Re: SE5 progress
 

Maybe this will catch an eye... or two. (or not, then please, please, ignore me, but for the love of god, don't tell me, I don't think I can take it!)

Diplomacy. Nothing too fancy, just a bit more control.

Imagine a list of options for the type of "treaty". User defined treaties.

The list would contain check boxes that would allow, or limit what could and could not be done.

Standard treaties would assume that certain boxes are already checked... but, for instance, in the case of a Non-Agression Pact, you can't attack one another, but you could uncheck a box that would allow for free movement and colonuization within your systems. Violation would result in the cancellation of the treaty.

In the case of a Trade Treaty, you could uncheck boxes corresonding to Rad, Minerals, or Organics for the ones you do want to trade, or the ones you don't. Research and Intel treaties could be handled the same way. Military ones might be sharing information, but not Resupply bases, etc.

Assign point values (with refrence's to point scores of the players involved) to all of this and that way the AI can evaluate whether or not the trade or treaty is worthwhile.

One more thing (sorry if I have unleasehed the flood gates) Research (ever play spaceward ho! ?), it might be cool to have a "Random Tech" research option where the player can invest some research points into the development of a big advance in technology (kind of like finding a ruin where it gives you a special tech, or multiple techs at once). The catch is you never know when it will pay off...

[ June 14, 2004, 20:32: Message edited by: clark ]

Re: SE5 progress
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be much more realistic a research system! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Come to think of it, perhaps there should be a field in a tech entry that says "Can Be Found In Ruins" (or perhaps "Ruins Value" where a single tech can count for multiple "normal ruins techs" on planets which would give multiple techs), so you can prevent the really powerful ones (like colony techs) from being found too easily?

Re: SE5 progress
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This looks great to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif It is very neat to see how you set this up. Thanks for posting it.

Edit, Looks like SJ suggested a simular idea to mine that looks better than mine.

[ June 14, 2004, 21:58: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: SE5 progress
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Great to hear from you, Aaron!

I agree that formulas are a must, because diminishing returns of research is very important for playbalance. If you have concerns about the speed, how about parsing the formulas only once, at game setup, creating a table with hard numbers and save them to a file? In times where a Gigabyte more or less is not an issue, it is always a good idea to trade disk space for processing time if in need.

Re: SE5 progress
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I want to believe! (F.Mulder motto and mine too)

PS: "Trust noone" is good motto too, but it's unpropriate here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: SE5 progress
 

Well some good progress being made thanks MM(aaron) for posting that update for us.

Re: SE5 progress
 

I like SJ's suggestion on the formulas. Or maybe instead of having two seperate fields you could have a "weapon damage at range" field that accepts a formula OR a straight listing of damages at range like SE4.

The latter sounds like it might be complicated to code, though.

Re: SE5 progress
 

Just a few questions about the “Ordnance Amount Used” entry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

When weapon components use this entry will they all use the some ordnance supply or can we have different ordnance supplies e.g. torpedoes, missiles, shell projectiles, energy?

Will we be able to have components that can make ordnance on bases and ships?

Re: SE5 progress
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think I would prefer if bases and planets just automatically re-supplied ships with ordnance. I can see it turning into a potentially micromanagement nightmare otherwise.

Re: SE5 progress
 

The features new weapons data file look great. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Does this formula-based method allow unlimited tech levels to be researched?