[Arkcon]

Okay, under the heading of Space Empires 5 -- that is, new code changes that alter the game from SE4 --> SE5 the same way game play was altered from SE3 --> SE4.

In SE4 we have asteroids which are convertible to planets of random type and atmosphere. How about in SE5 we have rocky asteroid fields, icy cometary debris(is that what's meant by ort clouds?) and storms made mostly of ionized gasses.

We would have individual components for condensing each into planets -- asteroids to rock, comets to ice, storms to gas giants. So you know what you're going to get, and what not to bother with.

Under the heading of Oh No, how about a switch to allow different planet types to have significantly different relative amounts of resources: rock planets are mineral rich, ice planets have lots of extractable organic building blocks frozen in them, gas giants are very rich in radioactives, but each type would be lacking in the others.

The result would be that people would have to remote mine, and defend their remote miners or trade with each other heavily. If by chance a gas giant race found one of the rare gas giants that was 80 % minerals -- they would have to hold that planet at all costs if they wanted to build ships at all. This would be cruel to the newbies, but some experts would like the challenge of overcoming the handicap.

Oh, and lets lose this asteroids with 200%+ resources. Maybe it's needed for remote mining to be usefull, but when it becomes a planet, re-roll the stats or decrement them by some amount. I don't see why we need this at all -- no one seems to have jumped on re-writing the AI to take advantage of this. Maybe remote mining should produce more or decrease the value less rapidly instead.

[ July 13, 2002, 13:34: Message edited by: Arkcon ]