SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Ed Kolis]

In MOO2, fighters could carry powerful bombs which ships could only use against planets, but fighters (due to their agility) could use against ships as well. Why couldn't this be done in SE5? After all, fighters in SE4 have Small Rocket Pods, which are less than 10% the size and cost of CSM's but do comparable damage, just with a shorter range and longer reload time, and they're DF rather than seekers
All in all, I think it would be best for both styles of emissive armor to be available to modders... who knows, with the scripting engine, they might be already! For all I know, you can do something like this to emulate the SF way:
Code:

---

/* Functions.txt */

Name := CalculateHullDamage

Num Parameters := 4

Parameter 1 Type := Integer

Parameter 1 Name := amount

Parameter 2 Type := DamageType

Parameter 2 Name := type

Parameter 3 Type := Unit

Parameter 3 Name := source

Parameter 2 Type := Unit

Parameter 2 Name := target

Return Value := amount * type.HullDamage * (1.0 - target.Abilities["Emissive Armor"])

---

And to emulate the SE4 way:
Code:

---

/* Functions.txt */

Name := CalculateHullDamage

Num Parameters := 4

Parameter 1 Type := Integer

Parameter 1 Name := amount

Parameter 2 Type := DamageType

Parameter 2 Name := type

Parameter 3 Type := Unit

Parameter 3 Name := source

Parameter 2 Type := Unit

Parameter 2 Name := target

Return Value := amount * type.HullDamage - target.Abilities["Emissive Armor"]

---

But of course all this is only speculation

[Suicide Junkie]

On a related note, both CBmod(se4) and GGmod(for se5) make big use of a pseudo-emissive damage system.

Small guns can't hurt the heavily shielded ships. But big guns blow through defenses.
Fighters are far from useless in practice. Sure, you have to design your fighters right, with just one or two heavy weapons for the bigger damage per hit. But that is perfectly reasonable.

If you consider today's armor, it follows a similar scheme.
9mm bullets are good, but if there is any armor, they just bounce off.
Rifles punch through light armor, but will still bounce harmlessly off a tank.
Modest tank shells can punch through thicker armor, but would still bounce off a battleship.
And so on.

The weapons all have their place, but if you use them against things with more armor than your weapon is rated for, it does pretty much nothing.
And if you use bigger guns (main tank gun) against things that are too small (infantry), then you waste major ammo on overkill. And, to a point, you can arm smaller units with bigger guns, or bigger units with smaller guns.

And therein lies the key to variety.

[Kana]

This would seem unbalancing, in that especially the smaller ships will not be able to compete with a bigger ship with more or 'bigger' armor and weapons. Which means we go back to the whole build your biggest ship only problem.

Yet historically this is was very similar to the whole development of cruisers, battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, and battleships in the 19th, and early 20th century. One country would field a ship with X gun, another would counter with a ship with X armor. Then to counter they would have to build a ship with Y gun, and so on...

It might be interesting if done right...yet historically as well...Battleships where basically fodder for subs, and carrier based bombers/torpedo plans in the 1930's and 40's.

[dogscoff]

Suicide Junkie said:
And if you use bigger guns (main tank gun) against things that are too small (infantry), then you waste major ammo on overkill.

S_J, I'm ashamed of you! Rule 37 man, rule 37!

[Wade]

(This is a copy of my post in the thread 'SE:V Screenshots at the SE Depot')

I was wondering if the following sizes from the Neo- Stabdard ship set are included in Space Empires 5?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Also, I have some proposals:

TroopTiny- Machines and creatures the size of insects and small animals.
TroopMassive- Like TroopHuge, but...even bigger.
(There is FighterMassive, CarrierTiny, CarrierMassive.)
FighterTiny- Similiar to TroopTiny, but in space.
*Gigantic* size- More Massive. Gigantic is also the word used to describe Worldship.

So this would be the range: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Massive, Gigantic.
Or maybe we could add three more to even it out at ten sizes: Enormous, Titanic, Colossal.(These three are the most likely candidates because they most often appear in a dictionary.)

So there would be sixteen sizes of ships from Scout to Worldship. I propose one more: Sphereworld Ship- The Ultimate. A current structure size but with mobility. (In 'Ringworld's Children' the Ringworld was made mobile.)

-Wade
-----------------------------------------------------------
Scout- A ship smaller than an escort.
Corvette- Between Escort and Frigate.
DestroyerHeavy- Between destroyer and light cruiser.
CruiserHeavy- Between cruiser and battlecruiser.
DreadnoughtHeavy- Between Dreadnought and Baseship.
BaseShip- Very big base sized ship.
BaseShipHeavy- A larger version of the baseship.
WorldShip- A gigantic ship which resembles a moon or planet.
ResourceShip- A ship designed with resource production in mind.
ResourceStation- A station designed with resource production in mind.
CarrierTiny- Smaller than the light carrier
CarrierMassive- Bigger than the large carrier
WarStation- A base between BattleStation and StarBase
ColonyShipLarge- A larger version of the colony ship
TransportTiny- Smaller than TransportSmall.
FighterHuge- Bigger than FighterLarge.
FighterMassive- Bigger than FighterHuge.
TroopInfantry- Good old fashioned foot soldier (or tentacle soldier, wing soldier...)
TroopHuge- Like TroopLarge, but bigger.
Barge- A vast ship used for the construction of artificial worlds.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Also,:
If Space Empires V will not have a ship creator similiar to below then will it let us choose any shipset during the custom race creation?

Space Empires V ship designer has a map / blueprint that we place components into. How about a unique map for every planet that we place facilities onto?

If customized ship sets are so popular for SE4 then maybe have a ship set creator as part of the in game for SE5.
Or, even better, we pick a basic shape : pyrimid, cube, sphere \ we stretch and shape it : triangular, rectangular, tubular, etc. \ we add a "hull material texture" and colors : smooth, moderate, rough: metal, ceramic, biological, crystal, energy etc.: glossy, glowing, moderate, dark, etc. \ we add hull "items" and customization : engine nacelles, wings, command bridge structure, etc. \ we add the components \ Complete .

-Wade

(Should I, instead, put these concepts in the 'SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List' thread?

[se5a]

dogscoff said:

S_J, I'm ashamed of you! Rule 37 man, rule 37!

there's no such thing as overkill, only "open fire" and "reload".

was that it?

[Suicide Junkie]

Yeah, the problem with using guns that are too large is the reload part.

[Wade]

Asteroid Domains

Could we have asteroids provide bonuses such as hidden and defensive. The drawback could be a chance each combat turn of taking small asteroid minor dammage.

Guide:
Escort: 50% chance of being hidden per game turn, +50% defense / 10% chance of dammage per combat turn.

Frigate:..............40%, +40% / 20%
Destroyer:.........30%, +30% / 30%
Light Cruiser:.....20%, +20% / 40%
Cruiser:..............10%, +10% / 50%

These are some game play possibilities: more use of smaller ships to hide in asteroid rings and clusters; we never know what might be hiding in them; ambush possibilities; mid sized ships can attempt to hide but if they are seen and attacked then they will take more asteroid dammage then smaller ships and have a smaller defensive bonus then the smaller ships.

Asteroids could be the "hide and ambush" domain of smaller ships. Monsters of the appropriate sizes could also benefit.

-Wade

Also, the asteroid fields could be a natural barrier on the maps to slow down ships and monsters. Perhaps in a way similiar to the above guide. Larger ships will be slowed down more tha smaller ships.

[Wade]

-----An "Epic Generator". Just expand on SEIV's History in the Diplomacy screen.

-Wade

[wake_of_angels]

I suggest only to make the game ready to sell, and let patch of the next propositions!
Otherwise, I will never play SE V