Requesting feedback on 'Expansion Pack'

[CheshireKatt]

I'm all for an expansion pack -- mostly because the big things I really want would require a LOT of work, and I don't really think that MM should have to do that without a little support from us devoted fans (and I mean of the financial kind, not the praise he gets daily as it is...)

'course, now that I've said that, here's the kinds of things I'm talking about for wanting: (it's a fairly big wishlist -- so don't misconstrue this as my saying I won't buy one if all of this isn't in there...)

More planet options: atmosphere types, gravity types, abnormal planet features (Strong EM Radiation: No shields, Harsh Terrain: ground combat mods, Natives, etc.), the ability to make "special" planets -- one such system per game, say with an Orion-style planet, complete with a defender, several set "gain on colonization" techs, and several "gain on colonization, but randomized from this list" techs. That kind of thing.

Space monsters. Dragons, Amoebas, Crystal Entities, Slugs, Borg Cubes, Dimensional Horrors, Nebula monsters, Space Canolies, the works.

Weapon mounts as researchable tech ('course, it could be done both ways, depending on the tech tree's setup), and multiple mounts marked as stackable with other mounts, or prohibited from stacking with other mounts, as decided by the tech tree's creator (ex. In MOO, you couldn't have Point Defense and Heavy Mount on a gun, but Point Defense and Rapid Fire were acceptable to combine).

Multiple ship pictures per ship class.

Ships that take up more than 1x1 in combat. I want some nice big 3x2 and 3x3 ships, especially for my baseships and big starbases.

Retreating in combat.

Control over starting tech levels.

More racial customization options (though I can't think of anything currently, beyond a way to make the tech tree options more distinct than just "you get a new tree").

Nomad races.

Even more spatial anomalies. Cosmic strings, small (but bigger than 1x1 or full-screen) nebulae, more wormhole types, forcible wormholes (say, one with a blackhole-style "drags target", but automatically warps anything entering that sector somewhere else), derelict ships (high-tech, capturable ships -- sort of an artifact world in ship form), neutral stations (trade stations, that kind of thing)

Heros. They make the Planet / Ship / System (as appropriate) they're on better in some way (potentially multiple abilities per hero, and they gain levels just like ships do, just over time rather than from combat).

Tactical Ground Combat.

Um...I'm out of ideas for now.

--Chesh

[dogscoff]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Deathstalker:
How many people here don't use the TDM-Modpack???

---

me.



------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so Brain, but how are we gonna teach a goat to dance with flippers on? "

[CaptSpoogy]

CheshireKatt> I guess your perfect game would be the product of a Masters of Orion and Space Empires merge...

------------------
Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

[CheshireKatt]

Very much so. MOO has some truly wonderful features that no other EEE game has gotten quite right, and Space Empires has all of the wonderful customization and detail that I always wished MOO had. (Plus, I can mod it, which, whilst I haven't done much yet, I am planning to at least try something soon...)

But the games are still somewhat different in approach, which is why I'd be MORE than happy to pay for such an expansion.

What do others on this forum think of MOO/MOO2? Good, bad, indifferent?

--Chesh

[Nitram Draw]

I loved MOO II. If someone could combine the best features of MOOII and SE4 then they would have done something great, and I'd buy that game too!

[Tampa_Gamer]

Same here - I liked the different sized ships as well as the initiative-based combat instead of IGO/UGO.

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 04 May 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Did you say

quote:

---

Nomad races.

---

???

Try my Pirates & Nomads mod

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 04 May 2001).]

[capnq]

quote:

---

How many people here don't use the TDM-Modpack???

---

I'm not using it yet; I'm playing two unmodded games right now, and waiting to download TDM until I'm ready to start another game.

quote:

---

What do others on this forum think of MOO/MOO2?

---

My girlfriend gave me a discount bin copy of MOO a couple Christmases ago, and I still have it on my HD. I play it when the mood strikes, but it has SE4 and four other TBS games to compete with for my time.

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

[CheshireKatt]

I'm baaaaaack....

More Ideas, of a less-critical (but cool to me) nature:

The majority of these are combat-related, and have little to no impact on actual gameplay, they're just "nice".

The ability to specify more "styles" of beam effect, either as a native weapon effect, or one granted from a Weapon Mount (ex. the Wave Motion Gun might fire a cone-shaped beam. It still hits one target, but fans out towards the end, or the "Rapid Fire" weapon mount fires the beam three quick times at the target) Additionally, the ability to have "animated" beams -- ones that just cycle through a series of frames specified to it.

Multiple Component Enhancements per component, restrictable from CompEnhancement.txt as to which enhancements stack or prohibit each other.

Component Enhancements as researchable tech, not just as "everyone can do this" as it is now.

The ability to have Component Enhancements that make Seekers faster or slower.

Ammunition on seekers that's not just in terms of reload time.

Area-of-effect weapons.

Line / Cone piercing weapons. (Hits all targets on a line / in a cone -- now THAT'S a Wave Motion Gun).

Stasis guns -- the ship can't move / act, but can't be shot, either.

Tholian Webs, or other weapons that can lay obstacles in tactical combat in a useful manner (laying mines in tactical is kind of silly, but other things might be nice -- placing obstructions, a gun that foams up a nice big 1x5 hex area or something with magnetic debris, organic matter, or just a plain-old force-shield. Destroyable, of course, settable to block or not block fighters / seekers / beams as the tech-modder sees fit)

Debris / asteroids / nebulae / harmful other stuff placed in battlefields as appropriate to the location of combat (or such things a sector away, maybe placing their stuff around the edges) -- could make for some interesting cat-and-mouse, flying ships between asteroids that you can't shoot over (but can blow up, given enough effort), or hiding your ship in a nebula to make it invisible.

Combat cloaking.

Combat teleporters.

Non-combat ideas:
=================

Debris fields. Sort of a fixed-quantity asteroid field that disappears once mined out. Maybe generated at the sites of space battles where a certain tonnage of ship(s) were destroyed? Also preplacable in sector definitions.

Derelicts

More sector "move ship" functions - slide left, slide right, slide top, slide bottom (not just "slide to this sector"), rotation functions (rotate ship around this point -- could make REALLY cool blackholes that way -- a rotator and a slide to center trigger, to let you do real slingshot moves around the blackhole).

That's it for the current batch of my ideas. Stay tuned for the third (fourth?) batch at a message board near you. :P

--Chesh

[capnq]

Well, that didn't Last long. Downloaded TDM-ModPack Last night; seem to have sorted out my mistakes on the install this morning. In the new game, I started off inside an isolated cluster, so it's going to be a while before I meet any of the new AIs.

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