[Klebdog]

Gentlemen,
First I want to say "Thank You" for making a product that has given me and my friends years of enjoyment. It is truly satisfying playing you games (SEIII, SEIV) and having the ability to mold it to our wants and needs that keeps it interesting on so many levels. We are very excited about the prospect of SE V and we are eagerly awaiting it's release. The reason I am writing though is to propose some ides that we have talked about that we would like to see. All of these idea's come from a compilation of several
games that we have played over the years that had some cool features but never seemed to be able to put them all together. Your game is the only one
that I have seen that has been able to even come close to this.

1. The idea of a Galactic Senate or Forum (Someplace where races can setup sanctions, outlaw weapon types etc)
2. The establishment of Neutral Zones on races borders (Someplace where races can setup trading stations to maintain communications with other races, like Babylon 5 or Star Trek)
3. Pirates and Privateers (Birth of the Federation had a cool feature that required you to guard your trade routes or they could be
raided. This would prolong the life of smaller type ships and allow other empires to openly disrupt trade between other races. Also, it would
provide another source of income for the empire. 4. Visible trade routes (with a on/off toggle for viewing purposes).This would be the second part of the Pirates/Privateers idea. Like I said
I saw the idea in a few games but Birth of the Federation had the best use of it. It required no ships to be built to travel the routes it just
established the actual routes they would travel if they could be seen. The only ships seen were the escort ships protecting the routes or the pirates raiding them.
5. Weapons Arcs, another cool feature that I have seen in quite a few games is weapons arcs of fire. Pax Imperia "Eminent Domain" had the best Version of this but it would balance tactical combat for smaller ships more true to life. Larger ships move slow and have heavier more
damaging weapons and smaller ships strike faster and more often and can out maneuver larger ships. I think this is a dynamic that SE V could exploit to it's advantage in the combat model, of course this would work better in turn based combat but Pax Imperia pulled it off in real time to some extent.
6. Turret Mounts, SE IV made excellent use of mount types, but I think turret mounts would tie in nicely to weapon arc features. Turret mounts could allow more weapons to be mounted on the outside of the ship and cover a larger arc. But these weapons could also be easily targeted and
damaged before other critical systems or spinal mounted weapons.
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player. Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need).
8. Some type of war weariness program. The endless AI wars waged against players, even when the AI is losing horribly still wage for decades. Even the most war like race (with maybe the exception of a hive mentality or Klingon type empire) would pause to re-arm, re-fit and re-train.

These are all just ideas that me and my friends have "what if'd" and have tried to MOD into our own Version of SE IV to see if we could get them
to work. I still think you guys do an awesome job at what you do and look forward to seeing the end product no matter what!