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

Aack, not race experience! That's just a way to give some races an unfair advantage at the beginning of the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Now how about mercenaries and other for-hire units? You pay them a certain fee per turn and in exchange you get a leader to add to your empire who gives bonuses (increased research on the planet you assign him to, etc.), or a fleet of ships with unique or powerful abilities? (You could spend 200,000 points researching Ubermachium Armor... or you could hire Zero the Avenger for 10,000 GC a turn, who brings a fleet of 15 battleships that cannot be broken up or analyzed for tech, but is equipped with Ubermachium, not to mention the dreaded Polaris Cannon... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

Also, please disallow one-ship fleets... it is really silly (not to mention a micromanagement headache) to be able to gain "fleet experience" in a fleet of that size! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

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

I haven't been following this thread (and i'm not going to read this huge thing now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) but Ed Kolis' post made me think about a independant merchant guild.
Something like in Imperium Galactica, or EFS.
Or perhaps connect the guild to a something like a United Planets in GalCiv, where only UP members can trade with the guild.

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

Speaking of unfair advantages I'd say that cultures are the really wide-open hole in the design of SE IV races. You can give some race a 200 percent boost in everything if you want and the game won't even hiccup. I think we need to have some sort of 'accounting' for culture settings in the design of a race. Ideally, I'd say we ought to combine the 'happiness' settings with the culture settings in some sort of coordinated 'psychological profile' for each race. It could be a seperate system from the attributes chosen in the game setup but it ought to be controlled by 'points' or some other real cost/benefit controls.

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

Tradable and/or Scocketed Components:

As it stands now you can only trade technologies or whole ships to one another. But what if I can make UberParasite Missile IX but I'm only at Propulsion level I. There's no way that I'll be able to sell off my Uberparasite weapons to other races becuase 1) they can't research Parasite missiles without being Organic and 2) nobody would want to buy my ships if they only have propulsion level 1. And as a result, little (in my experience) trading goes on in the game, and specialization in one are of research or use of special tech trees guarantees that nobody will want to trade tech with you... so much for playing a Ferengi or Pirate like race!

But if there was the ability to trade individual components, that would open up an entirely new role within the (PBW) game - the role of arms dealer!! Maybe it should be a racial trait, being able to buy and sell components. Now wouldn't that be cool?

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

FYI, Suicide Junkie is doing pretty well as an armsdealer in "P&N on PBW, take 2", and both Geoschmo and myself are giving the strategy a try in "Strange Races"...

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My se4 folder is not very messy, and I have most mods installed. It could be less messy by having them all in a Mods folder, which can be done now already. But, having the mod files all archived cause unnecessary loading time for using the mods. Saving a few MBs of space is meaningless with how cheap hard disk space is nowadays.

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ah well, me guess it is 'easier' to combine several mods in SE4g currently, yes ?

Say, me wants to use FQM with Proportions and some racial techtree mod on the side ?

Why make it simple, since you CAN do it manually. You just need to check EVERY text file in EACH of those mods, to see whitch has what in it..

(copypaste, copypaste, repeat, oh joy)

It's not like combining mods that should be easy, right ?

Zipping them mods is only to help to keep them files intact. If 1 or 2 sec longer delay at starting the game pains you, well, nevermind ..

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

FQM is the exception, not the rule. Very few mods can actually be combined without a lot of work. The game could not possibly be programmed to do this well at all.

[edit]Actually, Proportions makes a number of changes to the quadrant and system files, so you would lose all of those if you use it with FQM. This may not be a problem for you, just pointing it out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif [/edit]

It takes much longer than a second or two to extract larger archived files so that the game can use them. It also requires more RAM usage to store the temp files when the game is running. Using something like the Babylon 5 Mod, FQM Deluxe or TDM Modpack would make nearly all Users have to wait for a few minutes before they could play each time they load up the game.

Subfolders keep the mods together nicely. How often do you randomly go in and move files around? I don't know anyone that does that.

[ March 14, 2003, 03:30: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would be like a battleship getting automatic upgrades from 14" main guns to 16" main guns while cruising solo on the open sea.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">'Reasonable' does not always mapped to 'Fun', or there shall be a 3D universe map.

And my example shows something like - a battleship with 14" main guns set sail immediately after it construct, full speed toward battlefield. When it arrives, 18" main guns technology is already there.

Slow down technology is better way to solve it. Automatically retrofit is just a secondary option. Both of them are used to solve the annoying problem, and also these suggestions reduce the micromanagement level.

[ March 14, 2003, 04:18: Message edited by: Foreman ]

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

mmm.. but if you want to slow down research, just choose it in the game set up screen (Research = Expensive). It's already an option, I would hope that SEV would leave us as many options as possible.

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, with all of the scientists in your empire working on the problem, and a two or three month travel time, that is not entirely unreasonable.

Rushing down tech areas to get the final uberweapon of that Category is one of the things I don't like and is on my list of things to mod out.

Higher research costs is only part of the equation. Having much longer tech trees, with diminishing returns is another. Adding Grid techs instead of linear techs will also help.
(EG: Multi tech areas: DUC damage, DUC accuracy, DUC durability, DUC mass production)

Then it would be more like "during the month you were at sea travelling to the front lines, the guns got obsoleted: we came up with a more durable design for the turret gears. It'll reduce the maintenance costs by 2%".

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm - diminishing returns apply to research too you know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .. so putting all the scientists on it may not gain you much. But in 'game' terms I believe that even a six-month travel time should not result in you arriving on the battlefield with effectively useless weaponry.

I think that the ratios of technological advancement to ship construction times to 'time to battle' are very difficult ones to get right, and historical precedents are not usually directly translated into a good game balance. I have yet to see a (sci-fi at least) game that rewards 'dispersion' of fleets over a territory over making 'one big nasty stack'. Yet that would result in lots more 'cruiser actions' and a better game overall.

I am currently running my first game in a long time, and using High tech cost. So far it looks promising in holding back the arms race. My overall approach is that a ship design that I built a year ago might get beaten by half the number of my latest model - but should not be useless against it.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think High tech cost does the trick nicely on that one already. It costs MILLIONS to get to the end of Energy Stream for example. Same with Shields 10.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't think I would go down to that level of granularity. What I would do is make the tech tree a directed graph instead of a tree; like the Civilisation series games for example. To give a couple of examples:
Cloaking might need Astrophysics 2 as well as Physics 3.
Troops above level 1 might need Psychology (or Computers, alternate tracks).
ECM level needs matching level of Physics, as well as the prerequisite Mil. Sci.

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh, certainly.

The problem is mainly that concentration of firepower is so important.
Perhaps if there were more specialty and "splash damage" weapons, that would be effective against large concentrations of ships, but next to useless against small/scattered forces...

Sort of like infantry and artillery.
or vehicles and tactical nukes.

Hard to pick off a single guy, but if there's a thousand coming at you, you're bound to hit something or two.

[ March 15, 2003, 00:18: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think you've interpreted my comment as talking about the tactical when I meant the strategic.. but what the heck, both are interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

At the tactical level, SE4 does indeed impose what is in effect a 'stacking limit' by having one ship per square. This does result in some nonsense with large fleets, but not a bad idea overall. I remember imposing such limits in old hex-based tabletop games before now, with positive results. And as you say, bringing in 'splash damage' can discourage stacking without an arbitrary rule. I seem to remember SFB ship explosions having that effect.

At the strategic level, what I meant was the dispersal of the fleet over the empire, and the opportunity for many small scale actions (as opposed to mega-stack, win-or-die, apocalyptic clashes). I think one major factor discouraging this is the warp point system, which channels all travel through classic 'choke points' and practically guarantees only major fleet actions.

In over 20 years of gaming I have yet to find a campaign system that generates interesting cruiser actions, in any game - so the lack of it in SE4 is not a major criticism. It remains one of the reasons that I prefer the early game though, and why I like High tech cost to prolong that...

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

I still like my percentage cloak ability idea that's buried somewheres deep in this thread.

I think it was this thread, anyway...

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

Heh. It was this thread.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">To elaborate:
Cloaking becomes a new ability tag "% chance to remain undetected", one for each type of cloaking (i.e. Active, Passive, Psychic, etc). It is, of coarse, a value. Cloaking components/sectors/systems have a positive value, cloak defeating sensors have a negative value. These values should NOT be cumulative (or better yet, make that moddable in settings.txt with a simple true/false line).

The basic sensor ability (before any research) is just the cloaking tag attatched to the hull size. It should probably be about -50% (or 50% chance to detect normal ships). Colonies get an inate sensor rating of about -25%. That should be moddable in settings.txt as well. The values, of coarse, aren't set in stone....

edit: upon review, the below method seems much more logical than the above system.

If you wanted to get really elaborate, you could have seperate tags for "% chance to remain undetected" and "% chance to detect". Then you could make it so that (for example) the cloaking values don't stack, but the sensor values DO stack. (which IMO would be unbalancing, unless the sensors didn't have a high value...) I think it would also be kinda neat if there were two kinds of sensor tags, System wide, and sector wide. Then you could make all sorts of interesting cominations! (System wide sensors having a lower max ability than Sector specific sensors comes to mind...)

Now comes my favorite part. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif A check is made each turn to see if your ship is detected using the following formula:

A - B = C
where:
A = Highest available cloaking %
B = Highest available sensor %
C = % chance of detection.

As an example, we'll use my numbers above. An uncloaked ship enters a system in which you have a single colony. 0%(cloak)-25%(colony sensor)=25% chance that you will detect the ship THIS TURN. The game does a quick random number generation, and determines whether or not the ship is detected. Next turn, assuming that the ship is still in system, the game goes thru the whole process again.

That way, just because you slipped past the sensors Last turn, they might detect you this turn. The opposite is true, as well; just because you detected that star destroyer as it entered your system this turn, that doesn't mean that you will be able to detect it next turn!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Even better would be to make the turns between sensor checks moddable, too. Yet another line added to settings.txt.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

You could also mod a high value sector only sensor tag onto Warppoints, if you wanted. That way, you see the cloaked ship enter the system (since it activated the WP, which would probably be noticed). But as soon as it moves away from the warppoint ... I hope you had sensors researched...

I provided a few examples of how versitile such a cloaking model would be. Hopefully, Aaron is convinced now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (yes, I know he probably will never see this thread...)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Done this sort of thing before in modifications to games. I have found the critical thing is this - you must generate 'false contacts' somehow. Another factor to include is a range dependency, so you can 'close in and confirm' that hazy little blip on the screen.. 8-)

The effectiveness and/or cost of cloaking can be tied to ship size as well, so it's easy to sneak that escort past his fleet but those 30 baseships are a different matter. Similarly for fleets of ships, they should get progressively harder to hide.

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

"I think one major factor discouraging this is the warp point system, which channels all travel through classic 'choke points' and practically guarantees only major fleet actions."

The problem here is in a lot of military situations, splitting up your fleet just invites defeat in detail. Even if SE4 didn't have warp points this would be true.

Phoenix-D

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

Well I have a few suggestions (may work for SEIV too).

1) In tactical combat have the board "wrap around" so you don't get stuck at the corners. Have the E-W squares warp and the N-S squares map, so that if you are at the east edge of the map and you move east, you end up at the west edge of the map. Faster ships should be able to escape and not get caught in a corner of a map. Hopefully you can at least make it a configurable item at startup.

2) In tactical combat have a button to resolve the reset of the combat using strategic. Yes I know you can hit auto and end-turn over and over. Often I want to scan a planet first to see what it has.

3) In tactical combat, somehow make the fighters group. Right now, when they are launched they fly off to attack. I would prefer all fighters to launch and group up, then attack.

TheBlip

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

2) There is a Resolve button in the Orders menu. It will automatically hit auto and end turn for you. It would be nice if there was a second option to exit tactical though.

3) Place them in a fleet. Select one fighter stack, hit alt + 0-9 (you can make up to 10 "fleets" in this way). That fighter is the leader of the fleet. Then, click on each other fighter stack you want and hit alt + 0-9 (the same number) to add them to the fleet.

[ March 16, 2003, 07:26: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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

Definitely a scenario creator/editor would be nice.

And the option to upgrade a single facility to the next level only, not all facilities to the max level. (Think Proportions, I really can't develop one minor city to a city? I have to upgrade all five minor cities to major cities, invest all those resources for no return?)

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Good thinking, I think I like the range idea a lot. Of course you could make the effectiveness per range modable as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif !! So maybe Psychic Sensors would have a 50% chance of detecting at range 1, but only 25% at rng 2, and 12.5 at rng 3; while Gravimetric Sensors could have 30, 25, 20, 15, 10% at ranges 1,2,3,4, and 5 respectively.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, yes, you can mod the % chance to hit in combat, I suppose it wouldn't be that much harder to introduce a % chance detect line to the code.

Good Ideas! I hope Aaron reads this thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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

Definitely ships larger than 1 square. I want baseships that look like the Deathstar compared to fighters.

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

As much as Moo 3 is lacking, I do like the diplomatic model. Imagine if you entered a partnership and this caused you to enter into a parliment situation. If you broke these trieties, you could be cast out. perhaps to join another? If implemented correctly this could add a great demension! One group has a hatred of mines, another outlaws fighters, perhaps onother group will not allow BB and up.

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

Thanks Imperator Fyron for the reply. I am finding that many of my questions are there as I haven't fully learned the user interface (I just got the gold Version Last Thursday). Thanks for pointing out the button in the options menu, I never even saw it. On the fighter question I was wishing for a way that the AI would group them, as right now the AI dribbles them out in Groups and it makes them a lot easier to defeat, as opposed to attacking in a large wave.

More suggested improvements:
For the Combat Simulator
1) Allow the option of any tech to be used, rather than the ones you have researched.
2) Allow the use of any design you have created, rather than the ones that are in place. I am referring to ground placement options (weapon platforms).

I would like to be able to define a planet and it's defense for use in the simulator. I have not been able to figure out a way to do this without building a planets defenses up in the game, then choose that planet to defend in the simulator.

If you can do either of these any hints or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Add a planet under your control, and then click the Cargo button. You can indeed add cargo to planets (such as Weapons Platforms).

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

Thank you again Imperator Fyron. In appreciation of answering my question you get... another question.
I have started a new game using the TDM mod. Everything was working just fine. Today when I loaded the game I got a different set of graphics for the ship and the empire symbol/color. Next time I loaded the game I got another different set of graphics and colors. Any idea on what I am doing incorrectly? I have loaded the game via the ingame load-game option, as well as using the game launcher (SE4Launcher.exe).
Thanks again.
TheBlip

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

This happens when the game is set up with a shipset being used by an empire that is not in the mod. You most likely selected a shipset that is not in TDM to use. To fix the problem:

1) Navigate to TDM-Modpack\Pictures\Races
2) Create an empty folder that is named the same as the shipset you are using.

This will cause that shipset to be available for use in the TDM mod. Since there are no files in the folder, SE4 will look for the same folder in the default Pictures\Races folder, and will load all the relevant files.

This thread is for SE5 suggestions though, so please create a new thread to ask more questions in the future. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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

Thank you Atraikius that was exactly the problem. I had selected the TDM mod in the launcher and the save game, but I didn't select the TDM mod, load the mod, then load the saved game. Although I must admit I was having fun looking at all the other ship designs.

And again thank you Imperator Fyron, I will endevour to keep my Posts in the correct threads.

Since this is what we want for SE V...
1) It would be really nice to have a scripting language for the AI's so you could write your own "intellegence" for the AI. This way you could determine what the AI would want to do and the order to do it. Yes this is a very complex undertaking (Stars! Supernova was attempting it with their RDL (?) language). I guess you would need two sets, one for the strategic AI, one for the tactical AI. I have done AI programming in the past so I have an interest in this arena. I always have thought it would be fun to program several of the AI races and see how they do against each other. I tend to enjoy this more than just playing the game. However I expect I am about a 0.01% market share so I am not holding my breath http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">hehehe, you're not alone in the boat!

Your request is my request for SE5 too...
Stars!Supernova was following this idea: they created an script language, that the people could use to improve the AIs behavior.
Currently, I enjoy more modding SE4 AIs than palying the game itself!

But note, that although people like you and me, could be only the 0.01% of the market, already was was good for MM: the modders that improved the AI scripts helped to make the game more challenging, and then, think these people helped in some way to improve the SE4 sales!

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

When you are loading the game, are you selecting the TDM-Modpack before loading? You may be loading your game using standard SEIV, after starting it with the TDM-Modpack. Try selecting TDM-Modpack with the mod-launcher (making sure that the opening screen says 'using TDM-Modpack'), and wait to load the game until in SEIV itself.

[ March 19, 2003, 12:46: Message edited by: Atraikius ]

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

I think the most important thing would be to implement a possibility to add story-lines to the game. That is events that depend on other events and variables etc. I would really love to write some classic SF storys in SE V! (think System Shock II on an epic scale!) The Scenario/Events of SEIV are not at all enough for this.

The next thing would be to allow more control over the ministers. To give them universal/system/planet orders and policies/priorities to follow. And the ability to override them for temporarily. To say for example "Produce warships at all cost." to key planets when war breaks out, and cancel that order and return to whatever priorities they had later. Do not remove the great micromanagement (MOO3 sucks), but allow me to use ministers and TRUST THEM in the later game. A super good AI could do it, but it would be more fun to just move up the micromanagement one level, to manage the ministers instead! Instead of deciding every detail or nothing, I would like to still manage, but on a higher scale, and at a point in the game when I decide it. Perhaps different levels of ministers could be used to go even higher and manage huge empires for super-epic games!

The races should also be given more personality, at least by individual speech.

Then to sell more you probably need better graphics (especially the race faces that are quite ugly), animations of ship display, races, 3D battles, etc, but I guess you know this. To me its not that important.

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Who said everyone has to be beautiful by our standards? Maybe they are all super-attractive to their species. They aren't humans, so you can't apply human standards of beauty to them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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

Say, now that PBW is an established institution, I wonder if MM could work with them to integrate the service into SE5 - so you do all your turn uploading/downloading, etc. from inside the game... or would that even be useful?

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Maybe MM could develop a 'protocol' and publish the specs so whoever wanted to could run a server. This would be especially cool if SE 5 offered a way to maintain a 'persistent universe' instead of each game being a one-off event. It'd be much cooler to have lots of smaller 'Online game worlds' than one huge one maintained by some sort of corporation as we have with most MMOPG setups these days.

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

Hmm, didn't there used to be some sort of epic conflict thing set up where whenever a sector in the metagame came under conflict, it was resolved by playing SE4? Never got involved in that, it seemed like there were too many rules and it was too hardcore-RP-style... besides, if you think a PBW game takes a long time - not to mention SE4 by Committee - it boggles the mind how long this sort of thing would take http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif are they still around, anyway? it's been what, 3 years since SE4 was released? or did everybody get bored and give up? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

another idea for SE5: an option for weighted planet generation! It's not fair if everyone happens to pick oxygen rock except for the one player who picks hydrogen gas... he gets all his planets "for free" while the others are scrambling to grab as many oxygen rock worlds as they can before they're all taken! It would be nice if SE5 could weight the planet distribution at game setup to match the empires' preferred planets (provided an option was checked - you might want unbalanced setups for some other reason, like in the Star Trek mod where most races like rock planets but the Breen and 8472 don't, so presumably they have some disadvantage to balance their easy acquisition of worlds...)

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

I think you are talking about the SE Universe Ladder, which was around before SE4 came out (started back in SE3 days). In it, you can attack a lot more than 1 system at a time. It is going to reopen soon.

[ March 29, 2003, 19:27: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

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

Another idea... a new targeting priority, Easiest/Hardest To Hit. So you make all your Talisman ships go after the hard-to-hit guys and everyone else goes after the remainder. Assuming the Talisman isn't removed or heavily modified for play balance reasons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

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

Removal of the Talisman would be best. Just because you are deeply spiritual does not mean that you are automatically better at firing weapons.

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

leaders. they'd also need forces to lead, so for se v you could have different classes of spys, ie you could have 1000 sources of information on a planet, but all of them are at the general public level, your probably not going to get classified information. this could also be done with a percentage or rating system. and your leader would give bonuses ie a espeinage leader would boost your chances of getting useful information.

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

Nah, best not to remove anything unless it becomes impractical from a programming standpoint. Sure, the current use of the "weapons always hit" ability might be cheesy, but there might be a legitimate use for it in some mod somewhere... super targeting sensors that are REALLY huge and expensive but guarantee a hit, maybe? interesting strategic decision, do I take up half my ship's hull with |_|83r 1337 Sensors-O-Doom (note: come up with better name http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) that guarantee my weapons always hit, but in the process lose most of my raw firepower in the process?

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

The ability itself can be left in, though it can be simulated with +400 to hit or so (which gives you 99% hit rate no matter what else happens).

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

well, i think a programmer should try not to limit the options of mod makers.

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

Me would like the ability to tow bases in system. Mayby needing a fleet of 10 times the mass of the base to move it 1 sector per gameturn, 20 to move 2 sectors and so on.
This way you need quite a sizeable fleet to move one base, (25 dreagnaughts/starbase), but if you already have managed to create a fleet of that size, towing a base isn't a problem for you.

Me thinks an advaced species that can create planets, stars and blackholes (and destroy them) might be able to do a simple towing of a base http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

What you think ?

-edit-
Oh, and damaged ships, too !

[ April 01, 2003, 12:02: Message edited by: Me Loonn ]

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

Well here is my list:

-Capital (Palaces)
-Increase the size of the starship graphics. Allow dreadnaughts, starbases, baseships, etc to take up more than one square in combat. NOw their size matters.
-More unique weapon types
-Add a random availible technology option so that way it forces you to trade for tech you need
-Update current weapon strengths/weaknesses
-Add more unique abilities to weapons. Balance them out. Make them all usefull.
-Race specific technology
-Revamp ground combat to be more MOO3 like
-Allow race hatred toward a certain empires
-Make better use of population and mining
-Allow wandering space monsters
-Allow pirate activity
-More victory conditions (refence Galactic Civilization)
-Improve on diplomacy and spying
-Allow retreat option in space combat. Make this possible with technology aka warp drive, jump drive, cloak, jump gates, etc
-allow graphics to display combat damage on star ships

[ April 01, 2003, 14:06: Message edited by: atomannj ]

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

Graphic feature idea:

As a planet creates more money & industry have an animation around the planet/system of commercial traffic. I think this would look cool and would make it easier to view which planets/system are doing well.

[ April 01, 2003, 18:12: Message edited by: atomannj ]

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What exactly do you mean? SE4 already has racial technologies...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Realistically, you should be able to stack a whole lot of ships in one combat square as in SE3.
Turning, movement and targetting would all become problems for multi-square ships.

Are you looking for a coordinate-based system instead of tiles?

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

These are probably here somewhere in the 20 pages of Posts, but:

1) MOD-able atmospheres and planet types.

If I want to allow Rock, Gas, Spongey, and Cheese, why not? I would have to hand-code the tech tree and colonization components to match, but that shouldn't be hard.

Same with atmosphere types. Why isn't there just a simple check to see if the value in the Planets file matches the chosen value of the race?

Only thing this would mean is that the empire-creation screen would have to read the contents of a TXT file to determine the valid starting choices for atmospheres and planet types.

Only other "odd" thing is unique interactions: Gas planets can't have "None" atmosphere.

2) Treaties. Somebody else mentioned more sophisticated treaty choices (Research and resupply only, for example), but another problem is with allowing treaty partners to tromp all over your systems.

Currently, (other than Intel), there is no way to "handle" a ship that you suspect is spying out your systems or even laying mines on top of your homeworlds. Unless you want to break the entire treaty, of course, and lose the 20% trade you've developed over several years.

I'd like the ability to fire on and destroy a ship, maybe with a prompt "Are you sure? We have a treaty with XXX?". That way, it is up to them to break the treaty based on our actions, or simply tell us "sorry, it won't happen again" while maintaining the trade %.

Oooo. Just thought of more: how about setting a max trade % for an empire to "punish" them? I've always wanted a way to change the "mood" toward human opponents, too. And a notes page for each empire, just like for systems.

Related question: Anybody know why the "History" button shows nothing in Simultaneous PBW? Does it only record history for single-player AI games? Same question concerning the "Comparisons" button. Does that only work when "see all scores" is on?

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

1. A better map/scenario editor, with the ability to place empires, ships, units, etc. This is the most important for me.
2. Retreat re-incorporated into tactical combat.
3. Larger maps. As it stands, maps don't get bigger, just more crowded (or so it seems). I want the size of the map to actually grow as well, and an increase in the maximum # of systems. I like the way MOO3 handles the galaxy map and the type of galaxies with shapes and whatnot. One of the few positive things I can say about that game...
4. More flexible AI design. I really like the idea of a scripting language that has been thrown around. I know it's not a 4X game, but Morrowind using a scripting language for its editor and the flexibility it has given to modders has been incredible.
5. Better sound effects (low priority, but it'd still be nice).

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

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What exactly do you mean? SE4 already has racial technologies...

I guess I was looking for more variety
in race specific tech. For example only Romulans can develope the cloaking device. I think what is currently availible is very limited.

Quote:

-Increase the size of the starship graphics. Allow dreadnaughts, starbases, baseships, etc to take up more than one square in combat. Now their size matters.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Realistically, you should be able to stack a whole lot of ships in one combat square as in SE3.
Turning, movement and targetting would all become problems for multi-square ships.

Are you looking for a coordinate-based system instead of tiles?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As for ship size it would be cool to have a coordinate system. But what I would really like are ship graphics that show more scale. I'd like a baseship to monsterous compaired to a frigate.

[ April 01, 2003, 18:28: Message edited by: atomannj ]