[Kevin Arisa]

Whoa! Long list! Well, I hope these ideas are not being repeated but this list is far too long to sift through. Aaron sure has his work cut out for him. Anyway, here are 10 suggestions that I have to offer.

1: Combat should be real time but it would be just fine to leave the managment part turn based. The previous idea of attack Groups in fleets is good. Lets stick with 2D space just for simplicity's sake.

2: Keep with bitmap\gif\jpg style graphics. For ships they should rotate the flat image when moving similar to the way the ship in Asteroids does. That way all the great shipsets made now will be compatible with SE5. This also allows people who use uncommon 3D renerers to be able to create shipsets. Real time rendering would limit the total amount of shipset creators which is very bad.

3: Weapons should be animated by using bitmap sheets. One bitmap for each weapon or something like that. Similar to the way they were done in Star Trek Armada for example.

4: Lots and lots of weapon\component\facility abilities. You can never have too many.

5: Weapons should be able to have more than one attribute and many things like cloaking devices should have effectiveness percentages instead of levels. There needs to be an attribute for forward arc only guns and open radius turrets. Guns should be stronger but turrets more practical. Missiles Launchers should be the components you mount but the missiles themselves should be replenished the same way you replenish supplies. That is, of course, until you develop matter replicators!

6: Keep warp points but introduce a method of traveling without them. In a way that it will take 3 turns to go to a system 300 units away so if you can find a warp point you should use it. Something like that. Be sure to leave that option open so that the rate of travel can be easily modded. (I am formulating ideas for that already!)

7: Ground combat should be handled just like space combat. Facilities should be randomly arranged on the surface of the planet and troops when deployed should be controlled just like ships. Militia would just be little people that run about trying to kill your troops with little handguns. Fighters would be useful for both space and ground combat. Troops would need a form of propulsion like wheels, treads, and repulsors. Each having it's own advantage. This setup for ground combat would give meaning to troop weapon ranges, move rate, shields and armor.

8: Whenever you need to give something to another empire you have to load it up on a freighter and send it to them. Wouldn't that Xiati battleship just love to nab all that ore you are sending to the Terrans! More strategy is very good.

9: Pirates. We need some pirates that randomly pop up. They would start when someone steals something, whether it is a freighter or a fighter and escapes to a location where you can no longer locate them. The next thing you know you see that freighter attacking another freighter. So on and so forth, if you do not get the situation under control you could be in trouble. But of course, you would still have to worry about another species' pirates on top of your own.

10: Keep the sound in either wav or mp3 format. Those are the easiest to manipulate and we want to keep the game as modder friendly as possible.

Thats it! I have added my 2, er, uh, 10 cents to this already massive line of ideas. I now close my eyes and pray.