SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[deccan]

Originally posted by deccan:
Some elaborations on the Lego-design model for ships.

I really like this idea. Naturally, it would work best in a 3D, real-time combat system, with limited arcs of fire. A simple way to do this would be like in the MechWarrior game. You have predefined, 3-D mechs (hulls) with predefined component slots. Specific types of components go on specific types of slots. You also need to take into account component tonnage and physical size of the slot. Which component takes damage depends on where you hit the mech and what component is located there.

Perhaps, one way to do this for Space Empires would be to predefine a number of hull types (3-D models with predefined component slots) for each hull size. I believe that the model used in Starfleet Command 3 can be considered as a very simplistic way of doing this.

Some problems that I foresee: however you do it, you'll be deviating from the standard SE totally free-form design philosophy. Some hull types will definitely be superior to others and it would be very difficult to strike a balance amongst the different races. Also, it would take a lot of work to do. I'm willing to live with these limitations, but I'd bet that many are not.

I haven't noticed this screenshot before:
http://www.malfador.com/starfury/sfscr11.html

But from it, it seems that Aaron does indeed use something similar to what I described for StarFury and hence for SEV.

[LGM]

Originally posted by Me Loonn:
Woo !
Just figured what might stop retro exploiting.

Make max difference when retroing to 10-15% and not the 50% what it is now.

The problem with this is many weapons increase more than 15% in cost per level. With Minerals this is probably not an issue since the Engines and Command and Control structures use so much Minerals, but with Radioactives or Organic weapons, a 15% limit is too restricting. Phased PPB I cost 100 Rad, PPB II costs 150 Rad. There is a 50% cost increase there alone.

Instead, I would suggest that retrofitting only be allowed for similar class components. You can replace a weapon with a different weapon. Countries did weapon retrofitting in WW II.

Retrofitting would not be exploited so much if it took Queue time to retrofit instead of repair time. In my opinion, repair only components should have resource capacity, not number of components capacity. Repairing a stellar Manipulation component should take a lot longer than one turn to repair. Currently, you can repair a 60K Min component in one turn, but it takes you over a year to build one. Perhaps there should be an "expired" state that differs from a "damaged" state on ships.

[Loser]

Originally posted by LGM:
The problem with this is many weapons increase more than 15% in cost per level. With Minerals this is probably not an issue since the Engines and Command and Control structures use so much Minerals, but with Radioactives or Organic weapons, a 15% limit is too restricting.

I'm guessing you haven't pushed the limits of the retroseries 'exploit' yourself. The limitation is not %50 difference in each of the three resources, it's the summed total. I'm not sure, but I think that might make a difference in your discussion.

[Fyron]

Yes, that does indeed make a big difference.

[dogscoff]

After playing this game and making patch suggestions for two years, I now realise that nearly everything I've ever asked of Aaron boils down to one thing, which can be summed up below. I know a lot of you will disagree with this, but tough, this is my opinion (and I doubt Aaron will agree with me anyway=-)

SEIV currently plays like a wargame. It is a wargame. Empire management, diplomacy, resource production, colonisation... these things are all, in the end, nothing more than infrastructure to support your military effort.

I'd like a game that flips this concept on its head. I want an empire management game, in which war is nothing more than one of many interesting complications.

I'd like a game where you could happily play for a thousand game turns without ever even seeing another race. Just keeping the population happy is enough of a challenge (ask your local president/ prime minister/ monarch/ dictator-for-life if you don't believe me) and I'd like a game that reflects this.

This fits any "real-world" model more closely imho, and would provide a far more absorbing game. Maybe this game won't be SE5, but I'd like to think it could be, with the right modding.

That's also why I only play proportions, btw- because it puts (slightly) more emphasis on empire management and less on warfare.

[ July 08, 2003, 09:04: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[Fyron]

So go play Sim City. Sure, it has no warfare, but you only wanted warfare to be a small part of the game anyways.

SE4 is not a war game, it is a strategy game. A war game is just that; war. They focus on manuevering predetermined forces against each other in combat. They are complex, but they do not encompass nearly as much as SE4 does. A strategy game is war + economics, essentially. I am not certain, but I do not think there is much research done in-game in very many war games. A strategy game is about building up your empire, then a military, then war. They cover more areas than war games do.

Strategy games are not about managing the minute details of your populace. Stuff like that will undoubtedly bog down a strategy game into unplayability if it goes too far into the minutia. What you are looking for is a completely different genre, and there is no guarantee that Aaron would be able to make a game of that genre well (as there are few (if any) game programmers that can make awesome games in every genre).

[dogscoff]

So go play Sim City. Sure, it has no warfare, but you only wanted warfare to be a small part of the game anyways.

I've heard some bad things about the latest Sim City games. I wouldn't mind playing "Sim Galactic Empire", but as far as I know that hasn't been made yet. SE4 goes most of the way to what I want, I just want it to go that little bit further.

SE4 is not a war game, it is a strategy game. A war game is just that; war.

As usual, you're trying to divert the discussion into tedious quibbling over semantics. My point (as you well know) is that the focus of SEIV is warfare.

A strategy game is war + economics, essentially.

But the economics- as well as the research, colonisation, ship design, and diplomacy- are all represented simply as support services for warfare. But in reality, it's the other way round. War exists to defend/expand one nation's economics and culture, economics and culture do not exist simply to perpetuate war. (Although there's probably potential for a whole new thread out of this statement.)

Strategy games are not about managing the minute details of your populace. Stuff like that will undoubtedly bog down a strategy game into unplayability if it goes too far into the minutia.

Not necessarily. It would probably involve a lot of extra code, but from the player's point of view things would not necessarily have to be much more difficult or complex. I'm not going to repost all my lengthy suggestions for dynamic populations, improved plague modelling, settlement growth, regime types and everything else, but if you don't remember from the Last time I posted them just believe me when I say that nearly all of the extra work would be done in the background. Not in a "MOO3 taking control from the player" kind of a way, but in a "this is what the indirect results of your actions would be" kind of a way.

What you are looking for is a completely different genre,

I'll grant you that it is a different genre, but not a completely different one. Like I say, SEIV is half way there already.

All I'm really asking for is an empire that actually feels like it's a complex, unpredictable, living, breathing society rather than a collection of variables to be considered when designing my next fleet. Conquering the galaxy is all very well, but I want an empire worth conquering the galaxy for.

[LGM]

Facility Management: It would be nice to plot facility replacement in the construction queue and to repeat this item. For example, Replace Research with Intelligence. When the turn for this item comes up, it will scrap a Research facility and build an Intelligence facility. This would allow you to change the function of a planet without having to either go back to it each turn or to prescrap everything before starting to build the new stuff.

Blocaded planets should only be able to utilize resource equal to their own production per turn.
Or production + 1/10 of their storage (1 yr rationing). Better yet, blocated planets should have their own resource pool (cut off from the rest of the empire).

Partitioned Empires should have resources pools per partition. Partitions are created by cutting warp-points (no known connection path), enemy occupying warp-points.

Occuppying warp-points should cut enemy contact links through those warp-points to other races.

[LGM]

Originally posted by Loser:

quote:

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Originally posted by LGM:
The problem with this is many weapons increase more than 15% in cost per level. With Minerals this is probably not an issue since the Engines and Command and Control structures use so much Minerals, but with Radioactives or Organic weapons, a 15% limit is too restricting.

I'm guessing you haven't pushed the limits of the retroseries 'exploit' yourself. The limitation is not %50 difference in each of the three resources, it's the summed total. I'm not sure, but I think that might make a difference in your discussion.

---

I guess I shall have to exploit that more! Just what I need, another way to more fully micromanage the game! I wish I didn't know this!

[Fyron]

As usual, you're trying to divert the discussion into tedious quibbling over semantics.

Umm... no. I have never tried to divert any discussions into tedious quibbling over semantics. The only times I argue about semantics are when it is directly relevant to the discussion. Also, my post was nowhere near a diVersion into semantics. That one line was about classification, not word meanings.