I agree, being able to modify racial colours in game would be a fantastic addition! I remember a few times where I made a decision that was... HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE during race creation, but was forced to stick with it through the game even though my interface was unusable and my ships looked ugly.

I'd like to see the research speed turned down a bit. An option like "painfully Slow" or something similar would be great. I like nice long drawn out games, and it seems the research speed is just a tad too fast for my taste. I like to see more of the tree get get actual use before the next new thing gets researched...especially weapon and defence tech.

I'd also like to see some changes made to the initial ships. The miner and colony ship are fine, but that Flagship is way too high tech for the beginning of the game. If we could have the option of toggling initial ships that would be perfect. It would also slow the game down a bit more, which is exatly how I like to play.


Sorry to go on, but I've got one more. Could we have a bit more variety in the number of major events? The ones that are there are great, but a few more would really spice it up a bit. I enjoy having these major events drastically change the playing field, it just seems like you run out of events at a certain point. For folks who enjoy the long game, could a few more events be added? Here are some suggestions:

-A race's AI creations rebels against them and creates a subrace bent on wiping out their creators. Similiar to the Jagged Knife, but with subtle differences. It would only appear in one race's worlds and it would initially be at war with this race. The population of the worlds it takes would be used either as slave labor or used as biofuel. The later would put a time ticker on how long you have before the worlds population reaches zero and is once again uncolonized.

-Discovery of an ultra high level world, but with an automated military defence station in orbit. (Yeah, I know it's similiar to an idea used in another game of the same genre that will go unnamed.) If the station is too difficult, put a fleet of bioships in orbit, or automated AI ships.

-Eugenics war! A race, neitral or evil, genetically engineers a few members of it's own race into super soldiers. These super soldiers decide they are superior to their creators and should themselves be the masters, so they rebel. They could become a minor race of their own, but with much higher survivability. Maybe they have most or all the tech of their creators and have enhanced soldering...or whatever combination of attributes would make sense.

-Tear in Time-Space. All ship speeds are dratically reduced. Place a tech in the tree to counter the effect as with the disease event.

-Galactic resource explosion! An accident occurs at a galactic resource mining station that would remove a galactic resource.

-Unknown wave of cosmic radiation slams into a galactic resource and magnifies it's effect. It would effectly double the bonus given by the resource.

This might not be relavant to the color problem, but you know the pallet of colors on the screen where you choose how your ships look? Well, I think if you had all the default colors of all the races on a separate pallet, then you could choose the default colors without having to go all the way to other files and reset the race configurations.

Nov. 12,

I`d like to be able to sell / give mining bases to major / minor
races.

I`d like to trade / buy space ships from minor races.

Thankx / Hoping,

Prof.  

I think this would be a huge benefit for beginners and nice for veterans:

If you could make a mini-icon in the bottom right (or left) of the icon that represents a planetary improvement. For example a farm could have a little "food" icon inside the farm icon so players won't have to know what the improvement looks like to know what it is - because as you upgrade an improvement, the look changes. How many factories do I have? A quick glance would tell you regardless of the technology level that you're at.

Another thing would be; when you select an un-improved green square, the list on the right shows what you can build there. Currently it's sorted alphabetically - that's annoying because as you get different technologies your "lab" or "factory" moves in the list according to it's new name and you have to search for it. It would be better if they were always in the same order regardless of the name, or if the name was like: "F - Advanced farm", "F - Xeno farming" so they'd all stay put. Also, an icon next to the text would be useful for the same purpose.

Even better, just make bonus tiles moddable.

I don't know if this would be considered a major change, or even if it's been suggested before, so feel free to ignore.

How about linking trade goods to specific races and their unique technology trees. For example, allow only the Korath and Drengin the option of building Tir-Quan Training. Then, at the same time, make the AI place a higher trade value on these goods. This should allow for more interesting diplomacy/trade options.

This would, in my opinion, also have the added advantage of being more realistic, as one would expect different cultures to invent different products -- or excel in the manufacturing of them -- just as they do here on Earth.

This would be usefull for neutrality learning centers, the end level torian schools that don't upgrade from the second level and other multiple occasions when a "high-level" building doesn''t auto upgrade from a "low-level" building. These buildings sometimes don't upgrade automatically for good reasons (for example last level torian schools are less effective production/upkeep wise as second level schools but have more output than second level schools) but upgrading one per one on larger scale maps can be a pain.

Also what would be nice is having version number for ships when they are upgraded. For example when you upgrade a ship you have a box for the name it would be usefull to have two fields to fill in name and version number. When you upgrade a ship the name would stay the same but by default the version number would increment automatically.
Something along this line must have been already proposed before but it would really facilitate upgrading ships when you upgrade them often.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but I don't think they have. Is there any reason why on the start up screen when I choose abundant for asteroids the outline is red. It seems logical that it should be green like the rest, but the asteroids border seems reversed for all stages. Maybe I'm being thick, but I'd like it to be the other way around, purely for cosmetics.

I would like to see Particle Beams made more unique rather than appearing and sounding just like Plasma weapons.

Easier map zooming! Have the map zoom in on mousewheel scroll wherever the pointer happens to be, not in the middle of the screen like it is now. Zooming, then moving the map to centre in on the action is a chore.

Supreme Commander has this behavior if an example is needed, though I'm sure you all already know that.

Everyone will love it

What I do is zoom right in to an empty part of space while the turn is happening. Anything off-screen happens at the same time.

I hate it already.

I find it annoying to have to re-adjust my view to, lets say the center of the map, because the game did some crazy thing such as zooming to a far corner.