Tech
Tractor Beams or gravity wells
Repulsar weapon
Escape nullifiers (cant leave the battle field)
Gauss cannons
Ship Teleportation
True Cloaking device
Short range, Area effect weapons

Research
Race attribute alterations
Improved maneuvering thrusters
Weapon Improved power usage (25% lower power use)
Low cost in combat weapon platforms
Fleet tactics (allow you to choose from combat formations prior to battle

Captainspire wrote:Gauss cannons

How would a Gauss Cannon be different from a Mass Driver or Railgun?

Captainspire wrote:Fleet tactics (allow you to choose from combat formations prior to battle

If we were to add a formation selection feature, I think we wouldn't want to lock it behind a tech.

Ground units auto-upgrade, but the upgraded versions are also more expensive to make. Which leads to an odd optimization condition: when possible, you want to build as many of your tanks as you can before researching those upgrades. I'd suggest that if they're going to auto-upgrade, the upgraded versions shouldn't cost more than the base versions.

I suggest that Gaiads, Viscids, and (possibly) dissidents of any species should be exempted from counting for improvement staffing requirements, as they currently do. It's possible, I suppose, that dissidents are still doing some work- although I tend to take the fact they don't even produce food anymore as evidence against it- but Gaiads and Viscids, at least, absolutely will not (or cannot) participate in larger economies.

Arioch wrote:

Captainspire wrote:Gauss cannons

How would a Gauss Cannon be different from a Mass Driver or Railgun?

More powerful mass driver/rail gun?

Captainspire wrote:Fleet tactics (allow you to choose from combat formations prior to battle

If we were to add a formation selection feature, I think we wouldn't want to lock it behind a tech.

That works for me.

Given the recent improvements to resource output of various minor races, I suggest that the coin income of Human refugees be increased to 0.5. I understand and agree that while they're in a relatively primitive state, they should be a 'negligible source of tax income', but I sincerely doubt their economy is less productive on that account than that of, say, Lummox, who had a straight hunter-gatherer economy being transitioned to agrarianism and brute unskilled labor. (As a bonus, this conceptually justifies that they have the economic output to support the infrastructure that their splinter colony starts with.)

Might it be possible that Phidi should have the Friendly trait? 'Enjoying contact with alien races' seems pretty much to fit their description perfectly.

Captainspire wrote:

Arioch wrote:

Captainspire wrote:Gauss cannons

How would a Gauss Cannon be different from a Mass Driver or Railgun?

More powerful mass driver/rail gun?

That works for me.

Personally, I'd rather see a Gauss Needler tech, as a higher-tier ballistic PD weapon. I don't think we need a more powerful medium or heavy ballistic weapon - Force Beams fill both roles well enough.

Thoughts here about alliances. Seeing as how I play the Phidi, getting the alliances together for a diplomatic victory once I meet everybody is fairly easy. That said, there's two ways in how alliances interact with third parties that I believe could be improved. On the one hand, alliances don't currently check if you are also allied with their sworn enemy- I suspect that you should simply be barred from making independent alliances with Powers that hate each other. 'No, I will not ally with the ally of the vile Gremak', or whoever they're at war with. Second, in cases where outright hatred isn't in play, there currently exists no option to mediate between two allies of yours to encourage them to stronger relations- I believe spending large piles of diplomatic capital to encourage two allies to talk nicely to each other and, perhaps, eventually, conclude their own alliance in order to form a true multilateral alliance- an actual Triple Entente, as per the achievement- would be both 'realistic' and enjoyable.

Pls make AI use mercenary ships

Was thinking how this would be most easy to implement and this is my first thought:
1. If at war, evaluate the buying of merc ships
2. Evaluation should take place every X Turns when at war, where X is determined via a random number generator selecting a value between 5-15
3. During the evaluation, 60% of total budget can be spent
4. Ships are selected either by the enemy fleet composition/tech, or when AI cannot take this into consideration, along an ideal "merc fleet" composition template going from top to bottom: 1 Capital ship, 2 Cruisers, 3 Frigates, 3 Destroyers
5. If home system is in danger (under attack), ships are always ordered there, otherwise they should be ordered to the closest system to then most powerful enemy fleet to support own forces

Phidi get modification, that their X Variable is between 3-10, and 100% of their budget can be spent

Well, I have now been playing around 60 hours (in 2 weeks) and come upp with some suggestions that should be included in the near future.

1. Possibility to place your ships in tactical startup. As of now, the weakest start in the front and all my super dreadnaughts in the back. Not ideal. Let the player choose some sort of standard formation (so that you dont have to choose every time) for example Strong shields front, carriers back.

2. Race specific graphical super dreadnaughts and Dread stars.

3. More graphical differences so that you can see what kind of design each custom model has without looking at the name.

4. More space monsters!

5. Legendary commanders with different kind of bonuses that can be added to a ship.

6. Som sort of "Retreat" Blocker. As of now, if I dont have a really long range weapon, those pesky scouts jump around my star systems and blockade even heavily fortified planets and make them starve. This can be avoided with for example, if the star system has a fighter squadron, the said fighter squadron will attack the intruder (thus avoiding a blockade from small harmless crafts).

7. Larger galaxies

8. Civ alignment. Depending on your actions, You get "Good points" and "Bad Points". This afflicts diplomacy.

9. More diplomatic options.

I will probably add to the list in the future

fonzosh wrote: 4. More space monsters!
6. Som sort of "Retreat" Blocker
7. Larger galaxies
9. More diplomatic options.

4 and 9 should be included in the next DLC if I read correctly. Check it out on the DEV updates

6. Try Railgun, should do the trick due to its long range

7. Did you try typing in the number of systems? You can go way beyond the default large size this way
The maximum number of AI empires will sooner be a limitation for fun there

zolobolo wrote:

fonzosh wrote: 4. More space monsters!
6. Som sort of "Retreat" Blocker
7. Larger galaxies
9. More diplomatic options.

4 and 9 should be included in the next DLC if I read correctly. Check it out on the DEV updates

6. Try Railgun, should do the trick due to its long range

7. Did you try typing in the number of systems? You can go way beyond the default large size this way
The maximum number of AI empires will sooner be a limitation for fun there

6. I need bigger ships to take out something a little bit more than a scout and the big ships are so slow. Right now Im using Dreadnaught with primary beams and that does the trick. The AI is sending small destroyer to blocade me everywhere, even on planets were Ive got massive defence.

7. Im worried about the warning I get about going above 99. Is that warning really something to take notice of with a medium end modern comp.. And yes, more empires would do the trick. Would be fun if even the marauders could start an empire though without the possibility to build colonization ships.

fonzosh wrote: 6. Som sort of "Retreat" Blocker. As of now, if I dont have a really long range weapon, those pesky scouts jump around my star systems and blockade even heavily fortified planets and make them starve. This can be avoided with for example, if the star system has a fighter squadron, the said fighter squadron will attack the intruder (thus avoiding a blockade from small harmless crafts).

A warp interdictor-type device or unit is on our list of things to do. However, if you attack an enemy ship/fleet and it retreats, it's forced to leave the system, so it should no longer be blockading your planet(s). Unless the enemy has a colony in that system, in which case you need to directly attack that.

fonzosh wrote:7. Larger galaxies

The current limit is 500, which I find to be essentially unplayable. I don't imagine we'll be making maps larger than that.

Arioch wrote:

fonzosh wrote: 6. Som sort of "Retreat" Blocker. As of now, if I dont have a really long range weapon, those pesky scouts jump around my star systems and blockade even heavily fortified planets and make them starve. This can be avoided with for example, if the star system has a fighter squadron, the said fighter squadron will attack the intruder (thus avoiding a blockade from small harmless crafts).

A warp interdictor-type device or unit is on our list of things to do. However, if you attack an enemy ship/fleet and it retreats, it's forced to leave the system, so it should no longer be blockading your planet(s). Unless the enemy has a colony in that system, in which case you need to directly attack that.

fonzosh wrote:7. Larger galaxies

The current limit is 500, which I find to be essentially unplayable. I don't imagine we'll be making maps larger than that.

Thanks for the answer.

Is there a possibility of an PBEM (play by email) and maybe play by server (one player sets up a comp as a server and declares that all other players has to make a move every 24 hours or their turn is forfeit) in the future?