SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i havn't posted it that much, have i?

[Atrocities]

Temperal
Organic
Armor
Stealth
Tracking

[ July 05, 2003, 01:31: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

and i know the perils of overusing jokes.

[Q]

I believe almost everything that I could suggest has already been mentioned in this huge topic. But I would like to highlight three fields that are the most important for me:
1.) Modifiable. The possibilities to modify should be increased even more compared to SE IV (it was a huge improvement from SE III). Even abilities or possibilities that are not used in the standard Version might be very valuable for modders. Just an example: abilities working for facilities usually can't be used for components in SE IV.
2.) AI. I know many people here in this forum play mostly PBW and therefore the AI is not that important for them. However if you compare the number of SE IV copies sold (see topic about that) and the number of PBW players, you must conclude that the majory of the people who bought SE IV are playing solo games. Therefore any improvement of the AI will be an important sales advantage.
3.) Low hardware requirements. Again for computer freaks, who upgrade their computer every 3 months, this might be not very important. But I appreciated very much that I can play SE IV with a 5 year old machine!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

the ability to add abilities. dll or built-in language thing, like stars!:supernova was going to have.

[userx]

I have a few major things on my wish list that I don't think has been covered.

1)Real Homeworld Abilities
There should be a big difference between your colonies and your homeworld... even in a late game or 200-300 turns.

A homeworld has 1000s of years of development, population growth, culture, facilities, etc... a colony, even after 100 to 200 years of colonization, should never match the importance that a homeworld has. Currently, after a 30/40 turns for example, a colony can have the same population and industrial importance as a homeworld... this is nuts.

Imagine us colonizing Mars. After 20/30 years there might be thousands living there and they may be contributing significantly to science and industry, but they would be insignificant in terms of industrial production capacity, population, real GDP (or rather GPP), culture, science, etc. Even after a couple of centuries they would still be small (maybe important) compared to Earth.

That's one...

2) Many Very Minor races
One thing that SE is missing is the feeling that there is lots of intelligent life in the universe. It would be good to have minor races that are planet bound that you could trade with, conquer, or form a union with. They would provide huge population base, industry, economics, and science. It would also add to the importance of the concept of a "homeworld (see # 1)." You could aquire serveral important homeworlds through conquest (empire) or peaceful assimilation (United Federation of Planets).

Not to be confused with minor space faring races.

3) Emphisis on Planetary Conquest
OK, how many time has an alien fleet showed up over one of your colonies and destroyed it? This is not very economical.

Destruction of a colony or homeworld should be a Last resort and very rare occurance. Empires are formed by conquest not destruction.

With planetary conquest comes the possibility of rebelion and liberation as well as long term ground war commitments.

Also, there should always be survivors of a planetary attack. That could prove interesting if the enemy desides to colonize the planet he's just bLasted for a few months... guerilla war anyone?

4) Lastly, like in our own history, empires rise, fall and rise again (and fall) and wars don't Last forever. Currently in SE, your can tell early in the game who will prevail (or at least who will surely lose). The strength of races over centuries should be a little more dynamic with the possibility of strong empires suddenly falling while weak ones suddenly rise. You get the idea...

That's my wish list. Oh, and more ship classes and serveral possibilities in the same class.

Thanks for reading.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

4 would have to be done carefully so as not to randomize the game. perhaps periods of culteral strength/weakness which strengthen/weaken all of the attributes of your federation or empire, but not so much that your success/failure would be determined by them.

i just had an idea: perhaps your culture modifier's could modify as you play. if you have a lot of research facilities, you slowly get better a research. or, if you only have a few, you get worse.

[ July 06, 2003, 07:13: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Me Loonn]

One small addition more

When a sector with sumthing in it is selected, moving cursor shows the range to that sector. What I want is to extend it to also other systems, automatically calculating shortest route there.

Only a small change but can reduse alittle time to finish each round, if one doenst have to manually count all those 10 wps route to that colony far far away, only so see if there is enough supplies left.

[Slick]

There is a current solution for simultaneous games. Turn on "movement lines" and then order your colony ship to move to the destination. You can see how many turns it will take. The end will be + or - 1 turn due to the way it calculates the number of turns. For turn based movement, the ship will move when you give the order so this won't work.

Slick.

[Loser]

Originally posted by userx:
1)Real Homeworld Abilities

Take a look at the Proportions mod. I think you'll find just what you need in there.

Originally posted by userx:
2) Many Very Minor races

While I believe it is not possible to increase the number of Neutrals beyond six (Would an Experienced Modder Please Clarify?), minor races can be modded into the game. Lood for the threads about Primative Races. It's a very promising concept.

Originally posted by userx:
3) Emphisis on Planetary Conquest

Some of the TDM AIs are more interested in landing Troops than glassing the planet. Try playing a few games against them. Also, if you are playing agaisnt humans, perhaps you should let them know that each time they glass a world it lowers it's value. This may encourage more Troop-focused behavior.

Originally posted by userx:
4) Lastly, like in our own history, empires rise, fall and rise again (and fall) and wars don't Last forever.

If you take a look at the timescale of the game, it doesn't take a few centuries. A long, long game can take a number of decades. It's just a matter of scale, and the scale of the game is one long war.

Originally posted by userx:
Oh, and more ship classes and serveral possibilities in the same class.

This also can be modded, in fact almost every mod has additional ship sizes. All, I think, except for TDM, FQM and a few mount mods.

Originally posted by userx:
Thanks for reading.

Thanks for posting. The community around the game is the reason I come back to it and I'm sure others feel the same.

It sounds like a lot of the changes you want made to the game are changes you could realistically make yourself. Give modifying the game a shot, it's a bLast; even if you're like me and never make mod anything worth sharing.

[ July 06, 2003, 23:19: Message edited by: Loser ]