Suggestions for Space Empires V

[MrSnuggleBunny]

Dear Santa,

When SEV is released I would like to have...

1) Maneuverability - It just doesn't seem realistic that a unit can go from dead stop to full speed and make a bootlegger's reverse (180-degree turn) all in a single turn.

Can we please have some mechanism to dictate the acceleration and decceleration of a unit? Nothing extravagant but something along the lines of: a unit can acel/deccel 1/2 of its total current movement allowance in a single turn.

Limiting the number of turns a unit can make in a single turn should be reduced as its speed increases, i.e. at a dead stop a unit can make a complete 360-degree revolution, at half speed and can turn up to 4 facings at full speed it can turn up to 2 facings (assuming a square map with facings being the four sides and four corners collectively).

2) Firing Arcs - One aspect of this game that makes it so entertaining is that the vast expanse of the tactical battle map and the limited range of weaponry means that maneuver actually matters. If a ship gets hammered on one side the commander should have to manuever to reposition his ships to present a new broadside. Designating firing arcs at time of construction would be a plus. The tonnage allowed by arc could be set ratios of the overall unit tonnage.

This would be particularly helpful whn making planetary assaults. Let's face it: attempting to take a planet with troops while the planet has a robust array of weapons platforms mounting missiles and point defense weapons is all but an exercise in futility. Why should platforms mounted at the south pole be able to hit me if I'm concentrating my forces at the northern pole?

Dividing a planet into quadrants for the purposes of basing platforms and troops would be nice. Troops could be limited to moving to one new quadrant per strategic turn.

3) Stacking Limits - I can understand that stacking all of one's units in a single space could lead to some lop-sided tactics but can we have limits on the tonnage, say 500 to 800 kT? At least allow us to move a unit through a space occupied by a friendly unit; sometimes the AI will designate a movement path for a unit that costs me 1 or 2 movement points and ruins the calculated movement I had planned.

4) Customizable Formations - A formation editor and some method of designated which units are 1st, n 3rd etc within the fleet would be really keen.

5) Customizable Weaponry - Can I trade range for damage/rate fo fire/etc? Weapon mounts allow me to trade range and damage for tonnage; let's make a good thing better.

6) Interstellar Travel - besides warp points. A system 2 sectors away can take less time to reach than a system 10 sectors away depending upon the placement of warp points within a system. What if I want to cut "cross country" to save time? Such movement could also balance us mid-tech slobs against empires that can open and close warp points at will.

7) Planetary Orbits - I exploit the fact that planets do not revolve around their suns by picking planets equidistant betwen/near warp points to place military installations. MAKE ME STOP! In real life the planets would be orbitting the sun thus denying the use of "permanent basing."

8) Auto-Retrofit/Upgrade - If I lewt ministers handle upgrading production facilities they tend to onle upgrade one facility per turn...over the entire bloody empire! Fire these bums. How about upgrading one facility per planet per turn? Designating units to auto-upgrading ship/base designs as a particular technology improves would be nice.

9) A Pony - I promise to take care of it, and brush its long silky mane and name him Buttercup and I'll be good forever and ever. Puh-leeeeze!

Anyway, that's my wish list...

...for now.

[Mylon]

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to modify ship components/building facilties with technologies as opposed to having to create a new component for each possible combination of technology.

Thus, one could have the Mega Uber Laser, research up on lens technology to make it do more damage, research up on minituraization to make it smaller (and thus fit more on the ship), research manufacturing methods to make it cheaper, ect... And this is all just one component. None of this model I, II, III, ect...

Old ships would still use the outdated versions until retrofitted, which I imagine would make things a lot more complicated since the ship no longer is a collection of components and now the game has to remember the individual stats, but I think it would be more rewarding as a whole.

Imagine, say, the cities in Proportions where all of the mineral extraction, research technologies, shielding technologies, storage technologies... _Everything_, made the city better in some way.

Second is unset ship sizes. The ability to use a simple slider/text box to scale the size up and down to any value desired, as governed by some non-linear function. Ideally, hull technologies will increase the sizes that can be used before cost becomes incredibly prohibitive. So no more cases of having unused space on the ship becaue of odd-sized hull components, plus there's less concern with the enemy getting dreadnauts first. Everyone can build dreadnauts in the beginning, it's just a matter of how much they're willing to spend. This better reflects the mentality that _anything_ is possible with enough manufacturing capital, it's just that technology is what makes it feasable.

Finally, I'd like to see better upgrade management. In SEIV, upgrading from one facility to the next only halved the cost of the new facility. Thus, in games like Proportions, it was cheaper to build a minor city (cost of 15kT across the board) and upgrade it to a metropolis (cost of about 200kT across the board, saving a total of 85kT of production) than it was to build the metropolis outright. It'd be nice if the current facility only applied, say, 80% of it's value to the new facility.

[Suicide Junkie]

How would you handle damage if ships are not made up of components?

[Mylon]

Oh, I intended ships to still be made of components, I was just referring to the overall hull size being customizable (instead of limited to pre-set sizes). Thus, if you have a size 500kT hull and you fill it with 45kT components, you would only have 495kT used. You could either scale it back by 5 kT or scale it up by 40kT to elimate the excess space (and make the ship slightly cheaper) or make room for one extra component.

If gravity isn't an issue, space ships don't have to support their own weight, so there shouldn't be any limit on size. The limit should just be on how feasable it is to put it together, which is more a matter of how much the empire can pay.

edit: Oh wait, you were talking about the first suggestion I made. By all game purposes, yes, the ships will still be made of components, but for the purpose of programming and file structure, the game will have to remember each of the individual components instead of just remembering what model of component and how many. That is, using the one component with properties defined by current technology levels (instead of multiple components for each combination of technology levels), your old ship will have to be remembered as "Uber mega laser with lens tech 3, mini. tech 2, manuf. tech 5" instead of, "Uber mega laser CVIII".

Though if it stored it entirely based on stats ("Component name: Uber mega laser. Damage: 1337, range 2, size 35kT, ect...") then there could be some interesting possibilities... Imagine an engineering bay that subtle "optimized" your ships each turn they spent in the bay. You can research technologies to make your whole fleet better, or you can invest resources to make an extremely optimized fleet. Or your fleet just stumbles on an alien artifact that latches onto your hull and merges with it, increasing armor for that particular ship/fleet but refusing to give up any secrets. Or other fun stuff.

[Sabin]

I like that idea...have some of my own to propose. Someone mentioned firing arcs playing a role...which gives me the idea that perhaps some weapons can have "adjustable" firing arcs...say a "Guided Laser" which can be shot from the South Pole of a planet, that as it navigates to it's target that is orbiting above the North Pole, it loses power and accuracy, but can potentially hit and cause damage. Or missiles, that have fuel considerations...things like that.

Also, on the topic of Components...I very much like that idea. It can potentially simplify matters in ship design, and you have definately come across a potentially good idea. For example, it would be perfect for a Star Trek modification featuring the Borg - you can have incredibly huge ships, and that all of them can be adapted with "assimilated" technology on the fly...also, if new technology captured and then researched on-ship would be good: You can have mobile research stations that capture any ships that fly by...

[Baron Munchausen]

If you have played Starfury you have seen the new component system. And yes, it does allow essentially 'unlimited' levels of components without having to write out an entry for each one. It also allows component abilities based on more than one tech field, meaning you can have very complex situations such as missiles advancing in damage from warhead/explosives tech, advancing in speed from propulsion tech, and advancing in damage resistance from armor tech.

As for ship sizes, we seem to be stuck with the fixed sizes. Hopefully we can still persuade MM to use some sort of 'Quasi-newtonian' propulsion system so that there will be a logical relationship between ship size, engines installed, and performance. We shall see.

[Xaren Hypr]

Something that I want, is to be able to mod the ability to turn a facility on or off. SOmething like:

Can be disabled: yes/no

Got the urge for that ability when i was playing my first 'finite resources' game, and trying to manage my resource extractors (w/ no way to disable them, short of continuous scrap/build, it was an experience). I know it's already in beta, but it wouldn't be a bad thought, yes/no?

[Mylon]

Originally posted by 123456789 in the other suggestion thread:

- experience lets you buy more Racial Points

I soooo want this. I noticed races had exp in SEIV but unfortunately it didn't do anything. It'd be great to be able to play a race that gets more racial tech/advantages as time goes on and even better is playing "ancient" races that have been divorced from their supertech or whatnot in a fresh galaxy, too, being able to repeat the cycle so get to keep building up your race's abilities...

Likewise, there should be an option for AIs to auto-adjust to your experience, too. But yes, putting a usefulness to racial exp (that carried between games, even) would be wonderful.

[Suicide Junkie]

I don't see any benefit, there...

How exactly would it be good, and how would it avoid munchkin-ism?

[Mylon]

I always love a bit of RPG elements thrown in. It gives a form of continuity to link one game to the next. Even better is if you loose to the AI, you have a stronger race to try next time. It also allows players to discover new possibilities with their race otherwise totally too expensive and without modding.

As to avoid munchkinism... The players can already cheat anyway by modding their own game. I suggested scaling AIs to compete for those that want a challenge, and there's always the option of making the AI harder or giving them more resources to compensate, too.