Dogscoff, you really sound like someone who would actually enjoy MOO3... it's been described quite accurately as "SimGalaxy"... me, I can't stand the Sim games
A few more ideas for SE5 (or even an SE4 patch):
When you trade tech or analyze ships, if you don't have the prerequisites for a tech, the data is just thrown away, even if you get it later in the same package!
What I'd like to see is, if you get say Shields 2 but you don't have Shields 1 or even Physics 1, the data is stored away in a database (i.e. the tech is placed in a "pending" list that you can view from the research screen), and when you research or otherwise acquire the prerequisites, the tech finally becomes available. Note that I'm treating Shields 1 as a prerequisite for Shields 2 here, and I'm saying that Shields 2 could be explicitly gifted to an empire that doesn't HAVE Shields 1 - this would make tech trades much simpler, since you wouldn't have to play the game of "subtract my tech level from your tech level and hope the other guy isn't lying" - you just give him levels 3 through 5 of Advanced Military Science and if he was lying about his tech level, well tough for him because he either won't be able to use the tech right away (if he overstated his level) or one or more levels will be useless (if he understated it)!
edit: Oh yes, and it would be handy to have a display of our tech level vs. their (known) tech level in the tech gift/trade window next to each tech e.g. (dunno if this will look right on the board)
Ours Theirs
Advanced Military Science 3 1
Construction 1 ß blank represents not yet known that they have it
Energy Stream Weapons 4 6
Physics 3 1
Phased Energy Weapons 0 3
Also, about the resource value distribution across planets - currently, all resources have simply a minimum and maximum value, which is the same for all resources, and the statistical distribution is (I think) flat - you're just as likely to get a 23% mineral planet as you are to get a 100% mineral planet. What I'd like to see is a more varied distribution, with separate settings for each resource - so minerals might run from 0% to 150% with a fairly flat distribution, much like in SE4, but organics might cluster around 100%, and radioactives might run all the way up to 500% but most of the planets would have very low values.
[ July 08, 2003, 21:56: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]