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

But you could mod small ships that take less than 1 turn to build, or build, say, 2 over the course of 3 turns rather than 4 if they cost 3000 apiece and you can build with 2000...

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

oh right. I didn't think about ship construction taking up fractions.

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

Are you refering to Multi-Add as in (shipX) x2, or Multi-Add as in putting the same construction on multiple build Queues?

In regards to Multi-Add to more than one build queue the option for One Turns Worth as well as 1,5,10,etc. Another would be to Multi-Add Facilities to more than one queue at a time.

Ah, what the heck, just have all the same options with the Multi-Add as you get with individule build queues.

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

Well, the idea of ships without engines falling into stars isn't a bad idea. After all, ships do fall into black holes in the game, and yet in reality it should be just as easy to orbit a black hole as it is to orbit a star.

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

I wish I could see some screenshots!

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

Bearclaw understood me lol, i meant the ability to quicky have several colonies build the same thing. not to do it in one turn. i hate having huge empires and i come along the convert atmosphere tech....and spend an hour building the facility on my planets. small things like that detract from the game for me.
When it comes to an orbit the objects velocity has to be equal to the gravity being exerted upon it. otherwise it will fall into the gravity well at a speed depending on the difference of objects speed vs gravitational pull. kick me if im being an ***.
Emperor Fritsch the Asnine

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

<font color="red">SE V IDEAS </font>

1. Resources - Mining of nebula for resources. (Component that can be placed on ships that draws supplies and or resources directly from a nebula)
2. Supply - Transporter system between planets. (As technology improves, cargo can be "transported" via energy beams to another planet with the same Transporter facility.)
3. Combat - Cloaked ships get first shot (Shouldn't they?)
4. Combat - All ships fire at same time - No bonus (Non cloaked that is.)
5. Combat - Option to set planet defense strategies
6. Combat - Some way to INTEL a planet before combat
7. Component/Combat - Weapon specific components that support only one weapon system. (IE torpedo targeting I - V = more accurate torpedos.)
8. Game - Option to liberate or conquer a planet that has been captured by another race and that you are now attacking.
9. Fleet - The ability to grant command of a fleet to an allied leader. (Cannot be used against you)
10. Game - An Undo Button. In case you accidently take your EB off when you did not want to, you can turn it back on.
11. Game / Component - As ships travel through space they accure damage unless they have deflectors. (From game start)
12. Game - Ability to limit things (Anything) to one or two per empire as well as system, ship, base, etc. (So if someone were to create a Presidential palace, they could limit it to ONE PER EMPIRE)
13. Game - New Race Ability "Advanced Trait" Pacifist. Weapons are NON leathal. Race focused on disable and capture.
14. Game - Add Captain / Admiral personnel as described in other post. (And on yahoo) (Can email idea once again to malfador if needed)
15. Game - Fog Of War - Show non of the map, nothing except space until player begins to explore. As player explores, the area explored becomes visable.
16. Game - Limit sensors to sectors instead of systems. Make the player explore the system before it is known completely to him.
17. Game - Ancient / Random - System infested with acient mine field. (Already suggesed by me eariler in this thread)
18. Game - Ancient / Random - Discovery of Derilect ship results in either or a Positive or Negative happening. Gain new technology upon anylizing ship, or such thing as your lossing your ship that discovered it to alien infestasion or ancient booby trap.
19. Game - Add rare comodities to the game. Each gives the player access to new technology to explore which in turn gives new weapons, armor, other bonuses.
20. Game - Invent of Barter system. Players can establish trade routes over comodities and or other items they wish to trade. (Player one builds X ship design and trades to Player two for Resources, $$, or comodities.)

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

Cloaking, yes, always get the first shot, no. If it's like that then all you'll have is another Birth of the Federation where a romulan fleet of warbirds can wipe out just about anything and everything in the first shot, without any losses. It will need some kind of balancing system, something that might let them shoot first, but only like 1/4 of their weapons, or the weapons are only at 1/4 of their true damage potential. This would give the ability to still recieve some kind of "surprise attack" but still allowing some kind of a chance for defending players. Seriously, who wants to get their fleet of 30 battleships wiped out without even firing one shot off? Sensors that can detect cloaked ships would also help, but if the option to fire on cloaked ships is given, it too should also be given a to hit penalty of some kind.

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

MAIN IDEA

Heres a little idea, No fly zones within your empire. You could limit off entire systems off to all but the best of your ships. This no fly zone would aplly to both your ships and ally ships, short of you giving a ship a direct order to go there. In these areas you would get X percent better counter intel because of the limited travel. Also if you did this to your home sector it would make the people unhappy but that effect would not apply to a system made up of military installations, research and intel compounds.

MAIN IDEA

Next little idea, Escort for ally ships, if you dont like random ships roaming your terrotory then you could give them a ship(s) escort until they leave your terroitory. This would help prevent sneak attack by former allies. Also a ship could try to avoid this with cloaks and what not.

MEDIUM IDEA

This is a minor thing but i think that if you capture a enemy planet especially homeworld it should imparetive that your enemy recapture it not just bLast it. In one of my games i captured an AI homeworld with troops and then couldnt defend it so i had to leave it to be destrioed, anyway my enemy just bLasted it with no attempt to recapture it. I think that should make the orginal owners race people very unhappy.

MINOR SMALL IDEA

Nother Idea, If you cut off a ship from its home race, like completely destroied them or cut the only wormhole back, each of there ships would show up as its own empire and would get X number of turns to either make a trade alliance with you or another race for supplies or it could settle a planet, each crew quarters would give 1 million people

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

In Birth of the Federation combat was turn-based but play out in a pseudo real time representation. So in Birth of the Federation cloak ships literally had the first turn free with no possible reaction to them. In SE5 combat is in real time with pausing, which means as soon as a cloaked ship acts you can react to them. Basically the SE5 combat system will be able to reflect the strategic and tactical strengths of cloaking technology with out having to resorting to lame game mechanics such as in birth of the federation.[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

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

Cloak detection works to balance this out.

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

Here another idea, Complete and utter break up of an entire race of planets. Example, A race with 30 planets would break up into smaller Groups of 5 at the most. A break up would depend upon certian things, Military Protection, Amount of units per planet, economic status, and amount of enemies and\or enemy military presence

I want a way to stop something like a star destroying itself natrually, it just says basically you have 3 years to move you crap no way to stop it

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

You can prevent a nova by building a ringworld or sphereworld.

Really hard, even when you have already researched the tech, but it certainly shouldn't be easy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.

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

I just got a great idea, Design Flaws. If you design a ship there should be certian requirements or limits per size and hull. You would be able to pick the ship size then the type of hull (this would effectively get rid of conventional armour) the depending on you previous choices there would be a few requirements like we have now with needs a bridge engines and what not but there would be an added thing limits you could only put X percent of the ship to weapons, X percent to engines, X to sensors, X percent to shields, and so on. You could over pass certain limits like weapons but doing such would increase chances of random explosions, or ships loseing all movement, and there are proably a few more things we could add as punishment for over passing certian limits.

Anyone think this is good, ALSO this could apply to units as well as ships and bases tooo

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

How about "phage" races, like the Harvesters in MOO3, which eat or otherwise cause ruin to other races' populations that are on the same planet?

edit: or assimilate/convert them into their own population, like the Borg? or highly aggressive races whose population can also serve as offensive troops, like in Stars?

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

Minor thing, I know this can be edited but then i couldnt play multiplayer games but anyway, Components for ships should be smaller, if any noticed in sci fi shows you always get these ships that can do everything, launch fighters, launch bombs, mines, along with being a bad *** fighting ship. I dont want the game to turn into a based of show game but stuff being a little smaller would help alot and make ships alot more bad ***.

Also this is a bit of eye candy but i think there should be a way to switch ship sets mid game or use different pics from multiple ship sets. What i mean is useing one pic of a base ship in game then useing a different one for another ship while the first ship holds ir orginal pic. Also i think if you retrofit an captured enemy ship it should still hold its orignal pic

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

Two more ideas/suggestions:

1.) Construction/repair:
I would like a combination of the SE III/SE IV. Like in SE III you have to buy the ships/units first and pay the full amount of resources needed. Then you get the ship but with no functional components. They have to be constructed one after the other. You could switch the constructed item from one space yard to another in the same sector. Like in SE IV each component/unit/(facility?) has a different construction time. In SE IV this is equal to the resource costs, in SE V there would be a special amount of "construction effort" for each component and space yards could build XX points per turn of this construction effort. Cost and construction time could therefore be different.
And finally each component has a "repair amount" and repair bays would repair YY points per turn. That would allow you to have components that are very hard to repair and others that can be fixed quickly.
2.) Fleet shields.
Special components that create shields which protect the entire fleet. Only after the fleet shield has been depleted individual ships would be attacked (unless of course you use shield ignoring weapons).

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

Research points as a resources, so you can "harvest" it from for example some stellar phenomenon.

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

Few things I'd like to see....
1) Custom Fleets. Basically, as it is, when you create a fleet in SE4, you just throw a whole bunch of ships together and off they go. What I'd like to see is several layers of fleets. The first, call it a Combat Group, would simply be several ships of a similar type grouped together so they could be more easily controlled.
The next step up would be combining two or more different Combat Groups together to Create a Task Force. In a Task Force (TF) there would always be a lead element which would be the one under the players most direct control. For example say I have one Combat Group (CG) of 4 Destroyers armed with PDCs and Interceptors (see below) and another CG of 2 Cruisers armed with heavy beam weapons. The Destroyer CG would have orders to Guard the cruisers so in combat, the player just clicks on the TF on the TF and maneouvers the whole thing as one unit. When giving orders to fire, the player can select each cruiser indvidually if they want to spread their fire between multiple targets, while the destroyers would autmatically target incoming fire.
The third step would be the Fleet which would consist of multiple Task Forces grouped together, opperating in mutual support. Obviously the Fleet would not be controlled as a single unit but could be given general orders in terms of movement and target priority. Another benefit of the Fleet would be the ability for the TFs within it to 'loan' ships to other TFs. Eg: WIthin a fleet I have a TF of 5 Dreadnoughts and 8 screening cruisers Cruisers and a 2nd TF of 5 Battle Cruisers with a 6 Light Cruiser screen. Once engaged in combat, the Dreadnough TF comes under heavy fire, but the Battle Cruiser TF is being almost ignored. The player could order the BC TF to Assist the DN TF which would cause the BCs to shift their fire to whoever was attacking the DNs, but also send their LC screen to help provide defensive fire.

2) Little one: Interceptors would be energy based weapons designed to disrupt incoming energy weapons fire. Unlike a PDC, an interceptor would only have a certain amount of damage it could disrupt. So say in Interceptor I can disrupt 10 points. If used against a weapon that does 5pts damage, then a succesful hit means no damage done. If used against a weapon capable of 20pts damage, then 10 damage is still taken.

3) Reactors. A ships reactor would give it bonuses to things like shields, speed and weapons power. Reactors in larger ships would provide larger bonuses in smaller ships. So your standard Fusion Reactor in a Destroyer wouldn't provide any bonuses, but the same reactor mounted in a Battleship would provide, for example, a 10% bonus to weapons and shields. Better reactors would give bigger bonuses, naturally.

4) Last two: Real-time combat is fine as long as it can be paused with a whack of the good ol spacebar (or any other conveniently located key). And, I'd really like to see SE3's tactical combat screen (the one where you gave all the targeting orders) make a come-back. That thing was great.

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

Okey to be truthful i havent read all 98 pages... but i thought id leve a word in now anyway, it might have been said earlyer...

How about Capital Ships?
With a limit of 1 Per race, hand giving it a size double of what your biggest current avalible ship class... say if you can build 500kt Cruisers, you could build 1 1000kt Capital Ship. hence you could have ships that really weighed in in combat!
Offcorce the price for these would be high, probably even more than 2-4 ships of the base class(eg the 500kt cruiser in the example)
Having coustom models for the Capital ships would be nice.
And maby adding some special bonuses to these ships, like better accuracy or somthing(think that the best captain would be on it)

My second idea is just more or less to have the ability to start with no tecnology at all, eg to build a colony ship you would need to research the followig: Dome colony(for apropriate planet type)(and for it should be cheap for your type of planet, but very expensive for others), Engines(basic be that Chemical or Ion), Basic ship components(Brige, Crewqt, Lifesp), Basic Cargo bays(if you want them on your colony ship, i usually do)... and then for fighters and so on we would need weapons and sensors and so on... maby actually make sensors and computer non kt dependant(just influenses the cost)

Maby be able to select diffrent materials to build the ship out of? and have these having different properties.
ex. on a 150kt ship.
Steel: Standard, pruduses a ship at standard cost with 150kt.
Aluminium: Lighter, 160kt, all components have lower damage recistance, Higher cost.
Lead: Heavy, 140kt, all components have higher damage recistance, Higher cost.
And loads of different researchable armour/hull types ofcourse, and the increased/decreased damage resistance is to simulate base armour.

Well thats all for now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif hope someone likes somthing of it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

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

Not to split hairs or anything, but Capital Ship is simply a Category into which you put your largest ship. So a destroyer is technically a capital ship if it's the biggest thing you've got. Nevertheless, I was thinking of something similar in the form of the Flagship. You would be obviously be allowed only one Flagship per fleet. Designating a ship as the flagship would give it a large boost to all its stats (shields, engines, weapons, etc) and also give a lesser, but still signifcant boost to all the other ships in the fleet.

In terms of doubling the size of the ship, I'm not too sure about that, but it does lead me into another point I wanted to make which was that in SE4 I don't really think there's enough difference in the size of ships. I currently play with my own mod which starts out with an Escort (which I've renamed Corvette. I think all the old SE4 beta testers remember my feelings on the topic ;-) ) at the usual 150kt, but a Dreadnought weighs in at 12000kt. And I tell ya, they may be prohibitively expensive and take ages to build, but one of those babies is all it takes to seriously ruin someone's day.

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

Ooops... Dang wireless keyboard somehow posted that before I was done. Maybe it's just trying to tell me I shouldn't be posting at 2am.

Anyway, a couple more points before I meander off.
I'd like to see the current ship hulls split into 3 different categories, and maybe see a few new ones. The 3 hull categories would be Escort, Ship-Of-The-Wall, and Capital Ship. In the Escort Class you would have the Corvette, Frigate and Destroyer; SOTW would be Light Cruiser, Cruiser and Battle Cruiser, and Capital Ships would be Battleship, Dreadnought and please please please could I have a Superdreadnought this time around? Your initial shipyards would be able to build only Escort-class ships, and would require upgrading in order to build each succesive class. Planetary Shipyards would only be able to build up to SOTW-class ships, unless someone can tell me out to get a 12,000kt dreadnougt off the ground.

This leads me into my idea about orbita spaceyards. Basically, when you're designing a spaceyard you would have to decide how much space would be taken up by shields, defensive weapons, and SY/repair bays, and how much would be taken up by 'Modules Mounts'. What a Module Mount is should be obvious, and the Module itself would simply be something that you designed like a station, only smaller, and it would fit onto an existing station. So, for example, I build a space station with just a bridge/crew quarters/life support, basic shielding, and 4 Module Mounts. I design a seperate Module containing a Space Yard and Repair Bay, build one of each, slot them together, and voila! I have a working space yard which I set to work building Destroyers. Some time later, I discover the Light Cruiser hull, which is a Ship-of-the-Wall. But SOTW-class ships require a station with at least two SY components, so I build another SY Module and attach it to my existing station. I then decide the station could use a production boost so I build a third SY Module to start cranking out those LCs a bit faster. Then, realizing that this is the only station I have that can build LCs, I decide to improve its defenses and build a Module filled with Weapons and shields, and add that to the station.

Of course, Battle Stations and Starbases, being much larger, could also accomodate a lot more Module Mounts. In fact, I was just thinking, one could design a Module that held 2-3 Module Mounts in order to create massive, sprawling space yards that could build big ships very quickly, and even work on several at a time, which is where the Module idea really comes into its own. If, for example, a LC needs a station with 2 SY comps and can be worked on by a maximum of 3, and I have a station with 9 SY comps, I would just have to pull up the build queue for that station, tell it to build 3 LCs, and it would autmatically begin simultaneous production of them. I think this would remove a lot of the hassle from trying to build large numbers of ships quite quickly.
It would also create the situation where an empire would have only a few centralized construction areas where their biggest, most powerful ships could be built. So, during a war, a bit of sabotage or a carefully timed surgical strike could have devastating effects on an opponent.

More later after I've had some sleep...

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

tmce, can't a lot of the changes you mentioned be made by editing the .txt files in SE:IV?

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

Not really, as far as the SY idea goes, since as far as I know, the restriction of 1 SY per Station isn't an editable attribute, which mean that even if it is possible to put a restriction like 'Requires a station with 2 SY comps for construction' could be added to SE4, there would be no way to implement it since a single station cannot have 2 SYs anyway. And if anyone knows how to make a component that can store other components which would actually exceed a Station's (or ship's) max tonnage, please tell me how to do it.

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

hey... another thread gave me this idea

Base happiness stuff on %

Ie... instead of losing 1 ship costing this much

make it losing 1 % of your ships will cost this much

Same with planets etc.....

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

PLanet Stability:I think it can be assumed that not all planets are going to have the same contiental plates and on some planets the contiental plates would move alot faster then on earth causeing earthquakes, and cutting down on the amount of structures possible on planet.

Next, I think it should be alot harder and take alot longer to set up colonies. If you think about even if there was a wormhole thingy in the Real earth solor system it would still take awhile for us to be able to build up the resourses and find the best spot on the planet to set up the inital colony. You can't just plop down anywhere on the planet and hope to succeed.

This is an AI thing, In the Resarch txt thing it is set up to make all AI research shields, weapons, Ship Contruction, but that is SOOOOO unrealistic, Instead it should have different AI research patterns depending on gameplay, Examples
If a race has lots of Mining Colonies they should devolpe Mining technology.
Or if a race is stuck by itself with no contact with other races, they shouldnt devolpe to high technology. I think you guys will understand that.

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

Will SE5 have the ability to generate a resource based on population level, for example, a population of 100m people = 100 resource points (manpower, currency)?

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

I just posted a big ol' tirade about manpower and money at http://games.Groups.yahoo.com/group/SE4/message/5655
Feel free to comment.

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

They will be moddable yes. Aaron has said that there will be room for 5 moddable resources that we will have the ability to change around. And if I understand it correctly, we will have a HUGE amount of play-ability in what we can do with these. The stock game will still have the standard 3 that we are familiar with.

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

Really? When did he say we'd have moddable resources? The data files he showed us had the regular 3 resources, not anything like this:

&lt;code&gt;
Cost Num Resources := 3
Cost Resource 1 Resource := Minerals
Cost Resource 1 Amount := 1000
Cost Resource 2 Resource := Organics
Cost Resource 2 Amount := 500
Cost Resource 3 Resource := Radioactives
Cost Resource 3 Amount := 500
&lt;/code&gt;

Of course that would be rather unwieldy for *every* *single* *component* *and* *facility*, so perhaps Aaron figured out how to make moddable field names! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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

I would like to see CivIII style resources. We would still have setup we have now for general use, but the Civ type resouces would be for the more exotic stuff. Would add another layer of stategy.

And please make warp engines a component.

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

I've probably mentioned this before, but I'd like to be able to export and import a list of vehicle designs (both your own and other races') to a file in a similar format as the other SE5 data files. This way you could share designs between various .emp's and also run programs on the exported data. The format I might expect to look like this, assuming SE5 uses SF's slot model for designs and mounts are built into vehicle sizes rather than specified by the player during vehicle design:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Name := Paladin III
Owner Empire Number := 3
Owner Empire Name := Chozo
Owner Empire Type := Dominion
Vehicle Type := Ship
Vehicle Size := Battleship
Num Slots Used := 32
Slot Used 1 Name := Inner Hull 1
Slot Used 1 Comp Name := Bridge
Slot Used 1 Comp Level := 5
Slot Used 2 Name := Inner Hull 2
Slot Used 2 Comp Name := Life Support
Slot Used 2 Comp Level := 6
Slot Used 3 Name := Inner Hull 3
Slot Used 3 Comp Name := Crew Quarters
Slot Used 3 Comp Level := 5
Slot Used 4 Name := Engine 1
Slot Used 4 Comp Name := Quantum Impulse Engine
Slot Used 4 Comp Level := 10
...
</pre><hr />

Though I would like to see the ability to also use mounts at design time; perhaps there should be Mounts (specified in the vehicle size definition) and Mods (which function like SE4's Mounts, or maybe like MOO2's Mods, in which more than one could be applied but some were mutually exclusive! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif) Or if you don't like the name Mods meaning two different things, you could call the built-in ones (like Battleship Scale Mount) Hard Mounts and the customizable ones (like Accuracy Enhancement) Soft Mounts or something... or maybe Hardpoint Mounts and Design Mounts??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Also, I'd like to see the copy and upgrade buttons work on alien designs so you can duplicate your opponents' designs if you have the same or higher tech.

Oh, speaking of mounts again - assuming SE5 even HAS them, I'd like to see the option to either specify for a mount a specific list of vehicle sizes that it can be used on, or vice versa, just so we don't have to worry about ships falling into the wrong size ranges - oh no, my new 350kT Courier Transport accidentally got the Picket Ship Scale Mount applied because that mount applies to ships between 200kT Frigates and 400kT Light Cruisers! But I wanted it to get a special transport mount! (Boy ain't I picky... feel free to ignore my suggestions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

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

Ugh please no. All that the resources in Civ 3 do is screw you over if you don't find a few critical ones. Lacking resources such as Iron or Oil will prevent you from building most of the units for a long chunk of the game... Not fun to fight people with knights and pikemen when all you can make are spearmen and archers...

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

I'd add this line:
Slot Used 1 Mount Code := LSM
Ummm, why don't you like this:
Long Name := Somemount
...
Vehicle Size Minimum := 200
Vehicle Size Maximum := 200
for each ship size? Quite tedious, but it works.

Although it will be best to use something like this:

Name := Dreadnought
...
Vehicle Type := Ship
...
Restricted/Allowed Mounts := 0/HSM,UbW,HEF,Blahblah
Restricted/Allowed Comp Families : = 12,63,256/0

in the future VehicleSize.txt.

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

Exactly because it _is_ tedious, and error prone. Better to have the possibility of comma separated lists (in addition to min and max size type fields, all optional).

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

Ok, I have a big AI thing. I was playing around with the design name txt and i went and turned off the AI on a race after a few turns to see the order the ai used the names. Anyways when i was playing the AI race i noticed something, a planet set up to be a mining colony, nothing to amazing until you look at the value of the planet. 3% mineral value, and yet it would have been the perfect planet for a farming colony http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif granted this was set on easy for this test but still.

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

See, this I like. I think it would be best if we specified which mounts/comps were Restricted, otherwise one would have to list every comp family a ship was able to use. But if we were able to restrict comps to a certain class of ship, it could make things rather interesting. For example, you could create a cargo component that can provides twice as much cargo space than the normal one, but can only be mounted on Transport hulls, and I'm sure everyone can think of plenty of other examples.

One thing I'm thinking about these moddable resources... There would need to be an option along the lines of 'Accumulates on Planet Only' in order for us to create rare, special resources that are only available from certain planets. Also, if the concept of Crew doesn't make it into the stock game, the ability to create resources that only accumulate on the planet, and don't go into the galactic pool, would be vital.

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

Ok, I thought of two things, though I can only remember one of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

I'd like the ability to edit orders.

It's always frustrating when you set up a bunch of orders for a ship, and then find you made a mistake, and loaded cargo from the wrong planet. Currently, you have to clear and remake the entire order string - I'd like the ability to go in and just edit that one specific order.

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

This is a slightly harder to implament idea. Ship limitations should be based on the desin of the outer hull. A star trek type ship would have a lower amount of possible engines as they hang out to the side. While a ship in a tube shape, and engines in the back could go faster as well as haveing more engines. This would require TxT file for each ship model, and this would make ship set modding.
Any thoughts or refinements to this idea

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

I think this is an interesting idea, though technically in space there's no reason a Star Trek type ship couldn't mount just as many engines as a 'tubular' ship, as long as the struts connecting the engines to the ship were strong enough to cope with the stresses. Though this leads me into another thought...

In SE5, there should be a lot more variety in the racial setup screens. The current 'points' system should stay, but I'd like to see a system where players would have a vast array of options that didn't cost them any points, but had a good side/downside balance. An example inspired by the above would be 'External' 'Normal' or 'Internal' Engines. Normal would provide no bonuses or drawbacks, Internal would provide engines with a higher damage resistance at the cost of less available space for other components (easily simulated by increasing the size of the engines) and External engines would have a considerably lower damage resistance, but leave more space available for other components. Basically, if we took SE4s Cultural Modifiers but gave them all a pro/con (and added a whole bunch more exotic ones) then players could pick and choose through all kinds of categories to create genuinely unique races.

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

Oh, &amp; just posted this tirade over on the SE4 mailing list...

Personally I just can't understand how anyone can think that inter-species trade without a single agreed form of currency would be possible. The argument is made that the existing resources are the currency of trade but they're not. They're raw materials. How many countries trade soley with raw materials even today? I bet you could count them on one hand, but only if you didn't have any fingers (or a thumb!) My argument in favour of money can be exemplified by looking at Britain.
As we all know, Britain was at one point the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. They virtually unrivalled in their superiority. Sure they were challanged, but look how that ended. Now, did Britain have enormous reserves of raw resources?
No.
She imported virtually everything. And how did she accomplish this? By building a vast trading empire that brought in vast ammounts of, you guessed it, MONEY! By importing raw resources from her colonies, refining them, and selling the finished product (obviously at considerably higher cost than the materials alone) to other countries, Britain made lots and lots and lots of money. And with all this money, she paid for her soldiers, guns, cannons and ships that kept the empire together. (Her downfall was becoming to confident in her superiority and allowing other nations a surpass her in new technologies, which resulted in her beginning to be an importer of finished products, instead of an exporter but that's a whole different topic).
Now, is an economy like that possible in SE5?
No.
Why? Because it just doesn't work without money. But it would be fantastic in SE5. It would allow smaller empires and minor races to actually compete, by building up their trading infrastructre. An example of how it might work:
On a planet, preferably one already producing a high income level, the player builds a Trade Centre. This allows the planet to be 'connected' to any planet belonging to a neutral/allied race. After a certain number of turns spent 'establishing' the trade route, it would begin producing income which would be a factor of the two planets' average income with a distance factor thrown into the equation to make things interesting (after all, exotic goods from far away fetch a higher price than those available from the local grocery store). Then facilities like Manufacturing Centre (uses a certain amount of resources each turn but boosts trade income by X%), could be built. Others like Galactic Bank, Foreign Exchange, Distribution Centre, etc could be built which would all boost the trade income. Resarch in trade technology could also provide a boost. Tricky thing is though, the income boost is for you only. So say you have a trade route pulling in 10 Galactic Credits a turn. The empire you have the trade route with, all other factors being equal, also makes 10GC a turn. But, after building a bunch of the above facilities, the total bonus for that route is say, 100%. So, that trade route is now making you 20GC a turn, while the other guy still only gets 10. AND, if all the trade facilities you build also increase the income earned from the planet, the net increase will be even more!

So, what it all boils down to is that with money in SE5, small empires, with a bit of shrewd negotiation would be able to make large ammounts of money which could they could then buy raw resources required to build the ships needed to protect themselves from those not interested in trading. And given how much we all love the underdog, is that really something you'd like to have missing from SE5?

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

This would be nice addition for SEV. A facility (ie. huge linear accelerator which goes through planet) which would allow to move a planet. For example, 1 sector in a turn. Of course, the cost of the facility would have to be at least equal to system gravity shield, so it would be not easy or effortless to do it.

Think, what kind of defence it would be to locate all planets in a system above the only warp point. 1000 WP:s to fire against attacking fleet before they get a shot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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

The option to customize your own homeworld. Set the look, the color, the clouds, the sea's, etc.

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

We can spend research and intelligence points on projects. A third nice thing would be economy points, produced by banks or traders.

There could be a kind of counter-economy-project (like the counter-intelligence), trying to disturb other econmies. Perhaps after success of own projects you get ressources or a nice boost of research, or you force a certain ai to make a better treaty, so the trade values raises and whatever. Perhaps some projects could improve the relations to other peoples or force another race to make peace with you because of the economical situation.

To buy out another empire planet by planet, ship by ship would be another idea, but not a good one if you ask me. But I would mod it away, so please feel free to do it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Sorry if someone wrote similar ideas. Please don't expect someone to read that 100! pages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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

When I played the humans I tried to rename the system into Sol. Hmhm, not possible. To rename systems would be a nice and neccessary option for fun I think. But in this moment I had another idea:

Imagine, you don't only customize a race's abilites and whatever. You also customize their home system. Imagine to play the human race and in what universe ever you created, the home system is Sol. There are 1 to x Warppoints and they lead to a completely unknown world, but your home is the same.

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

Suggestions once more, sorry for any repeats...

The ability to name just about anything in-game. Solar systems, planets (as with SEIV), etc. etc.

The ability to classify enemy ships. Right now, with SE4, all the enemy ships appear in one long list. After contact, let us see the breakdown of classification as we see with our own ships. Let us be able to click on an enemy ship in the solar system view and have it pull up any info we have related to it (size, weapons, etc.)

Make this an option on set up, ships in an enemy fleet are not shown with a total number, but a guess of how many are in there (1-5, 6-10, 11-20, 21-40, etc.) This way fleets can have another tactical advantage- this might also allow for long range sensors to act as counter, thus increasing their value.

If possible, instead of trying to guess what all should be included in the text files, try to make it open ended so that the user can define what the lines do themselves. Not sure how to go about it, but perhaps there is a way that the user can define what "general restrictions/enable 1,2,3 etc" means.

Again, try to include user defined resources so we can change the pics of the exsisting resources and add more. Allow us to change the name of the resources so we can call it "money" or "industry" instead of organics or radioactives. It's just a label afterall, give it to us. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif If at all possible, allow us to include more user defines resources- they don't have to be used in the stock game, and they probably shouldn't, but the option will allow for more variety and greater ability for the creativity of the Users to flourish.

I'm glad to hear the change in intel, but please put a direct link to it on the main screen like tech in SE4. Hiding it in diplomacy can be a bother since it adds in an extra click. Perhaps from a UI perspective you might allow a right click on an enemy ship/planet/whatever to link to an option to target an intel project against that particular thing. With SE4, I often have to write down the name of the ship or planet that I want to target.

Spice up ground combat to include options to train troops (have it mean something). Ships have experience, so should troops. If at all possible, use the SEIV space combat system for SEV ground combat (or even the SEV space combat system if that is doable)

Empire wide facilities similar to system wide facilities.

Another alternative to population/cargo transport micromanagement is to instutite an invisible cargo system whereby the user selects a planet and then selects a destination, the computer calculates a time penalty to figure out how long it takes for that cargo/population to move to the destination (or it could just be a user defined flat rate of X turns by warp point distance). Perhaps it can be constructed so that in game, players can build invisible "transport fleets" that allow for greater amounts of cargo to be moved, or at faster rates. There are quite a few options with that. The point being, you handle the resources in a similar manner- space ports magically dumps all your resources whereever you need them in SE4, so why not apply the same logic to people and cargo in a slightly different manner.

The above will help decrease the micro-management that can detract from some of the larger games (or when you have umpteen races)

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

There is no need to be sorry for repeats...

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

Have a tech that would allow certian sized ships to split apart in or out of combat, You could spilt manually or do it automatically where the computer would take 1/2 or 1/3 of ship depending on how many sections it splits into.

Weapons Idea.
I think thier should be certian weapons (mainly missle types, These types of weapons would make the shields drop for X number of turns and then reraise, this would eventually be over run by tech.

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

I would like to see the ability to pick which satellite, fighter or drone to launch, and how many...

I would like to have available the ability to make different types of munitions (ie missle types) for weapons with the munitions trait. That way you can program a type of weapon (missle rack), with so many shots available (magazine of say 4 or 6 missiles), and then be able to load the weapon with all of the same munition type, or multiple types...and maybe an option to pick which munition to use, or the order that they will be fired in.

Thanks,

Kana
In quest of options for an Star Fleet Battles type mod...

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

I also would like to have more of a SEIII type construction - lay down the hull, and then build it up from there.
That would add a whole new element and purpose in small "lightning strikes" to wipe out hulls in progress.

But to balance this (so that you can't lay the hull and complete in 1 turn with tons of repair facilities), it should combine SEIII and IV styles.

Where in SEIV it may take 6 turns to build the ship, then it appears fully complete in orbit, the hull should appear in orbit first turn, then take an additional 5 turns to complete, regardless of how many stacked repair facilities you have. The ship would still be 'being built', and use up 1 space yard for that time, but the ship would be in orbit and vulnerable.

eg. You decide to build battlecruiser A, which will take 5 turns. Next turn a BC hull appears in orbit, maybe with a counter on it - 4 turns remaining. Next turn, 3 turns remaining... etc, until it is complete, and then fully functional