Suggest - Features and Improvements

[orvarth]

militia strength :

regular civilian militia 1
big muscular primitive 2 (algorian for example)
gremak slave shocktroop 2.5 (with chattel pharmaceutic)
gremak marauder 1.5 (not very powerful but specialized in torture and control)
human space marines 3
tank/hovertank/battlemech 3/5/8 but far more expensive .

[zolobolo]

Management of ship range is the aspect holding back the AI currently the most in my opinion (that is why large system distance and scorched planet tactic can keep the hardest AI in check)

What if there were a "Logistics support" module for ships that would increase the range of the fleet it is attached to?
Such a module could be equipped on a transport or other large hulls and if the AI could use the template containingsuch a ship and include it into its strike fleets, that might resolve the above in some cases and offer up some interesting tactical targets for the player during battle

The flaw of the concept would be if the AI cannot eqasily be told to build and have only one or max to of such ships in any fleet as they would need to be expensive in order to not make range irrelevant

[Arioch]

In high-tech warfare, I don't think being more muscular makes your guns do any more damage.

Nor does being a primitive who doesn't know how to use high tech weapons, nor does being a drugged up slave.

[orvarth]

modern and high-tech war doesn't mean no close-combat , wookie and klingons for example .

at low tech the primitive and big species have an advantage , wich they loose when they face smaller but better equiped foes later in the game.

drugs : immune to fear and pain , heavy use of steroids etc...

[Arioch]

modern and high-tech war doesn't mean no close-combat , wookie and klingons for example .

at low tech the primitive and big species have an advantage , wich they loose when they face smaller but better equiped foes later in the game.

drugs : immune to fear and pain , heavy use of steroids etc...

Unless you have personal shields or something that allows you to avoid being shot, yes it does mean no close combat. And even if you do have tech that enables close combat, high-tech close-range weapons like blaster pistols, vibroblades, lightsabers, chainswords, or whatever... none of these things benefit from high strength (beyond the ability to carry a heavier weapon). The bigger the soldier, the larger the target; there's no advantage to being large in ultra-tech combat.

Slaves have no motivation to fight. Give a slave a weapon? He'll shoot you in the back the moment you aren't looking. Drugs only make your aim worse. Direct hits from ultra-tech weapons that penetrate armor or shields are very likely to disable you or kill you outright; pain threshold is not really a factor. Watch Aliens and consider what armor-piercing incendiary rounds do to a living target (even one as tough as the aliens); the tech for those pulse rifles is essentially at the level of what you start this game with.

And pardon me for saying so, but Star Trek and Star Wars are not known for their realistic portrayal of ground combat. There's hand to hand combat in movies because the script says there needs to be, not because it makes any sense. In tactical ground combat games, it can be fun to get your units into close combat, and so there's a excuse for modeling in fantasy elements. But in a game with ground combat as abstracted as ours is, I don't think it makes much sense.

[PrivateHudson]

What's worth to model in an abstracted high-tech ground combat, is the close air support, interdiction, and airmobility. I believe, you said once that initial purpose for assault shuttles on Military Transports was to enhance ground combat in some way. Say, troops on those transports get 1.5-2x strength. Fighters and bombers that survived space battle also could play a role... if ground combat wasn't already a one gate play. Probably, it is off SiS's aim for simplicity, but it would be interesting to look on a game where colonies are hard-to-crack fortresses, taking multiple turns to conquer (the shorter the more damage is done to ecology and infrastructure) and then even longer to suppress guerilla.

[Arioch]

What's worth to model in an abstracted high-tech ground combat, is the close air support, interdiction, and airmobility. I believe, you said once that initial purpose for assault shuttles on Military Transports was to enhance ground combat in some way. Say, troops on those transports get 1.5-2x strength. Fighters and bombers that survived space battle also could play a role... if ground combat wasn't already a one gate play. Probably, it is off SiS's aim for simplicity, but it would be interesting to look on a game where colonies are hard-to-crack fortresses, taking multiple turns to conquer (the shorter the more damage is done to ecology and infrastructure) and then even longer to suppress guerilla.

The idea was that troops invading from a cargo hold rather than an assault shuttle berth would have a disadvantage. This wasn't implemented for UI reasons; it substantially complicates the way the pre-combat display is set up.

The other disadvantage that the current system has is that fleets must destroy all orbital and ground bases to be able to invade, which means that bases that might hold fighters or other forces usable in ground combat will have already be destroyed.

I think we can and probably should add more ground unit types (like atmospheric fighters) just for variety, but I don't think they'll make much of a difference in the outcome of invasions, since they can just be obliterated by orbital bombardment.

Maybe some kind of defensive shields could help here. It could take up a defense base slot and reduce the effectivenss of bombardments.

[PrivateHudson]

Space Empires V had an interesting implementation of ground invasions, almost like you describe. There were ships and units. Besides friendly fleet, colony could be defended by: engineless ships (starbases); planetary shield generators, taking up facility slots; units in near space (mines, satellites, drones, fighters) up to a limit; units on the surface (same unit types, launched in space at battle start, + weapon platforms and tanks) up to a planet cargo capacity. Of them most dangerous usually were weapon platforms, whose shields got summed up in addition to planetary shields. In theory, you hadn't to destroy all of this to drop ground invaders (fighters, tanks), just steam the transport close enough to the surface. Any ship with cargo capacity could pass as transport - even colonizer loaded with units could capture undefended colony. But to take heavily defended colony, specialized fleet was necessary: missile-equipped long-range bombardment taskforce, kamikaze bombardment taskforce on drones, fighters, or ramming ships, bomb-equipped close-range bombardment taskforce, drop taskforce on fast armored transports - repurposed warships. Each hit during bombardment that passed planetary shield could with certain probability damage unit on the surface (including yours from previous drops), or facility, or kill amount of population. Multiple space battles and drops could be attempted during single turn by different fleets, maybe belonging to different players. At the end of a turn, invaders tried to overcome defenders in a limited time, tearing between enemy tanks and fighters and high-value, but silent now weapon platforms. The game tracked invader numbers (by faction) on enemy colonies between turns, so if undecided, at the end of next turn ground combat continued. Defenders were assisted by militia, whose numbers were determined by population amount, and that was replenished each turn. Defenders enjoyed limited repair and resupply, invaders could only hope for reinforcements. Space and ground combat was real-time. And most important - you could design all ships and units.

[gaerzi]

Maybe some kind of defensive shields could help here. It could take up a defense base slot and reduce the effectivenss of bombardments.

Or just equipping shields in the defense blueprints?

[Arioch]

Maybe some kind of defensive shields could help here. It could take up a defense base slot and reduce the effectivenss of bombardments.

Or just equipping shields in the defense blueprints?

Those won't protect against bombardment, because they will have to have already been destroyed in order for the planet to be bombarded.

[sparrow66]

Log time player (since the pre release on Steam), but I don't think I've ever posted before, so here goes:
1. I've hacked the Planetary Report so it shows the same stats in the same order as when you look at a planet: Labor, Coin, Metal, Food, Science. I recall the devs posting opposition to making this screen have too much more, but this makes perfect sense, as its the same metrics for a planet when you look at it.
2. I'd love to be able to sort/find/filter planets by Special Resources, empty slots (improvements or defenses) and delta between current pop and max pop. This would help with empire management
3. I'd love to modify the ship report so you could find every ship of a particular type - do I have any colony ships built forgotten anywhere, lost in some giant fleet, etc?
4. You can have population and science stations in orbit, but nothing commercial or industrial (mining makes much less sense). Be cool and interesting to allow MORE expansion of orbital slots to enable a bit more flexibility in what you can do with a planet. Also should allow some use for gas giants - no reason why an advanced civilization could have quite a productive set of bases in orbit and on moons of Jupiter like planets. Should be fun to use, and well in keeping with the both the design goals and playability of the game
5. I'd love to see the equivalent of terrain in space - nebulas that slow down warp lanes, black holes that block direct transit between stars, spiral arm shaped galaxies that require late tech to have the range to get from one arm to another, etc. There is a great opportunity to dramatically change the feel of the game if there is the equivalent of terrain, creating key strategic planets, choke points, etc.

[Arioch]

I thought we had changed the order of the resources in the Planetary Report to match the order in the planet info screen, but I guess it either got un-fixed or it just never happened in the first place. I agree that it makes sense to have the displays be more uniform.

The Fleet Report UI doesn't really have the capability to add a search for individual ships; I think that functionality would need to be added to a different UI.

We don't currently model moons, but I'd like to add moons as a type of planetary special. They wouldn't be directly colonizable, but they might add attributes to a gas giant to make it colonizable (for example, a Large Moon might add a small amount of (probably Barren) biome to the planet, allowing you to place a colony there).

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to add black holes and associated technologies (warp interdictors and gravity well generators) in the next DLC, though there are some UI issues that will need to be worked out. Ultimately I'd eventually like to make black holes and hyperspace anomalies into "portals" between alternate map layers, sort of like in Master or Magic or Age of Wonders.

I think nebulae would be problematic as to how to represent in game terms, since our map is very system-centric. But since ships are supposed to be traveling in hyperspace, I don't think the presence of nebulae should really affect ship speed. It would be cool to have battles in nebulae with special effects (like shields not working), but since battles only occur in star systems, you would have to have a star system inside the nebula. That would be pretty rare, as a star's stellar wind will eventually blow away any nebulosity. Unless it was like a dying star emitting a planetary nebula... but while that would look cool, I'm not sure the minimal gameplay effect would make it worth the effort to implement.

[zolobolo]

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to add black holes and associated technologies (warp interdictors and gravity well generators) in the next DLC

I would love to see your take on black hole visualisation

[Arioch]

I'm hopeful that we'll be able to add black holes and associated technologies (warp interdictors and gravity well generators) in the next DLC

I would love to see your take on black hole visualisation

These are the original star concepts:

star_types2.jpg (83.62 KiB) Viewed 24263 times

[zolobolo]

These are the original star concepts:

Very nice So the Black Holes were planned from the start just didnt make it into the game yet?