What I want changed.

KrisB · March 5, 2003, 22:45

1. Ship Design.
a. I want to click on a ship design and update it. (not the ships themselves shouldn't be updated until a refit.)
b. I want to delete ship designs.
c. I'd like the drop down menu not to have a default. (ex. I'll click from the bottom up LR, star ship, then it defaults back to lancer, orbtial me.)
d. When you click on the weapons tab, it covers up your size used/total in the corner.
e. Extend the ship names.

2. I'd love in the Empire section another tab for Miltary priorities.

3. Site Rep
a. Let us decide what should be red, green, and yellow.
b. Separate military and ciliviation buildings.
c. Let us click to show spy actions. Show what class the spy that just died was so I won't have to guess.

4. Dip.
The only issue I have here is with the tech exchange. Show what Class and Level the techs are!

5. Tech.
I don't really have any problems here. I do think it is alittle tedious to click on each of the different schools.
a. Why not just show us the level researched and percentage complete on the first screen?

6. Finances.
I'd say leave it alone just explain it.

7. Empire Section
a. Make a Military pri. List.

8. Main Map.
a. Make the system names show at all zoom levels
b. That Guardian I just ran into. It shows the system name during battle, when I look on the map it isn't there.
c. A little Skull and cross bones flag for all the systems that my ships don't make it back from.
d. Some times my map gets stuck scrolling up. I have to wait for the next turn and it magically gets fixed sometimes. It isn't my mouse though because I can still move the cursor to all the other tabs.

9. AI
Leave it alone. I've played three games. I can tell you right now; just leave it alone. My first game Klacons I won by Senate, my Second Rass I lost by senate, and my 3 I turned off Senate and playing as Silicoids. I'm a peaceful guy myself. I haven't had the resources to really start ship building until turns 150-160. Before that it was 3-5 scouts, colonies and outposts. Both my first two games ended about 180. That's

10. Victory.
a. The Senate win require 2/3 majority not just sightly more than the New Orions.

11. Encyclopedia.
a. Release how to mod it out. Let the community do the work for you. Patch in 2 months.
b. I've looked at all those spreadsheet .txt files. How hard would it have been to throw those numbers in the help???

12. Build Que.
a. on the military build que., I'd like to see the stats of the ship that I designed; not some generic description. Remember how Moo2 did it? Come on All I want is Ship Size, Attack/ Defense, Armor, Shields , and Drive. There is plenty of space there for it.
b. why all the icons? I'd be happier with my build ques had names. I can always read, but icons don't relay enough info.
c. expand the military build que to six places.

vmxa1 · March 6, 2003, 04:09

Well that is about th emost comprehensive list I have seen, well done.
The way I know what spy dies is to have two of each on hand all the time. When one dies, I look to see which type only has 1. It would be nice if they told us in the sitrep.

BlueDEvil · March 6, 2003, 23:55

Nice list. I like add a few more.

Under creating ground task force, there should option to list recruit or trained or experience units, not just unit type. The scrolling should stay put until you move it, rather than automatically goes back to the top.

All pull down menus should have default settings. It should remember your last choice, rather than the game default. Example why is the similar check box always check when you are likely not to used that. Everytime I load my game, it is always there. There should be a way to save your development plans so that you don't have to define them again.

Need an option to restrict the building of units on each planet like ground units only or space ships only or most powerful unit or give a specific task like building only this unit.

PaulNAdhe · March 7, 2003, 00:12

Tell Santa that I want:[list=1][*]Spies listable by their area. I want to quickly know which kind I need to build.[*]The Build Task Force screen to stay open. When building 5 Recon Dets, it's annoying to have to reopen the screen for each.[*]The Ship Design types to remember the last. When I'm looking at different starship cruiser hulls, it's irritiating to have to go through system lancer first.[*]Would it be too much to ask for an open Task Force? Certainly the AI couldn't fight it, and the Watch and Cede would not be available for any battles involving this Open TF. But, it's frustrating to have a handful of ships that won't make a defined TF. I'm left with scrapping them or building others to make a complete defined TF.[/list=1]

vmxa1 · March 7, 2003, 01:56

I just decide that they could get around the need for an Open TF, if they let us rename the mission for any ship.

Eric S · March 7, 2003, 12:32

Quote:

Originally posted by PaulNAdhe
Tell Santa that I want:[list=1]
[*]The Build Task Force screen to stay open. When building 5 Recon Dets, it's annoying to have to reopen the screen for each.
[/list=1]

While I agree with the other ones, I think this one doesn't go far enough. What I'd like to see is a slider that goes from one to X that lets you set the number of identical TFs to create, where X is the upper limit of TFs you can create given what ships are designated and what ships are in the reserves.

Last night I discovered that the Viceroys had fallen in love with my BC Carrier design, so I started throwing out armadas of the things. I can't autobuild them, as that tends to throw in escort/recon units that I would rather reserve for my Titan-based TFs, so I have to build them by hand. Well, after spending over half an hour making about 15-20 of them, I still have the same number of BC Carriers listed (aprox 100), so I suspect that that I may never create enough TF to use them all up. SIDE NOTE: just realized how to find out for sure exactly how many BC carriers I've got in the reserves! Look under the non-design tab under shipyards, can't remember what it's called.

EDIT: that trick worked, turned out even after all the armadas I had already created, I had another 158 BC carriers to go.

There's another idea. rather than show each individual ship in the reserves, just show each design, and a count, with an easy way (another slider?) to specify how many of them you want to add. Would make the list much more manageable.

vmxa1 · March 10, 2003, 19:16

I many never memorize the tech tree, so I would like it if the Research Matrix would show all techs for all levels that you have reached, even the ones you are not allowed to have. You could line or X them out or color them with a color to reflect that they are not available in this run, anything. I want to see what I missed. I now see many levels blank and have no idea what should have been there and we do not have a complete list any place that I am aware of at this time.

PaulNAdhe · March 10, 2003, 20:23

When the SitRep says 'Joe Blow has retired from service to the empire' Well ... exactly what did ol' Joe earn his gold watch doing? What type of spy was he? With the current state of the Espionage list I have no way of knowing which of the areas are now deficient.

We need a sortable list of the espionage tables. Maybe not as elegant as the planets, but definitely able to sort by area and maybe by the luck, cloak, dagger & etc. Sorted by name or time of recruitment is almost as bad as having nothing.

How did this stuff get by the beta testers???

MarkG · March 10, 2003, 21:20

good stuff, keep it coming

Dip.
option to show some/all of the foreign info(name of empire, relations numbers, agreements) in the main dip screen

Ship Design
(repeat) update design button

habadacus · March 10, 2003, 21:43

Quote:

Originally posted by KrisB

12. Build Que.
a. on the military build que., I'd like to see the stats of the ship that I designed; not some generic description. Remember how Moo2 did it? Come on All I want is Ship Size, Attack/ Defense, Armor, Shields , and Drive. There is plenty of space there for it.

Big time agreement on this one! When you click on ship in the queue now you have a quarter of your screen taken up by Selected Item Details. I'm no game designer, but I think that would be a perfect space to put details on the selected item. Now all you get is that awful, ugly, generic, one-size-fits-all ship picture, and a big window basically regurgitating what you already know about the ship's mission. Yeah, a long-range ship fights from long-range. Even if this is the first video game you've ever played, that isn't useful info to anyone, on any planet or from any species. Well, maybe that sakkra need to know that, but I digress. It looks like they were going to use this space for real info, but just left the placeholder text in there, and never decided to get around to it. Hopefully they'll fix this in the patch.

vmxa1 · March 12, 2003, 03:36

I could stand to have a means of locating systems.
Maybe a PF or combo the lets me enter a name or part of one and it move the map to it. A list to choose from is fine. Now I see msg in my Sitrep for a planet, but I have to figure out where it is on the map.

vmxa1 · March 12, 2003, 04:03

Alright I will slap in another. I find I would like to see another event for the Sitrep (yeah I know, but they have filters). One that lets me know that a TF got to its destination. As it is now I must keep checking my list to see if any got where they were sent. This get more important as the game get longer as I may have a bunch of TF running around. Some will be sent to a staging site and not run into resistance, so I will not know of their arrival.

Proteus_MST · March 12, 2003, 07:03

Quote:

Originally posted by KrisB

7. Empire Section
a. Make a Military pri. List.

Such things like:

How many percent of the built ships/troops should be Carriers/Battloids?

I would second this

And here is sopmething additional:

13. Planets:
a. Make a Textbox where you can search for a certain System or filter System Names (you type an O into it and the list jumps to the First System whose name begins with O, you type Orion and the Listb jumps to the first Planet of the Orion System) maybe there should also be an additional button which lets you resume the search to find further matching Planets)

b. Expand the possibilities to filter or sort your planets. It would be nice to Filter all those Planets with certain Specials (for example Magnate Races or Rare Radioactives) or at least get them to the Top of the Planet List.

Proteus_MST · March 12, 2003, 07:22

14. Troop Overview
Aside from having a "Fleet Overview" we should also have a Troop Overview, where all Groundtroops already deployed are listed along with the Planet on which they are deployed.

Harry Seldon · March 12, 2003, 09:43

Give us a minimap in combat and more options for diplomacy. I'd like to be able to thank my allies for going to war and honoring our treaties, or give specific threats like "Go to War with the Silicoids or I'm coming for you, too."

BlueDEvil · March 12, 2003, 17:10

Diplomacy AI need a fix. How about trading my light armor and phaser for your very light armor? No reason for wanting very light armor when you already have light armor and throw in phaser as well. Ok, I'm on good terms with AI player, but this shouldn't be happening.

Tech trading sucks because:-
1) You have to check what the AI have. Then....
2) You have to check whether you are researching it or not. Then....
3) You have to check what you can offer. Then....
4) You found out you have a better one.
Need to have more info especially on the tech itself. Diplomacy is boring. Where is the check box for Diplomacy AI? There isn't any. At least the AI should handle the trade agreements.

Friendly ships blockade is a damn nuisance. I have already colonize the system, why do I have to wait until all other friendly colony ships leave the system before I can continue to colonize.

Looks like it is better off to terrorise the whole galaxy instead. No more boring diplomacy. Much more fun this way.

vmxa1 · March 12, 2003, 19:06

Don't know why it took me so long to mention this, but we need more filters in the Sitrep. We need more colors for events. DEA events one color so I can filter them out, but not all construction events.
Ships another unique color. Do I need a filter for task forces? Do I make that many? Is that a real problem?

WarriorPoet · March 13, 2003, 11:03

How come no one mentioned being able to save your development plans???

This is THE MOST ANNOYING PART OF THE GAME!!! Well that, and the random technology thing. But seriously, I spend the first 10-15 minutes of every game setting up the priorities for my viceroys. I want to save the development plans under an empire name, etc...

Do that for me and I can live with the rest.

vmxa1 · March 13, 2003, 14:15

Saving Dev plans has been mentioned, but it won't hurt to do it again.

Harry Seldon · March 13, 2003, 14:54

I want to capture tech when I take a planet. Trading is nice, so is spying, but I want my armies pulling lasers and robots out of the rubble of my latest conquest and passing it to my scientists for reverse engineering. This is vital to gameplay, especially when we have the random tech tree.

Spaced Cowboy · March 13, 2003, 15:11

I want a slider on the start game screen for spy effectivness.

Have it start at the midpoint (100%) and have the same effect as it does now. I ought to be able to crank it from 0% (spies not effective at all aka no spying) to 200% (spies are twice as nasty as they are now).

I really want to have the option to have a nasty AI, even if it has to cheat a bit. I'm sure that I'll eventually have no trouble blowing it away on the lower levels and really want to be scared at the upper levels. Hey, look up the word impossible. that means that it is not possible [to beat it].

R:PM

Hydro · March 13, 2003, 15:14

I want the Ithkul to be more meaningful in the flavor and operation of the game. They are a terrific plot device – Evil Incarnate (like the Alien movies, only these nasties have even more attitude). With a little tweaking these could add more flavor to the game, and pick up where their significant back story leaves off.

Specifically I’d like to see:

1) Diplomacy - Specialized messages to and from the Ithkul in the diplomacy dialogs (minor item – may be more trouble than it’s worth). The Ithkul could say thing like “We have considered your proposal and reject it, drooling in anticipation” or “We propose that you serve as hour hosts. Since you do not see the wisdom in this, we declare war on your pathetic species”. A response might be “You are vermin. We will not treat with parasites”

2) Ithkul and Unrest – I think having the Unrest factor on any planet with Ithkul should spike sharply (say by 50 to 100). This would be the natives being very unhappy at being EATEN and used as hosts by a bloody parasite. And, when these blights migrate to other planets (as the races and magnates do) then these planets should have unrest. So, if an Emperor wants Ithkul subjects, be prepared for the consequences.

3) Genocide - As Emperor I should be able to decree that certain folks are to be exterminated. I might receive a morale/unrest bonus if this race is hated (like the Ithkul) or negative if they are neutral or friendly. This would be a nice tie-in for the natural disposition between races, and make it more meaningful. It would also be a nice way of making sure no nasty Ithkul are in my empire.

Right now the only way to prevent Ithkul infestation is to obliterate any worlds they are on. This seems rather severe since there may be non-Ithkul there. There was one instance where I took over a world that had a small Ithkul population that I didn't know about (it was not owned by the Ithkul) – I had to starve them to death and HOPE they didn’t spread before the entire population died.

Hydro · March 13, 2003, 15:52

There isn’t much new here, just some thing’s I’ve experienced and that vex me:

15) Planet starvation and blockades – It is my experience that another race’s fleet will blockade your world unless they have a non-aggression or better treaty with you. This is ridiculous. A planet should only blockade races they are at war with since, in my opinion, it is an act of war to starve/blockade another race’s planet. At LEAST don’t have a race that I have a economic/research treaty with starve my worlds to death! Make diplomacy count for something!

16) Manual fleet combat – I’ve tried to manage fleet combat and it is not a happy experience. One particularly irritating problem is that my fleets will make no effort to protect themselves unless I tell them to do so. There should be a Defense tab to allow them to fire at missiles, fighters, or whatever. Or, let me select Target of Opportunity, which would essentially let the AI take over part of the combat while I concentrate on something else.

17) Tactical combat inset screen - again, mentioned by others, but have a small (2”x2”) screen showing where forces are. I’ve ‘lost’ parts of my fleets and only find they’re in trouble when I hear shooting. By the time I find them it is too late – give me this zoon-in feature to make human-controlled combat easier.

18) Retreat in AI controlled combat – others have mentioned this, but let me tell everyone to bug out when I’m in over my head. Right now the AI fights to the death, which is stupid.

19) “Finish combat” – I’ve had to wait for 7.5 of 10 minutes for combat to be resolved when nothing is happening. Let me Auto Resolve so I don’t have to waste my time watching a scout and a transport NOT fight each other.

20) Modify selection screen – let me see what my forces are (at least # ships and fleet type/size). Then I can decide what to do.

21) Planetary Bombardment – This seems to only come up if I resolve tactical combat. Give me the option of what I want to do in this phase – the AI never seems to do anything. Another note – let ground troops die, too. Otherwise all bombarding does is destroy pop and structures, making it effectively useless except for extermination

22) Making troops ‘obsolete’ – let me make magazines, marines, or other non-useful military items unavailable to the stupid AI. There is a point where these are obsolete (who needs marines when you have armor?) or redundant (when I have 200+ of each).

23) Max build setting – let me say “No more than 75 transports” or something similar. Right now I have to set items to be obsolete to prevent the AI from building them (cumbersome).

24) Autoexplore – let my scouts or task force be set to autoexplore. This is a minor item, but after a while I don’t want to mess with pushing my scouts all over the place, and I’ve found they’ve been sitting at Planet Booblebleck for 10 turns. This would also be a good thing for the tons of scouts the AI builds – I’ll just send them on their way and forget them. I see this as being like AutoColonize by the AI. Sure some die, but if I cared I’d do this myself…

25) Race and empire names – as mentioned by others, put the race name (Ithkul) by the empire name (Zk’aack’re).

26) Spying – let me determine the ‘intensity’ of spying (high, medium, low, none).

vmxa1 · March 13, 2003, 17:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
I want to capture tech when I take a planet. Trading is nice, so is spying, but I want my armies pulling lasers and robots out of the rubble of my latest conquest and passing it to my scientists for reverse engineering. This is vital to gameplay, especially when we have the random tech tree.

Yes at least some chance to get a tech from time to time.
Something like 1 in thre or four. You could go even 1 in 2 in this gme as there are so many techs.

vmxa1 · March 14, 2003, 04:06

Looking at my keyboard foldout I do not see anything that lets me tag the galaxy map.
I would like to have say Ctrl-number to set a marker on the map and use the associated number to scroll the map to that marker. It is a real pain to alway be scrolling around to see what is at the differnet systems.

BobD · March 14, 2003, 04:27

Besides everything already mentioned, I would like the game to remember my preference settings so that I don't have to turn off the "Master's Notes" when I start/load a game!

vmxa1 · March 15, 2003, 16:28

When the Sitrep has construction events and you select them, it goes to PLANETARY IFRASTRUCTURE instead of ECON.
This cause me more clicks to get out and over to the Military build queue. This would make a better default IMO. I rarely want to look at the infrastructure.
Saving a few clicks on a function that is used so many times is a big deal.

Spaced Cowboy · March 15, 2003, 23:54

Quote:

Originally posted by BobD
Besides everything already mentioned, I would like the game to remember my preference settings so that I don't have to turn off the "Master's Notes" when I start/load a game!

Bob,

I hear you, but there is a little check box on the options screen to turn that off.

Spaced Cowboy · March 16, 2003, 00:00

One more:

When I want to change a DEA, I do not want to have to wait a turn...or more for multiples, to tell it what I want to replace it with. This is a real pain when you have a lot of planets that you want to change things on like your initial mines on average and poor planets (the first ones you found) that you later want to change to research and industry (after you get the rich+ planets going). Also if you decide that you need a rec or gov DEA later on to keep the peps happy.

Spaced Cowboy · March 16, 2003, 00:02

Oh yeah,

And it would be nice if the planets screen had more info about the planet on it. That red/yellow green bar is real useful....NOT!...as opposed to having the mineral, grav, habitability parameters noted.