SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Argitoth]

TCP/IP Multiplayer game --> QUICKHOSTING <-- when all players have submitted turns, generate next turn.

[AgentZero]

The SE3 ship purchase menu. That window was a lot simpler way of quickly getting planets and spaceyards quickly working on building a new fleet with significantly less menu-clicking as in SE4. Perhaps a few refinements as well, such filters to select the system, and only planets and/or shipyards.

Also, I'm in favour of bringing back SE3s Repair/Build Queue window, and also the ability for Bases to have more than one Space Yard comp on them. The main reason I'd like to see this is so that ship hulls can have the requirement 'Can Only be Built By Base with X number of SYs'. A tech that decreases the size of SYs would also make this interesting since you'd have the choice of researching bigger bases or smaller SYs (to fit more into an exisiting base) in order to build your big new Battle Cruisers.

Also, I'd like to see techs that once researched provide immediate bonuses in certain areas. So research in one area might uncover some new mining technique that could be applied to existing mines without needing to refit them, so all your mines get produce 10% more minerals. Or advanced targeting algorithms that give all your ships 5% accuracy bonus. This would allow players to make small, evolutionary improvements to their empire without having to take the time and expense to upgrade everything.

[AgentZero]

I'd like to see a ship design 'wizard'. For vetran players, ship design is nice and easy, but for those new to the series, the ship design could be a bit intimidating, especially if they start a game with all techs researched and/or install a mod that adds a load of new comps.
Basically, if you clicked on the 'Wizard' or Helper or whatever you want to call it, a window would pop up with a series of tabs that would guide a player through ship construction. So you'd have 'Required Comps' which would show basically just bridge/CC/LS, or fighter bays/cargo/colony pods if applicable (and reactors if we get them!), then once those were in place it would move on through Propulsion, Armor & Shields, Weapons, Combat Support , Misc.

I know we can do something similar by changing which component types are displayed, but for a new player who isn't really sure what they're doing, it'd be quire helpful.

[Colonel]

Privateers, When you make a design you should have a choos to make it a privateer ship, the difference between pirates and privateers is that a pirate would be its own race and a privateer would be a ship you control but it has a hidden race. The draw back is the more ships you have in porportion to the size of your empire the more chance you have at getting caught. So if you have a huge empire and say 10-15 privateers you would have a small chance to getting caught but if you had the same amount and a small empire you would have a large chance of getting caught

[Fyron]

tmce said:
I'd like to see a ship design 'wizard'. For vetran players, ship design is nice and easy, but for those new to the series, the ship design could be a bit intimidating, especially if they start a game with all techs researched and/or install a mod that adds a load of new comps.
Basically, if you clicked on the 'Wizard' or Helper or whatever you want to call it, a window would pop up with a series of tabs that would guide a player through ship construction. So you'd have 'Required Comps' which would show basically just bridge/CC/LS, or fighter bays/cargo/colony pods if applicable (and reactors if we get them!), then once those were in place it would move on through Propulsion, Armor & Shields, Weapons, Combat Support , Misc.

I know we can do something similar by changing which component types are displayed, but for a new player who isn't really sure what they're doing, it'd be quire helpful.

This is what the Ship Design AI minister is for. No need for any special wizards...

[Ed Kolis]

But the AI minister doesn't actually TEACH the player how to design ships... it just does it for the player, and not very well anyway

[Randallw]

Clearly Diplomacy has been discussed before, but in such cases it seems to be a discussion on how to improve AI diplomacy. What I would like to see is a more elaborate diplomacy option towards other human players. As it stands now the highest treaty, partnership, means you have to allow your ally to see all your systems and everything you see. This makes sense if you are fighting a common foe. However without the opportunity to block vision of your internal systems from your ally, I usually choose not to have a partnership with others unless the benefits outweigh the penalty. Having a partnership with someone means you value the alliance and is an indication of a willingness to cooperate (Although some people seem to want to sign partnerships with everyone they meet), but there are some things you don't want to share even with your allies. "Have a military alliance" you say, but then the ally will side with the person who has a higher "Partnership" treaty.

[AgentZero]

Ed Kolis said:
But the AI minister doesn't actually TEACH the player how to design ships... it just does it for the player, and not very well anyway

That's exactly what I mean. I'm talking about something that would guide new players through the process, showing them how all these components go together to make a ship. Once they've gotten good at it, they can keep using the wizard or use the conventional approach instead. Teaching someone how to do something is a lot different then doing it for them.

As it stands now the highest treaty, partnership, means you have to allow your ally to see all your systems and everything you see. This makes sense if you are fighting a common foe. However without the opportunity to block vision of your internal systems from your ally, I usually choose not to have a partnership with others unless the benefits outweigh the penalty.

This got mentioned during the initial phases of SE4 as well. What I was thinking is that trade treaties and military treaties should be seperated out. So you could have a Non-Intercourse treaty militarily, but still have a Trade & Research treaty. I'd also like to see access to your space being something that you would grant seperately from any treaty, like the Civ3 Right of Passage. That way one could have a full Partnership treaty, but still not allow his allies ships into his space. I think this would be good for xenophobic races especially.
An ability to 'automate' certain types of trade would be good to. For example if I'm pouring my research points into say, WMGs, and my ally is researching Shields, it'd be nice if we could set up an agreement that each time we reach a new tech level (in specified techs) the two are automatically traded. This could also be done with resources, so if I have a massive mineral surplus but a defecit in radioactives, and my ally has the opposite problem, then we can set up a system where every turn I give him 10,000 minerals in return for an equal ammount of radioactives. This would save us the hassle of having to go into the trade screen every turn.

[Fyron]

What I was thinking is that trade treaties and military treaties should be seperated out.

Have you read the SE5 chat transcripts with Aaron Hall? I believe this exact subject was discussed there...

[Colonel]

Stellar Manipluation, You should have a new componet say around 2400kt it would create a warp point to empty space. It would create a war point and a whole new system at the other end. It would have randome planets and stars or anything black hole, nebulua, and anything else. It would randomly generator.