I think Hive World fertility should be reconsidered with the upcoming terraforming update. Yes, they were changed to high fertility to be consistent with the fertility rating of dense-atmosphere arid worlds, but I think there is a relevant difference in play. Dense-atmosphere arid worlds have natural regions of greening, where presumably a native biosphere thrives, even if over a limited portion of the surface. Hive worlds are explicitly stated to be devastating to the biosphere beyond the arcologies, and the arcologies appear to be designed for dense urban habitation more than large areas of fertile terrain used for agricultural production. If this change is implemented, I do think Ashdar Prime should start with an additional farm to help support its initial population.

On a semi-related note, I do think Dzibix should be called something other than an Arid world- maybe a 'Machine World'? Dzibix seems more different from a standard arid world than any other homeworld is different than the generic example of its world type.

nweismuller wrote:On a semi-related note, I do think Dzibix should be called something other than an Arid world- maybe a 'Machine World'? Dzibix seems more different from a standard arid world than any other homeworld is different than the generic example of its world type.

Ideally things like "Machine World" and "Hive World" will eventually just be terraforming mods to a base planet type.

Arioch wrote:

nweismuller wrote:On a semi-related note, I do think Dzibix should be called something other than an Arid world- maybe a 'Machine World'? Dzibix seems more different from a standard arid world than any other homeworld is different than the generic example of its world type.

Ideally things like "Machine World" and "Hive World" will eventually just be terraforming mods to a base planet type.

If that implies Tinkers may eventually be able to dzibiform worlds properly (even if that's saved for the late-game, for obvious reasons), that would be very cool.

... for that matter, I can't see why Gremak shouldn't eventually be able to learn how to force planets into a climate and precipitation pattern creating a lot of swamps and jungles, thus allowing full gremalforming of planets...

I'm really hoping that swamp worlds get some love in the future.

I suggested a while back an alternate to the "metro" environment, something like "cyber". Basically, it would be a cybernetic-infused environment where the Dzibix would have a very high population density, but it would be very low for other races. That would essentially turn dzibix expansion into a "scorched earth" expansion, as worlds would have to be re-formed to hold a decent population.

Allow all Destroyers to mount torpedoes for two reasons:
1. After replacing torpedoes with rockets on bombers, the weapon type can hardy ever be used. e.g.: Humans do not have a single chassis where this type can be fit
2. This would enable Destroyers to stay more relevant toward mid and end-game as they can pack a bigger punch against large vessels

To prevent spamming of small torpedo platforms, the available munition for Destroyers should be limited to only a couple of salvos: max 3
As Destroyers can also mount missiles, the weapon type needs to compete with Torpedoes and thus have more munition

Nerf shields to prevent exponentially stronger damage soaking mobile shields by:
1. Reducing shield recharge rate to 10%
2. Give limited Enveloping effect (40% of the damage) to all energy weapons to lessen effect of rotating shield absorption. Plasma cannon would then be a specialized energy weapon which has a 100% Enveloping effect
3. Tie maximum recharge level to a parameter of the vessel. e.g.: to the percentage of the hull integrity.

The idea behind the third point is to disallow large vessel to recharge their shields to full strength while the ship is already bleeding out from numerous holes. Example: if ship HP decreases to 40%, then maximum shield level can also only increase until 40% of normal shield capacity.

A nice way to implement this would be to "damage" the shield modules proportionally to the hull

List Plasma Cannon on the top of the weapon selection in tactical combat

Currently it falls behind Heavy Turbo laser for example, even if in the ship designer the Plasma cannon is on the top weapon mount
Having the Plasma Cannon as the first auto-selection in tactical battle makes sense as it is an anti-shield weapon, and should thus fire first. Otherwise the player needs to manually select the weapon every time to make full use of it

The same goes for EMP vs Leech missiles: Leech missiles should always be listed first

OR: stick to the order the player defines during the ship designing process to allow them to resolve the issue by themselves

Impose diplomatic penalty by all other faction if someone wipes out the entire colony via bombing

This would generally make sense but also:
- Prevent exploit of simply bombing away enemy pops (I know there is a radiation attribute planned for planets, but the two can coexist and this is probably easier to implement
- Increase conflict between empires (always welcome effect to spice thing up and make things a bit more difficult for the player)
- Fit into the already existing negative effect escalation phases

Escalating penalties are:
1. Starving out the population does not produce negative effect towards the blockader but gives moral penalty to the defender
2. Bombing the population gives negative effect to the attackers own population of the same type (and to pacifist pops - an attribute that could be implemented additionally))
3. Destroying the whole colony via bombardment should count as genocide and yield relationship penalty from all races (except Inorganic) + extra penalty from a races

Thus the player is motivated to starve out the population or attack directly to avoid the penalty and will only resort to heavy bombardment if the planet is strategically valuable.

Additionally: Alliances should be broken up if relationship hits a minimum level, thus a player wiping out great swaps of systems could loose its allies

Alter mount types of planetary defenses so that they can only host heavy weapons or small craft

Is is to server two distinct purpose:
1. Make AI more competent at defending planets (medium weapons and missiles are just to easy to avoid/counter, but AI uses exactly these two types of weapons all the time for defense)
2. Resolve exploit of "besieging" a planet with a single heavy weapon until it is destroyed

This would also make sense lore wise as shooting with missiles and medium weapons into space is not very effective

Additionally: it might be worth increasing heavy weapon range for the above to be even more effective. I think railgun is in a very good place right now so should not offset the balance

In case missiles and PD is to be considered (no torpedoes those guys should only go for Destroyers , I propose the following: have orbital defense stations that can mount these. This solution would not only spice up the invasion, but also considerably increase effectiveness of missiles, maybe even medium weapons could be allowed on these. Downside is that it would need art, but maybe the asteroid base could be re-purposed for this. Floating Platforms tech also lends itself nicely to this concept, and planetary defenses wouldn't need to be a funny 3 tier instant-upgrade system but two distinct systems independent from one-another.

Taking this even further: the 3rd tier planetary defense could be replaced with an improvement which can only host siege weapons.
All three systems would have to be researched and built independently from one-another and have their own icons in the build menu

I think that fighters are due for some improvement and maybe even bombers after their nerfing from torpedo to rockets

Especially for fighters it is important to stay alive when sent out to take out missiles.
Now I know the AI currently does not use them for this purpose, but I think it would help us to consider using them if they had more HP or even better: if their armor rating would increase with armor tech which could be displayed the same way their current weapon load out is shown.

Generally it would also help a lot if we could see at least their initial HP level to be able to calculate if they are going to survive a missile interception when facing enemy PD

Suggested new diplomatic interactions:

1) Diplomatic protest from any non-allied empire when you establish a new colony in a system they control, damaging relations and possibly costing influence. Even if we want it to be legal to colonise in non-allied empires' space, the fact the AI respects system claims unless allied indicates to me that this would normally be considered an unfriendly act, and they should react accordingly.
2) Trade deal, requesting the dismantling of an outpost in a system where you possess a colony, in exchange for compensation to the outpost owner. A colony should represent a firmer 'claim' than an outpost, and occasionally the vagaries of war end up with you controlling colonies in the same system as a third party's outpost, especially given that AI empires do not currently respect Marauder system claims for the purposes of establishing outposts.

Suggest that Race Mind require both Galactic Stock Exchange and Social Engineering as prerequisites. Currently, it only requires Galactic Stock Exchange- it seems odd that the 'ultimate challenge of social engineering' doesn't actually require Social Engineering to be researched.

Would it make sense to have an option to automate buyout of planetary improvements (but not for ships as those require metal as well)

This would relieve a lot of micro in large maps, where newly conquered planets needs to be built up and since the mid game the player usually has enough funds to simply buy all of the improvements, this would be automated

The logic would need to work like this:
- Beginning of each Turn
- Sort all improvements (no ships or stations)
- Start buying out the cheapest one and then the next in the rank until budget runs out

This would even fit into combat times where planetary defense and markets take priority as the player is still the one issuing the build order - the automation would only do the busy work of buying out the most cheapest improvements (Mines + markets, then factories and labs, and finally planetary improvements - though this depends on the configuration)

With the new updates to Herald tech sales mechanic, we need to have good relationship with the Herald (and Harpies in extension) to be able to buy higher level tech

This is a welcome change but has some risks:
1. Harpies attack already colonized system and thus negative relationship effect is unavoidable. I generally find it a good idea to code conflict into the system, but special care needs to be made that both the player and AI can maintain a good relationship if they want to. Since each tech can only be bought once, the negative effect of destroying invading Harpy vessels needs to be scaled to an appropriately low level
2. The new mechanic suggests that each tech can be bought by all of the empires individually. This might cause the tech (once unique tech is introduced) to quickly become generic as everyone can buy it

Suggest instead that each unique tech should only be bought by one empire

This would
- Keep the unique tech truly unique in all of the games
- Result in a race for the unique techs (the buyers logo should be displayed over the grayed out tech)
- Make boarding truly useful, as the unique tech can only be stolen from the buyer like this
- Because of the above, support pacifist and semi-pacifist play-stile (as warring parties will not be able to afford the metal cost)

Just make sure the AI will buy the techs every now-and then

For Humans: have Assault Shuttles come with Assault Marines instead of Tank Battalion

This is since:
1. Humans are geared towards profiteering and Assault Marines give additional bonus to manpower so does not make sense to use tanks instead of them for Assault Shuttle equipped vessels
2. Assault Marines are not useful anywhere else. They are worse then tanks when it comes to invasions and holding back rebellions and as such does not make sense to produce them individually. It could be argued that they can also raid colonies, but the mechanic is probably not used by anyone at this point (would need to be made a viable option itself) and even then, this action can just as well be executed from an Assault Cruiser
3. The AI would be able to at least bring them along on their Assault Cruisers per default without changes to it - even if it would not utilize the boarding action yet
4. Save a lot of micro for player:
- Produce Assault Cruiser
- Produce Assault Marine
- Disembark Tank from Cruiser
- Make sure there aren't any empty transports orbiting the colony else the Marines will be embarked on these first, if there are do some workaround
- Embark Assault Marine
TO: produce Assault Cruiser