The patch thread: what to patch?

[duodecimal]

Ship Refit Suggestion

1. Add checkbox to Fleet screen, "Allow Reserve Refits"

2. Restrict ship designs to allow only one design for each combination of hull size and mission.

3. Set maintenance cost for ships eligible for upgrade to be X% (higher than standard maintenance cost).

4. Any ship in the reserves that is of a design marked 'obsolete' is automatically upgraded to the current design of the same mission and hull size at the one-turn cost spec'd in #3.

5. Have budget reflect costs in Maintenance, and show difference in costs if checkbox for "Allow Reserve Refits" is selected or not.

Some issues -

How does production capacity and mineral availability play into this? Should it, or do we give a miss to strict realism (which is OK since it's just a game)?

Should a budget deficit prevent refits or allow the player go into the red?

[Hokiemon]

1. The ability to rename a star system if your the first to colonize it.

2. The same homeworld name for each race every game, i.e., the Humans always start in Sol, the Psilons always start in Mentar, etc. Or at least the ability to name your home system at the begining of every game.

3. The ability to choose the color of my emipre flag, as well as its symbol.

4. Fix the AI so it doesn't send multiple colony ships to the same planet.

I'm starting to repeat things already in the thread, so let me say that I agree with practically everything mentioned above, and PLEASE add the following...

A Hall of Fame or Top Ten Scores list. Make it selectable so you can see the top scores for each race and the top scores overall.

[Eric S]

Originally posted by Hokiemon

4. Fix the AI so it doesn't send multiple colony ships to the same planet.

Agreed with one limitation. Allow the AI to send 2 colony ships (or one ship with two colony pods) to a Yellow planet, or 4 to a Red one.

[star mouse]

Originally posted by Hokiemon
2. The same homeworld name for each race every game, i.e., the Humans always start in Sol, the Psilons always start in Mentar, etc. Or at least the ability to name your home system at the begining of every game.

I think the change where the home system name is now random is a good one. In multiplayer, it means the name of your home system is no longer obvious, so they have to find your home world the hard way.

[habadacus]

Originally posted by star mouse


I think the change where the home system name is now random is a good one. In multiplayer, it means the name of your home system is no longer obvious, so they have to find your home world the hard way.

I see your point, but if there's a senate and trade, the homeworld of any race would probably be common knowledge. If you're after subterfuge in multi player, just move your seat of government to another system. Still, with spys able to do so much so well so often, figuring out where your seat of government is should be child's play. And if you could rename the system, problem solved any way. I wonder if the system rename was removed because the data would have had to be sent to other machines in multi?

In fact now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder how much of the suckiness of the SP game was brought about to accommodate multi? You wouldn't have a fast paced multi game if you were redesigning ships comfortably, ships would be expected to just be auto-designed, auto-named and then sent to die, like so many respawning bots, aggressive enemy AI would be a distraction, good AI Diplomacy would take a back seat, wizzing through the tech tree with nary a second thought to wonder at the achievement would promote a fast-paced game... Sad to see a quake 3 brain sewn into a thinking-man's game's body, like some horrible psilon experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong. I can hear those fathead scientists running (floating?) around now and yelling -"We need 6000 lines of patch code NOW - STAT!!!", as their beautiful creation slowly fades off into that bargain bin in the sky. Will the monster ever know true love? Is it too late too save it from itself? Will the those who the monster stole $50 from have to fix it themselves? Will Rantz and the boys from QS collectively ask you if you want fries with that as they'll never work in the game industry again if they manage to destroy this profitable and established franchise? - tune in in a few Earth-Months to find out the answers to these and many other suspenseful questions!

[Fosse]

Let me preface by saying that I have really enjoyed my brief time with this game, I think it's very good as is, and could be great with help. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't bother with this list...


And now my list...

1. If I have two Task Force detachments at one star, and I want to condense them into one, PLEASE let me do so! Even if I have to bring them back to a star with a mobilization center... Why should they go to the delay box so I can replace the one ship lost in the last combat?

2. Give me long ship and taskforce names. 256 characters

3. Give the player the ability to add DEA buildings and DEAs such as Space Ports... the Viceroy should still do it, but we should be able to intervene as in other areas.

4. The mouse wheel zoom in the combat screen steps the zoom in HUGE increments. I can't zoom with it, I have to use + and - keys... just step this down so using the wheel is an option.

5. If I am going to define a PlayerDef 1 development plan, let me rename it to something meaningful.

6. Let me design Taskforces even if the ships aren't built. Any ships I add from my design list will appear grayed out in the TF box, and when I finish my viceroys will all try to figure out where to build the missing ships. (the manual seems to imply this on p.125... and it seems to work for Antaren X fleets... MAKE IT WORK FOR TFs!!!)

7. Ship refits. Building a new navy from scratch to incorporate a new laser isnt' macromanaging. It's micromanaging to the nth degree.
I think that this should be handled as follows:

In the ship design screen, I want to select a current design (Phantom I) and click on "Upgrade." Then, I tinker with the design until I'm happy (not changing hull type or mission type). While I am doing this, there will be interface panels with the old specs, and the currently proposed specs, with changes highlighted. WHen I'm happy, I call the new design Phantom II (or "Grand Phantom Redesign, with new and improved CONTINUOUS Mass Drivers" since we'll have long names).
Then, Phantom I automatically becomes obsolete, all Phantom I ships in any build queues get replaced with the Phantom II version, and I get a message asking me to confirm spending X number of AUs to upgrade the reserves over Y amount of time.
Phantom I ships in TFs need to be brought to a star with the facilities to build that hull size for a refitting.


8. Better ship design anyway, just like everyone else said.

9. Espionage is broken... most of the suggestions here are good, I'll add my own.
--I might have three military spies in one empire... tell me which one just set their fleet on fire.
--various ways of sorting spy list.
--let me tell my spies what I want them to do... I have no way of knowing if my spy is going to just annoy somebody or blow up a planet's region.
--COUNTER ESPIONAGE... make this work, and show me that it is... "Our spy ArmHair has recently protected your forth and final great leader from being assassinated!" The way it is now, your own spies don't do anything, and with the Oppresometer it's either lose your imperial seat every three turns, or your planets revolt. Either way, the spies don't get caught.
--Consequences for espionage. The game treats it as "everyone's doing it, and that's great." It should be "everyone's doing it, but if you're caught, watch out!"
--I'm pressuring captured enemy spies? Why? What am I learning from this?

10. Ability to rename systems, yes. But also individual planets within systems. I have trouble remembering if it's Trod VI or IV where I have the capacity to build Battleships...

11. I agree with the whole Planet bombardment, troops to invade with issue others have mentioned.

12. Feedback on various tax levels. What does adjusting System Tax do? What will changing Imperial or planet tax do for me text turn in terms of money AND contentedness... Projections are fine, we just need some sort of indication. ALso... please give us information about where grant money is going and how much it's helping.

13. Diplomacy.
--Threats should say "You do/stop this or else I'll do that to you."
--Why can't I offer trade and reserach deals in the same turn?
--If I have a trade deal already, why are you asking me for another one (I'm not talking about Improved deals here). If the one we currently have is going to expire, SAY SO!
--The manual implies that trade and research deals have considerable overhead... give us this feedback! Show us how much implementing a deal will cost right there in the diplomacy screen.
--A way for non-Senate members to appeal for voting rights.
--Observer senate status... And let the New Orions be more likely to grant this one. Observers get to see records.
--Nonvoting senate status... can propose bills, must abide by senate rules, no vote. New Orions can be willing to give this one out, too.
--some votes should be 1 civ, 1 vote. Especially the Galactic Citizens stuff... for much of the games votes are really just New Orion decisions.
--SitRep reminders about bills I've yet to vote on. Often, if I second a bill I'll forget by next turn, and never get to vote on it.
--Buy/Sell senate votes. I'll give you these techs, if you vote Yea on this bill.
--all diplo. options in exchange offers, all the time. Sometimes I have the option to trade embargoes against one civ, sometimes. Why not all civs, all the time?
--The conditional/unconditional surernder options... am I offering or asking? clarify this, then give the other option. I should be able to demand surrender if winning, or offer it if losing.

14. Let me save and load my development plans from one game to the next.

15. I want to fight off AI invasions! Make the AI try to take my planets. I'm ready!

16. Ability to ignore Senate victory. Like in Alpha Centauri.. If I'm not a senate member (or I am in it but someone else gets elected) I should be able to tell them "fat yeah," then the whole senate becomes allied against me. The senate victory will be complete when oppossition is surrendered to any loyal senate members. Civilizations shouldn't always do this, as it would basically work out to signing your own death certificate... but it would be nice to have the option, and should not be unheard of.

17. Fix the encyclopedia. Fix the various in-game descritions. No excuse for not doing so in a game with this many layers and rules.

18. The in-game alarms don't work. I asked for half-hourly reminders (mostly just because I could), played for two hours, and got nothing. Then, I went and got a sandwich talked on the phone, came back and saw "Half of an hour has passed!" It should be alarms, not psedo-screen savers! The "tell me it's 1:00" works only sporadically.


Okay... I think that's enough for me. Need to cool it before I hit twenty. Lord knows I'll think of more. I'd like to reiterate that I'm not trying to complain, just help make the game better. I enjoy it as-is... but as-is it isn't going to hook me. Now with some tweaking, I'll hook up an I.V. and sit down for a week of one more turns.

[Eric S]

Originally posted by star mouse


I think the change where the home system name is now random is a good one. In multiplayer, it means the name of your home system is no longer obvious, so they have to find your home world the hard way.

Can't be the reason they did it. Why? Hit the 'B' button on the galactic map, and you'll see the imperial seat of every civ that you have diplomatic contact with. It would have been silly to drop a feature to keep the seat from being found, then add a different feature that makes it even easier to find the seat than ever before.

[Harry Seldon]

I've got a couple more things for patching. First, if I bomb a planet to under colony limits, I should be able to continue bombing them until it's totally gone. Instead I have fleets sitting over enemy planets not doing anything while the colonies repopulate.

Why can I not gain tech through conquest?!? If I take a planet and it has buildings ON the planet I CONTROL that I don't have, why can I not build them in other parts of my empire?

Something has to be done about spying. I love the idea of spying but I'm down to two races that own a combined sixteen planets and I'm getting pounded. My o-meter is almost as high as I can put it and maintain order. I've changed my stance to total war with both civs, and I'm bombing four of the sixteen planets. How in the world am I getting 20+ spy attacks per turn? Are they somehow cranking out a spy every turn, because the fastest I can do it is one in five. I have about twelve defensive spies.

I've mentioned this before but I want to reiterate: fix my finances. I'm posting a 147,000AU loss or more a turn but I'm actually gaining money. When my loss drops to under 75,000AU I suddenly find my empire with a negative balance. I've even manually stopped most of my production queues and ramped back my grants but it does no good.

[vmxa1]

Repeating we must hav a means to stop these troop builds and disband them. I was late in the game and obsoleted all ships and of course you get more troops.
I have to go turn off the AI to stop it, but them I have a problem in that any new planet improvements will not be queued up unless I do it by hand (ai is off remember).
This is a real pain.

[vmxa1]

What the heck is the deal with Loknar dying? I can handle that other leaders die after awhile, but not Loknar, I mean how long has he live till I find him?
Not nice.....

[vmxa1]

I put these on seperate post so they could be seen easily.
Why does not all of my fleets head back after I discover and return the last X? I did not play much past that point, but I have no idea how long or if ever they will come back.

[vmxa1]

Leader Effect....

Could we get a clue as to why? I had no colony leaders at that point, not at war, running as Peace and such.
Many times a planet gave this. I presumed that they did not like something about how I ran things, but what?

Not to mention I would at times see Unrest in teh sitrep and go to the planets and see nothing for a cause??
This makes people unhappy. The game has enough things to annoy players as it stands.

[AntaranX]

I got "leader effect" as a reason for unrest but it was obvious. My leader is causing +5% unrest. Sounds like a bug if you still see it...

[vmxa1]

I dismissed any that wanted to join if they had unrest.

[Harry Seldon]

Some of the better leaders bring unrest. I found that an enormous IF fleet in-system does wonders for quieting unrest.

I'm at turn 500 and it's taking around three minutes to complete a turn. I'm hanging at the ground combat screen. Now, I'm assuming that this is because I have a boatload of planets, but it's been happening for the last hundred turns and it's sucking my will to continue. Maybe QS can look into that.