Patch wishlist

[lfoater]

Hi Im new to Se4, This is a great game.
I'll toss out a couple here
1. Have some tech research lead to dead ends. have this be a random occurance with several approaches to say Stellar manipulation. 2 would be dead ends 1 would be a good path. This would have to be random with each game. Maybe a game option.

A battle board for land combat on the planet. Each planet would have a certain number of squares based on its size. You could then develope real armies to invade with.

[serpwidgets]

Launch/recover/pickup/drop a specific amount in orders e.g.
Move to 4,6 (my homeworld)
Load 100 colonists (even though the transport can hold 330)
Move to 6,8 (colony A)
Drop 50 colonists
Move to 7,6 (Colony B)
Drop 50 colonists

This can be done in one turn in a non-simultaneous game, but takes 3 turns in a simultaneous game.

-----

Ability to break up fighters into Groups, in space. As it is, I have to bring all my carriers to one planet and play cargo shift to get the proper fighters on the proper ships.

-----

Ability to see what defenses a planet has without having to send ships in.

-----

"Visual" ground combat like MOO2. That was way cool with the little animated dudes and lasers and tanks, etc!

-----

Allow repeating of "launch fighters" orders for planets. If I have 10 planets all making 6 fighters per turn, it gets very tedious launching them every turn, and then setting their waypoints the next turn. Also, is it possible to have fighters move to a specific waypoint upon construction like with ships?

-----

How about a "waste one movement turn" order for ships. If I have two fleets I want to use to attack a planet and one is one square away and the other is two away, the closer fleet will get there first and fight without the second fleet AFAIK...

[Mark Walton]

Reduce effects of orbital bombardment, encourage surface landings.
Is it "realistic" that one frigate with a single gun can efficiently destroy an entire planet's population in under a month?
I suggest:
Damage from orbital bombardment be a percentage based on the level of population of the world
For instance, a world at 100% population is full; it is easy to find cities to bomb, 100% population = 100% damage.
A world half empty gives population a chance to spread out, to hide a bit; 50% population = 50% damage.
A world with only a few people left lets those people run and hide, head for the hills; 10% population = 10% damage.
This will encourage landing troops tomop up the Last pockets of enemy population.

(Perhaps a scale like, 100% pop = 150% dam, 10% pop = 1% dam... it's the idea that counts though)

-----

Population Housing facility; allows an extra x000 population on the world.

-----

Percieved Danger Level per System

A feature for the AI - the ability to judge how dangerous a sytem is, based on a number of factors (which would live in a script for editing the values)

The percieved danger level (PDL) for a system may increase for each enemy ship or world present, for each world lost or population killed, for each ship damaged, or decrease with each victory or over time.
Another factor would be the extent to which PDL "leaks" through wormholes (if the PDL is very high in a nearby system, this system's PDL will rise too)
the PDL would be used by the AI to decide how many forces are needed to enter a system, whether it is worth colonizing, how many weapon platforms etc to build.
Again, all these factors would be listed in a Race_AI_PDL type file, so each race can perceive threat levels differently.

This would help design smarter AI's which don't just keep colonizing the sme world turn after turn and seeing that world wiped out a turn later!
It would also aid the AI in planning.

-----

Change to "Planet Conditions" system -
No one set of conditions is Optimal for every race! Change this to "Type A" "Type B" etc (or more desciptive terms)
Every race chooses one type that is optimal for them, for each type away from their chosen type the world is less optimal by one step.
Also, stars could give off different radiation types, which races can react to.

(Courtesy of Unnecessary Complications Dept)

-----
A player/ AI option : Surface Target Priority Lists for Bombardment.
Allows player to list in order, which items on a planet will be attacked first; any items not on the list will not be deliberately bombarded. Allows player to decide, yeah OK go in and knock out the supply facility, leave the mineral production. Or, hit the weapon platforms leave the population alone. (Of course there will be "collateral damage" effects)

-----

More AI scripting options
Move everything that is currently hardcoded into a script.
For instance, cirumstances to change AI state, the states themselves, any special actions to take in that state.
Also features like the "overvaluing" of scarce resources leading to a mining colony being set up on a 20 mineral world...

A fully featured scripting system would be great, allowing for more fine control and conditional development and behaviour for a race.
(IF
currently_getting_smegged_by_enemy=TRUE
THEN
Stop_Research (Ice Planet Colonization); Start_Research (Shields)
ELSE
AI_State = Woohoo!
)

-----

Planetary facility Version of the self destruct mechanism. If troops take the planet, the facility explodes all remaining facilities on the planet. (Make this item a high priority in the above list!)

-----

More special special events, and "missions".
For instance:
a strange nebula is moving through a system; first player to get a ship with sensors there will get a special tech at the end of the turn, or x000 research per turn, or one of a list of other effects. (The nebula may still have special properties)
Special message to an individual player, granting a mission effect if they succeed at a task; maybe, "SMUGGLING: Move a ship with a cargo bay to enemy world (xxx) by (turn)and return to friendly world to gain (insert reward here)", or "AID REBELLION: Move a ship undetected to enemy world (xxx) by (turn) and eturn to friendly world to (insert espionage effect here)" or "DEFECTING ENEMY SCIENTIST: Move a ship to enemy world (xxx) by (turn) and return to friendly world to gain (tech)"
- more along those lines.

(This whole feature would be switch off- and on-able for each game. It adds space-opera qualities and adds little diVersions from the build-and-kill routine; they resemble the plague events in some ways)

Similarly, a type of Tech to produce a component that can stabilise exploding stars/planets and "cure" the problem in the same way that plagues can be cured.

-----

Monster aliens, (like in MOO and a few others) controlled by computer as a race (a bit like the barbarians were in Civ)
Each monster can have specials; not just in power and ability but in ways to deal with them and gain from them. (Alien 1 might lay eggs in suns causing them to go nova, but any ship with sensors in the same sector generates 1000 research every turn; another may happily land on a world if there is cargo space and act as a super weapon platform; etc)

-----

Allow races to start the game with purchased technology - let them buy items from the tech tree with their initial point allocation, maybe at 10 research points per race point.

-----

Tug ships

A component which lets a small ship tug a ship or base many times it's size at fairly low speeds. Probably requiring certain level of Propulsion, and Tractor Beams.

-----

I'll be back...

[This message has been edited by Mark Walton (edited 16 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mark Walton (edited 16 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mark Walton (edited 16 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mark Walton (edited 16 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mark Walton (edited 16 April 2001).]

[Atrocities]

BUMP

[Crazy_Dog]

If you destroy a storm, put the info about it .

[capnq]

When you upgrade a ship design, keep the same default strategy as the old design, rather than giving it the default for a new ship.

Change the wording of the heading on the Set-Up: Victory Conditions screen to reflect the way they actually work. (It currently says "any" VC fulfilled, where it should say something like "all of the highlighted" VCs.) Even better, add a toggle to allow victory if one of several VCs are met, rather than all of them.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Antonin]

I'd love to have the ability to retrieve mines and deploy them elsewhere, as with sats and fighters.

I'd also like to see AIs that create more balanced fleets. Ten carriers smashing into the same minefield every five turns is a little dumb.

------------------
"Gentlemen, we have nearly a thousand ships waiting to be thrown into the fight at the proper moment to seize control of the Foundation. I say we should change that. I say, throw those thousand onto the board now--against the Mule."
-- Randu of Haven, from "Foundation and Empire," by Isaac Asimov