Suggest - Features and Improvements

[akkamaddi]

An idea on the tiny worlds...

The obvious suggestion is to use planetary construction to make a medium or even small world, so they are useful.

Another idea is a new end-terraforming tech, open to all races. The "super-city" planet type is in the code, but as far as I can tell it's not actually implemented as a planet type. Even so, the races all have the supercity planet type in their fertility rankings.

Why not co-opt that? Create a new planet type/construction "Floating City". Graphically, make it a tiny hive world. Then, set the regions to a flat one metro unit and two barren units. Most races would be able to get 5.6 population units, while the Yoral and Wrem would get more.

[akkamaddi]

On the planet display, in the races window in the upper right, it would be nice if ground forces (tanks et al.) would always be the right-most display. Could they be exempted form sorting by population number?
Thank you.

[zolobolo]

On the planet display, in the races window in the upper right, it would be nice if ground forces (tanks et al.) would always be the right-most display. Could they be exempted form sorting by population number?
Thank you.

Great Idea, and I would include Gremak Slave Drivers and Human Marines as well in the exception as these are the ones that typical get shuffled around a lot during invasion and police duty, while civilians are mostly transported from the system view menu

Honestly it makes that all of the available artifacts on the planet are sorted according quantity as it is instantly visible if ground forces outweigh a typical planets population, but:
1. This issue has been fixed in the past and is recurring so getting rid of it altogether would save DEV time and annoyances later
2. Ground troop strength grows over time with the research of tech and thus a direct comparison of quantity is not useful later
3. The overview is so clear and organized that a comparison is easy even if the troops are always on the right or left hand side

[nweismuller]

Now that the Tinkers have been introduced, as well as the Gremak, I think it should be a priority to teach the AI about the fine points of tyranny and liberation. The Gremak Empire, Tinkers, and Marauder bands should presumably actively work to enslave/harmonise dissident populations, while other empires should probably at least consider liberating slaves they capture.

And as long as the Gremak Empire is being taught how to be tyrants, their AI should likely be tuned so they actually buy slaves from Marauders... I'd love to see the situation described in their lore, where Marauders are pipelines for slaves for the Gremak Empire actually obtains in my games.

[orvarth]

If not select in a game , major factions could be present as minor factions , like the gremak raider , with their capital .

[akkamaddi]

Hi.

Ok, so.

I just posted my Minor Races Madness mod. (Please be patient and kind.) I do want to take a moment to call back to something I posted a bit back in my Long Rambly Post: http://stars-in-shadow.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=3&t=582

The section about the table hooks.

Just as an object lesson, if table hooks could be implemented, the structure of the mod could dramatically change for the better. Each race could get a single Lua file.

In abbizi.lua:

Code: Select all

hook@races.lua [abbizi race description]
hook@farming.lua [abbizi farming data]
hook@forced_planets_fun.lua [stats for Betho]

In the Mods folder, the player would create a folder for my mod and then just copy the Lua files for the races desired.

I know that structurally that may be a significant change to how the game works. I just hope the idea is on the table. It would pay off in making modding easier in the future.

And I'm still loving the game.

[zolobolo]

A new research to increase Science station research yield - could be tied to a specific race as starting tech for that faction but be available in the end of the mid-game for everyone else as well. Thinking on Humans (if not DLC race) as they already have quite a disadvantage over other AI empires and usually get eliminated first. Have them maybe also start with 2 Scouts equipped with the default Science station to give them a fighting chance early on

This would make it tempting for players to utilize the module

For the AI the script controlling the ship builds should be modified to use the Research station for some explorer ships and star-bases (usage probability could be depending on race so Yoral would be more probable to use it as Gremak)

Energy usage of the Advanced Science Module could be considerably larger then that of the original making its placement on ships difficult but on starbases after the bonus energy a viable option. This would keep both versions in game: base module for ships and advanced one for stations

[Captainspire]

I really like the image of The Herald. Giving the Space Harpies a little more story than small ships to kill.

Have we looked into an Area Affect weapon? Like a plasma shock wave or some force blast that pushes ships away?

[akkamaddi]

A random thought that could be interesting:

TECH: "Dzibix Crucible" (Tinker locked) Allows terraforming to of Dzibix Circuit planets.

WORLD TYPE: "Dzibix Circuit"

The Dzibix Circuit is a world type based on the unused "super city". This would essentially be 7 Metro zones, which would make it a tremendously valuable planet. Further, a Circuit world effectively has a Machine Altar integrated into the planet. The planet itself produces the industrial output of one Machine Altar (hammer output based on occupying race), independent of population and improvements. (The planet would get up to 10 improvements, plus have one free Machine Altar.) The integrated Altar cannot be scrapped or destroyed. This means that for Tinker colonists, the world is always considered harmonized to the tinker collective. Tinkers and harmonized races will not become disconnected if there is no Machine Altar improvement built.

The Dzibix Crucible technology is similar to the Hive World tech, but construction is at a greater cost. When construction is initiated, the empire's very population is used as a building material. The empire must sacrifice a number of Tinker or Harmonized population units based on planet size, two for small worlds, four for medium, six for large, and eight for huge. (Population units in a disconnected state can be used.) The population units are taken immediately, and so must be taken from the system in which the world is being built. These population units are disassembled and integrated into the planet and cities, and can never be reclaimed.

(Yes, you can harmonize a race you don't like and literally use them as building materials.)

If the Planetary Construction tech is possessed, then Dzibix Crucible can be used on a tiny world within the system, at double the cost and consuming four population units, turning the world into a small Dzibix Circuit.

[zolobolo]

Can we have a breakdown of population amount/percentage per race in the diplomacy screen?
It wouldn't need its own window, just smack in in the empire relationship breakdown as a new paragraph, and in the information pane when the player clicks on their own empire

It would obviously be nice to look at the composition of ones own empire as well as for that of AI controlled ones but it could serve a number of useful and immersive purposes:
1. All the icons for various pop types (including enslaved, harmonized or even unruly) can be re-used here to get an overall state of these circumstances across the whole empire
2. The "Race" approval of other empires towards the player can be directly calculated from here. e.g.: Enemy AI empire XY has 10M Yoral with opinion: +25 of the player and 5M Humans with opinion: 5 = (10*25+5*5) / (10+5) = Overall opinion towards player empire is +18. This would make this system:
A: Transparent and thus applicable for determine how certain actions will affect it (like bombing a planet with Humans on it is less worse then bombing a planet with Yorals)
B: Applicable for specific in-game mechanics: like affecting diplomacy more directly. e.g.: Weather Alliance can be offered depends on the Faction relationship but the cost of the diplomatic treaties would depend on the Race opinion This would enable the empires to close treaties with others even is the Race opinion is low but it would cost them a ton

Flow this into the diplomacy suggestions I have posted earlier and you have a mechanically simple yet more complex diplomacy system then any other 4X with low effort

[zolobolo]

Would it be possible to have the AI close Alliance with other AI empires via the below method?:
Every 10 Turns evaluate for each AI controlled empire:
If AI empire has:
- Minimum of +60 relationship with any of the other empires (human can be included as well if cannot be excluded)
- Necessary amount of Influence to propose an Alliance
Then: 10% chance that alliance is automatically establish with said empire and detract the influence cost from the initiator (probability could optionally be increased if the relationship between the two empires is higher)

If the above could be easily implemented, it would automatically cause as stir in the diplomatic landscape, and cause the council votes to go to other AI controlled empires as well instead of only towards themselves or to the player

[zolobolo]

There are a couple of issues when multiple races from the same kind are present in a galaxy

The most obvious one is the overuse of the color light blue on the strategic map as the image shows.
Note that the screenshot shows 6 races with this color:
1 Orthin
1 Gremak
1 Tinker
3 Yoral (one of them is of darker blue that is somewhat distinguishable from other Yoral but the same dark blue as the Tinker one )

The dark blue on the left is my Ashdar Colonials empire

A solution would be to use more colors or more clearly distinguishable variations of the main colors.
A more sophisticated solution would be to first make all empire logos unique (even by just adding a huge roman number in front of the existing logos) and displaying these on the strategic map (maybe even make them toggle-able if possible in case people don't want to see it)

The color is our main source of identification due to the identical empire logos
The diplomacy menu also does not show with which empire exactly they are at war with as only the race name is referenced: "at war with Yoral Khaganate"

[sishelper]

Suggest for Short term gameplay improvements

This game is so incredible - both graphics and gameplay-wise so that it is the only space strategy sitting still on my computer and mind that the following games got deleted from me after several playthroughs - EndlessSpace 2 , Polaris Sector Lumens and the new version of Stellaris, Dawn of Andromeda. All gone in the trash bin

However being a veteran and playing always on harsh and with impossible setups I suggest some tweaks so that it is even harder for vets like me and I would like to be possible to lose a game from time to time.

1. early AI improvements
- please make AI to use Outposts early in the game. Thus when galaxy is sparse AI does not grow as fast as the human and Outposts are the key for that
- please make some AI randomly to use early rush. So far AI never rushed me early in game on Harsh and that is a pity. Also make possible to be hard to rush the AI in harsh - like maybe make the defence techs cheaper and faster for the AI or whatever you decide so that rushing AI is not always easy. Specially warlike races like Gremak / Yoral /Humans should have defenses.

2. late game AI
- please make sure AI uses effectively terraform on planets. Never seen an AU terraform
- please make sure AI uses race optimization on planets - I mean AI does not mix races to reach max planet capacity. the AI must use other races better and exchange pops between some planets. AI must use overpopulation on some planets too - like some of the pirates do.
-AI must use construction of new planets concept. This tech always wins me the late game as I can triple usually my population with it in a very short term - while AI stays static.

3. Construction and terraform of new planets
- this tech is very overpowered at the moment, giving me huge perfect planets, sometimes even 2 or 3 per system. I think construction of a planet should meet certain very special conditions and not always happen - i.e number of planets per system should be reduced a lot for those systems that are not sol-like. Second the result could be a tiny planet or small planet too depending on conditions and total mass of system compared to the star. The resulting planets should also be either cold or warm or hot or inferno and different types depending in which orbit they spawn. For the gas giants to be transformed I think an additional condition should be required - another empty orbit is necessary where the excess mass will for a second planet. It can be even a separate tech - gas giant transformation.
- terraform and construction of planets should take longer as time and should not be able to be bought up. I even suggest that a special orbital costruction is required for the planets to be terraformed or constructed/ That construction could be different depending on what you are trying to do- you can actually build the orbital mirrors, or an atmosphere condenser or atmosphere polluter or a planet construction ring or a gas giant suction station. This can also allow for terraform of systems without habitable planets.

I have many other suggestions but those above I think are easy to tweak as we speak without the need of new assets and will give vets more challenge.

[zolobolo]

This game is so incredible - both graphics and gameplay-wise so that it is the only space strategy sitting still on my computer and mind that the following games got deleted from me after several playthroughs - EndlessSpace 2 , Polaris Sector Lumens and the new version of Stellaris, Dawn of Andromeda. All gone in the trash bin

Agreed GalCiv III has been the only long-term survivor on my hard-drive (currently at 324 hours playtime) until SiS came along (just passed 387 hours)

Regarding rush: Yoral tend to rush me or at least declare war very early on if they are located close by and my military is not yet up to snuff
So try: 3-4 Yoral enemy AI on Medium map, with close systems and hard difficult - it will provide a decent challenge at least in the early game.

[Arioch]

Terraforming is a mechanic which will change substantially in the future. Right now it's essentially just a toy for the human player.