SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Baron Munchausen]

The idea with colony ships is that it's a huge effort to build all the infrastructure for a settlement in a (trans)portable form. If you could have units of some sort that are as expensive as colony modules but can be launched from some really huge ship instead of the ship itself being consumable that would probably be workable. You're free to build warship hulls with colony modules, after all. So it's not like the game requires that all colony ships be slow and vulnerable.

I agree that the completely universal interchangeability of cargo space is a bit much. We need 'population quarters' to be reinstated, at the least. Some additional cargo classes might be good or might make the game unnecessarily complex. Remember that the AI has to be able to play the game, too.

Yes, we've been asking for more detailed ground combat for a long time. He claims it will be 'slightly' more ocmplex than SE 4 was, but doesn't give details yet. It would be nice if you could recover troops from a planet if it looks like they are going to lose and be slaughtered.

Ammunition apart from generic 'supplies' is in the game, as 'ordnance', and has to be generated just like generic supplies.

Having the actual freighters that move supplies in the game would be a nightmare. It would make a bit more sense if planets that were blockaded couldn't build with anything but locally produced resources, though. And when your empire gets cut into large chunks by stellar manipulation the chunks ought to have to function independently rather than having resource transports magically bridge the gap that your warships cannot.

Races should have a much more persistent sense of identity, yes. We are hoping that the AI for SE 5 will be more advanced and cause alien populations to take much longer to settle down and accept citizenship in a new empire, especially if conquered by violence. The same goes for 'slavery' of various sorts and even 'xenophagy' by predatory types like Kzinti. Many people have asked for more complex interactions of populations. Hopefully that means MM is motivated to develop it.

MM has stated that it will be possible to have populations and resource gathering in space so at the least we will be able to play 'nomads' properly. Perhaps some other types of play will be possible, as well.

Mines are badly in need of some articulation. The 'all or nothing' problem so prevalent in the SE series is really bad with mines. Yes, we need mines to have actual rules for variable chances of detection and variable chances to hit a given ship. So far MM has not said anything about if or how mines might change.

Boarding combat is very small scale for a game like SE 5 to cover in any detail. Sure, it ought to take more than one round to decide. It ought to be possible for a ship to spend many rounds being fought over and possibly unable to actually attack anyone externally. But going into details of weapons and defenses for boarding troops is really getting micro-management crazy.

Yes, retreat is supposed to have returned in SE 5.

Whew... I'm out of replies for now.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I agree with you, but I still think that it is handy to use resource freighters, if then only for enormous amounts of resources. This would make blockades (and blockade runner ships) much more useful and important. If you've got a massive fleet yard in a system with only one warp point, and the enemy blocks that warp point, you've got two options in SEIV:
-Open another warp point (but let's say you can't, you haven't got the tech or you've disabled it in the setup screen)
-Fight it out.

But your fleet yard is on the far side of the warp point, and the enemy fleet is very large.

I think it would be handy to be able to "run the blockade";

Build small, fast resource ships in fleets of about a hundred with a high speed and a small individual carrying capacity, load them up with resources and run the blockade. You might lose a few craft, but you're almost assured a lot of them (and with them a lot of resources) get to the other side. Then, use your fleet yard to build more blockade-runners, and go on like this until you've got enough materials in your fleet yard to construct an assault fleet big enough to destroy the blockade.

Also I'd like to see something like "hyperspeed" or "afterburners" during combat, i.e. sudden bursts of speed that might put you at an advantage; attack an enemy fleet head-on and hyperjump a few of your ships to the rear of the enemy fleet. They'd have to defend two sides. This would make the odds more favorable to you.

And, fighters must be able to jump. In SW, fighters have small hyperdrives of their own, and in ST, even small administrative shuttles have warp drive. So why can't you simply send your fighters through a warp point? Gravitational stress? Design a component that's fairly large but which provides "Gravitational Shields" so that the fighter can cross interstellar distances. The sheer shock/psycho-horrors/neural energy fields/etc. that will kill a pilot/drive him mad/etc.? Same as above.

You also need to be able to lay mines in combat (to protect your supply ships, for instance) or to determine the pattern of your mines. I.e. a hollow cone in front of a warp point might be more difficult to lay (less mines per turn) but might be harder to detect. A cube would be easy to lay but also easy to detect. A hollow-cylinder-sort of shape would be harder to lay but would increase explosive effectiveness (damage) of the mines.

You could also have something like a "control net" or "delay detonator" for mines to allow for greater effectiveness. If a mine explodes when the bow of a ship just peeks into the minefield, it would not inflict much damage, and the ship would turn back immediately (which it doesn't in SEIV) but if the explosion delay is larger, the ship might be well into the minefield before the mines go off, making sure it's severely damaged or destroyed.

Mines don't need to destroy ships outright. You could set them to disable enemy vessels so you can capture them and tow them to your territory for analysis. (did I spell this right?)

How come you know EVERYTHING about a ship as soon as you enter combat? You shouldn't be able to see everything, least of all the weapons, of an enemy when you start combat. Then, when you expect the enemy to fire an APB, you'd be very surprised if they fire a Graviton Hellbore, and vice versa. Just because a ship is brimming with ugly-looking bLaster turrets doesn't mean it even HAS bLasters.

You should also be able to modify the appearance of your ship as such. I.e. if you've got a freighter, put some nasty-looking things that look a lot like weapons batteries on it, so smaller enemy raiders might be deterred simply by its look. You could also design a warship without any external signs of weapons - retractable "lids" on the weapon muzzles that slide open when ready to fire, engine nacelles that provide nothing but topedo fire (or are torpedos in themselves) - to lure a smaller enemy ship into combat, making it believe it's attacking an unarmed ship, and then kick its ***. Conversely, you might design a battleship with all weapons clearly visible and use it as a freighter/convoy/colony ship/etc. escort to deter enemy attacks.

Two words: Boarding Shuttles.

Ship sizes that require certain types of weapons to be on the ship in sufficient amounts; for example, a Corvette (a real-life torpedo boat) might require to be half filled with torpedos/seekers, and so on. You could also do this with certain Design Types; i.e. (what does i.e. mean, actually?) Torpedo Corvettes might (see above), Graviton Dreadnoughts need things like graviton hellbores/tractor-/repulser beams/etc.

Design Types that can only be used with certain ship/vehicle types/sizes. A Meta-Colony-Ship can't be the size of an Escort (150 kT), but need to be larger than 800 kT. Population Evacuation Transports need to be 500 kT or larger, etc.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

More kinds of "generic ship sizes" or "warship hulls" as they're often called that don't have warship-like names (who has ever heard of a battleship designed to carry population) but more civilian-like names, like "Small Courier Ship", "Large Courier Ship", "Generation Ship" and such.

Generation Ships! Perhaps even the possibility to BE a Generation Ship instead of an Empire when you start. You have a massive ship as your "Homeworld" and you can conduct research/intel/construction/storage/etc. there. You still have the Empire control over your dominion, and you can settle on planets, but you can also become an "Empire-for-hire" conducting missions for others, like hunting down a group of pirates, transporting such-and-such amount of such-and-such goods/resources/population/whatever to planet(s) there-and-there.

Building your own Generation Ships as an Empire, designed truly to Last for forever, and setting them out on a voyage across the stars. This can be handy if you have immense maps (think 5000x5000 ly) and you want to settle another part of the Galaxy. You would lose control and the Generation Ship will act like a single-ship Empire. When it settles an appropriate planet (you can set it for different options, like "first habitable", "first colonizable", "highest value in resource [...]", "best conditions", "largest", or a combination of these) it will become a new small Empire and when you make contact with it again it might join you, or might choose to become a protectorate of you, or the gap might be too great, the colonists are not from your race any more, and they will remain independent or even declare war on you.

Bigger maps. I mean, OK, fully colonizing an area between 500x500 and 1000x1000 ly is OK, but I would also like to have the ability to play on maps over 5000x5000 ly (remember our own galaxy is 100000x100000 ly) or larger, where you might not encounter aliens until you've played for 650 years, and where alien life might be everywhere or there might be only three races, or even one. Would add to the realism: "We are not alone...", remember? Maybe we are. You never know until you've encountered the "Little Green Men" (or ravenous, 60-ft hairy feline carnivorous monsters). They can be only 10 ly away, but could also be on the opposite corner of the Galaxy.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

The option to have more micro-management (in the options screen or yes/no questions in a Data file). I'm a big fan of micro-management, so I'd like to have the ability to micro-manage down to the very component molecules of my ships/bases/planets/etc.

[AMF]

Wow. I think you're, like, the ONLY person I've ever heard say that...

StrategiaInUltima said:
I'm a big fan of micro-management....

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally Im a fan of micro-management also. Not sure how low but I would be happy with a game which is 90% managing my empire and 10% conflict. I tend to do that by soloing playing on maps as large as I can possibly get them. Usually larger than any game designer thought made sense for their game. I like exploring, discovering, developing, preparing.

Which is also why I do alot of thinking on ways to get maps even bigger without hurting game play.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Yeah, that's exactly what I like, too. I often play strategy games more for economic/exploration/construction/infrastructure/etc. than for combat. The most fun I had with the ancient strategy game "M.A.X. Mechanized Assault & Exploration" was a hot-seat vs myself, where one player built a small, tightly defended fortress, while the other expanded indefinitely creating a huge base with dozens of Habitats and Research Centers. It's still running.

And I also like Europa Universalis II for its micro-management, with leaders, religion, diplomats that can insult or praise another nation, claiming another nation's throne, the extensive treaty system (would be nice for SEV too, with the victor getting to demand stuff from the vanquished), attrition for armies/navies, rebellions, random/scripted events that reflect actual historical situations, etc.

Oh, and certain scripted events would also be welcome for SEV.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Ooh, ooh, ooh, great idea (I think):

Moving systems!

Our own Galaxy rotates slowly. If this would be incorporated into SEV, that would be REALLY nice. You would then have to monitor the movements of stars, and warp points could tear apart due to gravimetric shear or something if the rotation is too big. Also, it would be nice to have some sort of "anomaly" (massive black hole, dimensional rift, space/time continuum distortion, etc.) at the center of the Galaxy. This is what astronomers think might be true; something at our galaxy's center that keeps us together.

Also, if you would be able to play in an entire Galaxy instead of just a sector, it could be nice if there were perhaps more - say, a map with two small galaxies moving slowly towards/away from each other. I've seen artists' impressions (based on actual scientific data) of two galaxies colliding, moving through each other. This would be difficult to incorporate, I know, but would offer a massive bonus to variety in gameplay; if two galaxies cross, systems might be annihilated or might hang on to another galaxy, warp points are destroyed or redirected, planets/stars/anomalies/etc. exchange between the galaxies, and so on. You might suddenly have half your Empire marooned in another galaxy.

Perhaps you should look into the possibilities of communications; i.e. comms signals take time to travel, and so if a scout ship is far away it might be a while before it responds to new orders. And, in the beginning of the game you might need "courier ships" to ferry comms Messages between Empires, making it possible for a third party to intercept your Messages. Also, how come all races speak a common language right from the start? You could need to research some sort of Advanced Linguistics Programme to enable linguistics to decipher alien Languages so you understand their Messages. Later on, you might be able to research some sort of "Universal Translator" or something. Here, Psychic races have an advantage; they can read the mind of an alien and determine what it is it's saying.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Combined research/intel projects. This would be especially handy with intel. This way, you can combine intel projects to run them at a lower cost at a single target.

I.e.:

You start a project. After 0.5 years, the target planet's food is poisoned. The next month or two, spies incite rebellious movements to lower the population's happiness. Then, after another few months, you place Puppet Political Parties to make the planet like you better. If that doesn't work, your spies incite rebels to take over the planet and turn it over to you. Then, you redirect the crews of ships and bases in orbit automatically, and then capture them.

You can do this in SEIV, but this requires frequent visits to the Intel screen. I know I said I'm a big fan of micromanagement, and I still am, but I don't want to have to select the same planet from a list of possibly hundreds of worlds. Also, intel acts don't really influence one another; they're separate entities, not an ongoing project. For example, in the above mentioned situation, the poisoning of the planet's food will reduce happiness somewhat and make the citizens somewhat less loyal. This in turn makes inciting rebels easier, since more people will want to help, and this in turn improves the success chance of the entire mission.

This is something you don't have in SEIV.

Btw, how can you be "promoted"? (I.e. from Private to Sergeant etc. all the way up to National Security Advisor.)

[larrybush]

I too like the micromanagement aspect of this genre of game. I also like the combat part too, as I started my gaming intrest in military wargames in the 70's. The problem with combat (usually) is the AI can never keep up with a human player as the game progresses. Technology tends to overwhelm strategy and tactics. Both of which diminish the tension in the game, I find I enjoy games best when there is a high level of uncertainty or tension present. Try playing SEIV with a very limited technology tree for offensive/defensive weapons, sometimes this can lead to some very tense moments!