SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[AgentZero]

Oh, & just posted this tirade over on the SE4 mailing list...

Personally I just can't understand how anyone can think that inter-species trade without a single agreed form of currency would be possible. The argument is made that the existing resources are the currency of trade but they're not. They're raw materials. How many countries trade soley with raw materials even today? I bet you could count them on one hand, but only if you didn't have any fingers (or a thumb!) My argument in favour of money can be exemplified by looking at Britain.
As we all know, Britain was at one point the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. They virtually unrivalled in their superiority. Sure they were challanged, but look how that ended. Now, did Britain have enormous reserves of raw resources?
No.
She imported virtually everything. And how did she accomplish this? By building a vast trading empire that brought in vast ammounts of, you guessed it, MONEY! By importing raw resources from her colonies, refining them, and selling the finished product (obviously at considerably higher cost than the materials alone) to other countries, Britain made lots and lots and lots of money. And with all this money, she paid for her soldiers, guns, cannons and ships that kept the empire together. (Her downfall was becoming to confident in her superiority and allowing other nations a surpass her in new technologies, which resulted in her beginning to be an importer of finished products, instead of an exporter but that's a whole different topic).
Now, is an economy like that possible in SE5?
No.
Why? Because it just doesn't work without money. But it would be fantastic in SE5. It would allow smaller empires and minor races to actually compete, by building up their trading infrastructre. An example of how it might work:
On a planet, preferably one already producing a high income level, the player builds a Trade Centre. This allows the planet to be 'connected' to any planet belonging to a neutral/allied race. After a certain number of turns spent 'establishing' the trade route, it would begin producing income which would be a factor of the two planets' average income with a distance factor thrown into the equation to make things interesting (after all, exotic goods from far away fetch a higher price than those available from the local grocery store). Then facilities like Manufacturing Centre (uses a certain amount of resources each turn but boosts trade income by X%), could be built. Others like Galactic Bank, Foreign Exchange, Distribution Centre, etc could be built which would all boost the trade income. Resarch in trade technology could also provide a boost. Tricky thing is though, the income boost is for you only. So say you have a trade route pulling in 10 Galactic Credits a turn. The empire you have the trade route with, all other factors being equal, also makes 10GC a turn. But, after building a bunch of the above facilities, the total bonus for that route is say, 100%. So, that trade route is now making you 20GC a turn, while the other guy still only gets 10. AND, if all the trade facilities you build also increase the income earned from the planet, the net increase will be even more!

So, what it all boils down to is that with money in SE5, small empires, with a bit of shrewd negotiation would be able to make large ammounts of money which could they could then buy raw resources required to build the ships needed to protect themselves from those not interested in trading. And given how much we all love the underdog, is that really something you'd like to have missing from SE5?

[Karibu]

This would be nice addition for SEV. A facility (ie. huge linear accelerator which goes through planet) which would allow to move a planet. For example, 1 sector in a turn. Of course, the cost of the facility would have to be at least equal to system gravity shield, so it would be not easy or effortless to do it.

Think, what kind of defence it would be to locate all planets in a system above the only warp point. 1000 WP:s to fire against attacking fleet before they get a shot

[Atrocities]

The option to customize your own homeworld. Set the look, the color, the clouds, the sea's, etc.

[twilight]

We can spend research and intelligence points on projects. A third nice thing would be economy points, produced by banks or traders.

There could be a kind of counter-economy-project (like the counter-intelligence), trying to disturb other econmies. Perhaps after success of own projects you get ressources or a nice boost of research, or you force a certain ai to make a better treaty, so the trade values raises and whatever. Perhaps some projects could improve the relations to other peoples or force another race to make peace with you because of the economical situation.

To buy out another empire planet by planet, ship by ship would be another idea, but not a good one if you ask me. But I would mod it away, so please feel free to do it

Sorry if someone wrote similar ideas. Please don't expect someone to read that 100! pages

[twilight]

When I played the humans I tried to rename the system into Sol. Hmhm, not possible. To rename systems would be a nice and neccessary option for fun I think. But in this moment I had another idea:

Imagine, you don't only customize a race's abilites and whatever. You also customize their home system. Imagine to play the human race and in what universe ever you created, the home system is Sol. There are 1 to x Warppoints and they lead to a completely unknown world, but your home is the same.

[clark]

Suggestions once more, sorry for any repeats...

The ability to name just about anything in-game. Solar systems, planets (as with SEIV), etc. etc.

The ability to classify enemy ships. Right now, with SE4, all the enemy ships appear in one long list. After contact, let us see the breakdown of classification as we see with our own ships. Let us be able to click on an enemy ship in the solar system view and have it pull up any info we have related to it (size, weapons, etc.)

Make this an option on set up, ships in an enemy fleet are not shown with a total number, but a guess of how many are in there (1-5, 6-10, 11-20, 21-40, etc.) This way fleets can have another tactical advantage- this might also allow for long range sensors to act as counter, thus increasing their value.

If possible, instead of trying to guess what all should be included in the text files, try to make it open ended so that the user can define what the lines do themselves. Not sure how to go about it, but perhaps there is a way that the user can define what "general restrictions/enable 1,2,3 etc" means.

Again, try to include user defined resources so we can change the pics of the exsisting resources and add more. Allow us to change the name of the resources so we can call it "money" or "industry" instead of organics or radioactives. It's just a label afterall, give it to us. If at all possible, allow us to include more user defines resources- they don't have to be used in the stock game, and they probably shouldn't, but the option will allow for more variety and greater ability for the creativity of the Users to flourish.

I'm glad to hear the change in intel, but please put a direct link to it on the main screen like tech in SE4. Hiding it in diplomacy can be a bother since it adds in an extra click. Perhaps from a UI perspective you might allow a right click on an enemy ship/planet/whatever to link to an option to target an intel project against that particular thing. With SE4, I often have to write down the name of the ship or planet that I want to target.

Spice up ground combat to include options to train troops (have it mean something). Ships have experience, so should troops. If at all possible, use the SEIV space combat system for SEV ground combat (or even the SEV space combat system if that is doable)

Empire wide facilities similar to system wide facilities.

Another alternative to population/cargo transport micromanagement is to instutite an invisible cargo system whereby the user selects a planet and then selects a destination, the computer calculates a time penalty to figure out how long it takes for that cargo/population to move to the destination (or it could just be a user defined flat rate of X turns by warp point distance). Perhaps it can be constructed so that in game, players can build invisible "transport fleets" that allow for greater amounts of cargo to be moved, or at faster rates. There are quite a few options with that. The point being, you handle the resources in a similar manner- space ports magically dumps all your resources whereever you need them in SE4, so why not apply the same logic to people and cargo in a slightly different manner.

The above will help decrease the micro-management that can detract from some of the larger games (or when you have umpteen races)

[Fyron]

There is no need to be sorry for repeats...

[Colonel]

Have a tech that would allow certian sized ships to split apart in or out of combat, You could spilt manually or do it automatically where the computer would take 1/2 or 1/3 of ship depending on how many sections it splits into.

Weapons Idea.
I think thier should be certian weapons (mainly missle types, These types of weapons would make the shields drop for X number of turns and then reraise, this would eventually be over run by tech.

[Kana]

I would like to see the ability to pick which satellite, fighter or drone to launch, and how many...

I would like to have available the ability to make different types of munitions (ie missle types) for weapons with the munitions trait. That way you can program a type of weapon (missle rack), with so many shots available (magazine of say 4 or 6 missiles), and then be able to load the weapon with all of the same munition type, or multiple types...and maybe an option to pick which munition to use, or the order that they will be fired in.

Thanks,

Kana
In quest of options for an Star Fleet Battles type mod...

[Tanus]

I also would like to have more of a SEIII type construction - lay down the hull, and then build it up from there.
That would add a whole new element and purpose in small "lightning strikes" to wipe out hulls in progress.

But to balance this (so that you can't lay the hull and complete in 1 turn with tons of repair facilities), it should combine SEIII and IV styles.

Where in SEIV it may take 6 turns to build the ship, then it appears fully complete in orbit, the hull should appear in orbit first turn, then take an additional 5 turns to complete, regardless of how many stacked repair facilities you have. The ship would still be 'being built', and use up 1 space yard for that time, but the ship would be in orbit and vulnerable.

eg. You decide to build battlecruiser A, which will take 5 turns. Next turn a BC hull appears in orbit, maybe with a counter on it - 4 turns remaining. Next turn, 3 turns remaining... etc, until it is complete, and then fully functional