Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

Lifepods would be particularly cool if SE took a crew's morale into consideration.In fact morale would be an excellent addition:

Each ship could have a morale rating, much like a planet's happiness rating. When a ship is built, it's initial morale would be based on the happiness of the planet/ spaceyard which built it.

A ship with good morale would benefit from small combat bonuses and a slight reduction in maintenence & supply usage (since a happy crew is more efficient).

Poor morale would increase the chances of a crew insurrection suceeding and even make spontaneous mutiny possible. Maintenance, supply usage and performance would all get worse.

Things to improve a ship's morale:
-Battle victories
-shore leave (parking in orbit around a friendly planet for >1 turn.)
-certain empire events (treaties etc)
-training facilities and special "morale boosting" facilities.
-having escape pods on the ship (unless you are playing a warrior race, who might see escape pods as cowardly)
-joining a high-morale fleet

Things to reduce a ship's morale:
-Too long in space without shore leave. (although special components should be available to counter this.)
-Low on supplies
-Committing genocide / destroying unarmed ships/ destroying escape pods. (except for genocidal/ emotionless races)
-Special "anti-morale" intel ops and psychic weapons.
-taking damage in battle (espcially crew quarters, bridge or life support)
-Seeing friendly ships destroyed in battle.
-empire events
-joining a low-morale fleet

Do you think it's worth suggesting this to MM? Maybe it could be added to SE4 one day.

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

Re: What SE V or SE IV 1.5 needs....LIFEPODS! (and ideas for capturing bonuses)
 

http://www.spanamwar.com/olympiatourbunker.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
The coal that was needed to power OLYMPIA
was stored in coal bunkers. Coal bunkers
were large compartments in the ship that
were simply storage rooms used strictly for coal. These storage rooms were arrayed on
the ship in a way that allowed them to
function as additional armor. They were
placed along the hull, to protect the more
vital inner areas, such as the engine rooms
and boiler rooms, in case of attack. The
thought was that if the ship took a hit, the
projectile or torpedo would explode on
impact with the coal in a coal bunker, if
it did explode when it hit the hull. The
mass of coal would protect the inner
portions of the ship, and the coal bunker
could simply be sealed off to stop the
flooding.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>