Space Empires 5

[Tnarg]

Weapons that have an area effect damage. Something to break up tight formations, screw up fighter swarms, and just plain wreak havoc.

[Suicide Junkie]

- Allied victory.

This is exactly the same as the "Peace for 0.1 years" victory condition.
It requires that all empires have met and have trade alliance or better with every other race.

[Will]

Ok, a lot of what I would like to see in a possible attempt at SEV has already been said. So, to keep from being a broken record, I'm going to attempt to rate them on likelyhood.

Likely:[*]Expanded population properties - populations have specific environmental tolerances, abilities, attitudes, etc., that remain with them throughout the game. No more getting a different empire's population, which automatically becomes clones of your own population that breathes different air. Some attributes of population: size (space-faring mice, or perhaps elephants?), strength (one elephant can drag a tree... how many mice does it take?), *I can't think of any others at the moment, but you get the idea*.[*]More Detailed Planetary Stats - related to the one above. Planets should have varying amounts of space (with population, cargo, and facilities taking up the same space), gravity (with certain populations only tolerating a specific range of gravity), atmospheric gas DENSITY (a population might need X density of methane, but anything more than Y density of oxygen is poisonous, and total density has to be more than Z, etc), temperature, radiation or lack thereof, planetary volatility (think earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, etc.).[*]No limit on total empires - I'm not saying allow 100 empires on game startup (although some might want to do that for one insane reason or another). Currently, if through the course of a game, the total number of empires that ever existed reaches 20, no more may come into existance. Change the setup of empires to be contained in a linked list, instead of what now appears to be an array. Perhaps have an option for a completely new AI to pop up around turn 150 in some forgotten corner of the quadrant.[*]Randomness to damage - As it is now, weapons either have a direct hit, or a direct miss. I would just once like to see that APB cause 17kT damage instead of 30kT, because of a slight targeting mistake. Have the ability for components to be disabled (well, you slagged the torpedo tubes pretty good, but you didn't destroy that Last 1kT, so it can magically shoot at you still), with different components having differing amounts of tolerance to damage. Also, differing types of damage, i.e., flinging a big chunk up depleted uranium at high velocities is going to cause quite a different type of damage than, say, a beam-type weapon, or an explosion. Have shields work on a % basis... A DUC pellet comes flying in, shields are weakened a little, and take some damage away from the impact. A beam is partially blocked, but some gets through, etc. The different damage types, and % defense would actually probably be in this next section, though...

Hey, it could happen:[*]Seperate AI engine - Whether it be a more complex scripting thing (more work for Aaron, to make an interpreter for it), or somehow using outside programs/DLLs, have the ability to directly manipulate the AI. One AI in a certain situation could think it's in "Infrastructure" phase, and another in the same situation could think it's in "Attack" phase. One could have this pattern of movement, another could have that... It would be nice to completely model the AI behaviour, but I don't think it would be done. Definitely more likely for a combat-only than for the rest of the game.[*]Coordinate system for maps - this would be an awesome improvement to the current grid system. However, I don't think it's too likely to happen. For one, this was requested a lot for SEIV (along with hex-grids, if it had to be grids), and it didn't happen there. When you think about it, it's just a whole lot easier to make a grid system than a coordinate system (or a hex-grid).[*]Newtonian Movement - the coordinate system would be made just that much better if ships, units, etc. had inertia. Coordinates and inertia, I think, would be a possibility to SEV. Add in gravity, and it gets really iffy... but that would be really cool. If all of that's put in, it only makes sense to have stellar bodies orbit. But I know how much work it would have to be to create a system like that, and I'm quite content with Q-N movement at the moment

WOW! That'd be neat, but it's not going to happen [*]Firing Arcs - coordinates are pretty much a prerequisite for this to work, and I've already said I'm not counting on coordinate-based maps when/if SEV is released. It would be very cool to have firing arcs, but there's the extra work needed to make such a system, and the problem of creating an even bigger learning curve for the game; for both humans and AI.[*]3-D anything - I just don't see this happening. It's gotta be hard enough to work it in just two dimensions, and then you have to figure out a way to present it. Aaron seems to be limited to two dimensions, from looking at all his work thus far.

And, just some other things that I'm not going to rate/comment on, and would like:[*]Area effect damage[*]Simultaneous construction projects[*]Starting tech levels (ok, small comment; perhaps just allow X amount of research points that are allocated to various areas BEFORE 2400.0, AKA first turn. Instead of X tech levels)

Things that are just yuck:[*]Real-Time (difficult to pull off correctly, and "correctly" varies greatly from person to person)[*]Government modifiers (this should be handled with the individual races, IMHO. It would basically be another "Culture modifier", and anything beyond that is way too drastic).[*]Tactical Ground Combat (I always thought that this would basically be either a seperate game within the game, or completely useless, there is no real happy medium)

I've missed quite a few things, but I like most of the ideas in this thread, so that gives a general idea

[Phoenix-D]

"More Detailed Planetary Stats - related to the one above. Planets should have varying amounts of space (with population, cargo, and facilities taking up the same space), gravity (with certain populations only tolerating a specific range of gravity), atmospheric gas DENSITY (a population might need X density of methane, but anything more than Y density of oxygen is poisonous, and total density has to be more than Z, etc), temperature, radiation or lack thereof, planetary volatility (think earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, etc.)."

Why. Can we say "micromanagement HELL?"

Newtonian movement and gravity: I know of very few *sims* that even try, and these guys only have to deal with a few ships at a time. SE needs to deal with hundreds (and don't even suggest dropping the scale just for this..)

"Coordinate system for maps - this would be an awesome improvement to the current grid system. However, I don't think it's too likely to happen. For one, this was requested a lot for SEIV (along with hex-grids, if it had to be grids), and it didn't happen there. When you think about it, it's just a whole lot easier to make a grid system than a coordinate system (or a hex-grid)."

How is this any different than what we have now? A grid system is just a slightly modifed cordinate system with low grain (i.e. you don't get 1.45352653, just 1)

Phoenix-D

[ July 12, 2002, 05:39: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Will]

It wouldn't be micromanagement hell if the game told you what populations could live there. Could have a system level icon for your own population like there is now. Green star means your population can live there comfortably. Red star means not-so-comfortably. When examining the planet, it can show habitability Ratings for each known species. Could make a switch somewhere that changes the system-level icons to be for a population other than your own. More detail doesn't always mean more micro-management

The coordinates don't need to be taken to extreme numbers of decimals. A simple map having a 130.0x130.0 system would be fine (and still quite an improvement over the current 13x13). Newtonian movement wouldn't be feasible with the grid now used in SEIV, it would be far too choppy. There would still be a "grid" for combat purposes, so ships don't have to be at the exact coordinates for combat, just within a certain block.

[Mephisto]

IMHO Phoenix-D is right about the MMH. I don't see why adding lots of variables to the planets will make it any more interesting. It is just more moving around people for the best location.
A script language for the AI would be just neat and variable damage/damage absorption for different types of incoming damage would be cool. Further it would open a great deal of variety to the weapons and it would be much harder to build/find the "perfect" weapon.

[Zarix]

SE5 might have some kind of 3d. As we can see in "Call for Artist" thread Malfador is looking for 3d artists.

A lot of little features could make the game more realistic but they have some problems. Besides micro management they would increase the size of save game files. Already in multiplayer games the files can be pretty big.