SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Suicide Junkie]

Besides, you don't always want roman numerals in the names, and sometimes you want duplicates, etc.

Its more flexible this way.

What you can do is add the components to the end of the file while modding and while running/debugging with a test game.

Then go back and sort things nicely for the public release of your mod.

[Aloofi]

Research:
Research should not be based in the number of research points avaliable per turn, instead the number of research points should make for a percentage of the chance to discover the tech that its being researched. This way it will be more realistic. Research its not an exact science, in real life you can't tell when a research proyect will be acomplished.
Think about it. It could take anywhere between 1 and 10 turns to discover PD weapons, for example. Every game would be completely diferent. They way it is now I can predict almost to the minute when I'm gonna have my Meson BLaster VI. It could have a maximum of the equivalent to 30% research chance, and thus forcing the player to put any extra reasearch points into another research proyect. Maybe researching a new level of an already known tech should be easier than researching a completely new tech....
What about a random research tree?
Humm.............

[raynfala]

Originally posted by Aloofim:
Think about it. It could take anywhere between 1 and 10 turns to discover PD weapons, for example. Every game would be completely diferent. They way it is now I can predict almost to the minute when I'm gonna have my Meson BLaster VI. It could have a maximum of the equivalent to 30% research chance, and thus forcing the player to put any extra reasearch points into another research proyect.

Sounds cool, but then Aaron had better make sure that there's a random number generator seed that is exclusively devoted to tech breakthrough "rolls", and that this seed is stored to the save game file.

Otherwise, people will have a nasty habit of saving the game just before the end of a turn, hitting the next turn button, and reloading the game if their breakthrough "roll" fails.

Not that I've ever done anything like that before...

--Raynfala

[Ed Kolis]

MOO2 had random research costs (100%-200% the stated cost) but I never heard of people cheating like that... then again I never even thought of the idea so I wouldn't know

edit: another idea, someone might have posted this before, but an in-game communications log of all Messages sent, received, or intercepted by your empire! (at least SE4 lets you copy it out to a text file with a right-click menu - most games wouldn't support that at all! )

edit again: ah, one more thing - if there's not going to be a full-fledged Rules Description Language like in SSG, at least make the data files in CSV format - they might be harder to read, but they can be very easily imported into any spreadsheet or database program for advanced editing!

[ February 19, 2003, 04:00: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

[DavidG]

< /BEGIN RANT >

My wish is that MM would figure out what a "percentage" is. Oh like lets say you got a couple opposing ships at a range with a 10% hit chance. The ships (and training, racial stats) are identical except one has Combat sensors I giving plus 25% hit chance. Thus the chance to hit for that one ship should be 10% + 25% which of course = 12.5%. But oh no it doesn't it is acutaly 35%. So your little combat sensors have actually improved your accuracy 250%!! There are several other areas of the game such as race setup where you may think you are getting a certain "percentage" improvement but it is actually much differenct
< /END RANT >

[ February 21, 2003, 03:59: Message edited by: DavidG ]

[Phoenix-D]

Or it could mean it makes you 25% more likely to hit..which is exactly what it does.

Phoenix-D

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Or it could mean it makes you 25% more likely to hit..which is exactly what it does.

Phoenix-D

Does not. Are you disagreeing with the example I gave were your to hit chance was improved 250%??

[ February 21, 2003, 04:46: Message edited by: DavidG ]

[Puke]

regarding randomized research, i must point to an example from another empire building game. Imerialism II, if you have ever played it, had a very nice research modle.

prerequisites were randomized, within a pool. for example, road building required maybe 2 out of a possible 5 base technologies. saw mills, required 2 out of another pool of 5, with maybe some overlap - but each would not require the same tech.

i dont know if this makes sense to you. let me try again.

tech A, B, C, D, & E are base technologies, low on the research tree.

tech 1 requires two techs from the group ABCD and tech 2 requires two techs from the group BCDE, but their prerequisites may not overlap. so 1 may need A+B, and 2 may need D+E, but they must not both need tech B. or they must not both need the same tech..

and the whole tech tree went like this. and most of the pre-requisites made some sort of sense, even given their random nature.

but sure, random technology costs would be the sissy way of doing it.

and while im on a drunken rant, let me tell you that Imperialism and Imperialism 2 were MAN's empire games! politics mattered! strategy was important! 1 was more political manuvering and turmoil, 2 was more resource raping conquest. they were both great games, and still worthy to play today. Trade Empires was written by the same company, and is possibly the greatest economic / merchantile sim of all time. In short, Frog City is probably one of the most ingenious development houses on the face of the planet, bar none. if you have not played their games, you should go pick them up on the discount shelf, or order them Online. you have not played a real empire building game unless you have played these. SE4 and its brethren are alot of fun, but it cant compare.

of course, you cant blow up suns in the Frog City games, and as far as i can figure, its not so easy to make mods. so you are all cursed with my presence.

[Aloofi]

That sounds good, Puke, but being easily moddable its a must. Otherwise how can I "fix" what I don't like?

My greatest wish for SE5 its to be even more modable than SE4.

[Baron Munchausen]

Let me take this opportunity to bring up again the idea of 'types' of research. Doesn't it seem odd that you can channel ALL of your empire's research into some physics related project like propulsion, then whip-saw it into a completely unrelated project like bio-weapons the next? This is bizarre. We need different 'types' of research just like there are different 'types' of resources. There are at least 4 clear major types of sciences:

Physics/Astrophysics, Chemical, Bio-medical, Psych/social

Then there are 'technology' fields that might not be pure sciences but are pretty elaborate and can be justified as independent fields of research. Engineering, for example. It needs physics for basic facts about structure and stress, but can also involve chemistry (materials). I guess you'd have to make Engineering a field that requires several types of research to advance a level.

If we had four seperate types of research facilities producing these different kinds of research, and science/tech fields could require one or more than one 'type' of research, it would be a bit harder to just rush down the tech trees.

[ February 22, 2003, 05:13: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]