AngryPrairieDog

Join Date 12/2006

Four Ideas to Stretch the Game Out

I know a lot of people like to play a game in a night and so on, but I like to take weeks to play a game, putting a lot of work into a single effort to over take the odds by my simple ability to adapt to the computers lack of inginuity, or even fighting another player for that matter. So here goes.

Tech takes way to little time to research most of the time. I virtually dont care at all what tech I am researching later in the game so long as it is going eventually towards my goal. Seriously, there are no where near as many steps in terraforming a planet as there should be, yet there is an unbelievable number of weapons... The terraforming takes longer yes, but at the same time there is only 4 of them.

Solution: dont change current game modes, simply make a mode that makes technology research cost a lot more! At this time you should also change the balance of the game entirely, population will be responsible for the amount of production, research, and revenue, and these values will all directly relate to morale. Seriously, a happy worker is a hard worker. Create a system of trade both within the empire itself and externally, that result in goods that can be traded for added income, research, production, and morale. An outside trade route would generate much more income, but an internal trade route would generate more tourism, population balance, and vulnerability to attack.

Station Defense: Can I please send a ship to a station for defense and just leave it there. Guard and Sentry are both pretty much useless, and you still get prompted for action when doing both of these. If I select guard I should be given a prompt "Guard What?". Instead the ship says Guard....wow that does nothing. As enemy ships have flown past a "Guard" ship and attacked a colony/station. How on does guard/sentry work since they should be automatic yet they apparently require you to work hard to find out.

Population Morale: Lay off the insane penalty for population or reduce the amount of population that is increased with each farm, and increase the amout of morale that is boosted with each happiness building. Its insane that with one farm and anyone in the galaxy using espionage on me, I need to build between 4 and 8 happiness centers for a planet of 25b people...yes that is a lot but if you can provide for 25 billion people then you simply have 25 billion happy people. not 21b rebels. Happiness should be based on what you can provide, more tax payers means more angry people, but if you have 20 spaces to work with instead of 5 and still have the same population, you have a lot of people that are working, shopping, learning, and relaxing all over a planet instead of in a very small area. One would conclude from this that things were not overcrowded after all....

Borders! For crying out loud why can my enemy fly threw my borders at will?!?!

Influence doesnt make the US absorb more of Canada and Mexico... actually it is the other way around....

Anyways, I can understand an influence zone that allows you to alter a perception of your side in the eyes of another. I just cant tolerate the idea of a 2D surface, or even a 3D surface not having a definable border that a friend or enemy cannot cross. This by no means has to be the standard but seriously I hate the fact that the NPC can send ships to a planet and investigate that planet for defenses until it finds one it likes and attacks that.

Make it something you can vote on in the galactic senate, also as sensor technology progresses, you expand your border, say you have a 5 parsec range, you have a 3 parsec border. Stations should not only define your influence area but also your border, and the sensors on the station can enhance that border, thus making station more valuable as a barrier while reducing the combat capabilities of the station.

Even with research the way it is a player would be hard pressed to "corden" off a section of the map early and see a benifit from this barrier. However later in the game this could be used to lessen the burden on your economy by guarding less outposts than the planets you control and providing an early warning for you.

Other Ideas: Why is it that the Galaction Council votes on a random subject you are in no way in control of yet the NPC's are somehow. Say there is 4 races, then every 4th summit you should choose the topic.

Ship Upgrades: Can I get a button that upgrades all ships of a particular class to another class instead of going threw them all manually?

Weapons Balancing: Two class five lasers are equal to one class I missile...yeah so lets change hp's up a bit and damage up a lot so that weapons not only get smaller but actually do more damage instead of going threw a very limeted number of weapon types that really dont change anything in combat other than how my ship looks. I only say this because I fought a war against missile boats that were very poorly equiped and the size difference made no change at all, my ships were super fast compared to my enemy however in combat that made no difference at all. Basicly what it is now is I should arm ships to the teeth and put no engines on them at all.

Events: There seems to be an insane speculation behind choosing good and bad for events. I can see there only being good and bad benifits, but the good is rarely something you want, especially considering the tech opurtunities it opens up. Bad however seems to be the way to go. Balance the events out more, and also put events in place that have a positive and negative to choosing bad and good, thus allowing a planet that is good at research to get better at it, and sacrifice population growth....or something to that effect.

Sorry for being long winded but I just thought I would put in some ideas.

ideas

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Create a system of trade both within the empire itself and externally...

I'd like to see some sort of internal economics between the planets of one's own empire, it makes sense. Though those who think there's too much micromanagement already might fuss.

Borders! For crying out loud why can my enemy fly threw my borders at will?!?!

It's been previously said these indicate your area of influence rather than territorial lines, but it's still confusing and frustrating to watch an alien ship park right next to your planet or starbase and do nothing. It would be nice if you could have the base or planets go into some 'police' mode where they could order the visitor to withdraw.

Influence doesnt make the US absorb more of Canada and Mexico... actually it is the other way around....

Try saying that while living in the southwestern U.S. where you have hundreds of illegal aliens crossing the border every day. In the 14 years I've lived in my current neighborhood, the ethnic flavor has markedly changed.

Can I get a button that upgrades all ships of a particular class to another class instead of going threw them all manually?

This can already be done, when upgrading the ship, there's a box to check that says something like 'upgrade all ships of this class'. However, I don't think you can use it to upgrade from one hull size to another.

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Borders! For crying out loud why can my enemy fly threw my borders at will?!?!

This doesn't make sense to me, you have an empire in space, anyone could go anywhere in theory. I think this is just like the evolution from medieval to modern warfare. In the middle ages you could say, this town is mine and build a wall around it. Same with Chinese wall and Hadrians wall. Static defenses were efficient in those days.
Since cannons were introduced, big static defenses were getting less and less useful. Todays 'borders' are hypothetical, and guarded by treaties and mobile forces.

So I think it is reasonable that Galcivs borders are guarded with sensors and strategically placed interceptor forces. One thing that I agree that is missing is an intermediate way to guard your territory: by stating to other factions that they are not allowed to cross your borders or being able to destroy a trespasser without declaring all out war.

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Why is it that the Galaction Council votes on a random subject you are in no way in control of yet the NPC's are somehow. Say there is 4 races, then every 4th summit you should choose the topic.

This is the best idea in the entire O.P. in my opinion. I would like a chance to choose a topic for the council to vote on. ( Especially if I am the majority! )

Balance the events out more

This was not a bad idea as well. I still like the other one better though. Try playing at the higher levels with just the "Good Races", and make all the Evil choices. It does have a cost, believe me.

In the 14 years I've lived in my current neighborhood, the ethnic flavor has markedly changed.

So they sell more ethnic seasoning in your area than in years past?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

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I like these ideas. if even a few of them are implemented it would be interesting. THere should also not be an end to the research tree. When you research the tech and reach a proverbial end, another super branch needs to open up ala MOO2.

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So they sell more ethnic seasoning in your area than in years past?

Yeah, hot jalapenos and green sauce served on everything really aggravates my ulcer.

It was about 3 a.m.when I wrote that and hadn't been to bed yet. I should have used "mix" or "balance" or "diversity" I suppose, but was too brain dead to think of a better term.

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Regarding the technology comment, you can already select "slow" and "very slow" tech rates on game setup which increases the cost of all tech advances. This addresses part of the OP issue.

The other part regarding longer tech tree for some items (similar in length to the weapons tree), well that is another story. Mod it anyone?

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I know how to stretch the game:

Stretch the map out.
Galaxies are really big. Space is big. Space between stars is huge. Obviously a completely realistic map would be empty except for the Earth and moon, but c'mon, it looks so goofy having stars that close together, not to mention almost equally large planets right next to them. I had read somewhere that a developer didn't want to go beyond 16x16 or whatever "Gigantic" is, due to number-crunching slow-down, but would 32x32/64x64 slow down with the same number of stars & planets in a larger space? Not a big deal at all, but I get the feeling in the game that space travel is waay too fast. That is, I find myself having explored/revealed the entire galaxy by the time I get to Warp drive in tech...

Oh, and again, RENAMEABLE STARS PLEASE!

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Thanks for the support everyone!

And thanks for the upgrade advice Donfield

To be more precise about stretching out the game and making technology more valuable, I notice a trend with weapons research specifically that allows me to upgrade a weapon, basicly making it cost more but save space, yet the weapon itself is exactly the same. Really it makes virtually no sense to upgrade weapons when you have miniaturization(probably spelled incorrectly). Instead upgrading from a MK I Laser to a MK II should be a jump in damage output or ROF. You could even branch the laser technology into a rapid firing tech or a harder hitting tech. Making two tech trees and additional options, this can be done for all the weapon systems as well. This allows for the strategy of lots of small ships that can be killed off one at a time but as a group can overwhelming a force of Large ships with hard hitting weaponry since damage points per shot would be wasted.

Example: Small Hull has 12 hitpoints, I arm it with engines and lasers only no defenses at all so it packs the maximum amount of punch. It is carrying say five MK V lasers which(could) do 5pts of damage per shot, for a grand total of 25pts of damage per shot overall. I am attacking a medium hull that has 36 hitpoints and does 24 points of damage overall with missiles due to it having defenses. This medium ship even with defenses would be destroyed easily by three small ships and has a good chance of losing to two small ships at the cost of one...human wave theory.

As the game is now, you are at a disadvantage doing this due to logistic limitation on fleet sizes. If history teaches us anything its that fighters can sink even the biggest ships. The speed of my ships should also be taken into account in accuracy. As I like to build fleets of smaller ships that can quickly respond to any threat yet in combat they move just as slowly as the biggest ships I have fought, you would think they are all people trying to beat each other up underwater.

Now I dont know what the dice rolls are on this game but they seem to be very basic.

(Attack Strength X Random Chance) - (Defense X Random Chance) = Damage Done

This would be fine if it wasnt for the rest of the game being so well thought out and visually impressive to have such a soft combat system in place. Yes the experience level of the ship does play into this, but that is still only a half utilization of the ship and technology fielded.

[(Attack Strength X Random Chance) + Experience Level(1=0)] - [(Defense + Size Difference Value + Speed Difference Value) X Random Chance] = Damage Done

Well I hope that helps! Now back to work.

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, I notice a trend with weapons research specifically that allows me to upgrade a weapon, basicly making it cost more but save space, yet the weapon itself is exactly the same.

You need to take a closer look at the tech tree.
Each weapon has a number of refinements making it in essence smaller while doing the same damage and cost the same.
Once all refinements are done,,you can "discover" the next generation of weaponary that costs more,,and deals more damage.
Rate of fire etc is highly abstracted and defined by the damage rating.

If history teaches us anything its that fighters can sink even the biggest ships.

Not so. If that was the case,,we would never have seen battleships,,knights or heavy tanks.
It is always the never ending story of shifts between firepower,,defence and mobility.

Now I dont know what the dice rolls are on this game but they seem to be very basic.

The exact proceedure is the attacking ship rolling a value between 0 and it's full attack value.
The defending ship subtracts it's damage with it's own roll between 0 and it's full defence value modified by weapon type (Mass driver projectiles cares little about chaff) and deducts the damage done from it's hit points.
Then the roles are reversed with the defending ship dealing it's damage to the attacker which concludes the round.

When a ship reaches 0 hit points,,it is destroyed at the end of the *round*.

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It was about 3 a.m.when I wrote that and hadn't been to bed yet. I should have used "mix" or "balance" or "diversity" I suppose

I think you said what you meant and did a wonderful job. No need to change anything, I was just giving you a hard time Donfield. I thought your wording was rather... clever actually.

It is always the never ending story of shifts between firepower,,defence and mobility.

In this case, BP OMowe is on the money.

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I agree the shift between firepower and defence is never ending

The comparison of the battleship and the knights is all very wrong though, the battleship evolved from the idea of bigger is better during an age where there was no combat effective aircraft that could effectively combat this model. However once those aircraft were developed that model ceased to be effective. The Knight is the strike fighter of his day and was beat by the tactic of smaller cheaper troops with a pole that was very long. Yes archers and guns also helped to defeat them but look at Napoleonic era warfare and the infantry squares that fended off cavalry.

The point I am making is, a small fast moving ship would be hard to hit, where speed does not play into the attack/defense roll at all. The truth in space is the mass of the ship would determine its speed and manueverability, while this is true for its travel speed, in combat a dreadnaught and a tiny vessel move at the same speed.

Try this the next time you fight the dread lords, build small cheap vessels that simply get blown up once every shot the dread lords fire but as a combined force defeat dread lords easily because they are all guns and no defense. None is needed as you are intentionally sacrificing a few for the greater good of all. This would be further evident if every now and then your shots missed because the ships were moving at a high speed when fired at making them harder to track. This is of course assuming that the turrets that we see in the shipyard are of course turrets instead of an array that directs energy in any direction it chooses.

ok back to work...

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Really it makes virtually no sense to upgrade weapons when you have miniaturization

Strange thing about this game, this doubling effect... and then there's the thing about the size of equipment on a ship depending on the hull size, but doing the exact same thing (dealing exactly the same damage or providing the same level of defense)!!! Except for specific modules, that is, but that's strange too, why the difference?! Some design decisions I just can't understand, but hey. IMO it needs a whole new ship design/handling paradigm, but that's just MO of course.

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Another example of the "miniaturization" obsession taken to the extreme, the Advanced Troop Module, in spite of taking twice as many troops as the basic module, is almost half the size! Cough!

Everything relies on cost for the balancing factor...

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Advanced Troop Module, in spite of taking twice as many troops as the basic module, is almost half the size!

Well,,when you get the tech,,it says in the description that your troopers won't be comfy anymore

Everything relies on cost for the balancing factor...

Not with the revision of DA... the Millenium Falcon would need engines big as the Deathstar to get around (probably would cost more than the Imperial Fleet too lol)

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Extend the game. I'd love to see that done in an interesting way. I'm tired of the planet grab followed by hours and hours and hours of starbase building tedium. Wouldn't it be interesting if the galaxy was big enough not to be totally colonized in a matter of months as in the game? What if it was so large that it was never fully colonized? Sort of like the trek universe. It would make the game more interesting. Empires might never meet and only know each other via trade or rumor. The square galaxy that is colonized in a few weeks is getting boring.

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The square galaxy that is colonized in a few weeks is getting boring.

I do not know about any of you, but I have played the small size galaxy 14 total times, abundant everything. Usually takes me the better part of 6 months to grab the last planet. I just started a Gigantic and after a year of colonizing I would say only half the total planets have been grabbed. (if that)

I doubt very seriously you could have all the planets grabbed in a Large or Huge sized galaxy in just a few weeks, let alone a Gigantic. If you can, you have to let me in on your secret!

I would venture to say, that if this is the case, up the galaxy size.

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With 9 AI an abundabt gigantic loose galaxy can be fully colonized with in the first year of game play. No matter how big you make the galaxy it will alway be about the rush.

Edit. This is on suicidal.

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can be fully colonized with in the first year of game play

I noticed you said "can be" fully colonized. On suicidal how often does this happen?

I am currently playing gigantic / loose / abundant everything / very fast research / 9 AI, on painful, and as I stated, I just passed a year and my guess is about half have been colonized.

Either way, you won't be doing it...

in a few weeks

I wouldn't think anyway.

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I wouldn't think anyway.

*Might* be possible with max civs/minors on obsene

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A few weeks? I can see a few months, but weeks?

I guess it would depend on the map settings as well... Gigantic / 450+ planets? This can be done in a few weeks on Obscene?

I mean, I think I colonize well at the moment, but if this is the case I am really going to have to rework my colonization scheme.... Whoa.

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Point is that the hgher the level,,the higher the bonus the AIs recive..so lowering the difficulty would make the colonization phase slower.

Only setting i can imagine it being done is at Obscene if it's possible at all.

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Either way, you won't be doing it...

in a few weeks

I wouldn't think anyway.

Have to agree. From what I have seen a year to a year and a half is typical for my games.

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Not with the revision of DA... the Millenium Falcon would need engines big as the Deathstar to get around (probably would cost more than the Imperial Fleet too lol)

Hmm, they still do, don't they? They *had* to be nerfed (due to a design flaw basically) because of speed, not balance.

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Borders! For crying out loud why can my enemy fly threw my borders at will?!?!

Border patrol, mang! Border patrol! Borders aren't actual lines in real life, they're still abstract, and it's up to the countries to monitor them. If you're concerned about the enemy slipping into your sphere of influence unnoticed, beef up your sensor tech, make some patrols of a bunch of light fighters (tiny hulls), and some larger battle groups (small, medium, and large) to patrol the areas. Load the tiny ships up with sensors, and park them at the edge of your sphere of influence. They'll wake up (in guard mode) when an enemy ship approaches, or (in sentry mode) when any ship approaches. You can then decide to send the battle group out to meet that ship and do what you want. Escort them through your system if you're afraid that they're going to attack. Blow 'em up if you're at war with them.

It'd be nice if the ships could follow way points, then you could build defensive fighters to prowl along your sphere of influence. It'd also be nice if you could send a message to opponents along the lines of "Get out of my space, or else."

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Borders in real life are not lines. There may be a road or a stripe of paint across a road but there is no big red line that divides the US from Canada. Borders are a respect thing in all truth. Cross this line and your violating an agreement between the two parties involved.

The whole idea is I dont want to build a giant military machine that rampages threw my enemies, I build just enough to fend off attacks. I win threw any other means, diplomatic, influence, or even technology but I have yet to fight my way to victory. That is the choice I make. However borders could be a great addition to the games strategy, think about it.

You are nuetrel. Two sides are fighting a war, one is your friend and the other is just nuetrel towards you. You can declare that friends can enter your space but nuetrel or below races cannot. Now your friend can shelter his ships in your space. This could draw you into a war even if you dont want to get drawn in, you allowed your friend in your borders in the first place. Or it could give your friend a strategic advantage as he can hide behind your borders and make attacks from there.

Also just like you said, the PC can tell you to withdraw your ships but you cant tell him to do so.

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