Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Well, I couldn't find a thread for this, so I'm making a new one. Hope I'm not just retreading old business, but I had a few ideas that would really improve SE, for me at least. They mostly have to do with modability.

1) Instead of having a new line in compenhancement.txt for every conceivable thing that a mount might do, it would be more efficient if they were ability based:
Ability 1 := Shield Percent
Ability 1 Val 1 := 25
Ability 2 := Tonnage Percent
... you get the idea.

2) Definitely an SEV thing, but how 'bout some kind of actual orbit? Satellites orbitting planets, planets orbiting stars, etc. Maybe even stations and satellites that can increase/decrease their orbits? I guess it could get complicated.

3) Acceleration? Velocity? Vector-based kinematics? I know I'm asking for the moon and the stars here, but it'd be REALLY cool!

4) An end to weapon platforms? Sorry, WP-lovers.

5) Fleshed out ground combat? Planetary geography? Alright, alright, I know. I'm going crazy here, but I can dream can't I? Surely, ground combat could be a little deeper? Sigh.

6) Moddable resources. This may sound like a nightmare to some, but I'd like to be able to keep track of titanium stockpiles and crop yields. Maybe I should become an accountant?

Whatever, that's enough for now. Comments?

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

1) Instead of having a new line in compenhancement.txt for every conceivable thing that a mount might do, it would be more efficient if they were ability based:
Ability 1 := Shield Percent
Ability 1 Val 1 := 25
Ability 2 := Tonnage Percent
... you get the idea."

Uh-uh. I'd rather keep the current system. A lot of the fields are optional now, and you don't have to bother with the excess "ablity X" and "number of abilities" field.

Phoenix-D

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

A lot has been addressed here (11 pages):
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=007637

I noticed your low post count, If your new like me, and are frustrated with the BB search engine, try the one from your browser (ctrl-f)

The other patch thread was on the first page. hard to miss, 4 me anyway. no offence. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ever heard of anti-gravity? This is a sci-fi game, and such technology would completely negate any problems of firing weapons into space, as the gravitic force would not be impeding them at all. The air resistance would hardly have an effect then too. And of course, matter and energy are the same thing, so this applies to energy weapons too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Fair enough, Fyron. I won't even start with the whole "lightning ray" thing. Maybe I'll mod in a required gravitational technology before you can make WPs? I don't know. And I'm still thinking that atmospheric resistance should be a factor, but then there's no way to set it to be there for most planets, but not those without atmosphere. And on gas giants, how deep are the weapon platforms really? To say nothing of the grossly inadequate size of gas giants in the first place... Never mind.

While I'm running my keyboard, has it struck anybody else as strange that moons are adjacent to planets in tactical combat (Sometimes), but satellites can be four or five squares distant? Why is that, and can I mod around it?

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That happens when an enemy ship are already in the sector, and another enemy ship arrives. The game has some funky placement rules for this situation.

Problem is, if there are enemy space staions, satelites or moons, the same rules apply. If you're hung up on realism, these things are immobile and shouldn't be placed randomly, but the game has some placement needs above all that.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

My wishes for the next patch are far more modest. How about:
1. Option to notify the player when a planet empties its build queue.
2. Show friendly and (known) enemy ship designs when you right-click on them on the main screen.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

3) Acceleration? Velocity? Vector-based kinematics? I know I'm asking for the moon and the stars here, but it'd be REALLY cool!
Yes it would be cool. On your priority list where would it fit? How about more time tweaking the AI? As a solo player I would prefer that.

4) An end to weapon platforms? Sorry, WP-lovers.
Why? For Play balance? If it is because you see them as Unrealistic or Inconsistent with the game how many other items are you prepared to remove for the same reasons?

5) Fleshed out ground combat? Planetary geography? Alright, alright, I know. I'm going crazy here, but I can dream can't I? Surely, ground combat could be a little deeper? Sigh.
I don’t want to slow down game play with ground combat. It could be made as an option but I would rather time be spent coding other aspects of the game.

6) Moddable resources. This may sound like a nightmare to some, but I'd like to be able to keep track of titanium stockpiles and crop yields. Maybe I should become an accountant?
I don’t want to slow down the game with micro economics. It could be made as an option but I would rather time be spent coding other aspects of the game.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I would only support this if you make it nearly impossible to glass planets from orbit. If you have to drop troops and capture all of them then removing WP's wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Geoschmo

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

I would not support that AT ALL.

You can easily mod platforms out using the existing patch if you want. Heck, you can just disable the tech area!

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

I would like to see a supply generating component or supply generating ability that can be modded onto a component that is not tied to the number of stars in a system, but a fixed amount per turn. I would use this to Mod a Version of the Quantum reactor that generates a fixed amount of supply per turn instead of unlimited. The QR wrecks the game in my opinion, when players no longer have to worry about supply. All the weapons with high supply factors, lose that trade off factor (NSP and WMG) with QRs in the game.

I would also like to be able to use Resupply components when ships are in a fleet to replenish the fleet, instead of having to remove ships from the fleet.

I would like to be able to use an Emergency Propulsion component on my slower ships to increase my fleet's speed. For fleets, the button should be available when the slowest rating ships all have the component. Once activated, any ships faster than those would also use their component if they are now the slowest ship. e.g. I have Speed 5 with a +3 EPC and a Speed 6 with a +3 EPC. If activated, my fleet should have Speed 8 for that turn. The Speed 6 ships, use their EPC, but only get a +2 since they are tagging along with slower ships.

Along with this, it would be nice if Fleets would indicate what their speed would be if they used Emergency Propulsion components.

I would like to see Light Carriers have a higher base cost than Light Cruisers. One on One, a Carrier dueling with a Light Cruiser should not win a battle with the same weapon technology. As it is Light Carriers are about twice as good when you figure the value of the Heavy Mount and the way armor tends to go on the FBs before the weapon (usually requires two hits back to back from a Large Mount to take out a 90KT damage resistent Weapon on a Light Carrier where they are using DUCs). Phased Polarian beams can overcome this somewhat, by taking out the 90 KT weapon in one shot.

If this is not already true, and I think that it is not, I would like to see damage randomization weighted by the larger of structure space and the damage size of a component. The chances of hitting a Large Weapon should be greater than the chances of hitting a 10 KT component.

The 10% incremental tohit adjustment should be +10% BC, +20% BS, +30% DN, +40% BS. This would give Cruisers versus Battle Cruisers some trade off to consider. Likewise BS versus DN, but DNs do lose an engine, so they have some trade off already. This might give the Base Ship a bit of an advantage, but see the next item below.

I would like to see Weapon Mount efficiency reduce from 1.33, 1.5, and 1.66 to something like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3: Example, Large mounts take 1.5 times Space, but do 1.65 times the damage instead of 2.0 times. Likewise, Heavy mounts would be 2.0 space/2.4 damage and Heavy mounts 3.0 space, 3.9 times the damage. This change would make smaller weapons more viable.

Make the Relious trait more costly in points: 2000 or 2500. Make the Talisman cost something like 3000 or 6000 organics to make them have some special cost factor. (Takes a lot of priests, sacrifices, or prayer energy to keep them working). Perhaps a Talisman should have a chance of being damaged whenevever another component is damaged (collateral damage). Make the size bitter, would make them restricted to bigger ships, a chance I would not want to see. Their damage rating should be 5 KT. They may be 40 KT of space, but one hit should desecrate their holiness.

Fighter stacks should fire once per fighter, not pooled shots. This would make emissive armor very effective against fighters.

All hits should have a 5% chance of skipping armor. Each armor component taken out, should increase the chance of bypassing armor. Chance to bypass armor should be 5% + (95% * KT Armor Destroyed) / # KT Armor on ship design). This would make larger hulls increasingly vulnerable as their armor is damaged. The KTs above, are space KTs, not damage KTs.

I would like to see ship facings armor thickness in SEIV. 1 m think armor on a Base Ships would be much more costly than 1m of armor on a Frigate, but both would provide equal protection, at least initially. Smaller ship armor should degregate more quickly as they have less surface area than large ships. Armor would be allocated to a particular facing: Front, Flank, and Rear. Do not differentiate Left from Right as by spinning a ship could spread the damage out equally to both sides anyway. Lets assume there is no tumpling motion as that would make engine efficiency very poor as you would have to fire them at set times in the rotation.

Do not implement weapon facing as most would be turreted and spinning the ship would allow you to cover all of space with a turret anyway. Ship shape would really have to be considered if you did something with this anyway: A Cylinder has blind spots straight in front and in back. A cone has no frontal blind splot, but has an enlarged one in the rear. Weapons mounted away from the hull on rods would have smaller blind spots, but would be oddly shaped and would have structural problems.

For tactical combat, use Newton's Physics, instead of Aristole's for tactical combat. Give ships a direction of movement, and engines must be used to alter that direction or the magnitude. You could make tactical combat vector based instead of regulated by squares. Engines are used to alter the movement vector.

Do computer controled tactical in strategic mode combat games in simultaneous and incrementally and allow ships to fire at any point in the increments. This will allow range advantage to actually be exercised.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is absolutely no reason, either in the real world, or in sci-fi land, why you shouldn't be able to place weapons on the surface of a planet that reach into space. This is especially true when dealing with Groups that have a technology level sufficient to transport materials into orbit in massive, bulk quantities for no noticeable cost.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is nothing that says that a colony on a gas giant is on whatever surface it has. THey could just as easily be floating platforms like Cloud city.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Many of the things later on in your list can be easily modded.

Try the leaky armor system.
Try requiring armor mounts which base protection per kt on the total hull size.
Fiddle the mounts and racial costs as you suggested.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A 50-hitpoint component is at least Five times more likely to be hit than a 10-hitpoint component.
I believe it is slightly more than that, but there is room for doubt.

Armor works the opposite way, with weaker components being destroyed first.

Just mod it!
Then start a PBW game and see how many people agree with your changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The tradeoff to using WMGs is that their damage/kt/turn ratio is lousy, and their damage/kt alpha strike isn't much better. Increase the damage to around 180-200 and you'd have a weapon that would be more worthwhile using for the massive research cost.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The probability that an item will be hit is equal to its structure tonnage divided by the total structure tonnage of the ship, and thus, large components are already more likely to be hit.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">For 2500 points I can raise maintenance reduction to 120%, or aggressiveness and defensiveness to 125%/120%. The talisman would hardly be worth it with that kind of cost.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Giving them a smaller damage resistance would make them less likely to be destroyed until the entire ship was gone.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It would be far better to use mods with leaky armour instead of hard-coding behaviour like this.

Armour and shield facings are a bad idea for a game that easily involves battles between hundreds of ships in the stock game, and thousands in some mods.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What do you mean by this Last statement? Strategic combat is already identical to tactical, except that the computer controls both sides. Ships can already fire at any point in their movement.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

"The tradeoff to using WMGs is that their damage/kt/turn ratio is lousy, and their damage/kt alpha strike isn't much better. Increase the damage to around 180-200 and you'd have a weapon that would be more worthwhile using for the massive research cost."

On the other hand, they -do- get a +30% to-hit bonus. Nothing to sneeze at. If they cost the same to research as APBs and were a little smaller, I'd say they were pretty well balanced..but they don't and aren't.

Phoenix-D

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

re: #2 Orbiting planets
Orbiting planets was discussed to a great degree (I think it was on those old defunct forums at what's that site that no longer exists). The decision came down to that orbiting planets would only confuse players more than necessary. (You could also argue that the camera over the system in the bird's eye view rotated along with the planets... but that assumes that all the planets rotate at the same relative rate...)

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Wow, I thought this thread was defunct! Regarding the Quantum Reactor issue that was mentioned earlier, I was just thinking of that myself, and I have an idea. Make 'em bigger! If a quantum reactor was, say, 500kT, people wouldn't be able to put them in every ship, just one fleet tender. This way, you'd still get resupplied at the end of every round, but you couldn't just fire those big guns til kingdom come. Another option would be to make the cost staggering, or whatever, so long as it wasn't effective to put the in every ship. I'm currently working on increasing supply usage in general, as I think resupply is a somewhat neglected aspect of the game.

Oh, yeah, on the WP thingy. The WP advocates make the excellent case that if I don't like them I can take them out. Which I have pretty much done. I do think that Geo made a very lucid point about planetary assaults though. It goes to the heart of the issue. I don't want to sit here for five minutes while my armada pounds away at the defenses of a single planet. So I have some ideas, but I need to know a few things. Can troops be landed through planetary shields? If so, this presents a solution within the current game parameters. Kind of Star Wars, actually, planetary assaults would pretty much go like Hoth. I like this, I'll have to try it out. As far as future development goes, I'd like to see some sort of ground defense object that can A: withstand damage from orbit, B: not fire into orbit, except perhaps for point defense, and C: not be dropped from orbit. Some sort of bunkers? I think that would open things up nicely.

PS: I tried putting point defense cannons on troops, but they don't work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

EDIT: Yes! You CAN drop troops onto a planet through shields!!!

[ February 18, 2003, 18:42: Message edited by: orev_saara ]

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

"I'd like to see some sort of ground defense object that can A: withstand damage from orbit, B: not fire into orbit, except perhaps for point defense, and C: not be dropped from orbit. Some sort of bunkers? I think that would open things up nicely."

This can also be modded in. Simply remove everything except shields, ECM (?) and armor from weapons platforms.

Phoenix-D

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Yeah.... that would work, but boy would it be work. I'd have to switch over every single component that can currently be used on weapons platforms... and I'm lazy... maybe next week... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

There's an easier, if messy, way.

Make the weapon platforms, say, 10 KT each. Now make a mount that reduces component size- .1 should do nicely. Using the family allow field, you can specify which components can use that mount..put in the familes of the armor and shield-generation components.

Now you will still see the weapons, but they won't -fit- so it'll be irrelevent, and the mount that makes the armor/shields fit will only work for them.

Phoenix-D

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

without reading the rest of the thread... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

a senerao editor

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

for me, it would be a friendlier user interface. one that remembers the position of each listbox component. micromanagement is fine but at least the gui components need to work along.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

I think I'll be modding the Quantum reactor out.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In my Mod, I will make it act like a better Version of the Solar Collector as that is the only way to produce limited supply in a component.

I do not like the fact that one QR ship will supply an unlimited number of ships, making supply only matter during a battle.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

On build ques... The option... Repeat for this many times in the que... ( Say you want to build 4 ships then 8 turns of mines then back to ships ...)

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Well, I left only 3 Quantum Reactors. They "produce" 10000, 15000 and 20000 suplies before needing to resuply. I still think 20000 might be too much......
Hell, I don't even remember if there was more than one QR in the unmoded SE4.
I'm using Proportions. It got me hooked http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif , can't go back to the original, can't play any other mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

I know it's been discussed before, and at great length, but I'd like something done about the way mines & minesweeping work. No suggestions, just don't like the all or nothing nature of the current system.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

For P&N, I've made the Quantum reactor about the same strength as that, except mine is 500kt, and stores 1/2 million supplies.
It ends up being balanced with the other supply storage technologies (3x more, 3x more expensive per storage point)

For mines, you can reduce or eliminate sweeping technology to avoid the "nothing" side. The "all" side is pretty unavoidable in a literal sense, but what you can do is force players to spread their mines over multiple sectors. If your minefield is spread out, then not all of them will detonate.
A low limit on the number of mines per sector will help that, but then you have to reduce sweeping even more.

I have decided on No Sweeping, weaker mine warheads, and overall less damage per sector possible from mines.
That way, entering a minefield with a large fleet means you WILL get hurt, but it is unlikely that you will lose any ships. Small fleets or solo ships will still get vaporized, but that's unavoidable in SE4.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

What me really would like, woulds be the ability to make warp points at the EXACT sector u want them to, say, using two warp point manipulators, or a new top level (and more expensive / bigger) ultra quatum resonator (or whate'ver name u make up for it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) that would allow u to choose both system and sector u wants the wp to exit.

Temporal shipyards to same component family as normal ones, for upgrade to be less so pain.

-edit: me knows not spellin-

[ February 22, 2003, 10:40: Message edited by: Me Loonn ]

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

The title of this thread had me confused!! A discussion on what you would like the SEV Patch to have? Duh! the game is not even out yet. I guess it's just a typo, or SEV stands for something other than Space Empires V!

Well, one good thing, this thread prompted me to rename the SE:5 Poll thread to make that one clear!

Don't mind me, I'm goofy, silly, often confused, but always kind!

Cheers!

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

No, the title says what it means, and means what it says. This is a wish list for new additions that would either be in a SE4 patch, or in SE5.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

1. Units build amount selection: give a slide bar or a slot to enter the number you want to build freely. Or at least one more option 'fill remaining space'
2. Manual transfer supply between ships like unit transfer.
3. Moddable : different system has different amount of warp gates. For example, black hole system has 7 warp and normal system has up to 3 warp points.
4. Warp gate size limits maximum spaceship size that may safely pass.
5. Ground combat: troop spacedrop loss, homeworld defense bonus, familiar atmosphere and planet type bonus, and some buildings like barracks in MOO2 - improve ground defense and planet morale (peasant feel that they are protected).
6. Better or manual base/satellite placement in planet defense combat.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

I would like to see an expansion of the ground combat. In theory, armor, sensors, shields, etc on your ground troops makes them better than the enemy ground troops. But wouldn't it be much more fun if you could see the same sort of ground battle as we now see for the space battle?

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, but SE4 is not about ground battles, so this was not designed into SE4. I strongly suspect that more advanced ground combat will make it into SE5. I know I will be bugging MM to add it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, what would be really cool would be a "max build for x turns" button. This would essentially build as many units as can be built in one turn at the queue, and then make x entries for that. Or, maybe the "for x turns" part should be a separate function, so you can build "y units" and then select "for x turns". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 23, 2003, 23:40: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Humm, you got a point here. I think I'll mod this in my Proportions Version. I'll make it regular shipyards level 4,5 and 6.
Yeah, I always thought that those racial traits were unbalanced.......
Talk about organic armor.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ February 24, 2003, 17:14: Message edited by: Aloofi ]

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Stargates, anyone ?

I mean :
(1) - Like those in Stars!, built in space station for ships without cargo, mayby BIG size (1500kt or so) to prevent too cheap ones ?

(2) - Like in the tv-serie/movie; troop/WP moving between 2 planets both with Stargate facility (quite expensive, say like massive planetary shield, mayby ?)

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Humm, you got a point here. I think I'll mod this in my Proportions Version. I'll make it regular shipyards level 4,5 and 6.
Yeah, I always thought that those racial traits were unbalanced.......
Talk about organic armor.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is a very good reason why they are not in the same family. Since they are in different families, there is a higher initial cost (time) to build them. The bonuses more than make up for the extra time to build them.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

In SEV, I would like to see continued improvements in how ships/fighters are handling in strategic combat. In particular, the game handles fighters extremely poorly. Instead of utilizing a concerted attack of all available fighters against the enemy, instead the game sends them a few at a time to be slaughtered.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

Try increasing the size of fighter Groups launched in combat in the Strategies window. Sometimes, it is better to have small Groups. Other times, it is better to have larger Groups.

Re: Wish list for patch/SEV
 

The group size helps a small amount. But the basic mechanism is still pretty much flawed. The game wants to immediately send the most recently launched group of fighters to impale themselves on the spear of the enemy instead of waiting for backup.