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

this has been a feature of se4 since the final patch was released.

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

I like that idea. Currently I add ships to my "attack fleet" and remove them when we arrive at the destination I sent them to.
A simple "Guard" option would indeed be better.

Additional request:
In human vs human games better ability to enter a battle *together* rather then both attacking something and one battling it out with the enemy and leaving the other out of it.

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

* the option to control battles yourself instead of the computer doing it in multiplayer games.
Note *OPTION* as this should only be available in TCP/IP games as it would be FAR to slow in any other form http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
(Note this would require the TCP/IP option to be further developed and improved for stability in order for this to work correctly)
One majorly fun part of Moo2 was doing battles yourself :-)

On a sidenote: PLEASE NO REAL TIME BATTLES!!!
I am a *huge* master of orion fan but threw moo3 into the trashbarrel. Didn't like it at all. Of course real time is mostly for the thrill and eye candy so a much better compromise between real time and turn based would be the Birth of the Federation method. All sides issue orders to their ships, press "done" and the orders are executed in real time that turn. Then the combat paused, and allows players to issue the next orders, etc.
Of course if you dont get to control your units at all during battle proper real time is the way to go. Or at least an option tio "play" the battle without having to press next turn every single turn. Add a "pause" and "stop" button to this which u can press at all time and voila, a great working system http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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

Or realism and play balance... those are major advantages to real time combat. None of the absurdity of one side firing first, or the tediousness of watching each ship or weapon from each side firing, one at a time... There are a few turn based models that can approach real time in terms of balance, but they tend to be tedious and complicated in execution.

Most likely, SE5 will have the ability to pause the combat and issue orders while paused, so single player battles will be at whatever pace you want them to be. No possible problems here. Multiplayer PBEM games will never have you controlling the battle, so it doesn't matter from the player's perspective how the AI executes the combat (in terms of real time or turn based). TCP/IP probably won't have player-controlled battles simply because this would really screw over games with more than 2 players, or even 2 player games when combat with the AI occurs. Hot seat games could have player controlled combat, but there at least you are physically present to whap your friends when they are taking too long in any case... A simple auto-execute X seconds of combat then force pause with turn-based like phases of each player issuing orders will eliminate any problems with hotseat real time combat. It will make the combat function like the best of turn based systems, only better, because there will be no limitations of turn based combat on play balance at all.

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

Have component and facility pics specified by *name*, like the event pics and sound FX, not by number. Also, get rid of the "Components.bmp" and "Facility.bmp" for the minis and just generate the minis on the fly by shrinking the portraits. This will save much space on imagemod patches, because then you don't have to download the entire Components.bmp again every time you want to update the imagemod! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Also, if the shipsets are stored each in their own directory, don't require the race name to come before each of the file names! It's already in the directory name! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Actually, what would also help is something like this - in place of the limit of 1 alternate pic per vehicle size, allow any number:

Name := Light Scout
...
Picture List := LightScout, ScoutLight, Scout, Escort

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

I have an idea for a new component, a required component, that every ship and base must have. A power component is a logical component to have. Normally that would fall to the engines, but as we all know when engines are knocked out the ship weapons can still fire. By having a power component, or reactor that powers all components on a ship, if it is knocked out, then the ship is for all puposes dead in space.

Make it increadibly strong, say shielded.

Shields, Life Support, engines, etc can all be powered by a reactor.

You can even have a weapon that targets reactors specifically. Thus giving way to a new compents that Shields reactors, or better reactors that are 50/50 amune to such weapons.

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

Here's a funky idea, how about a component that, when activated over a warp-point, will change it to being distorted, or back again? Cheaper that building a bunch of mines, and rather damaging to a big fleet trying to get through. You could, of course, have a minefield as well, but because the number of ships getting through would be reduced, the minefield would be exhausted less speedily.

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

Warp Point destabalizer. LOL interesting idea.

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

Remember Ascendancy?
I was making a mod of it, but becasue of the limitations and timecontraints I stopped.
In Ascendacy there are very interesting ideas, the Lane Destabilizer is one of them.
When SE V comes along, I plan to continue the Ascendacy Mod.

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

I never played the game. Hell I didn't even find out about Stars and SE III until 2000. I missed out horribly.