Suggest - Features and Improvements

[Dragar]

Would it make sense/be feasible to display contested systems in a way so that they are clearly visible from the highest zoom level?

It is probably not feasible to display this with all the colors of other contestants (as it would involve up to 3 additional colors), but utilizing only the main owner color to visualize the contested nature of the system should suffice anyhow

Arioch has also pushed me to implement some version of this feature. But I remain unsure how to best make it happen, at a technical level. It's certainly an idea that's 'on our radar'; but it's unlikely to be implemented unless I can think of some simple / clever way of making it happen.

It's not the highest zoom level, but MOO2 used to use the system name text: multiple colours indicated multiple owners.

[orvarth]

suggestions for weapons bonus balance :

laser/primary : higher rate of fire , no armor penetration .

ion : more damage against shield

disruptor : more damage against armor

neutron : bypass armor 50% lethal vs crew

all kinetics weapons with long range and shield penetration , shields effiency against kinetics 40/60/80

force lance long range with high damage bypassing complety shield is a bit too much .

[Danath]

force lance long range with high damage bypassing complety shield is a bit too much .

They don't bypass temporal aegis at all, becoming rather weak weapons, and those technologies are very close in the tech tree.

[zolobolo]

Here is an example of why shields are OP at this time

4 Heavy Cruisers, each with 4 Ion cannons, 4 Defense Lasers and 2 Deflectors face off a single Fleet Carrier with 3 Deflector screens and 3 squadrons of Interceptors

Naturally the 4 Heavy Cruisers should win this engagement considering their firepower and resource cost, but the fleet carrier wins this without a single damage to its armor... It could be argued if 1-2 Heavy Cruisers would be an acceptable loss in such a straight-forward scenario, but the carrier should definitively loose.

The reason it is "unbeatable" is the simple fact that the recharge rate of its 3 Deflectors outpaces the damage output of 16 Ion cannons and 16 Defense Lasers (with AC mod) - I don't think that damage immunity is the intended purpose of shields.

Shield power or recharge rate should be capped by a considerable margin, and envelop effect should be basic for all energy weapons (some damage is also lost due to the positioning of the 4 Cruisers, though only for a few turns)

PD is not reserved against the interceptors, but that is a tactical AI issue

[harpy eagle]

PD is not reserved against the interceptors, but that is a tactical AI issues

Hmm, just got an idea for an improvement to my AI mod

[zolobolo]

Please consider integrating the changes within Tactical Combat AI Mod of Harpy Eagle into the base game, if he approves:
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=666

Reasons:
- The mod does not introduce any new game elements but simply optimizes the AI logic to use the existing mechanics effectively
- It contains bug-fixes (such us that of the Boarding mechanic) which would need DEV time to be implemented separately
- AI improvements are generally on the short list for improvements and the changes within above mod would save a lot of development time: an update has just been given to the AI according to the change log maybe these and upcoming changes are already covered for
- Implementation of a separate AI logic would inevitably lead to loss of efficiency (one implementation would be better in some things as the other) - by building on top of the existing changes the strengths of both approaches can be utilized
- The mod is quite stable in its current form, and the AI very effective

The changes of course make the AI much more challenging to fight against (also most exploits do not work anymore).
To prevent new players to be deterred by the difficulty curve, the prioritization algorithm could be made optional under the difficulty settings via a switch titled: "Advanced Tactical AI Algorithm"

[harpy eagle]

Please consider integrating the changes within Tactical Combat AI Mod of Harpy Eagle into the base game, if he approves:
http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=5&t=666

Sven, if you are still interested I can take a shot at integrating the mod into the Lua State repo, and I dunno, send you a patchfile?

I guess the main question is how stable the mod is. I don't plan on making any further major additions to it, but there's probably a good chance of tweaks and fixes.

[sven]

Sven, if you are still interested I can take a shot at integrating the mod into the Lua State repo, and I dunno, send you a patchfile?

I am indeed interested. If you think it's about stable, I'll start by doing a careful read through of your code myself, then do a bit of testing of my own, then roll it out for the larger 'bleeding edge' test group to look at, and then, assuming all that goes well, release it to Steam/GoG.com (which would probably happen a month-ish from now).

I think you could theoretically roll a patchfile against the HEAD revision in http://stars-in-shadow.com/git/sislua.git, but because I'm going to do a line-by-line read through anyhow -- it's probably not worth the effort

Edit: That said, if you are anticipating tweaks and patches, it would be convenient to have both of us more or less in the same repo, so we can view each other's diffs/changelogs more easily. If you're interested in maintaining a version of the mod in sislua.git, I can get you write permission for that repo.

[zolobolo]

I am indeed interested. If you think it's about stable

Numerous scenarios involving colonial and imperial fleets as well as planetary defenses have been tested from start to end-game. Generally there do not seem to be any errors for these anymore

Testing with fleets of other factions is underway and some rare scenarios certainly remain to be tested, but errors were generally rare. If they appeared there were mostly non game-breaking issues in priority or reservation logic functions that have only affected the particular engagement and could be ignored

If you have console command to auto-play the player side until error pops up I would run that a couple of times with max number of factions just in case.

[fonzosh]

Moving production:

Within the same star system, the planets may lend their production to their neighbours (with a small loss of say 25%). This to symbolize what the industry today call outsorcing and letting another planet take care of making the small part for example the death star. The loss in production is because of the transport cost. With this implemented you can really build production clusters and the smaller planets could help the big planet in a star system.

Moving population:

The ability tototally empty a planet of population, either a certain type or everyone. This way you can make a certian planet only having one species or even be implemented as some sort of scorched earth tactic if you allow for blowing all the buildings. To use it as a bridge, the AI has to recolonize the planet.

Moving orbital installations:

Why not let orbital installations be moved within a star system. This could even be a tech in the tech tree (Call it: Empowered Tugboats) This way you can let a production strong planet that newly settled a smal neighbour instantly allow the small neighbour to have a an orbital installition. To not make this tech to powerful, allow a transport period of 1 round per "distance" within the star system.

[zolobolo]

Suggest Asteroid Starbase to have at least one additional slot for weaponry as its durability bonus cannot be utilized when equipped with a Construction module - while it is much less powerful as a standard starbase combat wise

By giving it a weapon harpoint (or even a PD hardpoint additionally), it could serve in a mixture of civil and military function
Currently it makes more sense to build a Shipyard or go for a proper military starbase instead even if the rare resource to build it is available

[fonzosh]

Strafing

To be able to strafe a small area with a beam or particle weapon. This would prevent multiple cheap destroyer tactics and would be a cool feature to pick out several heavily damaged targets in one go.

When uou select a weapon, that weapon has an extra feature called "Strafe". If you press that one, you get an area of effect instead of a single target. Every vessel in the area of effect is targeted by the weapon dmg/number of vessels.

[fonzosh]

See the species in the planet list

I suggest a small feature to be able to see the species in the planet overwiev. As it is now, I either rename the planet to show what species that inhabit the planet or I have to search each planet for the specific species I need. Why I suggest such a feature is that I often use non organic sppecies for my mining planets, thus not having a problem with food.

Suggestion: Allow a small graphical icon appear next to each planet name in the list overview the shows the different species that inhabits the planet. Also allow for the drop down meny on the overview list to sort the planets by species.

[harpy eagle]

See the species in the planet list

I suggest a small feature to be able to see the species in the planet overwiev. As it is now, I either rename the planet to show what species that inhabit the planet or I have to search each planet for the specific species I need. Why I suggest such a feature is that I often use non organic sppecies for my mining planets, thus not having a problem with food.

Suggestion: Allow a small graphical icon appear next to each planet name in the list overview the shows the different species that inhabits the planet. Also allow for the drop down meny on the overview list to sort the planets by species.

Would something like this work for you?

[fonzosh]

See the species in the planet list

I suggest a small feature to be able to see the species in the planet overwiev. As it is now, I either rename the planet to show what species that inhabit the planet or I have to search each planet for the specific species I need. Why I suggest such a feature is that I often use non organic sppecies for my mining planets, thus not having a problem with food.

Suggestion: Allow a small graphical icon appear next to each planet name in the list overview the shows the different species that inhabits the planet. Also allow for the drop down meny on the overview list to sort the planets by species.

Would something like this work for you?

I was rather thinking in the planet list view (the window to the left of the screen that shows a list of all the planets). Since I often play with 150+ star systems it cames soemtimes become a nuisance to find exactly the right species that you need and to be able to see an overview of this without clicking each individual system would make it a lot better.