Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

I've been playing the SE series for 9 years, ever since a friend gave me Space Empires II (which had HORRIBLE graphics, BTW). I like 3d graphics. I WANT 3D graphics for the Space Empires series. I guess that makes me one of the "fickle public", huh? On a side note, besides SE4 there is one other excellent 2D game that I play: Hearts of Iron 2 with counters for unit icons. I'm not sure how it would look with a totally 3d engine, but if Paradox said they were taking things in that direction for the sequel I would wait for screenshots with pleasant anticipation.

As for "Aaron should spend his time on the AI and not fancy graphics": if what I've read about the scriptable AI is correct, the talented modders in this community will churn out AIs vastly more capable than what Aaron can do programming and debugging the whole game by himself. What the mod community CAN'T do, however, is change a 2D graphics engine into a 3D one, and there is only so much you can do to improve 2D.

I guess I look at SE4 and SE5 not so much as games, but game engines. Much as the Quake 2 engine served as the basis for most FPS games for years (including Half-Life), Space Empires serves as the basis for a variety of different 4X play experiences. Sure they all involve building ships and conquering planets (much as FPSes all involve running around and shooting at people), but the nuances vary. To me, the best games are the ones that are flexible enough for the community to create phenomenal, polished, unique games from the base model (Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat for Half-Life, Rhyse and Rule for Civilization 3, Total Realism for Rome:Total War).

Are you going to argue that 2d bitmaps are more flexible than a 3d engine? Would you honestly rather stare at totally flat graphics instead of 3d ones if it had no impact on gameplay?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

" Would you honestly rather stare at totally flat graphics instead of 3d ones if it had no impact on gameplay?"

Of course not.
But I think it is an illusion that it has no effect on gameplay!
Even with a modern computer 3D graphics will limit the maximum reasonable number of ships/units in a combat. But more important as mentionend earlier I am convinced the creation of new races will be more difficult than in SE IV. I would be very surprised (but pleased), if we get as many races as we now have in SE IV.
So the question is simply is the 3D effort worth it?
I don't know yet but I will see and buy the game as soon as possible.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

It will have direct and indirect effects on gameplay. On the actual gameplay itself, and the time taken away from improving the gameplay side of the game.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

Puke: no, I planned on splitting each planet up into several "continents" (represented by "slices" of a planet in the game) that could be each inhabited by a player empire... the entire goal of the game would be to unite all nations under your flag, just like in regular Space Empires, except that all the "human" empires could actually start on Earth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

Will the 3D engine be able to be turned off? (ie: can we do 'strategic combat' still)

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

Strategic combat is still available as an option in sequential mode, and the standard for simultaneous games.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

3D graphics are nice the first few times you see them. But, if that's a major reason why anyone would buy any version of Space Empires, then they might as well be playing Mario Brothers.

Anyone who's ever been interested in games like chess will probably understand why I say this.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - September 12
 

So any idea when the game will be released? For those play testing is it really ready?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Should be going "gold" sometime soon...

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Kwok, you tease.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

True is we don't know either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Any spoilers on the music? Would be great if they took after MoO2 in terms of soundtrack quality.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

They hired some commercial outfit that does game soundtracks. It's not as impressive as that rumbling intro to SE III http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif but it's reasonable. I don't find it particularly distinctive, though.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

No, actually.

But we've still got a few weeks before the Gold disc hits the shelves so the 1.0x patch that will (hopefully) fix the worst problems still has time to get ready.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced - Septembe
 

MUST HAVE SOME INFORMATION PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Oh no! I'll be playing with the sound off then. I'm one of the few people who really likes the music with SE4. I think more of the same would have been great for SE5. Something dark and swirling. Robert Rich, Aphex Twin, one of the artists distributed by Manifold Records...that sort of thing.

I dark ambient music so maybe I'll just play some of my own stuff during SE5.

Most computer game music is pretty bad...unless you're between the ages of 14 and 20, which I have not been for a very, VERY long time...

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

I'd say game music 10'ish years ago was pure excellence, in many cases. Wacraft 2, Diablo 1, Daggerfall, Dune 1/2, Transport Tycoon, HoM&M2, etc. Some later games like Homeworld and Medieval TW have done a nice job as well.
Can't remember any new games with outstanding soundtracks, though.

Official SE5 release date announced
 

The Strategy First says in the features section:

"Huge Galaxy: 100 solar systems with 15 planets each"????

What about SEIV 255 star Systems??

Please tell me there can be at least 1000 solar systems!

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Around 100 systems was the default for SE:IV as well, so I wouldn't worry too much on that account.

1000 systems would..not work. That isn't micromanagement hell, that's kicked OUT of hell micromanagement.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

255 is the max.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Boo! I want stupidly-giant uber galaxies with hundreds of AIs milling about. After all, we'll all still be playing se5 4 or 5 years from now, and PC tech will have advanced to make that more than manageable by then.

I thought giant galaxies had already been announced as a feature of se5..?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

There was talk of, but for some reason or another it never happened.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

This should be the official motto of SE development. There are always these grand plans and hopes, but it always falls back to what one frantic programmer can get done in the few months before he needs a new boost to his income.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Hmm, all this talk of the tactical engine has provoked a few questions in my alleged mind.

1. What on earth is meant by "continuous time"? Is this just somebody who doesn't like the phrase "real-time" making up a new one, or is there a difference?

2. The moment when MP SE4 lost its magic for me was when I realised that the person who created the game (at PBW) had an inherent advantage, since the ships fired in order of the players numbers. The person who created the game was always player 1, and would always fire first. At the common warp-point confrontations, this was a huge advantage.

How is SE5 going to answer this?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

#2 is irrelevent in SE5 because the combat is in real time; ships will fire at the same time. (SE4's later patches fixed the player-order problem, BTW)

People started using "continuous" time because others heard real time and thought ALL of SE5 was like that, not just the combat.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Possum, in Gold/Deluxe SE:IV, the defender gets first shot - since you've just switched over.

I guess continuous can be taken as the action is occuring concurrently. Which means that order etc. does not matter.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

What happens if for instance engines are damaged mid-flight? Will the ships stop, or will they realistically continue to drift in the current direction?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

They'll come to a stop... which is probably better for gameplay...

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Barnes and Noble , release date for SE V , October 17th

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Kwok, thanks for the info, and I'm delighted to hear it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Hmm, that's too bad that the galaxy size is still 255 maximum. On the bright side, though, each solar system is bigger so we can still have bigger games, right?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

You can easily have bigger games in SE4; just increase the number of planets per system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Possum said:
1. What on earth is meant by "continuous time"? Is this just somebody who doesn't like the phrase "real-time" making up a new one, or is there a difference?

Whenever I say real-time combat, someone obssesses over how RTS games play and how it'll ruin everything, and generally miss the point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

It would just have been nice to play once in a really huge galaxy where travelling from one end to the other would take very much time unless you use warp point manipulation to create interstellar highways.
More important than the maximum number of systems are however the maximum number of empires and the maximum number of units in space (in SE IV I always reach the limit of 20000).

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Q , if that's what interests you start SE4 with no connecting warp points , develop warp point manipulation and go from there

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

No, the warp point opening to create abbreviation would just be a small additional point, but the main thing is the huge galaxy, were you can expand and meet new races even in a very late game.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

While I agree that would be nice, for single-player I've to say that the game is already way too slow to process turns with the current max number of AI's and star systems once you're 100+ turns into a game. If the AI in SEV is better, it most likely uses even more CPU time to process each player.

I think the better solution would be to actually make large star systems that take some time to travel through, and in which you could discover things, i.e. you don't know everything about the system as soon as you enter it.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

You pay maintenance for units in SE:V so you might not just let them accumulate willy-nilly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Please tell me that this can be modded to zero maintenance!

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Actually thats one of the things which has kept the game on my machine. Games with long thinking time is good for me. Otherwise I would never get anything else done. Just think how productive I would be if SEV supported 1000 stars and 100 AIs.

Everything has its pros and cons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

I had thought I had heard that SEV was to have the ability after you have conquored your own galaxy to invade another or have it invade you

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Why would you want to do that? 0 maintenance isn't very realistic. It allows you to accumulate substantial military capabilities without paying a dime for them.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Q, in playing myself I haven't really felt any extra micromanagement with unit/facility maintenance. But ofc, it is completely moddable.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

That is good to hear.
Why introduce maintenance for units, if almost everybody is complaining in SE IV that fighters are too weak in later game, dones are almost useless and satellites offer only limited protection for planets. The lack of maintenance was the only real advantage of these units.
If you pay maintenance anyway, why not building only ships??
And if I don't care about one thing in a game like SE it is realism ! It is only the question what makes the game more interesting.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Although that is assuming that things have remained the same from SE:IV... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Ok, so...all the hype for SEV indicates that it is much more 'mod-friendly' than SEIV. My question then is this: those of you who were playtesters, have y'all made mods yet, and is the hype true?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And...who's gonna have the first mod? is there gonna be one right out of the gate?

Just wondering.

AMF

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

As you can expect, SJ has a Gritty Galaxy mod of sorts and a few other people have works in progress.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Out of curiosity, and if permitted by the NDA, I have a couple questions about armor/shields and modding.

Reportedly, armor is being changed to work on facings. Will it be possible to mod armor to work the way it does in SEIV?

Shields, will shields work the same way as armor does (ie. by facing), and will it be possible to mod that back to SEIV norms.

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Sorry, no facings for either armor or shields. It's too much calculation when there are possibly hundreds of ships in combat. So your questions don't matter. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

So................ is this thing coming out tuesday or what?

Re: Official SE5 release date announced
 

Oh, it's that's the day after tomorrow. Doesn't look like it will be out that day...