SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Hidden non-star systems, hidden star systems, systems hidden because of nebulas all around them... you could think up any number of reasons. Also, the galaxy map should not necessarily work with the principle "systems need to be connected with warp points". You should have a galaxy map in itself, with the warp points being additions. This way you can open warp points into "empty" sectors to find anything. Lone stars, rogue planets, nebulas, black holes, anomalies, even full planetary systems - perhaps even with an Empire in them.

Also, the SEV change to 3D has me worried. Settlers IV was a FANTASTIC game, Settlers: Heritage of Kings (demo) is OK as a game in its own right, but as a Settlers game... ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

its simply so much cheaper to create great looking art in 3d than it is 2d. look how many 2d pics are just pics of 3d objects.

i think Imperator Fyron was talking about how much better Realtime was for balance- that's so very true. Actually- I'm curious, is it the realtime combat change or the 3d change that bothers people? I can't see how the 3d change for systems maps is going to be bad.

[douglas]

I think both bother a lot of people, but not because they're bad features. What people are worried about is that implementing realtime and 3D might take away from time spent on improving gameplay. I, personally, don't expect this to be an issue, as I expect Aaron will take however much time he needs to do a good job.

[Suicide Junkie]

The maps are still 2D.
IIRC, they'll be hex based instead of square as well.

Think of having the screen zoom smoothly in from a system-view to a colony and stats view when you click a planet for example.

its simply so much cheaper to create great looking art in 3d than it is 2d. look how many 2d pics are just pics of 3d objects.

Not in processor time...
The 2D pics that you see here rendered from 3D models can have a zillion polygons, and take an hour to render once without causing any problems in SE4.
You have to use really low poly, and thus blocky, and relatively ugly models in order to render 30 FPS of a combat involving hundreds to thousands of ships.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

its cheaper in $$ terms. much cheaper, for what you get. The requirements are of course higher. One curious example of this is the original MechCommander; the graphics were done with 3d models that were used to generate many many frames of 2d animation. This kept the requirements low and the game fast and had really quite excellent graphical quality.

you'd be surprised what can be done with relatively low poly models and low quality textures; the game "Dawn of War" can scale pretty far down and still look good, for example.

One bonus of this game is also that it won't have to be rendered at 30 FPS; that's an arbitrary requirement. A game like this could be perfectly servicable at 10 or 15 FPS; only the truely dedicated are likely to start combats that drag it down to 3 or 4 FPS.

Furthermore, there is always the recourse of computer-calculated combat, which is what will presumably used for multiplayer (and probably for truely large battles) regardless.

[Atrocities]

Man there must be over 5,000 great ideas in this thread. Two years ago I tried to mine it and make one post and I could only get about a fourth of the way before I gave up on it.

I would challenge any one here to make a comprehensive organized list of suggestions and put them in word format for downloading. The challenge is on the table boys, any takers?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I'm not gonna try it. I've got other things to do this month, you know!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Halo Ring World/Dyson Sphere SYSTEMS.

Think: you have a star, and perhaps a number of planets, but the edges of the system are not just normal edges - YOU'RE IN A MASSIVE HALO RING WORLD/DYSON SPHERE!!!!! Would have to be a special type of system... You can colonize it, and another can too at the same time, without you making direct contact. (if you're on opposite sides of the system) It should be able to hold TRILLIONS of people, with perhaps a limit of one per galaxy/sector. You still need to be able to build ringworlds and sphereworlds, and they will still be very big, but not the biggest you can get - just the biggest you can create yourself. Would certainly be nice if coupled with "ancient relics" of a "lost pan-galactic empire with technology beyond our comparison". It's been proposed before. Ancient derelict ships, massive super-weapons prowling the galaxy, ancient colonies that get reactivated when examined, cryo-chambers containing the sleeping bodies of those ancient beings...

Campaigns/map goals. Say, if the above is true, your goal could be to get at least five trillion people on the Dyson Sphere, and oter colonies must be under 1 billion. Or, your goal would be to revive the ancient beings from hibernation - a (constantly) ongoing project that you need to divert resources to manually. Think: "To revive the ancients, you will need: 100 million research points, 10 million intel points, 10 million minerals, 50 million organics, 100 million radioactives, 500 billion Star Credits, and at least 50 generic alien artifacts and the following specific artifacts: Alien Cryo-Chamber Blueprints, Alien FTL Starship, Alien DNA Bank, Alien Cryo-Research Data Storage Dump and any number of Alien Cryo-Chambers with a total of at least 100 aliens in hibernative state." Or: "To assure the safety of the Galaxy and the state of peace between your allies, you must destroy or conquer the [%RaceName1] and have at least the [%RaceName2] and three other allies left alive." Or: "The Galaxy is getting unstable. The Galactic core anomalies are in a state of quantum-chroniton flux, and the Galaxy will be destroyed in three hundred years. You need to either stabilize the anomalies or find a way to escape destruction by opening a warp point to the Greater Magellanic Cloud. To stabilize the core anomalies, you will need to research "Quantum-Chroniton Stabilizers". To open a warp point to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, you will need to research "Interdimensional Warp Points"." Where the two techs are WORLDS apart from each other, and you will not be able to research them both since they start off with different base techs from the very beginning.

Or series of maps (and thus games) that together form a campaign. I.e.:

-First Scenario: Early Exploration. Goal: a total population of 500 billion. Briefing:
We stand at the brink of a galactic adventure. We are ready to traverse the warp points at the edge of our system and explore the galaxy. However, our home planet has massive overpopulation, and we need to bring many people to new colonies. However, since population growth is so slow, we will need to GROW our population before we can start exploring the galaxy in earnest.

However, deep space probes have discovered two large, well-established other races in our vicinity, who appear to be at war with each other. You must be wary of sudden and unexpected attacks. We do not know if their attitudes towards us are hostile or not.

-Second Scenario: The First Wars. Goal: eliminate the [%RaceName1] and [%RaceName2] presences in this area. Briefing:
We are now well established. Our population is growing steadily. We are poised to make great breakthroughs in many fields of science. However, two large colony ships have recently arrived in this vicinity. Their early expansion is alarming. They have already eliminated one of the races in this sector, and are now firmly established in their former territory. The two races appear to be allies, so little chance of them wiping each other out. Also, the other race in this vicinity will not respond to reason and says it can take care of the new threat itself, without our help.

Regardless of whether or not the other race here will choose to ally with us in the coming conflict, we need to eliminate the two newcomers if we are to push further into the Galaxy. It would, however, be easier if the other race here would ally with us.

And so on.

Would be really fun.

[MightyPenguin]

StrategiaInUltima said:
Halo Ring World

Ahhh! Head pain. Tell me you're not labouring under the delusion that Bungie came up with those things. They existed a wee while before Halo, trust me. Go pick up a Banks novel some time (and they probably existed prior to him as well).

Not trying to come down on you or anything, but that irritates me. It irritates me enough to make me delurk. That much.

Um. Time for something positive, methinks.

- Formula based tech levels. Good, so long as they don't result in ridiculous power inflation
- Real-Time battles. Oh yes. Oh yes oh yes oh yes. But slow real time. A spaceship that weighs a million tons or so is going to steer like a cow. Plus, players need time to strategise, even in real-time.
- Better yet, no seams between the battle and system screens. Have everything in real time. Let ships move in and out of the battle zone. Reinforcements, retreats; moving lines of battle. Delaying tactics while a fleet gathers around home world.
- No redundancies. Or, at least tone the problem down a little. Yes, new tech is going to make your smaller ships obselete. But, turning a ship of the line in its prime into a jumped up shuttle craft with a turn of the ship construction tech is a bit irritating. Not to mention urrealistic. Smaller ships should be good for some things.
- Like speed. Implement newtonian physics; if a big mother of a carrier wants to outrun a tiddly gunboat it better have a hell of a lot of engines. And link chance to hit to transversal velocity; if they're faster they can dodge better.
- And cheaper. Obviously the power : cost ratio should improve with each generation, but it should be cheaper and faster to build smaller ships- enough to make a difference.
- Sublight interstellar travel; yes, please
- Ground combat. Ever play superpower 2? [censored] game, but interesting world view. It was a globe that you could rotate as you wish. If you balanced things right, you could have people managing a ground war and a space battle at the same time. And if you could make it fun at the same time, that would be grand.

And I'm done. I don't think I've justified half of that, though...

[Suicide Junkie]

MightyPenguin said:
- Formula based tech levels. Good, so long as they don't result in ridiculous power inflation

It will only inflate your modding power by ridiculous amounts
If you want damage to go up proportional to the square of the tech level, sure. If you want diminishing returns on a sine wave curve, go for it.

As for the rest, much of that is moddable into SE4.
QNP is a somewhat popular feature. (You either love it or hate it ) Keeps small ships relatively useful, automatically scales fuel use to ship size, and lets you customize your speed/weapon/shield percentages to whatever balance is called for by the strategic situation.