[Puke]

i wasnt making a minor suggestion, i was saying that it should play like that. I want to stand in a big black room, and see my fleets and empire arrayed around me in holographic form, and be able to give orders to them all.

in all seriousness though, I would take a more modular and object oriented approach to the game design. It may be that way now, but I get the impression that alot of things are fairly fixed in place.

I would start with the foundation that there are "abilities" such as those in the abilities.txt file. these are the fundamental things that make the game work.

these abilities can then be applied to different objects, or containers for objects. most basically, to a component or facility, just as they are now. then, to a ship or a planet, which is a container for a component or facility. larger Groups would be sectors, systems, and empires. another group i would include, would be trade lanes, so certain systems could be linked into a larger Category. I would like it to be dynamic, such that it would be easy to add or mod in new categories and groupings.

trade lanes would have to allow for systems to be added to or removed from the larger group classification, by the presence of a component or facility with a certain ability. for example, the ability MAKE THIS [CATEGORY A] A SUBSET OF [CATEGORY B] where Category A is the planet, or sector, or system, or empire where the thing is located.

thus, there may be a facility that carries an empire wide bonus to something. there may be a component that improves production output within a certain trade lane, requiring you to better manage your infrastructure. A modder could add in new categories as they see fit, perhaps adding some ability for multiple empires to be grouped into a larger whole, similar to a trade alliance.

Everything would be dynamic and changeable. right now, many things are hard coded or fixed in place. for example, stelar phenominons like planets, storms, suns, and asteroids all have specific fixed abilities. I would include for each one, the following kinds of flags:

-is a type X stelar object (where X is an arbitrary categorization, preset ones will exist for storms, asteroids, suns, planets)
-can be colonized?
-can be remote mined?
-has resource value?

and stelar manip components may have abilities like "destroys type X stelar object" or "creates type X stelar object" or "turns type X stelar object into type Y stelar object"

so it would be perfectly possible for someone to mod a device that turns a planet into a storm, or mods in colonizeable suns, or remote mineable storms, or whatever nonesense they like. ICE, ROCK, GAS, as well as atmosphere, would be another defineable variable, rather than a fixed value. more could be added by modders, but they would also have to supply all the other things that would be needed (such as related components, images, etc.)

once that foundation is in place, the interface and implementation could be anything. systems could be 3d with the actual orbital mechanics modled in, and ships traveling on real vectors that are affected by gravity. or systems could be abstract things with a simple list of the planets and major bodies in them. the actuall presentation of the game would not matter, once the foundation existed.

of course developing the interface and presentation of the game is probably ALOT more work than setting out the foundation, and most people tend to think of how they are going to present the game and then work backwards, but I would first start with the foundation described above. that way, i think it would be easier to make sweeping changes and adaptatoins later, or easier just to fine tune things later.

and then I'd start shooting the fans who think they know so much, and cant stop talking about how THEY would do things, when they hardly know anything about programming. at least, i'd shoot the ones that live in the same town as me. good thing Aaron doesnt know what i look like, or I might be in trouble.