Suggest - Features and Improvements

[gaerzi]

The ability to reorder a colony's construction queue would be useful. Perhaps some little up and down arrows could appear in the corner, like those that appear on ships for the various options.

[Arioch]

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 we originally had hive worlds as infertile, but it was a serious problem for the Ashdar Imperials who start the game on one.

If you've got spaces that people can live in, then you've got spaces you can grow food in, even if they're underground. (Even in the case of the seminal megacity planet, Trantor from the Foundation series, Asimov later started to walk back the assertion that they needed to import all of their food, writing that they had large underground yeast vats and algae farms.)

We will be revisiting the fertility mechanisms for the terraforming overhaul, and perhaps even the mechanisms for hive worlds/megacities, so we'll take another look at this then. It may make sense to give a hive reduced food output, but we need to do so without crippling the Imperials' start.

[PrivateHudson]

The ability to reorder a colony's construction queue would be useful. Perhaps some little up and down arrows could appear in the corner, like those that appear on ships for the various options.

And please Alt+click to add item to the top of queue!

[nweismuller]

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 we originally had hive worlds as infertile, but it was a serious problem for the Ashdar Imperials who start the game on one.

If you've got spaces that people can live in, then you've got spaces you can grow food in, even if they're underground. (Even in the case of the seminal megacity planet, Trantor from the Foundation series, Asimov later started to walk back the assertion that they needed to import all of their food, writing that they had large underground yeast vats and algae farms.)

We will be revisiting the fertility mechanisms for the terraforming overhaul, and perhaps even the mechanisms for hive worlds/megacities, so we'll take another look at this then. It may make sense to give a hive reduced food output, but we need to do so without crippling the Imperials' start.

My suggestion back in the day was to start them with a whole bunch of farms prebuilt on Ashdar Prime, if I recall- relics of relying on brute-force agriculture even in an unsuitable environment to support their growing population.

[gaerzi]

Perhaps Ezar could be turned into a Steppes planet with supergrain to compensate for Ashdar Prime being low-fertility, in the same way mineral-rich Eluz compensates for mineral-poor Tendao?

Though in the last three Phidi games I played, two have had a mineral rich event on Tendao within the first twenty turns...

[gaerzi]

Usability: when mouse cursor is over a scrollable status window, let the mousewheel scroll it instead of changing the galaxy map's zoom level.

This always trips me.

[gaerzi]

The AI always try to use the biggest power plant available, even when that's not necessary. The logic should instead try to use the cheapest plant that'll be sufficient, so as to reduce the metal cost of the ship.

Seen on an AI colony ship:

Spoiler: show

Even for the super-ships that need two or more power sources to function, like the Super Dreadnaught and the Dread Star, it's cheaper to go for, for example, a quantum generator and a fusion reactor than for two antimatter reactors.

[Arioch]

The AI doesn't use the same rules for metal consumption that the player does, so I don't think this kind of optimization would actually benefit the AI.

I'm also not sure I like the optics. Although extra power has no use in game terms, surplus power capacity would be useful in a real ship (especially in a warship that may expect to receive reactor damage), and heterogeneous reactor types in the same ship would make maintenance and supply more complicated.

[nweismuller]

The AI doesn't use the same rules for metal consumption that the player does, so I don't think this kind of optimization would actually benefit the AI.

I'm also not sure I like the optics. Although extra power has no use in game terms, surplus power capacity would be useful in a real ship (especially in a warship that may expect to receive reactor damage), and heterogeneous reactor types in the same ship would make maintenance and supply more complicated.

That reminds me of something that's been bothering me. Even with a completely destroyed reactor system in combat (at least based on the subsystem hit points), ships appear to suffer no degradation in combat performance. I'd think it would do... something. If nothing else, I'd think forcing a reactor shutdown would be a 'soft kill' until the ship could be repaired.

[gaerzi]

When an ally asks you to start a war of aggression against another empire, I'd like an option like "now's not the time" or "we're not ready" which tells the ally that you accept to help them, but wait a dozen turns first before the war starts.

[Arioch]

When an ally asks you to start a war of aggression against another empire, I'd like an option like "now's not the time" or "we're not ready" which tells the ally that you accept to help them, but wait a dozen turns first before the war starts.

I like that idea.

[akkamaddi]

When an ally asks you to start a war of aggression against another empire, I'd like an option like "now's not the time" or "we're not ready" which tells the ally that you accept to help them, but wait a dozen turns first before the war starts.

I like that idea.

I really like the "Soon" answer, but would also love a "Let's see if I can smooth things over" where you spend some diplomatic clout and reduce the aggression a bit.

I keep having issues where two of my allies start squabbling.

Also, this is a kind-of-bug: If an ally asks you to support them in a war, and you agree, you instantly declare war. The other empire then gets the "you attacked us without reason" diplomatic negative, which makes things difficult when you try to get peace, and later build treaties. It would be nice if that didn't give the "War Without Cause" penalty, or if there was a "Please let me explain..." diplomatic action (and cost) that would let you reduce past misdeeds.

[zolobolo]

would also love a "Let's see if I can smooth things over" where you spend some diplomatic clout and reduce the aggression a bit.

I keep having issues where two of my allies start squabbling.

Sounds like a nice option to have for a diplomatic style gameplay: for a sizable amount of influence of course ; )

[zolobolo]

Just an idea (this is based and would ideally be located in the population pane available as mod): showing amount/or percentage of pops in the empire as seen below:

Pops.GIF (27.44 KiB) Viewed 19529 times

With the games largely blue blackground, slaves could also be white

X axis might be easier to size to percentage due to max difference (no pops sohwn under 1 unit) but unit count is more practical for players

Contrary to popular belief (and a ceartant other space 4X tht should have known better ), pie-charts are very unpractical, as they do not convey the proportions properly and scale values poorly when numerous categories are avaialble and at least some of them are low values

Ideally, when a row is selected, the planets containing the corresponding pops are listed in the planet pane but that would already require a full-blown report fucntionality and I am quit sure this is already beyond what is reasonable

[zolobolo]

Just wanted to note that the addition of "Reverse Engineering" optin to ships is brilliant: by allowing for granular control, it is now possible to reverse engineer some captured ships and keep the rest.

I also see this option though after having assimilated another race: at first it seems to be useless in this case as all the tech they had researched is already transfered to the player during the merger but of course the might have had ships with components that they themselves have not searched yet so its fine