Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Wanted to post this seperately. It is along the same discussion of many Posts, but I felt it deserved its own thread.

Instead of MM adding feature patches, why not an "expansion pack". Many games do - my logic is this.. I'm not talking about mods, but stuff that is 'in the code'. For instance, atmosphere types, setting initial tech levels, etc. (There could be quite a long list here)

Aaron has been doing, IMO, an awful lot of work (patches) for what seems like very little money - in fact, $0.00 from what I see. Don't get me wrong - I do like all the patches to enhance gameplay. However, many talk about changing the game as "a few lines of code" etc. Unfortunately, it is rarely that simple. I am not a professional programmer by trade, but have been doing an awful lot of it since the early '80s, and I am (usually painfully) aware of the problems of just changing a 'few lines of code'.

With the expansion pack offering, MM may be able to put many of these enhancement requests into the game. They also would allow MM to make a few bucks for all the time invested. (Personally I think we're spoiled by MM's continuing commitment to releasing patches - not many vendors do). If you want to incent someone to do something, stick a little monetary reward behind it - works almost every time!

I know I'll get some negative feedback, but I do believe there are a significant number of people that would buy this 'expansion pack', me included. (Just re-read some of the Posts relating to hacking the Demo code!)

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I'm surely iterested in the idea of an expansion pack but I would need to know the topics covered before I can assure to buy it, beaucause I doubt a single expansion pack could add to the game all the posted suggestion.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I would pay for an expansion pack but (depending on the price) it would have to offer *serious* updates to the game.

I would also be concerned about the possibility of splitting the SEIV community in half - those with the patch and those without. I would hate to suddenly find myself incompatible with potential PBEM opponents simply because one of us had upgraded and the other hadn't.

For these reasons I would like to see MM keeping any such updates cheap and simple.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so Brain, but how are we gonna teach a goat to dance with flippers on? "

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

see thread on expansion pack around April 17th, some good comments on idea of expansion pak.


just some ideas mac

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Would love an xpansion pack, hopefully with the added ability to 'retreat' in combat. And colonize asteroids, add 'barbarians' (like civ I, or moo space monsters, etc). That and I would LOVE to see the Map Editor work 'almost perfectly' and the abilities.txt abilities that SEEM like they apply to planets WORK. (ie, a planet that produces resources on its own, or disrupts shields due to its magnetic strength, or adds to ground defense), ETC.
And as far as a split for who bought/didn't buy, I think that would be slim. How many people here don't use the TDM-Modpack???

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Even though this topic has been explored in other threads I think it should be continually brought up. MM has done a remarkable job of supporting this game and deserves recognition for that.
I, like everyone else, have my own opinions on things that could/should be included in the game. To expect them to be provided for free is dumb. I would definately pay for an expansion pack. I think the more times it is brought up the more likely it will be that one is made. Hopefully one will be made and it will benefit both the gamers and MM.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Agreed, I think most of us here would pay for the pack as long as it had the added stuff we've talked about here. Perhaps after the next patch MM could start work on one and pocket some more cash http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

In short:
more money for Aaron & co. = good

I've gotten so much enjoyment out of this (constantly improving) game for so little money that I almost feel like slapping on an eyepatch and calling myself a pirate. Hmmmm. Maybe I should try out suicide_junkie's mod tonight after all ...

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I got the $$$ right here... bring it on

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Given the track record of support by MM for SE3 and SE4 and all of the support by the community here I'd have no problem buying it.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I'm all for an expansion pack -- mostly because the big things I really want would require a LOT of work, and I don't really think that MM should have to do that without a little support from us devoted fans (and I mean of the financial kind, not the praise he gets daily as it is...)

'course, now that I've said that, here's the kinds of things I'm talking about for wanting: (it's a fairly big wishlist -- so don't misconstrue this as my saying I won't buy one if all of this isn't in there...)

More planet options: atmosphere types, gravity types, abnormal planet features (Strong EM Radiation: No shields, Harsh Terrain: ground combat mods, Natives, etc.), the ability to make "special" planets -- one such system per game, say with an Orion-style planet, complete with a defender, several set "gain on colonization" techs, and several "gain on colonization, but randomized from this list" techs. That kind of thing.

Space monsters. Dragons, Amoebas, Crystal Entities, Slugs, Borg Cubes, Dimensional Horrors, Nebula monsters, Space Canolies, the works.

Weapon mounts as researchable tech ('course, it could be done both ways, depending on the tech tree's setup), and multiple mounts marked as stackable with other mounts, or prohibited from stacking with other mounts, as decided by the tech tree's creator (ex. In MOO, you couldn't have Point Defense and Heavy Mount on a gun, but Point Defense and Rapid Fire were acceptable to combine).

Multiple ship pictures per ship class.

Ships that take up more than 1x1 in combat. I want some nice big 3x2 and 3x3 ships, especially for my baseships and big starbases.

Retreating in combat.

Control over starting tech levels.

More racial customization options (though I can't think of anything currently, beyond a way to make the tech tree options more distinct than just "you get a new tree").

Nomad races.

Even more spatial anomalies. Cosmic strings, small (but bigger than 1x1 or full-screen) nebulae, more wormhole types, forcible wormholes (say, one with a blackhole-style "drags target", but automatically warps anything entering that sector somewhere else), derelict ships (high-tech, capturable ships -- sort of an artifact world in ship form), neutral stations (trade stations, that kind of thing)

Heros. They make the Planet / Ship / System (as appropriate) they're on better in some way (potentially multiple abilities per hero, and they gain levels just like ships do, just over time rather than from combat).

Tactical Ground Combat.

Um...I'm out of ideas for now.

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Deathstalker:
How many people here don't use the TDM-Modpack???
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

me.



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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so Brain, but how are we gonna teach a goat to dance with flippers on? "

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

CheshireKatt&gt; I guess your perfect game would be the product of a Masters of Orion and Space Empires merge...

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Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Very much so. MOO has some truly wonderful features that no other EEE game has gotten quite right, and Space Empires has all of the wonderful customization and detail that I always wished MOO had. (Plus, I can mod it, which, whilst I haven't done much yet, I am planning to at least try something soon...)

But the games are still somewhat different in approach, which is why I'd be MORE than happy to pay for such an expansion.

What do others on this forum think of MOO/MOO2? Good, bad, indifferent?

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I loved MOO II. If someone could combine the best features of MOOII and SE4 then they would have done something great, and I'd buy that game too!

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Same here - I liked the different sized ships as well as the initiative-based combat instead of IGO/UGO.

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 04 May 2001).]

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Did you say <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Nomad races.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ???

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Try my Pirates & Nomads mod http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 04 May 2001).]

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>How many people here don't use the TDM-Modpack??? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I'm not using it yet; I'm playing two unmodded games right now, and waiting to download TDM until I'm ready to start another game. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>What do others on this forum think of MOO/MOO2?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My girlfriend gave me a discount bin copy of MOO a couple Christmases ago, and I still have it on my HD. I play it when the mood strikes, but it has SE4 and four other TBS games to compete with for my time.

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Cap'n Q

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I'm baaaaaack....

More Ideas, of a less-critical (but cool to me) nature:

The majority of these are combat-related, and have little to no impact on actual gameplay, they're just "nice".

The ability to specify more "styles" of beam effect, either as a native weapon effect, or one granted from a Weapon Mount (ex. the Wave Motion Gun might fire a cone-shaped beam. It still hits one target, but fans out towards the end, or the "Rapid Fire" weapon mount fires the beam three quick times at the target) Additionally, the ability to have "animated" beams -- ones that just cycle through a series of frames specified to it.

Multiple Component Enhancements per component, restrictable from CompEnhancement.txt as to which enhancements stack or prohibit each other.

Component Enhancements as researchable tech, not just as "everyone can do this" as it is now.

The ability to have Component Enhancements that make Seekers faster or slower.

Ammunition on seekers that's not just in terms of reload time.

Area-of-effect weapons.

Line / Cone piercing weapons. (Hits all targets on a line / in a cone -- now THAT'S a Wave Motion Gun).

Stasis guns -- the ship can't move / act, but can't be shot, either.

Tholian Webs, or other weapons that can lay obstacles in tactical combat in a useful manner (laying mines in tactical is kind of silly, but other things might be nice -- placing obstructions, a gun that foams up a nice big 1x5 hex area or something with magnetic debris, organic matter, or just a plain-old force-shield. Destroyable, of course, settable to block or not block fighters / seekers / beams as the tech-modder sees fit)

Debris / asteroids / nebulae / harmful other stuff placed in battlefields as appropriate to the location of combat (or such things a sector away, maybe placing their stuff around the edges) -- could make for some interesting cat-and-mouse, flying ships between asteroids that you can't shoot over (but can blow up, given enough effort), or hiding your ship in a nebula to make it invisible.

Combat cloaking.

Combat teleporters.

Non-combat ideas:
=================

Debris fields. Sort of a fixed-quantity asteroid field that disappears once mined out. Maybe generated at the sites of space battles where a certain tonnage of ship(s) were destroyed? Also preplacable in sector definitions.

Derelicts

More sector "move ship" functions - slide left, slide right, slide top, slide bottom (not just "slide to this sector"), rotation functions (rotate ship around this point -- could make REALLY cool blackholes that way -- a rotator and a slide to center trigger, to let you do real slingshot moves around the blackhole).

That's it for the current batch of my ideas. Stay tuned for the third (fourth?) batch at a message board near you. :P

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Well, that didn't Last long. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Downloaded TDM-ModPack Last night; seem to have sorted out my mistakes on the install this morning. In the new game, I started off inside an isolated cluster, so it's going to be a while before I meet any of the new AIs.

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Cap'n Q

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

If someone collated all this info into a comprehensive and detailed document with headers we'd have the design doc for SE5 .....

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Maybe MM can use all the things suggested in this forum to create SE4.5, a stepping stone to SE5 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I'm baaaaaaack...

This time with thoughts on how Space Monsters could be implemented.

Have a file for storing monster designs (Monsters.txt?). This file would contain ship designs for monsters (hull tech#, # of components, component tech#'s, name, description), as well as several important features:

Ship-specific AI -- not all monsters act in the same way.

Monster Severity -- if the game determines a monster is supposed to show up, this lets it know which ones are meaner than others, to compare with how mean a monster it wants. Maybe it could pick more than one monster, so there's an entire fleet (wing?) of Space Dragons roaming around the galaxy being mean to people.

A flag to indicate that the monster can ONLY come from a planetary event (you reach a planet that has a Monster event on it and a severity event, and maybe a monster name on it -- it first looks for monsters with the specified NAME, and if it doesn't find one (or finds duplicates), consults the severity and takes the one closest to the severity listed on the planet. If there's a tie, or no severity is specified, it just makes a random pick. Planet monsters will NEVER leave orbit of the planet they're guarding.

(Can anyone tell I _REALLY_ want an Orion in my game, complete with massively powerful Guardian, and Ancient Artifacts where I can SPECIFY what Techs it has, and another list that it chooses 3-5 randomly from?)

A flag setting whether or not the monster is boardable -- it doesn't necessarily make sense to board and take control of a Space Amoeba, for example, but maybe the Guardian of Orion might be capturable?

Monsters would be a perfect place to have "special" techs, that leave stuff in battle hexes, hit multiple hexes, shove ships around, that kind of thing.

Then, it's easy to put in abilities for 'em:

Add new monster techs to the tech tree, easy enough (just don't let anyone get 'em as part of a normal research progression).

Add new graphics to the components dir for the monster components.

Add ship pictures to either Pictures\Races\Monsters, or just Pictures\Monsters for the monsters.

--Chesh really has too much time on his hands.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Idea on monster components (I just don't quit...)

Space Dragon

Dragon Breath (directfire torpedo weapon), picture of a dragon head, mouth open

Dragon Heart (component repair, shielding, other stuff) picture of a heart

Aetheric Wings (engines) picture of a wing

Dragon Scales (armor, regenerative), picture of overlapping scales

etc.

Just more thoughts. Plus, it'd look cool on the component screen if you scan a dragon. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Similar components could be done for other monster types (different organs for amoebas, crystalline bits and shard cannons for crystalline beasties, different kinds of space insects for conglomerate monsters), and so on.

Maybe I need to relax on this monster topic. &lt;GRIN&gt;

Anyone like / hate my ideas this far?

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I like the idea of space monsters... especially if it includes technological beasties (aka "ghost ships" - interstellar Version of the Flying Dutchman, for instance).

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Hey, for a ghost ship, you should have it use only the most basic tech: DUCs, shield 1s, ion engines, armor 1, etc.
But, give it a "ghost hull" shipsize, that gets an inherent 1000% defence bonus, so everybody has a real tough time hitting it.
For missiles, put a PDC on it with zero reload and 1 range, called ghostly aura. Any missile or fighter will be killed instantly as soon as they approach.

The only way to kill this ship would be with a talisman, or to ram it and suffer damage.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

NICE ghostship idea. I like!

Maybe make the REALLY dangerous ghost ship have boarding parties / allegiance subverters, so it can expand its fleet of the dead?

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Give the ghost ship hull cloaking too! What if you captured one?

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

That's why we'd need a setting to specify which monsters are capturable and which aren't. You shouldn't be able to capture the ghost ship, just destroy it (which'd be tough, to say the least).

--Chesh

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I kind of miss the Space Monster event from MOO. I especially like the ghost ship idea. I think that monsters definately need to have a setting for whether or not they can be boarded, doesn't make sense to try and board a giant amoeba.

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

I like a lot this game (the only one I'm playing from the moment I get my original CD!) but there are things I would like to see in a new patch or expansion pack ...

Little things:

- the possibility to have reports system by system (facilities, construction yard)
- the possibility to have planets ordered by dimension
- a sort of "military report" in Civ II style (number of ships of each type still active and dead ... and so on)
- the possibility to set destination points everywhere and not only on warp points
- a sort of equilibrium between the different
resource ... making also important to construct organic and radioactive mining colony.

Big Things:

- A better manual; expecially a good explanation of strategic combat
- A modder manual

bye bye
LIga

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

QUOTE:
&gt;sort of "military report" in Civ II style
&gt;(number of ships of each type still active
&gt;and dead
/QUOTE

Go to designs, selct the ship you want data on and then click Stats/strategy on th right.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

Destination point ?= waypoint? I remember in one game, I definitely had waypoints at planets (at training worlds, to form fleets) and stars (for SW construction).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Requesting feedback on \'Expansion Pack\'
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- the possibility to have reports system by system (facilities, construction yard)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by this, you can do this: F5 Colonies window, Facilities button, click on system name column header.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- the possibility to have planets ordered by dimension<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Click on planet Pic column header. You can also sort by another column first, and the next column sort will keep matching types in the same order as the first sort.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- a sort of "military report" in Civ II style (number of ships of each type still active and dead ... and so on)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Not quite as efficient, granted, but F3 Designs, Stats/Comps(? I forget) toggle button
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- the possibility to set destination points everywhere and not only on warp points<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Click ship, Move command, click destination system on Galaxy Map, click sector in destination system; step 2 and 3 can be reversed, also. Warp command works the same way for warp points outside the system you're in, I'd think Attack does too, but I'm not sure.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- a sort of equilibrium between the different
resource ... making also important to construct organic and radioactive mining colony.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Can and has been modded by various people.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>- A modder manual<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Started by Dubious, sees SE4 Modders Guide in Mods Forum.


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Cap'n Q


The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft