[douglas]

klausD said:

Well I am drewing it up more than once, because I am really concerned about the future of the SE series. And I am drewing it up because it was one of my favorite games on PC over the last 10 years. Another reason I was drewing it up is that are too few discussions in the forums about the upcoming fundamental real-time change and its "benefits".

It seems to me that you are beating a subject to death that has been talked about and resolved to the satisfaction of the vast majority of forum members many times.

klausD said:

Maybe you have a different view what a RTS game is. My view is if the engine is realtime, it is RTS. If it has a pause button or a "slow down" function does not mean that it is no RTS anymore.

Well, that certainly is a valid definition of RTS, but going by that definition does not imply that RTS = clickfest. I'm sure Fyron was referring to the common misconception that RTS and clickfest are synonyms.

klausD said:

Well the question should be allowed what happens if I am issuing orders too late because the AI does this faster than I? I guess my ships will be blown up, even if I have the better overall tactic. Or is there an inbuilt mechanism which grants me that I am always faster in issuing orders as my opponent?

How much difference can being half a second later, or a full second or even 3 seconds, make? Longer delays could potentially be a problem, yes, but that's what the autopause feature is for. Set it to 5 or 10 seconds, and that's it - your orders will never be later than that. Even in classic examples of clickfest RTS games like Warcraft III and Starcraft, both of which I have played quite a bit, such small delays only make a difference in my experience when repeated many times in the resource gathering/base and army building part of the game, which will be completely absent from SEV realtime combat, or in extreme examples of micromanaging units. By far the most likely such example to translate to SEV combat is waiting too long to start a retreat, allowing your units to be surrounded to the point where they can't retreat any more. I don't see this being a problem because the AI will work for you, too - you will almost certainly be able to specify criteria for automatically retreating, based on range, number of enemy ships in range, and any number of other factors.

klausD said:
And just watching my orders executed is not a really realistic statement. Especially if there are hundreds of ships and fighters involved as in SEIII or IV. Then there is always something to click and to do on the battlefield. And give your orders before the AI does it or your ships will be blown up. Additionally while you are watching the ship moves at one part of the battlefield, your ships at another part will be stomped by the AI, except you are scrolling in time to this part and press the pausebutton to issue new orders. Not my definition of a stressless game. Thanks.

So pause frequently, using the autopause every x seconds feature if necessary, and inspect the whole battlefield every time it's paused. And again, the AI will work for you, too, within the strategic parameters you dictate for it.

klausD said:

You are right MOO3 was not made properly. The designers wanted too much. They wanted rather a galactic empire simulation and not a traditional 4x game. And one of the major problems along the crappy AI and the bad Interface was the change to realtime tactical combat. For the strategic part of SEV I dont really fear (on the other hand who knows?) but at least the tactical part has with its realtime change the same "good" idea as MOO3.

The change to realtime combat was not inherently bad, it was how they implemented it that made it fail so horribly. Aaron has had plenty of time to learn from their mistakes, and his realtime combat engine will be criticized by quite a number of beta testers who definitely do not want anything resembling a clickfest in their favorite 4x game series.