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

TCP/IP Multiplayer game --> QUICKHOSTING <-- when all players have submitted turns, generate next turn.

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

The SE3 ship purchase menu. That window was a lot simpler way of quickly getting planets and spaceyards quickly working on building a new fleet with significantly less menu-clicking as in SE4. Perhaps a few refinements as well, such filters to select the system, and only planets and/or shipyards.

Also, I'm in favour of bringing back SE3s Repair/Build Queue window, and also the ability for Bases to have more than one Space Yard comp on them. The main reason I'd like to see this is so that ship hulls can have the requirement 'Can Only be Built By Base with X number of SYs'. A tech that decreases the size of SYs would also make this interesting since you'd have the choice of researching bigger bases or smaller SYs (to fit more into an exisiting base) in order to build your big new Battle Cruisers.

Also, I'd like to see techs that once researched provide immediate bonuses in certain areas. So research in one area might uncover some new mining technique that could be applied to existing mines without needing to refit them, so all your mines get produce 10% more minerals. Or advanced targeting algorithms that give all your ships 5% accuracy bonus. This would allow players to make small, evolutionary improvements to their empire without having to take the time and expense to upgrade everything.

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

I'd like to see a ship design 'wizard'. For vetran players, ship design is nice and easy, but for those new to the series, the ship design could be a bit intimidating, especially if they start a game with all techs researched and/or install a mod that adds a load of new comps.
Basically, if you clicked on the 'Wizard' or Helper or whatever you want to call it, a window would pop up with a series of tabs that would guide a player through ship construction. So you'd have 'Required Comps' which would show basically just bridge/CC/LS, or fighter bays/cargo/colony pods if applicable (and reactors if we get them!), then once those were in place it would move on through Propulsion, Armor & Shields, Weapons, Combat Support , Misc.

I know we can do something similar by changing which component types are displayed, but for a new player who isn't really sure what they're doing, it'd be quire helpful.

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

Privateers, When you make a design you should have a choos to make it a privateer ship, the difference between pirates and privateers is that a pirate would be its own race and a privateer would be a ship you control but it has a hidden race. The draw back is the more ships you have in porportion to the size of your empire the more chance you have at getting caught. So if you have a huge empire and say 10-15 privateers you would have a small chance to getting caught but if you had the same amount and a small empire you would have a large chance of getting caught

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

This is what the Ship Design AI minister is for. No need for any special wizards...

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

But the AI minister doesn't actually TEACH the player how to design ships... it just does it for the player, and not very well anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

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

Clearly Diplomacy has been discussed before, but in such cases it seems to be a discussion on how to improve AI diplomacy. What I would like to see is a more elaborate diplomacy option towards other human players. As it stands now the highest treaty, partnership, means you have to allow your ally to see all your systems and everything you see. This makes sense if you are fighting a common foe. However without the opportunity to block vision of your internal systems from your ally, I usually choose not to have a partnership with others unless the benefits outweigh the penalty. Having a partnership with someone means you value the alliance and is an indication of a willingness to cooperate (Although some people seem to want to sign partnerships with everyone they meet), but there are some things you don't want to share even with your allies. "Have a military alliance" you say, but then the ally will side with the person who has a higher "Partnership" treaty.

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

That's exactly what I mean. I'm talking about something that would guide new players through the process, showing them how all these components go together to make a ship. Once they've gotten good at it, they can keep using the wizard or use the conventional approach instead. Teaching someone how to do something is a lot different then doing it for them.

This got mentioned during the initial phases of SE4 as well. What I was thinking is that trade treaties and military treaties should be seperated out. So you could have a Non-Intercourse treaty militarily, but still have a Trade & Research treaty. I'd also like to see access to your space being something that you would grant seperately from any treaty, like the Civ3 Right of Passage. That way one could have a full Partnership treaty, but still not allow his allies ships into his space. I think this would be good for xenophobic races especially.
An ability to 'automate' certain types of trade would be good to. For example if I'm pouring my research points into say, WMGs, and my ally is researching Shields, it'd be nice if we could set up an agreement that each time we reach a new tech level (in specified techs) the two are automatically traded. This could also be done with resources, so if I have a massive mineral surplus but a defecit in radioactives, and my ally has the opposite problem, then we can set up a system where every turn I give him 10,000 minerals in return for an equal ammount of radioactives. This would save us the hassle of having to go into the trade screen every turn.

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

Have you read the SE5 chat transcripts with Aaron Hall? I believe this exact subject was discussed there... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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

Stellar Manipluation, You should have a new componet say around 2400kt it would create a warp point to empty space. It would create a war point and a whole new system at the other end. It would have randome planets and stars or anything black hole, nebulua, and anything else. It would randomly generator.

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

I'd like to be able to write some sequence of my ingame actions to macros and then save/load it to/from separate text file.

There could be and easy to use api interface which will allow 3rd party software to gather information about your empire and known universe, make more or less sophisticated analysis and give some results in form of advices: e.g. best planets for colonisations, best colonies to develop industry/research/intel, etc.

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

This is hard to explain bit. But I always end up doing math playing this game. Is there anyway to at the very least be able seperate cargo amounts so I dont have to figure out how many fighters can go into this ship and then I have to figure how many drones can go in then how much excess cargo there is. Does anyone understand that???

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

Like in SE3, where a fighter bay could store X number of fighters and no drones or population or whatever?

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

Or like in SE3 where all cargo types were wholely separate... how do you store people in a mine bay anyways? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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

I'd settle for just population quarters and cargo the way it is now for units.

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

I dont even care about it seperateing so I cant put a Fighter in a mine bay but I wish it would tell me how many fighter space i have how much drone space and how much it could store I go insane haveing a piece of paper next to me with all kinds of numbers on it that I usually lose track off if I dont play for a day or so

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

Easy, you give them a blanket, some rations, stuff as many people you can, and hope that the doors won't open by accident.

What? Don't look as if you've never done it either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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

You could just make specialized launch ships that launch only a single type of unit.

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

I think what the good Colonel is trying to say is that in SE4, when you design, say, a carrier, you're told it has 3000kT of cargo space. But how many fighters is that?
I've got a mine layer with 1500kT of cargo space. How many mines is that?
It'd be nice if after you designed a ship to carry specific units (carrier/troopship/minelayer/etc), then beside the cargo space it would tell you how many units of that type it could hold. eg: 100 Light Fighters/80 Med Fighters/60 Heavy Fighters.
Obviously if you're mixing between sizes, it doesn't work, but it'd at least give you an idea without having to pull out the calculator, and have the unit capacities of all your ships scribbled down somewhere.

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

I was think the other day about how research is usually increased or sped up during wartime. Right now in SE4 we can 'emergency' produce ships and units at an increased rate. Which I think should also come with a penalty to happiness as well, but the only penalty is the reduced production for like number of turns. Anyway...I way think that something similar could be done for research points, either by percentage of total points, or maybe choose one select catagory to have research faster. This should only be during wartime...ie have a war treaty against another race. Also it should have a economic cost as well for the increased rate of scientific research...

What do you all think?

Kana

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

Good idea, Kana!

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

I like this! Maybe even just the fact that you're at war would give you a bonus to your research (and maybe other things?). The advantage is you research faster, the downside is you're at war, so most of your new inventions have a tendancy to get blown up.

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

More populous planets should logically enough require more UPC facilities/troops/orbiting ships to get the same happiness boost, while larger planets should require more Value, Conditions, or Atmosphere Improvement Plants for the same benefit. (Oh, and this time make the Conditions plants actually *useful* by incorporating larger population bonuses into the stock game and/or increasing the plants' effects http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

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

Player set Tonnage. I think you should pick a size class like there are now only you would set what you wanted the tinnage to be. So you could have a battle crusier with 659KT or a battleship 901KT. So you could have a more veried fleet also it would make more of an arms race type thing. Also the max tonnage for each ship could only be reached after the ship constuction was reashed. So like now we have three techs for each differnet engine now after you got up to the next tech ship construction your max for the previous ship would increase and it would do that continueously until that ship maxed out and so on and so on

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

Suggestion: that inteligence projects that capture ships and planets, events that cause you to lose a ship or planet, ships subverted with the alliegence subverter or boarding parties, whatever the cause: only have a temporary effect, say a few turns, then control reverts back. This could be a way to balance these effects, instead of making an all or nothing defense available.

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

I want supply drain weapon :-)

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

All weapons already drain supplies when used in combat.

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

But not from the ship its shooting at.

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

Like a pirate weapon that takes supplies and adds them to your own

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

Yeah, it was early this morning. I understand now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif

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

Allow a flag or option for a seeking weapon to be able to be damaged by weapons fire. Said damage will decrease the effectiveness of the strength of the seeker. This would be similar to SE3. A yes or no tag will allow us to simulate different types of seekers.

Kana

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

About happiness:
2 new settings for happiness.txt

Max Positive Anger Level
Max Negative Anger Level

so you could limit max/min happiness level availiable for any happiness type, ie no more than Happy(120)/no less than Angry(60).

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

I'm sure it's been said, but also to have happiness based on a percentage.

losing 10 planets in a 500 planet empire should not affect things nearly as much as losing 10 planets in a 15 planet empire

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

A supply ability that can be tied to things other than facilities. That way you could make a resupply component, that you can put on Bases. Also allow some whay of supplying ships from bases without having to 'fleet' them together...

Kana

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

I'm all for that! At the moment I make supply bases that are just a station full of supply components, but in order to resupply ships, I have to send them to the station, 'fleet' them with it, then 'unfleet' them and send the ships on it's way. And I'm still trying to figure out a way to resupply the base when it runs out. A Base-only resupply component would be great, and that one simple addition would add a lot to the game's strategic depth.

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

Unless I'm really mistaken, bases already have unlimited supplies, so you don't need to worry about your base "running out" of supplies....ever.

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

I know we've bugged you enough about the formulas in data files, Aaron, but you think it would be possible to calculate any field from any other field?

E.g.

Tonnage Structure = 30 * 0.95 ^ [Tech Req Level 3]

for a component that miniaturizes when tech req 3 is Miniaturization? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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

Planetary Indices, using the equations. Pop growth rates, production and build rate, even some atmosphere modification, all based on race settings among other things.

High organics-value planets would convert CO2 into oxygen, high rads (of the volcanic variety) planets would emit lots of H2 and methane, and more.

And a separate reproduction rate and death rate index.
You could have a heavy metal value for the planets, which could reduce reproduction rate in regular races (toxic), but be required for self-reproduction in the case of mechanoids.
You could have planets where a small colony will die off from natural events unless you can grow it to a stable size, or keep feeding replacements to it as the people die.

You could have a rapidly-reproducing race that uses up all the methane, say, in an atmosphere and then dies off when the methane runs out.
They would come in giant pop transports, turn the atmosphere into population, and then leave to find another world to consume.

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

I meant running out of supplies to give to other ships. Then you're just left with a useless station sitting out in the middle of nowhere.

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

If you've modified the settings.txt so that bases can be fleeted, unlimited supplies means unlimited supplies.

If you built a base with just the control components and nothing else (bridge, ls, cq), and fleeted it with your ships, every ship will have full supplies next turn.

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

Make warp point capable engines a seperate component. Please!

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

Interesting. Some form of emitter to open a natural Wormhole perhaps. A jump drive, uses wormholes, but still needing normal engines to move in system.

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

A proper "fog of war".
- when your ships leave a system, all colonies you saw should remain shown, and unchanging until another ship moves in, just like in other similar games
- also, it should not update with stellar manipulation. If I create a planet in my homesystem, or rearrange warp points, some ancient race should not be able to see all these changes. They're ancient. They know how the galaxy used to be.


I also think it would be neat if further down the stellar manipulation path (if it works similarly), beyond normal warp openers to existing systems, you should be able to open warp points to empty space - no planets, stars, asteroids - just empty space. But with proper fog of war, no one would see this, and you could gather your fleet in a secure, secret system that could be on or even behind the enemies frontier systems.

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

Warp point is tricky, because what if I own the other end. And we can "see" planets around a star right now with our primative atrological tools (even if the picture is a few thousand years old), I would assume advanced races could do better than us.

I see your point though.

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

Has any body posted to suggest that the combat not have set pause points, but instead start paused then you just right click on your ship to give it new orders?

I have played a few games that have pause points and they STINK! you have a huge advantige in pauseing agenst missiles, becouse all you have to do is know the way a missile moves and turn your ships the right way and the missiles shoots past!

Without the pause points you have to think on your feet more.

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

I do not understand your reference to the term "Pause Points". The nearest assumption I can make is that you are adressing the ability to move into range of a planet, fire, than move again out of range of missiles. To my knowledge there is no possibility of missiles "shooting past" merely of moving away faster than the missiles move so that they reach their range limit and dissapear.

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

I think its a bug in the game which he is refering to. Sometimes if you move a certian way when they shoot missles at you they completely miss. As for the pause points he is refering to the where you stop at the end of your combat turn, He wants it to be simotanous tactical combat

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

Little Idea of mine, Does anyone know what you call the opposite of a Black Hole, Where instead of pulling it towards it, it would repulse it, anyways add that as a system type

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

Missiles will almost certainly be "always hit" just like in SE4 as well as Starfury.

Running sideways will increase the distance the missile travels by some amount, and may give your Point Defense a little extra time, but you won't be able to dodge.

-----

I've heard reverse-black holes typically be termed white holes.

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

A white hole? Good idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif