SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[SamuraiProgrammer]

I have taken the time to read much of this thread (5/6) again from the beginning. Here are my thoughts on some of the ideas.

I agree with Fyron that mines need some work. First of all, early in the game, it seems as if mines destroy every ship that is hit. Should this be so? Perhaps 1 mine = 1 dead ship is a bit too much. Late in the game, you just make sure you have enough minesweepers to sweep a maximum mine field and it becomes academic. Neither situation is 'fun', but rather seem to be doors with 'secret knocks' that once the 'knock' is known, just become a nuisance.

How to fix them? There are many ideas, I am sure, but one thing I would add is this. The odds of a ship hitting a mine in open space are quite small. Simply travelling in something other than the opitmal 'straight line' course would add only 2% to 5% to transit time but make it less and less likely to meet a mine. To simulate this, we should only be able to mine fixed installations such as planets and warp points.

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Rigelian's admonition (March 5, 2003) to only make the trade bonus base on the 'real' economy is a bit limited, IMHO. Part of trade would be passing rare items from one side of your empire to the other side. Perhaps the trade bonus base should include trade with other empires. An argument could also be made to include Last turn's trade with this empire. This would represent value added trades. For example, we ship raw materials (cotton) to China and recieve manufactured products (clothing) in return. The amount of profit on manufactured products is based in part on the amount of raw materials imported.

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Several arguments were advanced on how the calculations are being made for combat accuracy. In my mind, this is more a problem with semantics. As with anything, there are many ways to go about it. Different methods make for different results. What result is being sought? It does not matter so much how things are accomplished. What is more important is that there are clear examples of what is going on so that one person's prior understanding of the language deceives them as to how the game engine works.

On the other hand, it is an excellent opportunity for more flexibility. Perhaps there should be a suite of targeting components that add percentages and another that multiply. Balancing these against their costs will give the Space Empires community something to argue about for months and months.

If both additive and multiplicative modifiers are used, the order in which the modifiers is applied becomes important. This could lead to yet another level of flexibility for modders ... Early Mult.... Early Add .... Late Mult... Late Add...

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Randomized variable damage is not so important in large battles. If the number of ships available is reduced considerably, this may be a must. In a large battle, the averages will work out such that fixed damage gives essentially the same result. In small battles, it can have a bigger infulence on the outcome.

Also, if real time combat is implemented, the variable damage may be more important to have.

I am not sure I like critical hits because they can have a very large impact on the game if they happen early in an important battle.

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Leaders could add an important facet to the game. However, I think they are already simulated with training facilities.

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One ship fleets.. Please don't disallow this. I use it to note the fleet mission so I can remember why they are headed where they are headed.

As for gaining fleet experience, I see that this is a problem, but not as important to me as being able to mark a transport as "Picking up oxygen breathers" (or actually "Get Oxy")

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The talisman has been a source of much comment. I would like to see it in the game as a large improvement to accuracy, but not an absolute 100% hits every time. Nothing is perfect. How do we know that the gunner did not have an impure thought during the Last 'shore' leave?


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AI Considerations... I have lobbied for the ability to write our own AIs. If that is asking too much, here is a second request. Make the game file distributed to the player have only the information the player is aware of and publish the format as well. Then, as Lisif Deoral suggested, you make the .plr file be simple text commands. These two acts would allow anyone who wanted to to automate their empire if they were really motivated.

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Real time combat .... I have no urge to play out battles in realtime. Others might and more power to them. It would be neat, however, to be able to watch a movie of your combats. Especially if the ships were following your orders intelligently.

(BTW, I love Starcraft and even enjoy Warcraft - I just don't have enough time to play this game that way)

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Squares, Hexes, Movement Points.... I would like to see no grid at all. Probably asking for too much, but it would be nice. Fleets, Ships, and Units would need to react to nearby enemies for this to work.

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Communication Lag - Wonderful idea. However, for it to be really useful, the units should have a bit more intelligent autonomous activity. Better AI or scripting would make this workable. Otherwise, it should be an option only. It will make Mount Learning Curve too steep to climb for new players.


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Quickies
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Ability to save orders mid turn - YES, PLEASE!

Moveable windows - YES, PLEASE!

Ability to do most things from the keyboard - YES, PLEASE!

All lists remember their positions - YES, PLEASE!

More filters and sorts on the lists - YES, PLEASE!

Foreign Ship Log - YES, PLEASE!

In game option to select a mod - YES, PLEASE!

Wrap around tactical combat - NO!

Extended tactical range or allow disengagment - YES!

Incorporated PBW - YES! (although the way it works now is fine)

Fog of war includes the names of my planets, ships, etc. - YES, PLEASE!

Inserting a carriage return when closes the window could be done with

Carryover for shipyards - YES, PLEASE

Ability to load or unload less than the full complement of any cargo - YES, PLEASE

Customizable, printable, and exportable (to spreadsheet) reports - YES, PLEASE


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Bizzare? - bound to cause flaming
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Perhaps FTL travel that does not use warp points could be added as an option.

[deccan]

Originally posted by SamuraiProgrammer:

How to fix them? There are many ideas, I am sure, but one thing I would add is this. The odds of a ship hitting a mine in open space are quite small. Simply travelling in something other than the opitmal 'straight line' course would add only 2% to 5% to transit time but make it less and less likely to meet a mine. To simulate this, we should only be able to mine fixed installations such as planets and warp points.

How about simply small ships hard to be caught by mines, and perhaps include specialized small ships designed to slip by mines without sweeping them, and make large fleets without minesweepers very vulnerable to mines?

[Me Loonn]

Wellm theres is ONE major "issue" (for me anyway) in simul play - with unit launch / recovery.

Why cant i (in simul game) launch nor recover LESS than the maximum amount of units ? Mayby i dont want to place more than ONE spysat per sector (or sat miner). And mayby i dont wanna use more than one ship doing this as it works just fine in instant game.

Then there are things that does work in simul but NOT in instant ..

Solution might be a better order queue :
1. Load Satellites - 5 x Spy Mk II
2. Load Satellites - 20 x Defender Mk IV
3. Move to All Gone(6,6)
4. Launch Satellites - 1 x Spy Mk II
5. Move to Gone Bad(6,6)
6. Launch Satellites - 1 x Spy Mk II
7. Launch Satellites - 5 x Defender Mk IV
8. .... etc

I think this would solve several things not working in simul but that does work in instant.

[dogscoff]

HOw about if mines gradually drift off/ break down. You need to keep replenishing the minefield for it to remain effective, and if your enemy can somehow get a single ship or small fleet through and harass your minelayers, then he might get a chance to send a full fleet through.

Of course, he probably won't know *exactly* when your minefield expires, since (a) he might not have seen when you laid them and (b) mine expiry could be slightly randomised, and/or affected by tech levels and/or maintenance.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, minefield decay is a good idea - as I mentioned a while back, a minefield that decays at a rate proportional to its size means that the more mines you have, the more you need to maintain the field, and minefields will take a very long time to die away completely, so you won't have to worry about your minefields TOO much... see Stars! for a cool minefield system

One more thing I'd like to see in SE5 is taskforces... You can assign a fleet battle orders in SE4 like "attack planet" or "don't get hurt", but a real fleet is composed of multiple types of ships, which should each be doing their own job with orders specially crafted for their task. So what I want to be able to do is divide up a fleet into any number of taskforces, and assign battle orders on a taskforce basis - sort of like in Dominions 2, where you have multiple squads, each with their own battle orders, under one commander. I know you might say "well use multiple fleets" but then you have to multi-select them any time you want to give them strategic orders like "go to sector (5,5)" and that gets to be a pain (and I'm not even sure if the fleets stay together when one is faster than another)... it would be like if in Dom2 you had to multi-select each individual squad of soldiers that a commander commands to make sure they all move to the same place at the same time... But I'd still like to be able to create fleets without taskforces (or vice versa, whichever seems more appropriate, it's just a matter of semantics ) and move ships around without assigning them to a fleet (or have that done automatically) - I *hated* having to create a new fleet with all the rules involved every time I wanted to deploy any ships in MOO3, even for the most trivial task!

[AMF]

One thing that was mentioned a while back but which I would like to elaborate on is a new maintenance scheme for SE-V.

Currently, maintenance and ongoing support costs of vessels is fixed *and* the deletrious effects of poor or inadeqaute supply are handled as random events. (ex: ship accidents, which are rare). And, even more important, attrition is non-existent.

This is a bit unrealistic IMHO, and can be easily rectified.

Set Maintenance on a slider so you can pay lower or higher as you wish, with the baseline being what it is currently or whatever you mod it to.

Then, have ship accidents, troop attrition rates and so forth increase or decrease as you decrease or increase your chosen maintenance cost. Modeling them as "random events" is *not* realistic, as they are not random but closely tied to the level of support/maintenance they receive.

A sliding maintenance scale should also be used to affect combat, since it also encompasses ongoing training, wargames, and exercises to keep the crews and troops proficient.

Think of what it takes to deploy a US Carrier battle group or a USMC Expeditionary Unit. They take a LOT of regular training and maintenance, and that is simply to do peacetime duty. When that money is not spent, there is often a precipitious drop in readiness and training, ships go down, engines conk out, parts break, people lose skills, etc...

All of this sounds complicated, but can be easily modeled behind the scenes and relegated to a simply slider that the player controls while the game engine does the nasty calculations.

Also, it would make space exploration more realistic - I can't help but think that there should be a lot more space accidents than I ever see in a game...

Just my two cents.

Thanks,

Alarik

[Suicide Junkie]

I agree with Fyron that mines need some work. First of all, early in the game, it seems as if mines destroy every ship that is hit. Should this be so? Perhaps 1 mine = 1 dead ship is a bit too much. Late in the game, you just make sure you have enough minesweepers to sweep a maximum mine field and it becomes academic. Neither situation is 'fun', but rather seem to be doors with 'secret knocks' that once the 'knock' is known, just become a nuisance.

One thing to do is to remove sweepers from the game.
Then decrease the power of mines significantly.

A single ship still won't make it, but a modest fleet will have most of its ships take some non-fatal damage.
This will either slow them down to a sector or two per turn while they repair, or cause them to start taking losses and be very vulnerable to counter attack.

[jimbob]

yes, essentially you are suggesting that mines should have a half life... just like radioactive decay. If the half life is 10 years, then it will take 100 turns for half the mines to go "non-operational". But becuase it is a log function, at the 20 year mark you would have 25% of the mines still present, then at 30 years you'd still have 12.5%.

So your larger minefields won't go away for a very long time, just become weaker and weaker over time.

I end with another plug for satelites! Please, can we have formations for them? You could put them in high orbit, medium, or low orbit; one bunch, several bunches; location of the satelite packs (ie 2 bunches, one on North side, one on south side) etc.

[Atrocities]

I think that this mine suggestion is an excellent idea overall. I would however add one feature to it. A tech that would allow for a reduced rate of decay over time. In otherwords, a technology that would replenish the mines automatically or rather maintain them for a significant time. This technology would of course be very expensive and only be available in the later stages of the game.

Also add to the random events Accidental detonation of mines, entire mine fields and the occational discovery of an acient mine fields.

How about a new system type, anicent mine field. A system littered with mines that can only be swept by very advanced stage mine sweepers.

[jimbob]

ooooh, nice suggestions on the mines all round!