Psst, over here, I got the latest patch status... shhhh

[thorfrog]

I have to say I would like to know if things like drones, palaces, ect will ever be finally implemented. No one has really come out to say either way.

[chewy027]

maybe if MM would give us a list of things that they are at least CONSIDERING to include in SE4 we could quell some of our expectations

[geoschmo]

Dmm,

I won't say there aren't features I'd like to see added. Your comments are not out of line. There would be no reason to get personal against you for expressing an opinion. But you need to keep a couple things in mind.

First, just because an idea sounds easy to code, doesn't mean it is easy to code. And even if the feature itself wouldn't take a lot of code to add, it could cause problems with other areas of the program that could take a total rewrite of whole sections to implement them.

Secondly, remember that this isn't Aaron's full time job. Or at least it wasn't Last time I heard. My understanding is that he goes to work and punches a clock just like the rest of us poor slobs, and then comes home to his new wife and still manages to find time to work on SEIV and make improvments. And as well as SEIV is doing, I don't think he makes enough off it to hire a team of programmers like the big boys do.

Lastly, SEIV isn't the only iron in his fire either. He's working on the RPG at least. Maybe SE5 for all we know, although I haven't heard anything about that. I am just guessing.

Personally, I have got a lot more play time out a $35.00 piece of software than I would have any resonable expectation of getting. So I tend towards being satisfied even if there are things I would like to see added at some point in the future.

Geoschmo

[tesco samoa]

Perhaps after a year or two (or when some other goal is reached )maybe open source the game. That way if someone wants to code tcpip play into they can. Or something along those lines.

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Inter arma silent leges

[dmm]

My disappointment is because it seems as though Aaron is spending his programming time squashing extremely rare bugs rather than adding features (some of which were promised from the get-go).

I've been programming, in a lot of different Languages, for 25 years. I agree with you that some of the "easy" changes that people have asked for are not at all easy. And some "easy" changes would flummox the AI, so those aren't really easy. (Although a simple on/off flag fixes that problem.) But one doesn't need access to the code to know that some suggested changes would indeed be easy. It's just obvious (to any experienced programmer, that is).

People have been asking: why is it dead around here? The answer is: what's the point of discussing ideas for improvements and new features when the only thing that patches have been doing is fixing bugs?

My advice to Aaron is: spend a little bit of time putting in a few easy new features, and watch the excitement soar!

[Suicide Junkie]

BTW, is anything happening with the unit groupings problem (all sats forming one stack, rather than scattered defensively around a planet)?

We really should have a formation or cluster size setting for Groups of units.

[Dracus]

I would like to see the ablity to add more planet types. Argon is in the files but can not be used.