Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

It was stock v1.95. The larger battle was 21 BCs with Seeking Parasite Vs and Combat Move 6, vs. 18 DNs with Phased-Polaron Beam IVs and Combat Move 4. The BCs could flood the DNs' Point Defense and stay out of range of the PPBs, except when the formations started the battle overlapping, or the BCs got hung up in a corner of the combat map.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

CQ, That sounds perfectly sensible to me...

The faster ships with longer range weapons stay out of range.
If they warp in, they get burned until they can open the distance (which happens to be quite a lot of distance with stock weapon ranges; too much IMO, relative to the combat map size).

Fyron:
Other absurdities?
Initiative issues do matter on the first turn of combat, if the ships start within range of direct fire weapons.

In the case of missile weapons both sides get to fire and both sides get to hit, no problem.

If direct fire weapons are being used at a warppoint, the defender fires first. A reasonable, but hardcoded, WP defense advantage.
If direct fire weapons are being used in deep space battles, neither side gets to fire first, since they are all out of range.
In that case it is pretty much random who fires first as they charge into weapons range.

In empirical testing, I have yet to see any non-warppoint battle where the order of play made a difference.
Even in warppoint battles, who fires first doesn't matter much.

In CB, initiative questions are completely swamped by ship designs, fleet composition, and most importantly; strategies and formations.



Contrasting with SE5, and putting aside issues of moddability (more flexibility in most things, losses of others such as multiplex and inf. range missiles)

We have a pro:
- Initiative is moot.
Two ships with equal range will both fire before either takes damage. Often, ships with 10-20 difference in range will fire before the other ship's damage is applied.

We have a big list of cons:
- Shipset choice affects combat results.
- Turn processing speed affects combat results.
- Rolled hits (such as PD) may not actually hit, depending on the timing. (Very noticeable at high time multipliers.)
- Ships can overlap into token stacks (at least as bad as any initiative issue, IMO)
- Combat processing is SLOW!


So, that's why I say SE4's combat system is superior.
Deterministic combat given the random number seed is an indicator of many good properties.

***

What if SE4 were upgraded to have a system which works exactly the same as currently, except that ability loss is deferred until the end of the turn.
IE: Some particular ship may be targetted by the first volleys. Everybody will see that it is destroyed, or has lost all weapons as currently and stop firing when appropriate. But retains its ability to fire back with previously undamaged weapons and movement points. At the end of both players' turn, the ship explodes or loses its weapons.

Note: Attackers would see the abilities being lost. Taking out the Self Destruct or Master Computer, ECM, and fancy armors for example.
The ship taking all this damage would be oblivious to the ability loss until the end of turn, and so would fire back with full Combat Sensors, talisman, weapons and multiplex abilities.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Initiative matters on every turn of combat (especially if you do it right and give each ship a randomizing factor every turn)...

The overall order of play isn't what is important; what matters is who gets to fire all of his weapons first before taking any damage. Sure you can swing the pendulum in the other direction with short weapon ranges and high hit point amounts, but not everyone wants to play a slow(er)-paced slugfest.

"In CB, initiative questions are completely swamped by ship designs, fleet composition, and most importantly; strategies and formations."

All of which would be heavily tied into initiative if such existed. You'd probably want to include light, high initiative ships for some quick coup de grace action on wounded targets before they could act, and slow pounders for the main damage-dealing segment.

Most of the cons you speak of with SE5's real time combat are not inherent to such combat systems, but rather poor choices Aaron made (eg: explicit slot layouts, layouts based on shipset instead of mod by default (luckily fixable), the timer implementation, stacking...). Neither game is a very good example of its combat engine type.

"What if SE4 were upgraded to have a system which works exactly the same as currently, except that ability loss is deferred until the end of the turn."

Such would be better than the current system, but I think a good initiative system would be preferable.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Ah, my outrage was such that I forgot to mention the most critical detail: my missile BCs LOST that battle, badly. (I still have the notes I took to write an AAR for my allies.)

The battle started with the two fleets arranged in two crossing Wall formations in the SW corner. The DNs fired first, and killed 8 BCs in the first round before they could respond, and 2 more in each of the second and third rounds. By that point, the 9 surviving BCs had opened the range enough that the DNs couldn't hit them, and killed 2 DNs before getting caught in the NW corner and losing 5 more BCs. The 4 surviving BCs killed 1 more DN on their way to being caught in the NE corner, where they were all slaughtered.

With an initiative system, the casualties would not have been so lopsided. With an unbounded battle space, the BCs wouldn't have taken any casualties after the third round. If the fleets had entered the sector with a wider angle of separation and therefore not started in overlapping formations, the BCs would have won (as they did in every simulator run).

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Fy:
You seem to be comparing SE4's implementation against an imaginary optimal RTC system, rather than the available or even reasonable expectations of future implementations in SE5.

CQ:
My condolences. Stock weapon ranges and combat speeds aren't matched to the size of the combat map.

There is also a realism vs gameplay tradeoff there. I prefer having the steel cage matches where the edge comes into play only after the halfway point of battle (how long after, depending on how much of a distraction you deployed to the front lines)
Combat speeds of 2-4 are much better for the available map size.

Having missile ships just run away forever, lobbing missiles until they run out and head back to a planet for more... would be anti-fun IMO.
SE3 has missile launch range equal to a typical DF weapon range.
SE4 has longer missile ranges, but includes the no-retreat map.
SE5... uh oh!


PS:
That's what I'm talking about with weapons > defenses...
Instant vaporization of 8/21 ships in the first freaking round? You surely couldn't have been outnumbered by a huge margin if you thought you should have won.

You know, this reminds me of SE5's issue with the 128x processing rates.
If you have fights occur in huge time steps you lose a lot of fairness.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Fixing the timer and stacking issues isn't a reasonable expectation?

And yeah, its certainly true that stock se4/5 have bad damage:defense ratios... but alas, Aaron seems to prefer ships being treated as unarmored medieval infantry instead of ships.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

I meant "realistic" there.

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Gotta say, I agree here completely. I keep trying SE5, keep giving it a chance, and keep ending up regretting the money spent.

I had hoped for more than a flashy 3D game. There are others that come across better if that's what I wanted. And of the things that did get improved in the latest incarnation of Space Empires, they get lost in a game that quickly becomes uninteresting and frustrating the more I play.

SE4 had a way of grabbing my attention and HOLDING it that SE5 just doesn't seem to have.

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Luckily, it is absolutely not a "flashy 3D game." Instead, its just as deep a strategy experience as SE4, if not deeper in some ways.

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There is not any way to create an "se4ish" interface for SE5? If the main problem is the interface (or even the 3d) thare is not any way to create an 2d interfae for it?

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The 3d rendering of system objects has nothing to do with the interface, which is still essentially static 2d (and can be entirely customized via bitmaps, unlike se4). I'm not sure if the Data\HUDSettings.txt file actually works, but it might be possible to create a more-sane button panel with it. AFAIK the button panel and some excessive confirmation dialogs (for general "clickiness") are the main issues left with the interface, other than possibly the ship design screen that we are stuck with. There are little things that could be done like double clicking on a sector with a planet automatically selecting (the first) planet in that sector, but those tend to be not unique to SE5 (could improve SE4 as well). The interface has come a long way since release.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Ya, what Fyron said. Well said.

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I think it may just be time to wait for SE6. Hopefully all the issues about initiative, defenses vs offenses and interface will all be addressed.

I think that the total number of people who play SE5 is less than the number who played SE4. I never went past the SE5 demo, but there are a lot of SE4 players who purchased SE5 because of SE4.

I know that this outlook at SE5 is not shared by all, but there are enough that agree to the point that they will not play SE5. That is a <font color="purple"> MAJOR LOSS </font> for the SE series! If the SE series is to continue you have to develop a game that is playable, mod-able and will keep you coming back for more.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

It's nothing different than the SE:III players that never continued on to SE:IV etc.

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As with many things, that a matter of opinion. When I played the demo of SEIV waaaaaaay back, I was completely sucked in. (The same way I was sucked in previously by Stars!, and before that by the original Reach for the Stars, and before THAT by Empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

SEV, I'm sorry to say, just did not make me even the slightest bit interested.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Its fairly baseless to say that it is just a "flashy 3d game" (or little more than). "Flashy 3d game" connotes a lack of depth, a lack of solid game mechanics. These are things SE5 does not lack. The fact of SE5 being just as deep of a strategy game as SE4 is pretty hard to dispute in a supportable manner. Whether or not you are willing to weather its UI quirks to get to the gameplay is another matter entirely, and is where opinion on it being a fun experience comes into play.

Potential assertions of SE5's UI suffering _because_ it is a 3d game are rather speculative (I'd wager that its just more of Aaron not being good at designing UIs in the first place). Luckily, it is obvious that the game mechanics and the moddability suffered naught for the 3dness.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Its the blurry 3D rendering of pixellated text and floaty banners that really make me sad. 2D overlays of sharp text would be golden.

That, and whatever loser convinced Aaron that SE5 needed more confirmation clicks instead of maintaining a slick command system.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Fyron, playability, as Artaud stated
is what will be the ultimate gauging of the game. It just does not hold up well to it's predecessor (SE4)!!!

What you have is a game for modders, NOT PLAYERS. In the end it's the players who will purchase the game to PLAY! You just can't sit there and say that the game mods well, but it's hard to play. It's not going to sell product.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

That doesn't really invalidate anything I said, and I agree that the game is not as fun to play as SE4 (in spite of SE4's own mediocre UI). I was merely addressing the assertions of it being just a "flashy 3d game." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

The UI has improved a lot over the last year, but still has issues that Aaron doesn't seem willing to address. Maybe we need to gather an actual succinct list of issues that contribute to playability issues, rather than just constantly bemoan its lack of fun-ness... Then, we can make a concerted effort to barrage him with specific, unified requests so he sees that there are indeed still some wide-spread problems. Here's a start:

1) Too many confirmation dialogs for orders. Perhaps add an "expert mode" option in Empire Options to skip all but the most important of these.
2) Blurry 3d rendered text names in system display should be replaced with crisp 2d text.
3) Revamp the bottom right button panel. Make a set of tab buttons at the top, rather than have some buttons within the panel randomly function as tabs.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

THAT was the gist of what I, and I think many others, have been trying to say.

The point for me, in SEV being a "Flashy 3D game", is that more effort seems to have gone into the all new graphical appearance of the game, and the POTENTIAL moddability of it, rather than the interests of the "straight-out-of-the-box" player

There's a VERY valid point. The number of playability issues and the lack of "fun-ness" is the killer for me.

When I first started playing SEIV, it grabbed and held my attention, and the improvements that arose over time just made it that much better. SEV just never had that "grab" that made SEIV so much fun. Straight off the street, SEIV turned out to be much more interesting and entertaining than anything delivered by SEV so far.

I never Beta-tested it, I have no vested interest in it's outcome, and I'm nobody community-wise. I'm just another average person, trying a new game based on the reputation of it's predecessor and finding it lacking.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Gentlemen Please. If your going to fight at least give advanced notice so we can sell tickets to the ball.

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What thread are you reading, Atrocities?

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I think what AT is saying is, that he feels 'left out' and that this thread should be on the Sci Fi channel and they should be selling tickets for it!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Surely you guys have more quantifiable issues with the game than those 3 things.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

The sliders/spinners from SE4 race setup. Far superior interface to use than a pile of checkboxes for +/-5%

Showing estimated time to completion on build queue items... NOT the time it would take if it were the only thing in the queue.
Throw in a small indication of how many resources have already been invested in the item too.

As an extension of #2:
Same deal with the flags. Make them 2D overlays, smaller, and pack them together so a sector with three races in it is understandable. A larger flag can be ok if there is only one race in the sector.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Bring back SE3 construction.

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Hmmmmm.............

Just to be clear here, I wasn't trying to "argue" a point, but rather simply state my point of view. I think everyone has a solid stance from their own perspective, and I just wanted to express mine. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Kana said:
"Bring back SE3 construction."

We have part of that already, since projects will maintain their built amount status if you move them down the queue (though sadly these amounts aren't actually listed for anything but the first item). The only thing missing is transferring them to another queue, which I'm not sure would be very feasible to introduce into the codebase at this point.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

What I mean't about SE3 Construction, is that the ship is in space, in a partially built state, and each turn that it takes to build it, depends on the amount of components that can be added.

IE construction by component, not by resource value. Heck it would be even better, if it was by tonnage instead of even components.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Fyron, on the three points, the key one being the "not having any fun" one... Esthetics aside, the game is just not enjoyable in the state that it currently is. It needs to be reworked to offer a better interface and that is the most important issue in playing a game! It needs to want a player, to looking forward to continue playing. The game lacks that appeal. SE4 had that appeal even before all the mods.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

It can't be reworked if we don't tell Aaron what is wrong with it specifically, though. What features make it unappealing? What changes would make such features better? It's not constructive to just say its unappealing. Aaron has made numerous changes and enhancements at specific request in the past, but he can't do much more without more feedback.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

I seem to recall that a great deal was said about SE5's appeal (for some) and lack of appeal (for others) around the time of its release. There were a lot of specifics back then.

SE5 is just a very different game with a very different feel.

This past weekend I almost downloaded the demo (again) with the idea of doing exactly what you suggest--coming up with a bunch of specifics. But I looked again at the screenshots and that was as far as it went.

With all due respect, I doubt that anything I personally could say would have any impact on any further development of SE5. I'm not an "insider." I was not a playtester. I've never created a mod for SE4. I *helped* create a race, and I've written some conversation and design name files, but that's it.

My assumption about SE5 when it came out and I played the demo was that Aaron just decided to take his game in a direction that I did not want to go. It's his product. He has the right to aim it at whatever section of the market he wants to.

I suggested features way back *before* SE5 came out. I was suggesting features for years. None of the things I wanted to see most in SE5 are there. Fair enough.

It may not be constructive to just say that the game is simply "unappealing." But who really--especially among us who were *not* playtesters to begin with--has the free time and the energy and the inclination to put together a detailed analysis of SE5 this far down the road?

What I would *love* to do is contribute toward the further development of some of the great mods for SE4.

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Being an insider is irrelevant. Aaron constantly implements things that take the beta testers by complete surprise, often from suggestions of totally random players.

You don't need that detailed of an analysis... Surely you can spare a few minutes typing up the things that annoyed you the most? You don't think SE5 development has stopped, do you? Its an ongoing process, just like SE4 was for years after release. There obviously won't be any radical changes like getting rid of slot layouts, but there are still lots of things that could be done...

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

I have been playing SE 5 since the last update and aside from an annoying crash bug, (Addressed thankfully in the next update) I have to say the game is growing on me all over again. I love SE IV and will continue to play it until I get the Star Wars mod done, after that I want to try and get into SE V modding. I have a really interesting idea for a new mod and feel that it is about time that I move on.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

In gratitude for the endless late nights playing SE4, i´ll try to analise what most annoy me in the SE5 interface....

First, just to make this clear, i´m pointing what annoy ME, you can agree or disagree with what i say at your hearts content, i don´t think my opinions are the absolute or even right...

Second, i´ll address my complaints mainly about the interface, since the "base game" of SE5 is mostly fine in my opinion, just the interface i think is clunky...

Third, this is only a preliminary analisis, i´ll add to it as i play along...

so, let´s go:

SEV Interface Analisis - Part 1:

1. Too much clickiness (does this word exists?)!, reduce confirmation dialogs, and, rearrange menus so the player needs less clicks to order what he want... i massively use shortcuts and even in this way i think there is too much clickines in SE5... SE4 was much less clickiness...

2. The ship design screen annoys me a lot... the 3 level ship design is completely useless gameplay wise, and the "ship schematics" also doens´t have any use since gameplay wise components are classified as Armor, External or Internal... i can´t notice the supposed "directional damage" implemented... maybe if you substitute it for only 3 "generic" fields of Armor, Internal and External components it would make more sense, or maybe an interface like SE4 but with 3 fields (Armor, Internal and External) instead of the single one that SE4 have. (i´m making sense?)

3. No problems with the hexagonal grid, but the top-view could be more streamlined... the main problem are the Flags... like a previous poster said...

4. More to come...

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

For reference, the 3 decks were added because some shipsets have narrow profiles. This lead to low numbers of slots, which in some cases prevented having enough space to actually fill out the hull's tonnage. Slots weren't meant as such a limiting factor. We lost the battle to get rid of slot layout entirely... alas.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

I think SE5 really needs a way to identify it's mouse shortcuts better. A lot of player's don't know there's a bunch of shortcuts for applying filters in lists/ship design via right click or shrinking icons etc.

My main remaining peeve with the SE5 interface is mainly with queue settings - such as sending ships to waypoints etc. Secondary peeve is the single line listing for items in the construction queues list.

Overall, there's a lot more useful and customizable info available in SE5 versus SE4. Although I suppose a way to save custom sorts on lists outside of a save game could be my third most wanted item.

Unfortunately the demo is only v1.25 and is missing out on a ton of interface elements that have been put in place since.

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You would definitely notice the directionality of the damage if you were playing my Gritty Galaxy mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That said, I've changed all the slots to just "External" since I think the magic wall distinctions are silly.

Having 3 lists would hopefully work just like SE3. Given a "to-hit size" stat, that system would work really well. (If the shot randomly picks an already-destroyed component, then it penetrates to the next layer down without having killed all of the previous layer)

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

If it worked like it does in the table top SFB game, I would be all for how the slot layout works, or heck if it even worked like Starfury, with sectional shields and armor, I would like it more than it is now. Yet I would be completely satisfied with something similiar to SE3, and accept as easily what SE4 uses.

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I still have no idea why Aaron was so set on having this cumbersome slot layout system. SE2's ship design system was the most elegant. The order in which components became damaged depended solely on the order in which they were added.

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That was a rather cludgy setup, IMO. The random selection of SE3/4 was much better. SE3 had the armor/outer/inner thing going, without the need for excessive slots.

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I do at times,rarely these days.

Where oh where can I find the mod launcher. Been doing a search and just can't seem to locat it for d/l.

Never mind, found it.

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That makes two of us. I still refuse to buy or play SE5; played the demo and hated it with a passion. I'm still having fun with SE4.

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Yep SEIV is, at least until now, a superior game strategy-wise compared with SEV... SEV have more graphical goodies, but i always prefer strategy against graphics...

I still do play occasionally Stars! versus the AI, and that game, graphicaly-wise, is as dry as a spreadsheet...

And about hardware requirements, SEIV runs in nearly everything, while SEV chugs slowly even in the most upped up systems...

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In the last week I've played Stars! (I love that mystery trader), Moo2 and SE4. On the other hand I'll install/fire-up SE5 once every 3-4 months just to see if it's fun yet. I really REALLY wish Stars! Supernova hadn't been shelved by the publisher, I just know it would have been awesome.

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

So true I miss stars!

Why oh WHY did they NOT put it out, it had a good following but....

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Any One Still Playing This Game?
 

Makinus said:
"Yep SEIV is, at least until now, a superior game strategy-wise compared with SEV... SEV have more graphical goodies, but i always prefer strategy against graphics..."

Strategy-wise, SE5 is actually better than SE4. It has more depth in fleet strategy setup, it has more strategic options in weapon damage types (esp. for clever modders), the slot layout actually makes ship design more strategic due to directional damage (past the armor layer, anyways), etc., etc., etc. The downside is the cumbersome UI and such; the strategy is all there, buried underneath.

Makinus said:[/i]
"And about hardware requirements, SEIV runs in nearly everything, while SEV chugs slowly even in the most upped up systems..."

Only if you put Vista on them... SEV runs really well on my 5.5 year old P4 box, even with the ATI radeon 9600pro I used to have in it. Sure you can't run it well on 12 year old boxes, but your statement was rather hyperbolic.. You can quite easily build a ~$300 (or less, even) PC that will run SEV like a champ.

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I have a P3 (1.4) system with an ATI 9200 Sapphire card (1gig memory)(Win XP Pro)

I can run se5 with no problems, I even run World of Warcraft(with high graphics on) a slowdown when entering a city with a lot of players on (I turn off shadows)

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It was never released because the publisher (iirc Empire Interactive) decided it wanted to switch focus to sports games.

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I think Fyron hit it on the head when he said SE5 is a game for modders, not players...