[Rasorow]

A few things would be nice. Having played SE II-IV gold I would like to see

1 Squadrons, or the ability to assign or form a group of ships both during fleet creation and during battle for a specific purpose. For example I almost always create class of AAA ships to help wittle down the swarms of fighters and seekers. I should be able to assign these to protect or group with certain ships or Groups of ships in their own formation (star, circle, box, etc)Maybe go 2 or 3 linked squadrons deep to create a fleet. (the AAA ships protect the flanking ships with little AAA protect of their own, who in turn form squads protecting ships of the line, who form their own squad making the fleet)

2 I agree with the post on the dynamic research. Perhaps though allow a base set of stable tech giving certain abilitys then above that (which would definately not include all tech routes) have a percentage chance to aquire knoweldge of a new ability, then a percentage chance to use it in a new device. Then after it is invented allow a given chance for it to be improved.. say in size and effectiveness for 100% (some items size and effectiveness are not relevant but it would improve in to value areas maybe maintenance cost and effectivness). It would work like this you are researching a lvl 4 tech therefore your base chance is racial+(investment/lvl)+time to make a breakthrough. Then racial+(investment/time*number of devices at this tech level)+time ti invent a useable device. Then racial+(investment/lvl of device)+time would allow improvements to the device. Please note that the 2nd and third racial modifers are practical or applied modifers and the frist is a theoretical modifer so they would be different modifers.

3 Satellites that orbit during combat or have limited movement to position during combat (like we manuever statellites today)

4 Resources... need to have the movement and shipping of resources. The right amount of resources delivered to the right place or construction stops... and you wont be able to build that battlestation needed to stop the enemies advance. Maybe 4 resources metal, organic, mineral, energy. Have the intial config of the resources as setting up trade routes between planets, with a slider to set the size of the merchant fleet with a cost associated with it. A larger empire if not well planned and organized maybe endanger of not being able to have a large enough military fleet to fend off a smaller empire that needs a small merchant fleet and can afford a larger military. The penalties for setting up the wrong trade routes would be that your merchant fleet would need to be larger costing more and some build centers may not get the materials they need. The benfits of good trade routes are smaller fleet, and build centers always having what they need. Trade routes would determine what sorts of resources get shipped to which locations. They would have entry for amount shipped and type (of resource shipped). (BTW Resources are also consumed by populations so your organic planets would need to be able to feed the empire)

5 Item 4 means that all things would have a cost in money and resources, this means assigning more variables but provids at deeper level if play (which could always have an option to turn off)

6 Any trade route through a system with an enemy fleet has % chance (say 20) off being disrupted - meaning failure to convey resources. Any trade route running through an warp point occupied by an enemy has a high percent chance of being disruped (say 70) any trade route through a system with an enemy planet has a good chance of being disrupted (say 50).

Just some thoughts

Rasorow