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- - A favor... (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44192)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xrati (Post 718016)

Quote:

more info about this intersting mysterious project?

Yes, this project will hereby be known as SEX. Were going to skip to ten rather then go to 6 as SEX looks better than SEVI. :D

OR

SE Project X ' The Return of the Icon' :D

Hahahaha... LOL!!!

Thats particularly funny for me.

One of my seiv sigs has always been...
HURRY UP! I know technology is moving fast but Im old. And I refuse
to check into an old folks home that doesnt have a HoloDeck or a Direct
Neural Interface. I want to be playing (hmmm not SEV, SEVI, not SEIX)
OH YEAH, I want to be playing SEX!

And now a friend of mine at a well known company is working on a hardware project that an NDA keeps me from discussing openly. But let me say that the above statement is much truer than it was a month ago.

Hypothetically if you were to take SE4 and add/remove features this is how it would play out

Add

Effortless/Just Works TCP/IP the currently se4 implmentation is a nightmare

Weird Worlds Retun to Infinite Space style 2d graphics keeps the game looking very spiffy yet does't bog down the hardware and is easy to mod

As completely open modability as possible se4 was sure a good start but games like Civ4 have taken it to the level where you can mod almost any part of the game from AI scripting to extensive UI reduxs

More specific changes would be more detailed and fair ground and space combat and better research and intel systems

Different modes of tranportation possible, FTL, jumpdrives ect.. not just the very static WP system se4 uses

More to come when I have something easier to type on then my G1

And continuing...

Beta testing! Listen to your testers don't release before it is ready. From my experience Shrapnel is pretty good about this but I want to make sure it stays fresh in your mind :)

Also I think hiring on some of the great se4 modders for the dev team would be a good idea. A few names come to mind and I can provide a list if it is wanted.

back to features

Make the game scale to different resolutions effortlessly. I run my desktop at 2048x1152 and se4 becomes quite the small little box(using SJ's windowed SE4 tool)

Descriptive error windows! nothing is more frustrating to have something go horribly wrong and never know what caused it(also useful for modders)

ease of use features are a must for late game play when you have 300+ planets and thousands of ships! Minimal clicks(something se5 failed horribly on and the main reason I don't play it)

Already been mentioned but a quality map/scenario editor is a must.

water planets and multiple friendly races have colonies on the same planet like one in the ocean and one on land(this goes along with total modability though)

Everyone on the team that has any say in how the stock gameplay works must play SuicideJunkie's Carrier Battles mod the poster child for balanced and fun gameplay

Ship the game with mods! alot of people still don't use websites and download things for some reason so make sure the game gets to modders early(like have them on the beta team) so they can have finished mods to ship on the game cd/dvd

PBW intergration: have the game automagically send/recieve turns from the PBW system so theres no file moving needed. Also this goes along with having the right people in the beta/dev team make sure the game is supported by PBW (pbw.spaceempires.net) and make the standards open so anyone can make their own PBW implementation maybe even have an official site/server

hopefully still more to come once I gather more thoughts into words

My 2 cents,

Make sure the interface is clean, simple, and intuitive. Think Apple.

Make multiplaying & matchmaking effortless. Think Xbox Live.

:idea: Larger combat map with a limitation on ship numbers in combat.

:idea: Have ship combat based like ground combat, so many turns of combat per game turn. This will allow for retreat and reinforcement of fleet elements (especially if there are limits imposed as to number of ships in combat) between turns. It will also make fighters more valuable as an attrition unit.

:idea: Eliminate formations as they are only used in setup. After that they are useless.

Add the range of view in the system depending on the level of sensors used.

Fog of War :confused: A ship that can travel through space that can't see an entire system? (I'm not talking about cloaked or stealthy units) It's just like saying you have a car that's going 50 mph., and you can only see 10 ft. in front of it. Doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm not getting your point (please explain), I'm sorry if that's the case Q.

Don't forget that the ship travel takes 1/10 of a year! Therefore I think the sensor range as used in SE V is quite reasonable. You can of course discuss (and mod) if you should see planets (and everything else) at any distance but I like it very much to explore a new solar system. The only real problem I see with the sensor range is the increased computer calculation times it takes to display a system with many ships.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Q (Post 719721)

The only real problem I see with the sensor range is the increased computer calculation times it takes to display a system with many ships.

That is the problem of what you propose Q. The resources required to filter what's seen and what isn't (and how the AI deals with it) would be tremendous, and at what cost to playability and functionality. While FoW is great, I don't believe that it would add any REAL reason to include it in the game. Maybe you could give an example of what possible circumstance or uses that the limited sensor range could create for game enhancement? Most games that have FoW, the AI sees everything in the game because to write AI routines to handle FoW are extensive.

As far as SEV, I played the demo and decided that I did not like the game. So any references to SEV will have to be elaborated.