SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Starhawk]

You know what else would be cool?

Messenger skiffs

As in if you want to send a message to another race you have to send a courior ship but meh that might be going too far.

[Cheeze]

I'd like SE5 to allow you to review, edit and cancel Messages you send to other empires.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Cheeze:
I'd like SE5 to allow you to review, edit and cancel Messages you send to other empires.

I agree, this is a must in SEV.

[Stavetor]

Here's my $0.02:

1. Currently, bLasting a planet's inhabitants into oblivion from space and then setting up a new colony is much easier than invasion, so much so that building troops and troop transports is, IMO, basically a waste of time. To this end, I'd like to see ship-based weapons (with a few exceptions, like Planetary Napalm) made less effective vs. planets, and troops more effective and both faster and cheaper to produce.

2. Expanding on that idea, I'd like to see an option for some kind of tactical planetside combat. It doesn't need be anything complex, but it would be nice to watch (and direct) as my forces take the enemy world's capital.

3. Maybe different planet types, e.g. volcanic, barren, terrestrial, oceanic, etc. I always thought "Rock, Ice, Gas Giant" was kind of a weird, arbitrary selection.

4. On the RTS combat issue, I think it would be a very interesting option, adding an interesting new twist to the gameplay, but the keyword there is "option". God forbid that it become the default. That would be one of the signs of the Apocalypse, wouldn't it?

5. Modular ship construction- each size ship would have a certain # of hardpoints for Weapons, Engines, Armor, and Other (Bridge, Life Support, Crew Quarters, Shields, etc). Weapons would have firing arcs determined by the hardpoint position they occupy, and the ship's various sides would also have armor Ratings, meaning that hitting a ship repeatedly on the same side will be more effective than from all around. On the flip side, maneuvering one ship around another to expose different flanks will be a viable defensive strategy.

6. Ship movement in combat would be a matter of maneuverability as well as speed. Depending on size, engine quality, etc. ships must move forward (or reverse?) a certain distance between turns, depending on their speed at the time. It just seems odd that right now, given the same type of engines, a dreadnought is just as maneuverable as an escort.

7. This could easily be done now with a simple AI mod, but has anyone noticed how the default AI never seems to accept Subjugation treaties? They will surrender to you completely, but they never let you Subjugate them. Weird.

8. Somewhere else, I saw the possibility for "either/or" tech requirements mentioned- i.e. research in tech X requires a certain level of research in either Tech Y or Tech Z, but not necessarily both. Also, this same poster mentioned the possibility of exclusive techs, meaning that you could research "Good" or "Evil", but once you go down a certain path, you can never get any techs belonging to the other, even by trade or conquest. These are cool ideas, and I support them.

-Stavetor

[Chronon]

Originally posted by Stavetor:

3. Maybe different planet types, e.g. volcanic, barren, terrestrial, oceanic, etc. I always thought "Rock, Ice, Gas Giant" was kind of a weird, arbitrary selection.

Excellent idea! I'd also like to see more penalties for worlds with harsh environments - so there is more incentive to use the climate change facilities. Also, I think that lifeforms coming from rock planets should never have undomed colonies on gas giants and vice versa - the conditions are just too alien for them to thrive.

[Suicide Junkie]

IMO, troops are too powerful right now... they win or lose pretty much instantly.

Managing the troops you have is somewhat of a hassle, though...
More flexible capture-related strategies are needed, and some troop-strategies for ground combat would be good too.
- Hold out for reinforcements
- Bombard & Defend
- Neutral/Normal
- Full assault

Having population produce "mobile" militia each turn automatically would be cool. If you strip them off too fast, happiness and creation rates would drop...
A bunch of mods add infantry troops, which are pretty much what this would be.

Experience for troops? Oooh, that would be cool.
Collect and promote the veteran infantry and tank commanders for the homeworld push

[Colonel]

Originally posted by Starhawk:
Meh passenger liners would be cool instead of just the bulk transports that are used in game I mean think about it a civilian transport would not be the same kind that you'd use to pick up 10,000 troops with.

But yeah to add specifics to what i was saying, every starsystem would have a single space-port in it just as in SEIV but instead of just a mysterious form of resource conveyance you would actually have to send freighters to that world to pick up whatever resources were brought there during the turn (the transfer of resources to the spaceport would be automatic not involving any freighters) and bring them to the nearest refinery world or to whatever other destination you tell the freighter or freighters to go to.

And you can form a convoy much the way you'd form a normal warfleet except you would be able to give it orders like (proceed to the nearest refinery or in the case of an alliance proceed to X race's nearest refinery) and they would automatically begin heading in that direction.

ok this is good but in order to get rid of the micro management this would cause i would suggest a screen where you spend X number of X resourses to set up a convoy to X system-must have spaceport

[Klebdog]

Gentlemen,
First I want to say "Thank You" for making a product that has given me and my friends years of enjoyment. It is truly satisfying playing you games (SEIII, SEIV) and having the ability to mold it to our wants and needs that keeps it interesting on so many levels. We are very excited about the prospect of SE V and we are eagerly awaiting it's release. The reason I am writing though is to propose some ides that we have talked about that we would like to see. All of these idea's come from a compilation of several
games that we have played over the years that had some cool features but never seemed to be able to put them all together. Your game is the only one
that I have seen that has been able to even come close to this.

1. The idea of a Galactic Senate or Forum (Someplace where races can setup sanctions, outlaw weapon types etc)
2. The establishment of Neutral Zones on races borders (Someplace where races can setup trading stations to maintain communications with other races, like Babylon 5 or Star Trek)
3. Pirates and Privateers (Birth of the Federation had a cool feature that required you to guard your trade routes or they could be
raided. This would prolong the life of smaller type ships and allow other empires to openly disrupt trade between other races. Also, it would
provide another source of income for the empire. 4. Visible trade routes (with a on/off toggle for viewing purposes).This would be the second part of the Pirates/Privateers idea. Like I said
I saw the idea in a few games but Birth of the Federation had the best use of it. It required no ships to be built to travel the routes it just
established the actual routes they would travel if they could be seen. The only ships seen were the escort ships protecting the routes or the pirates raiding them.
5. Weapons Arcs, another cool feature that I have seen in quite a few games is weapons arcs of fire. Pax Imperia "Eminent Domain" had the best Version of this but it would balance tactical combat for smaller ships more true to life. Larger ships move slow and have heavier more
damaging weapons and smaller ships strike faster and more often and can out maneuver larger ships. I think this is a dynamic that SE V could exploit to it's advantage in the combat model, of course this would work better in turn based combat but Pax Imperia pulled it off in real time to some extent.
6. Turret Mounts, SE IV made excellent use of mount types, but I think turret mounts would tie in nicely to weapon arc features. Turret mounts could allow more weapons to be mounted on the outside of the ship and cover a larger arc. But these weapons could also be easily targeted and
damaged before other critical systems or spinal mounted weapons.
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player. Maybe allowing 1 Dreadnaught and 2 Battleships per planet owned or just enabling player to turn off massive ship hulls if they want. This would force players to utilize smaller ships more effectively and give them longer life. It would also reflect real life more accurately (even the U.S. has NO active Battleships in service because of there cost and need).
8. Some type of war weariness program. The endless AI wars waged against players, even when the AI is losing horribly still wage for decades. Even the most war like race (with maybe the exception of a hive mentality or Klingon type empire) would pause to re-arm, re-fit and re-train.

These are all just ideas that me and my friends have "what if'd" and have tried to MOD into our own Version of SE IV to see if we could get them
to work. I still think you guys do an awesome job at what you do and look forward to seeing the end product no matter what!

[Chronon]

Originally posted by Klebdog:
7. Finally, limit the use of Dreadnaught and Battleship type ships. These types of ships should be monumental under takings by a civilization and they should represent the true power of that race. Having a fleet of 800 dreadnaughts just cheapens them and doesn't really impress the manpower it takes to run a behemoth like that on the player.

Klebdog, I think you've got a very good point here. I would like to see much smaller fleets in SE5. Fleets of 100 ships should be very hard to build and maintain, and every ship should count. Perhaps a much steeper curve on the costs of the hulls and a higher cost for the larger mounts would help. Larger ships should be very expensive to maintain relative to the overall economy of the empire.

All the excellent ideas here about captains, crews, and admirals, would benefit from having smaller fleet sizes as well - each ship and crew would be more heroic and "real" and less of a statistic. And naming ships would be more rewarding, too (BB 0312 is just so uninspiring).

Plus with real-time combat, smaller fleets would be easier to manage (and easier on the CPU, too) - especially if there are going to be weapon arcs and directional shields, etc.

[Colonel]

I think there should be a ship componet that would resupply ships in space but it would take to much space for a use on a ship size. So you could use space stations,star base, and battle stations as stageing points-if built off away from planets