SE5, Tell Aaron what's on your Wish List

[Ed Kolis]

Ancient mine fields... I like!

How about racial research aptitudes... the Abbidon might be good at researching the social sciences while the Xiati might be good at researching weapons. An idea I had is that each tech area could specify zero or more research categories which would match ones in some sort of Racial Traits file. Thus, if Point Defense Cannon tech is categorized under Weaponry and Military Science, and it normally costs 10,000 points for some particular level, and your race has 120% aptitude in Weaponry research and 110% aptitude in Military Science research, then it would only cost you 10,000 / 1.20 / 1.10 = 7576 research points. (You could alternatively multiply the research points you put into it by the appropriate modifiers, but I think it's clearer to the player if the cost is changed instead - that way any 5000 point tech you see on the list takes the same amount of time to research as any other 5000 point tech, it's just that which techs are 5000 points may change from game to game )
Another method to this is simply to assign aptitudes to each of the "theoretical" sciences and then let the applied sciences "inherit" any aptitudes that their prerequisites have - so if you have an aptitude in Physics, then that aptitude will apply not only to Physics but also to Energy Stream Weapons, Shields, Cloaking, etc. This is less flexible in that you can't assign aptitudes to specific techs, but more powerful in that you can affect a whole tech tree with just one change in the data files - sorta like the change in the "one component level, one entry" in SE4 to the "one component family, one entry" in Starfury
Or you can have the best of both worlds and assign aptitudes to any tech that is flagged with an "aptitude" marker, and have techs with a "propagating aptitude" marker propagate their aptitudes through their child techs!

Did that make any sense? Anyone have any other ideas on tech aptitudes? (Other implementations, reasons why they shouldn't be in the game in the first place, etc.)

[farstryder]

i'm all about having a smarter battle system for simultaneous games/strategic battle. here's why...

in a recent pbw game, an enemy had a fleet where half his ships were suicide warhead ships. it would have been really nice to be able to tell my ships to all focus fire on these first. it would also be nice to have more options generally in combat, like avoiding ships with certain components, targeting ships with certain components, more intelligent formations that operate with specific parameters, not just to maintain shape.

i'm not sure if all of this has already been said, but its really frustrating in a simultaneous game to have a superior force totally destroyed in strategic combat when in tactical, i could have trounced the opponent.

[Suicide Junkie]

Minefields with decay rates...
I'd put in a racial trait for negative decay rates just for fun

[AMF]

One thing that I would find VERY cool and which would probably require not much recoding is the ability to *start* a game with ships and resources stored on them, and without planets (if one wanted.)

So, you could have a set up that began like battlestar galactica or some other "exiles" or "gypsies" race.

Ideally you would be able to design your ships and "buy" them with a set number of resources that you start with in the start up settings, and the rest of the resources you could have carried in your cargo holds.

This would require designating how much cargo carries how much resources and designating where in the edge of the map the "gypsy fleet" starts at, but other than that probably not too much coding. Just moving some interfaces to the start up screens, no?

Doing this would allow me to play my Exiles of Kor race as a real race of exiles, appearing on the edge of the map, with a ragtag bunch of ships, some loaded colonizers, a cityship or two, and a bunch of stored resources in the quest for a new home while we flee the Evil Klackons...

it would also allow a Borg type invasion wherein the Borg player starts with just one big a** mothership and has to take over the whole galaxy...

You could also "jump start" games, by giving people not only planets to begin with but a bunch of ships as well, so we don't have to spend the first ten turns building up...

the possibilities are pretty cool, IMHO.

Thanks,

Alarik

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by alarikf:
Doing this would allow me to play my Exiles of Kor race as a real race of exiles, appearing on the edge of the map, with a ragtag bunch of ships, some loaded colonizers, a cityship or two, and a bunch of stored resources in the quest for a new home while we flee the Evil Klackons...

Klackons? Will they stop popping up everywhere like the bugs they are? AFAIK they're originally from Master of Orion, and as well as showing up in every MOO game to date, they've shown up in Master of Magic, as well as several variants of Angband (Hah, my Klackon Assassin has 4 attacks each with his dual wielded Daggers of Poisoning ) So where are THESE Klackons from?

edit: oh yeah, this is supposed to be an SE5 thread... so I'll reiterate my earlier requests for 1. area effect weapons and 2. spinny 3D-rendered techs like in MOO2 or the ships in the "choose initial ship" in Starfury

[ December 10, 2003, 19:45: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

[AMF]

Well, the Exiles of Kor are one of the races I often play (along with "the Zone" and the "the Outer Colonies") who all share one dubious role playing history: they all fled Ancient Earth when it was destroyed in my ACP game. In that, I'm Earth, Nagahabhata is the Klackons, and I think they're just about to destroy me. Really, it's all just me having fun creating races based on my prior games...

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:

quote:

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Originally posted by alarikf:
Doing this would allow me to play my Exiles of Kor race as a real race of exiles, appearing on the edge of the map, with a ragtag bunch of ships, some loaded colonizers, a cityship or two, and a bunch of stored resources in the quest for a new home while we flee the Evil Klackons...

Klackons? Will they stop popping up everywhere like the bugs they are? AFAIK they're originally from Master of Orion, and as well as showing up in every MOO game to date, they've shown up in Master of Magic, as well as several variants of Angband (Hah, my Klackon Assassin has 4 attacks each with his dual wielded Daggers of Poisoning ) So where are THESE Klackons from?

edit: oh yeah, this is supposed to be an SE5 thread... so I'll reiterate my earlier requests for 1. area effect weapons and 2. spinny 3D-rendered techs like in MOO2 or the ships in the "choose initial ship" in Starfury

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[narf poit chez BOOM]

i wonder if Taera's a klackon...

[Ed Kolis]

Might have posted these before, or maybe they were just from a time when the forum was down, but in any event I had them lying around in a text file (yes I do do those things )

Randomized tech trees - your results might vary by up to 10% or some moddable value from the standard, so a DUC V might cost 270-330 minerals, do 36-44 damage, cost 28,125-34,375 research points, have max range 4.5-5.5 km, fire every 0.9-1.1 seconds, etc. depending on who built it or even which shipyard it was built at. The tech prerequisites could vary too; one game you might need level 2 physics to get cloaking, another you might need level 3!

For each component, hull, facility, or anything that has a tech requirement, there could be a list of tech areas that you can get from analyzing it, a percent chance to get that tech area, a max level you can attain from it, and a range of research points (so you don't automatically get a whole level!) So a Wave Motion Cannon III might give you a 50% chance to gain up to 50,000 points in High Energy Weapons, to a max of level 10, and also a 75% chance to gain up to 10,000 points in Propulsion, to a max of Tech Level 7. Of course you could get lucky and get both... or get nothing! And this would be a per-component basis, as the more components you have to analyze the better chance you should have to figure something useful out from at least one of them!

[Tnarg]

Primitives and options.

1. Use them as a boon to the labor force right away.

2. Have them enter the space age as wolflings under your guidance. Give them technology and have them do the dirty fighting for you. Kind of a subjugated neutral race with only one planet.

3. Leave them be and let them develope into a spacefarring race a hundred or so turns down the road. This race would have the full capabilities as a normal race in SEIV.

4.

[Ruatha]

When jettisoning cargo;
Let it be jettisoned in a cargo pod with a set lifespan (moddable) so that it can be picked up later.
So a cargo pod can contain anything and all that is in the cargo room of the ship.
So if you see a cargo pod and go after it, it might be 10 pop or 80 fighters, 2 WP and some troops...
Add this with a scenario editor and you can mod away certein items in the game that needs to be found drifting in space.

Edit:
And how about boobytrapping a cargo pod? If mines are jettisoned the cargo pod they are in becomes a trap, when salvaged all mines explode at the same time (jettison 400 mines in one pod!!)

It should require some action to salvage, not just passing by, but pressing a "jettison/salvage" button. So you can't boobytrap a wormhole!

[ December 11, 2003, 19:24: Message edited by: Ruatha ]