Space Empires 5

[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I kind of like this energy/ordinance idea. It adds some detail, without too much detail. Running out of ordinance has obvious implications as far as missles and projectile weapons. What would be the implications for the ship as a whole if it used up all it's ordinance and still had energy? Would it still be able to move, just not shoot, except for energy weapons? You have engines and energy weapons using a "tiny" amount of ordinance. What is this? Spare parts maybe? Would a complete lack of ordinance then cause engines to not function?

Geo

Take the idea of splitting supplies into Energy and Ordinance one step further -- perhaps repairing damaged components takes from the generic pool of Ordinance (said now also representing spare parts, as well as just bullets*) ... ? Might make establishing forward -bases- more important, especially in High tech games (instead of just slappign a Repair Bay III on every warship design, heh).

It would also help if SE5 tracked partial damage from one turn to the next -- then, lack of Ordinance-supplies could cause slow, progressive damage to all components that have to go without (in reverse order to your repair priorities, IOW, whatever you thinkis most important to fix, will be the Last thing to wear out for lack fo spare parts). So, no, your engines wouldn't stop working because you lacked spare parts ... but they will eventually break if you don't resupply the ship soon.

An increased need for spare parts based on higher and higher technology base could also provide a reason for building ships with "obsolete" technology -- you may be able to build better, but the "old-tech" stuff is FAR easier to keep in good repair "nowadays" ...

You'd also want to consider splitting the Supply storage component into "Magazine" and "Batteries" components.

[TerranC]

I thought we already talked about Ordinance in that Micro/Macrodrone thread.

[capnq]

And I thought the Last time it was discussed, somebody pointed out the difference between ordnance ( = military ammunition) and ordinance ( = governmental law).

[Will]

Originally posted by capnq:
And I thought the Last time it was discussed, somebody pointed out the difference between ordnance ( = military ammunition) and ordinance ( = governmental law).

Hey, who needs WMGs when you have red tape?

[Mephisto]

I still don't see why you all want to split the "conditions" field into different variables like gravity and radiation only to manipulate all the variables again with one facility. I do however think it would be nice to have the "conditions" field related to a race, not to all races.
The "ammo" thing would be nice IMHO and I have thought about it myself some time ago. I think "ammo" or better "military stuff" (small weapons, personnel, ship weapons...) could be the 4th resource, but could not be harvested but must be produced with the other resources. It would be stored like all the other resources and distributed over the resupply bases. Further, the actually demand for "military stuff" should exceed the possible production in a large war so that you are forced to think about building new ships or resupply your fleets. Further, an ally could actually help you in a war with delivering supplies and would not be forced to enter the war (like the US supported England in both WW). A superpower could easily fight a war through its minions this way without ever firing a single shoot itself.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by capnq:
And I thought the Last time it was discussed, somebody pointed out the difference between ordnance ( = military ammunition) and ordinance ( = governmental law).

Yikes Sorry 'bout that guys -- shoulda checked the dictionary before typing. Is military ammunition pronounced ORD-NANCE or is it still pronounced ORD-IN-ANCE despite the spelling?

[Arkcon]

Okay, under the heading of Space Empires 5 -- that is, new code changes that alter the game from SE4 --> SE5 the same way game play was altered from SE3 --> SE4.

In SE4 we have asteroids which are convertible to planets of random type and atmosphere. How about in SE5 we have rocky asteroid fields, icy cometary debris(is that what's meant by ort clouds?) and storms made mostly of ionized gasses.

We would have individual components for condensing each into planets -- asteroids to rock, comets to ice, storms to gas giants. So you know what you're going to get, and what not to bother with.

Under the heading of Oh No, how about a switch to allow different planet types to have significantly different relative amounts of resources: rock planets are mineral rich, ice planets have lots of extractable organic building blocks frozen in them, gas giants are very rich in radioactives, but each type would be lacking in the others.

The result would be that people would have to remote mine, and defend their remote miners or trade with each other heavily. If by chance a gas giant race found one of the rare gas giants that was 80 % minerals -- they would have to hold that planet at all costs if they wanted to build ships at all. This would be cruel to the newbies, but some experts would like the challenge of overcoming the handicap.

Oh, and lets lose this asteroids with 200%+ resources. Maybe it's needed for remote mining to be usefull, but when it becomes a planet, re-roll the stats or decrement them by some amount. I don't see why we need this at all -- no one seems to have jumped on re-writing the AI to take advantage of this. Maybe remote mining should produce more or decrease the value less rapidly instead.

[ July 13, 2002, 13:34: Message edited by: Arkcon ]