SE4 Advanced brainstorming

[Urendi Maleldil]

Web Mines are good. I haven't finished implementing a good warhead and mine system yet. They'll probably exist as Ion Warheads just to be consistent with existing SE4 tech.

I already have several facilities in the Psych area that lower anger, increase production, and decrease the chance of bad events or intel. It might be interesting to have a mobile ship component that does something similar.

[Urendi Maleldil]

The organic racial trait and the psychic racial trait depend heavily on the Biotech and Psychology trees respectively. I currently need more low-end (1-5) and high-end (20-30) stuff for normal races on those trees.

I also haven't settled on a ship hull size scheme yet. Right now I'm using stock hulls. Like regular SE4 they get progressively bigger. But this may change. What do you think?

[Suicide Junkie]

Gritecon style hulls are a good alternative.

Use maintenance reduction abilities and component scale mounts to make the average ship cost (ie build time) be proportional to size squared.
The average ship maintenance cost can at the same time be proportional to the square root of the size.

Then you can give all the ship hulls right from the beginning, and they'll get used.

[Urendi Maleldil]

That's not a bad idea. I may do something similar, but I probably won't use the system as it is. I want to avoid scale mounts. Just a personal preference.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, it really isn't doable without mounts.

You could mix it with the P&N style "budget" "normal" and "premium" component mounts if you wanted to... that would hide the scale mountness of it.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Are there any bugs in SE4 that you'd like to see corrected in SE4 Advanced?

Obviously I can't mess with the .exe, but there are a lot of things I can do by stretching the data files.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, if it is just in the datafiles it probably isn't a bug per se.

Intel and mines are the biggest issues, IMO. Too much of an "all-or-nothing" system there.

For mines, I suggest removing minesweepers completely, and then limiting mines to 15 per sector and enough damage per mine to deal no more than 5% damage to a ship.
That way, minefields have to be spread around in a system, along common paths, and in rings around high value locations, rather than just piling them all up on warppoints and colonies.

The mines won't vaporize fleets, but they are guaranteed to at least do some damage and slow the enemy down when they're in your territory.


Intel...
Definitely have a "saboteurs" tech area which is disableable in the game setup. All offensive projects should require this tech, which starts at max level.
Then turning off damaging intel is one click away for the game masters who don't want it.
Sticking with just spying operations makes intel less overwhelming, but still useful.

Counter intel will also need to be reworked, eliminated or converted to "intel sabotage" projects so that you can't just make a magic wall against spies.

Having helpful intel projects to use on your friends is also a nice idea. For example:
- Officer Exchange Program: INCREASES the target ship's experience by +1%
- Polluter sabotage: INCREASES the target planet's conditions rating by a small amount.

Increasing the target's happiness is a good one too. Propaganda project maybe?
There aren't too many intel projects which actually work in reverse. Supply drain for example can't be negative, unfortunately.

[douglas]

We're talking about drones here, they don't combine into stacks.

[Suicide Junkie]

Right. Mines would, drones wouldn't.