a player to distribute its points around the ship as it sees fit. Reinforce the forward shields at the expense of the rear? Its up to you. Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain did this beautifly. Picture of design screen 3.) that game also had 3D graphics, but limited them to a managable scale. I would much rather see beautiful 2d graphics than pigish 3D. Hope SEV doesn't follow the 3D hype if it can't be pulled off well. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Ah yes the idea of forward, rear and side facing mounts and ships as well as multi tile ship types is a good idea. Which would mean planets and the game map would need to be bigger also to make this work - or a zoom feature where ships are 1 tile but closer inspection reveals different sizes and a micro combat map. Just some ideas to discuss
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[ January 27, 2004, 02:21: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ] |
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
GLV has mentioned "descending" when making remarks to me in at least 4 Posts so far... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif And the fact that he used "condescending" in the first such post indicates to me that he is saying "descending" for some purpose...
[ January 27, 2004, 02:35: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ] |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Weapons with “facing” might be nice but that could get pretty complex after awhile from a modding stand point. The multi tile ships are ok, but then the entire system map will need to be expanded (hex maybe) or you run the risk of getting perspectives, which is what you are trying to set, way out of scale with planets. I like Paul’s zoom feature.
[ January 27, 2004, 03:57: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ] |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
I think the ships would just be multi-tiled in combat, so the system map is fine, just the combat map needs to be bigger. Of course, it would still be a great idea to go with a hex map instead of square map... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Yeah, I meant that they would be multi tiled in the tactical combat map, not system.
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Here's something I'd love to see, although I have a feeling it might be contraversial:
I don't think the straight Jubilant->Happy->Indiferent->etc scale is enough. Therefore, how about if every planet tracked not only the population's happiness, but their loyalty to each and every empire in the game. A population's loyalty toward a given empire could be modified by battles and intel and facilities and troops and plagues and cures and various other game elements, and could be used to make planet captures, rebellions, coups and even ground combat militia behave more convincingly. For example, a planet that has just been captured may be loyal to its original owner and attempt to stage a coup. Or it might even try to convert to the original owner's ally if that ally's ships entered the system. Similarly, if you recapture one of your planets from a hated enemy, the population should assist in your invasion attempts and then welcome you back rather than try to fight you off and then riot automatically. The values governing this behaviour should be hidden from the player, although a rough indication of a population's loyalty might be visible. Even if these values did little or nothing in the game's first release, functionality that uses them could be patched in later, and of course the values would have to be moddable for those that don't like them. I realise that it would mean increasing the size of the savegame files significantly, but as the average PC's storage, processing power and bandwidth capacities continue to increase, I think Malfador should make the most of it. Similarly, I think each ship should record not only the crew's experience but its loyalty and morale. Ships could then spontaneously join another empire if you don't look after them, or mutiny and turn into rogue/ pirate craft. Also, all these loyalty settings would have to be modifiable by race: For instance I don't think a Borg or Cylon planet would ever be likely to mutiny... |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Just don't turn it into some silly "culture" rating like in Civ 3... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
You know the loyalty factor to each and every empire is a good idea - with the increasing abilities of modern PCs yes aaron should take advantage of it. Planets with multiple types of races (ie captured planets with my and the previous races on the same planet would also present some event based sceniros ie revolt, racial genocide by the citizens, peaceful co existance, benefits in terms of production rates, ability to utilise the same technology,) ie enemy race puts up objections to treatment of its citizens, citizens exchanged back to original race for say resources or technology - using the citizens as a bargining tool ! ALso civil war on planets with multiple races (or create a new empire / hybrid empires)
Zoom feature is also a good idea - hex versus a square based tactical combat map. |
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*Grand, Ridiculous, Ego-Boosting Building on the other hand, i never had a city defect, to or from me, becuase of culture. on the other hand, i didn't play much. |
Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
Well the revolt for planets idea is interesting, what about random ship defections and troop defections as a event basis and not a intel project. Ie troop x amount on planet x hijack transport ship and move to planet y or troop planets join up with pirates and move to x location - what about trap planets ie instead of alien device - anicent alien races cloaked ships activate as youre ships approached the planet and combat ensured - you might have to destroy the alien ships before you can colonize the planet but might get a alien ship join youre race (perhaps with advanced tech you havent got yet) you cannot mothball or anayaise but the alien race will serve as mercenaries to youre race - you can then use that ship as any other ship but you would have an advantage in combat - the offset was that once it was destroyed you wouldnt have access to it again. ?
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Re: SE5, Tell Aaron what\'s on your Wish List
I would really like to see warp engines as a seperate component.
I would also want them quite large in their first incarnations so you have to pick whether to build that badass big gun battleship or a not so powerful ship that can be used one the offense. Would lengthen the game considerable, as defenders would have a natural advantage until tech reduced the warp engine's size. |
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