Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I just dl'ed the shareware of SE3 for nostalgia's sake. (Malfadore, can you guy FINALLY make this freeware. I bought it when it came out, and bought SE4 but have since lost the file for my full Version of 3)

ANYWAY...

1- the zoomable galaxy view
2- inner, outer, and armor hulls
3- (im not the first) - starting techs

Lunchtime, I'll add more later

JDL

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I have finally found someone else that misses the "Staring Tech Levels." http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Yes, I agree. I would also like the ability to switch between shipyards in a sector without having to get out of the yard window, i.e. have tabs for each yard.

Please bring back the zoomable galaxy!!! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

Frank V.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

..well I'm another person who likes the starting tech levels. Though maybe there should be a cost so people won't do the obvious and go for the colonization techs and planet utilization techs immediately. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I also liked the way you could go to the ship screen and use keyboard commands to go to each ship and rename it. (Now, all I need to do is compile a list of ship names to use so I don't keep staring at space when I want to name a ship and all the good ones are used.)

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

OK back from lunch,

I just went through the begining of a SE3 game and I realized, various things slow the pace of expansion in the beggining of the game.

-the fact that there were SIX different researchable colony types greatly reduced the # of planets you could access in the begining, yet made for more bloodthirstyness when youfinally did research a particular type.
-Basic indutry and research facilities took .5 years to build EACH.

Also

Partly built ships showed up in combat minus their incomplete components. (No Captain Kirk, the Enterprise B doesn't have a tractor beam, It'll be installed Tuesday)

you STARTED with beam and pulse weapons, which gave you a choice of weapon that you could gradually reasearch instead of the (ok now that i researched phys 1, phys 2 is right around the corner so ill just research that and be done with it.) The research setup should force you to stay in beam/pulse mode for a long time rather than rewarding the missiles, missiles, missiles >>> PHASED POLERON CRUISER syndrome. The beam/pulse weapons are the HEART of any scifi genre.

OK, here's one that should have stayed in SE ((4)) 1.0 let alone se3. There is NO incentive to get armor early in the game since they made chemistry cost the same as physics. armor is a fundamental, primative protectant, that should be early in the game, not just later when you are like (ok, well, I don't really NEED armor on my 1200 shield point dreadnought, but I could use the ECM value of the stealth and scattering armor, so ill just research the whole armor tree in 10 turns now that I have 10 giant planets and research 3).

More as I think.

JDL

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Oh 2 more

1 - the reason why half completed ships appeared in battle is that on the 1st turn the basic shipframe was laid down. Then the components were 'repaired', this used up valuable 'components repaired per turn' resources of the construction facility. I think this made sense.

2 - They were constructed according to the very cool Repair Priorities

JDL

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

2 - They were constructed according to the very cool Repair Priorities

Has anybody noticed that the changing repair priorities does not work. When you click on shield on the right hand side they disappear and don't come back. I'm using patch 1.19.

John

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I don't know if this is abug. Are you sure you have shields researched already? I think only researched techs can be brought back but I'm absolutly not sure about this.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

OK, I found my SE3 codes...

Found some more things

Hidden Galaxies - where you couldn't see where any of the systems were located, just where you had explored. How this worked with galaxies with not all warp points connected i don't know

Ship sizes

normal = 100% of normal kt limit per class
enlarged = 120%
Massive = 150%

Starting planets.

You could start each descrete race with a different # of starting planets, and start the random races with yet another # of starting planets

WHY did they get RID of these AWSOME options http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jfitz261:
2 - They were constructed according to the very cool Repair Priorities

Has anybody noticed that the changing repair priorities does not work. When you click on shield on the right hand side they disappear and don't come back. I'm using patch 1.19.

John<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think you have to have the tech available for it to show up.

Which does remind me of something I liked from SE3: it was so much easier to set repair priorities. Just highlight and click, IIRC.

(I tend to make 'Construction' priority one in SE4 and did so in SE3 as well. In SE4, it speeds up any mass refits I make by bringing more space yards and repair bays Online. In SE3 it brought more space yards Online to build/repair ships and units.

------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JDL:
The beam/pulse weapons are the HEART of any scifi genre.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Erm, I must beg to differ. Certainly they're the heart of MANY scifi settings, but by no means all. To wit: Joe Haldman's (sp?) classic The Forever War, Dan Simmon's Hyperion works, and the Honor Hartigan (sp?) series (at least, that's what I gather... I never managed to stomach more than 50 pages or so of it myself). I'm sure there are plenty of others, but these were what sprang to mind.

Frankly, it depends on your view of engagement ranges and ship speeds. If we take the engagement ranges to be the paltry things they appear to be, and the speeds to be as minute as the lack of concern about acceleration and turning implys them to be, your argument in favor of beams has some validity. However, if we assume longer ranges and/or closer to reletivistic speeds, beams become far less practical, as they can't correct their aim...

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I too was a longtime player of SE3 and miss many of the features. However some of the comments mentioned below I don't entirely agree with IIRC.

****
-Basic indutry and research facilities took .5 years to build EACH.
****

Thats not entirely true IIRC. I remember fully populated large planets only taking 1 turn (to produce Ind / Res facilities). When you only have a few (pop) it took 5 turns.

****
..well I'm another person who likes the starting tech levels. Though maybe there should be a cost so people won't do the obvious and go for the colonization techs and planet utilization techs immediately.
****

I also liked the starting tech levels, but I like the Racial Techs idea even better. If MM implemented it (the tech levels), I agree people would tend to get the Atmos techs, but they could NOT get to the planet util techs. If they implemented it (tech levels) like SE3, it would not allow selection of hidden techs which planet util is one.

I personally would rather steal / beg / "borrow" atmospheric techs - its more fun that way and a hell of a lot less expensive (in research points).

I did like the "put the basic hull in orbit and repair the components" way of building ships. You could save a planet from attack by buying a coupla' bases, change the repair priorities to Sensors, then Weapons, then Shields and within 1 or 2 turns you had a base or two that was not completely built but could still deal a formidible blow to the attacking enemy.

One thing I liked a lot that has been mentioned in other threads but not here is the separation of building ships and facilities. Shipyards built ships - period. You could build ships and facilities at the same time. I would not mind it at all that we don't have multiple shipyards on bases if we could build facilities on a planet the same time we're building a ship. Why can't I build a mine on my planet at the same time my shipyard is building fighters (or ships or sats, etc.) Do they really use the same stuff?

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

SE III would allow the selection of hidden tech levels, but only if you had selection the prerequisites during the setup. Quantum reactor, for example, took up 28 tech levels just to open up the the option to select quantum reactor. If you started with 50 tech levels, you would only have 21 left by the time you got your eternal energy source.

I still wish they had left the option to select the number of starting tech levels and the ability to choose different ones in.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I'm missing some features too...

1) The SE3 Construction queue. Was so far, much better than the current SE4 queue system.

2) The Starting tech points.

3) The right click menu.

4) The zoomable galaxy (I believed that I was the only guy who missed it!).

5) The ships in construction in SE3 could fight, but SE4 ships under construction simply doesn't exist.


Anyway, I'm starting to believe that MM only will implement the points 2) and 4). But to lose the queue system is a real shame.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

The main thing i miss is the windowed display, meaning with a matrox dualhead gfx card i could spread the display wherever i wanted (specially the galaxy zoom) in what ever order i wanted over 2 monitors. Now if mm could implement......

tic

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

tictoc: DUAL MONITORS??? And I thought I was cool for using a 21" monitor to play (well, at least at home - my work monitor is only 15"). I bow to superior technology.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I really, really, really miss not having a ship-halt button.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Samurai: YES!! That was one of the best features; if you had a ship that you wanted to just stay put, but didn't want to (or couldn't) put it on sentry, it was great!

I also liked being able to specify EXACTLY how many units I wanted built; if I wanted 33 fighters, I selected 33 fighters. Now I have to either build extra fighters (to come up to a number divisible by 5) or put a couple of single fighters in the queue. Which wastes build capacity...

How about shield facilities in the standard shield tech area? Now we have to find unique technology to build planetary shields! I don't miss the weapon facilities, though; I like the weapon platforms in SE4 better.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

You CAN sentry ships in SE4. You can also clear their orders - that'll also make 'em stop.

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 19 January 2001).]

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

It's been a while, but as I recall didn't SE3's fast combat resolve ship fire almost as fast as if all the guns fired in one volley. Unlike SE4's where when you tell the game to "auto resolve combat" it's this slow drawn out shot, pause, shot, pause, shot, pause. Next ship. Shot, pause,....

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Yeah, it should be much faster. A good start would be if they take out explosions from fast combat - it would double the speed.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I never played SEIII, so I have to go by what you guys are saying. In your opinions, what was a better game? SE3 or SE4?

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

SEIV is a better game, in my opinion. SEIII had a couple advantages in starting tech levels and construction qeues, but the changes made in SEIV far outweight them.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Yes, SE4 is a much better game than SE3.

We posted the starting techs issue in the Beta forum. I believe it's on the "To Do" list, but isn't going to be easy.

I miss right-click menus too.

We were told the design of SE4 didn't allow for ships and facilities separately.

Rambie

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

[quote]Originally posted by rdouglass:
[b]You CAN sentry ships in SE4. You can also clear their orders - that'll also make 'em stop.

You misunderstand. We're talking about a command that would take away the remaining movement for a given ship (or fleet) for *one* turn only.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

The starting techs should be so that you have some amount RPs to use rather than tech levels. That way it would be fair even if someone takes propulsion and other one colonising tech.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

The starting RP's is a good idea, but I think it would have to be a heckuva lot in order to simulate 50, 75, even 100 starting tech levels. When playing the game at work (not that anyone does that) it helps speed the game up a bit by starting with the things you know you would be researching anyway. I REALLY like the way SEIII had it structured.

Just an opinion, of course.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

rdouglass - Samurai's right, we were talking about the "Halt" command from SE3, which set your ship movement to 0, which meant it stopped appearing in the "next ship/next fleet" series. And clearing a ship's orders doesn't set the movement for the rest of the turn to 0, it just clears the orders and the ship appears in the "next ship/next fleet" series.

One problem with using "sentry" is that the sentry command is cancelled anytime another empire moves into/through the system. This happens even when I set the options to keep the original orders when encountering allies/enemies.

Another problem with sentry, as samurai pointed out, is that it continues until you turn it off; sometimes I just want to ignore a particular ship for one turn.

And finally, sentried ships still appear in the "next ship/next fleet" series (I don't remember if there's an option to turn that off; and not certain I'd use the option if it existed, since I'd probably forget about the sentried ship eventually...)

So "sentry" just isn't the right replacement for "halt". Maybe "halt" could be replaced with a "skip" command. Takes the ship out of the "next ship/next fleet" series, but doesn't zero the movement points.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

I liked the ability to scrap facilities within the construction screen. I also liked the little arrows near the bottom that let you switch from planet to planet. Sometimes you have to go from planet to planet to add things and this would definitely be much easier.


------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Now I remember!! I think your right about it being SKIP (or HALT). I liked that too since it stops at fleets that have at least 1 ship with MP's remaining. You could then just choose SKIP and you wouldn't see the fleet / ship again.

Sorry 'bout the confusion on my part....

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 23 January 2001).]

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Sounds like SEIV took a few steps back. That's too bad. Though I'm definitely enjoying the game (primarily PBEM) I really don't feel it was worth the amount that had to be paid after postage, etc. For the same price you can get retail games like Age of Empires II, Master of Orion II (when it came out), etc., which I think are much more enjoyable games. In fact, I think I like MOO ][ better than SE4, though SE4 is definitely fun. I have to confess, more visual glitz would've made the $40 (or whatever it was) a better investment for me.

------------------

Cheers!
Jeff George

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JeffG:
In fact, I think I like MOO ][ better than SE4, though SE4 is definitely fun. I have to confess, more visual glitz would've made the $40 (or whatever it was) a better investment for me.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to disagree. I think visual glitz is the biggest threat to game play going. The depth and customizing abilities offered by a game like SE4 are simply impossible when you start throwing in 3D animation, FMV, etc... You end up with a game that has fewer options/less depth because all the animations won't fit on the CD, and no ability for fan mods because nobody has access to the software tools you would need.

Plus, those sorts of games require big companies to produce. Big companies = dumbed down in search of that mythical "mass market", little after-release support because all the programmers are working on the next glitzy game instead of fixing the one the beancounters shoved out the door with unplayable bugs, projects cancelled when nearly complete because of corporate restructuring, a total lack of concern for player input, etc...



[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 23 January 2001).]

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

Don't misunderstand me; I miss some of the SE3 features, but SE4 is a great leap forward in terms of tech advances (especially the new stellar manipulation stuff & sensor types). Not to mention extra replayability due to the inclusion of racial techs, different quadrant types, the "finite resources" option, and the option to have warp points placed anywhere in a system (I LOVE this option!). Not to mention better fighters and troops (though mines could stand some more interesting options, and ground combat could use a bit more detail - or at least an explanation of the factors involved); and I like the idea of satellites, though I don't use them very often.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I think visual glitz is the biggest threat to game play going. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree 100%. I think the single worst thing that ever happened to video games was the invention of powerful computers. Back in the '80s game designers had to scrimp and save every bit of computing power they could. Games had to emphasize gameplay over glitz because there was really no other option. Then moore's law started giving us kick a$$ computers and games went all to hell. 99% of the games that come down the pipeline these days are complete garbage with pretty interfaces and graphics. Like Star Trek New Worlds. That game blew steaming chunks of dog feces. But it looked pretty. It didn't sell because it didn't deserve to have ever been made. Meanwhile, ugly games with huge gameplay values sell millions of copies forever. Look at Civ, over 4 million copies sold. StarCraft only just came off the top 10 best selling lists a few months back. Ugly games that are a lot of fun to play. Every dollar spent on graphics is a dollar not spent making the game fun. And the fancy 3D graphics and cutscenes that look like garbage compared to full-motion video cost 10-30 times more.

Ok, I'll stop foaming at the mouth here. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif It's a sore spot with me. Companies like Hasbro and Infogrames take great games and release sequels that are worse but with "modern 3D graphics" and the new game sucks and no one wants to play any more. Like the third X-Com compared to the first. What a bloody waste of a great game.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Things you wish they kept from SE3
 

X-Com! Simple and addictive! And it was great for breaks -- 15 minutes of adrenalin-pumping excitement.