Suggest - Features and Improvements

[zolobolo]

Suggest to prioratize selection of single transport capacity transport from the trade pool when moving colonists as currently, the algorithm sometimes select a ship with 2 capacity for transport of 1 unit of pop even when another transport with a single pop capacity is still available from the pool

[fonzosh]

Dont know if this game is still alive and kicking or just a project for the few players that are still developing/playing it, but one feature that I REALLY would like to see is being able to see which races are on a planet in the "Planetary Report" menu and a notice when a planet has reached its Max pop. This to be able to do effective pop production planets and be able to move people around to get the max effect out of each planet.

[gaerzi]

The game is still actively in development, but neither of its developers can afford to work on it full-time, so progress is kinda slow.

Get the population panel mod, it will give you something quite close to what you want. Just keep in mind that it rounds the numbers up, so it can show two units of population when you actually have 1.5 units.

[McCloy]

It was already noted by many players that Ion Beam is... not very exciting. Maybe take straight-forward approach and declare it primarily shield-depleting weapon? Damage against shields is doubled. We have specialized anti-shield missiles, and second way to solve the same puzzle will not hurt.

I agree. Every time I research Ion Cannon, I think - Oh boy, now I have a good early game weapon. Then I realized it doesn't do much.

Ion Cannon with anti-shield bonus would nice. Also, once enemy shields are down, maybe a hit with the Ion could have an interesting side effect of "freezing" a target ship's engines for 1 turn. Maybe retreat would be made impossible too with a hit. Now that would make Ion Cannons unique.

[McCloy]

The game is still actively in development, but neither of its developers can afford to work on it full-time, so progress is kinda slow.

Hats off to the developers. Goes to show that this game is not only a project they deserve to make some extra coin from (and I'm sure they unfortunately don't make enough), but it's also a game made out of love for the hobby. Keep going, Devs. I for one will support the next DLC, as many here will too no doubt.

[McCloy]

Diplomacy feature suggestion: giving ships to another empire.

Nice suggestion. Once you get good and cozy with another empire, I think it would be cool to have the option to sell some ships to them. Or vice versa, you could ask for ships by offering big money & metal. During WWII, before Pearl Harbor, the British bought a fair amount of older escort ships from the USA so as to augment their naval war in the Atlantic. It wasn't a decisive kind of thing, though at the time it was still a somewhat big move.

As we see post-WW2, arms sales became a common thing between high-tech dominant powers to vassal client states.

As a rule, maybe military sales can only occur if you have +xx% positive relations with another empire. Second, there should be a maximum amount of ships you could sell at any one time (based on hull sizes?). Naturally it would also be strategic to sell older ships.

[zolobolo]

it would be cool to have the option to sell some ships to them

What if all sold ships are placed into a merc hub avaiable to be bought by anyone (could be a new merc hub type)

Selling to the AI might also work as a diplo feature, but not sure how it could be scripted well: the decision to buy the ship depends on a lot of factors (hence I though of the above): there is now a logic in place for the AI to buy mercs. Selling directly to the AI (even by another AI), might work if it goes through this same process: offering a ship is basically the same as the buyer deciding if they want ot purchase a merc ship (would just cost less to make it more likely that they by these ships instead of normal merc ships)

Selling is more simple: form AI side, this migth take place either when:
A: They need to destroy a ships due to low budget
B: Have reached maximum fleet buildup and could thus get rid of their least- advanced ships to their frendliest contact (this would also save them refit costs)

[zolobolo]

Love the additional civil techs for Gremak: this will hopefully strengthen the AI empires and is also reak to have more none-cobmat tech available even if only for one faction

Question: Would it be possible to get some art to these techs or in gerenal tech like this?

Most of the combat tech uses the existing art for the tect description of course but those who do not have such seem somwhat less exciting
This is a shame as the game does boost a fair emount of non-combat tech they are just not that striking, memorable, fun to research as they are mostly only represented as a truckload of text
The later is usefull for effect desc and fun to read through once for lore but the player does not "engage" with these text afterwards

[zolobolo]

Would it be possible to mark tech that got a boost somehow? Like when blueprints are found in Ruins

[zolobolo]

Just an idea to put out there: endgame tech: "Ashdar/Gremak/Human Former Glory"

When researched it can give all sorts of bonuses and can even warry with race:
- A new modern ship design that can resemble the Heavy Dred style or fill in a role the particular race (or none) have such as a torpedo Cruiser with considerable Fighters or heavy PD capacity
- New building producing influence or upgrade a particular building type to an ultiamte version
- Changes to pop production values and or appearance

The change can even be visually reflected on the the races empire icon visible to everyone and would kinda give the feeling of upgrading the whole race altogether

[Arioch]

Would it be possible to mark tech that got a boost somehow? Like when blueprints are found in Ruins

An at-a-glance progress indicator would be useful. Perhaps progress bar shading in the tech cartouche itself.

[gaerzi]

A few suggestions, some being roughly inspired by MoO CTS:

• Queued orders. Order a ship to go to a system, then to another, etc. Put up a notification when the order queue is empty or when something causes the orders to becoming invalid. The main use would be for Ashdar Imperials, so that ships can be ordered to go to the Gienah first and then to wherever, as that will often be faster than going to wherever directly. Another example would be to take a transport ship, move to a system, load up some population there, then move to another system. While you can do that from the trade pool between two worlds, you can't when the destination world is not settled yet (but a colony ship is on its way).
• Optional notifications for when a fleet arrives to its destination.
• Auto-explore. Tell a scout ship to automatically seek unexplored systems that are in range.
• Star-type-dependent name lists. So that Rigel is always blue and Betelgeuse always red.
• More natural resources. In the same way that "precious metals" allow mines to generate money, I'm thinking there could be more "hybrid" resources this way that give a secondary purpose to one of the building types. For example:
  
  • fungus: inspired by the Yoral backstory and by the "red fungus" resource from MoO that allows unfarmable planets to generate some food, this is an organism that grows quickly on freshly dug minerals, generating some food for each mine
  • Biodiversity: lifeforms on this planet are a constant source of surprise and discoveries, generating some science for each farm
  • Prestige crops: food from this planet are especially appreciated throughout the galaxy, generating some money for each farm
  • Exotic resources: a surprising abundance of rare materials allow local industries to affordably experiment with production techniques not possible with more traditional materials, generating some science for each factory
• Moons. In CTS, planets with moons are better than planets without, as certain buildings require a moon. In SIS, there could be a "lunar habitat" technology that offer additional biome units (something like 1 metro, 2 airless maybe) to planets with a moon.
• Worker ships. Ships that can perform refits of other ships and orbital stations and that can perform terraforming or planet construction tasks in a system without needing a colony there.
• Advanced outpost transports. With large scale ship construction offered with dreadnaughts, super-dreadnaughts, and mobile planetoids, you could get the ability to create larger transport ships that deploy into star bases and fleet bases.

[akkamaddi]

So, this is from the testing economic balance thread, but my reply is more appropriate here.

One more idea: the Gremak war could have benefited from something like an "unconditional offer of surrender" diplomatic event; the war dragged on for too long. (snip snip) That's the next thing on my wishlist...

I'm one of the people who has brought this up before, and will bring it up again. It would be useful to have a surrender option. I think this would become more important when the terraforming overhaul goes through, and planets suffer war damage. There would be value in preserving the planets.

It could be expensive, and I would also add a positive modifier for ever free pop of the surrendering race in your empire that is free, negative for ever slave of that race. Of course, it would mainly be weighted by the military power of the two races. Then, have three expense tiers:

Vassal: 10 turns. 10% coin and 5% metal tribute to you. Empire cannot make new treaties or attack, but can defend. Empire must ask permission before colonizing a planet, and you can colonize in their space. Attacks on another's vassal count as attacks on the sovereign. If you declare war on your own vassal, all other empires but Gremak get a permanent and cumulative modifier. If you want to get complicated, you could even make demands of +5% coin, +5% metal, and one pop unit as a slave, for a small diplomatic cost. (The cost is much lower for Gremak.) Additional demands have a chance of pushing revolt, in which case the Vassal declares war again, and has a permanent diplomatic negative making any negotiation more difficult.

Conditional Surrender: You absorb the empire. This will require a bit of programming logic, but the caveat is that you cannot enslave any members of that empire's race for 10 turns. If you do, all members of that race have a -10 morale and any other empires of that race have a -10 diplomacy "Betrayed our race" mark. All other enslavable races and empires have a -5 morale/diplomacy mark "Broken peace accord", but this fades over time. Of course, Gremak don't care. Existing slaves do not count.

Unconditional Surrender: Most expensive demand. The empire merges, and there are no conditions.

[PrivateHudson]

I think, hive worlds should be always infertile. Description says something about destroyed biosphere. So getting one is not only sheer gain, but also liability of shipping all that food for the enormous population.

[akkamaddi]

I think, hive worlds should be always infertile. Description says something about destroyed biosphere. So getting one is not only sheer gain, but also liability of shipping all that food for the enormous population.

I think the reason is industrial farms and greenhouses. Think automated industrial hydroponics.

While I agree with the idea, there would have to be some basic changes to the AI. The AI is not great about managing morale, and I suspect it is not much better about managing food. I think the effect would be that the Ashdar and Gremak would technologically rise into starvation.

I think if you unlock all the terraforming to everyone and make "yours" much cheaper (or the others more expensive), you could balance the offset of needing city vs. rural planets much easier.