2 Small ideas

[carlosjuero]

After playing AI Wars for a while I have come up with some ideas for enhancement/addition - yeah, I know, just another voice amongst the masses :p

Anyway the first one is a general idea (QoL - not important but I find the idea nifty):

A hotkey combo to turn off the UI for screenshots (if it exists then the key combo has eluded my perusing the documentation). I would love to be able to get some UI clutter free shots of battles (it would make creating custom wallpapers easier too).

Don't know how the UI overlay is coded (or if it is even an 'overlay') but I would truly enjoy an addition like this.

Secondly is an idea for a new Starship (this is the old 4X in me talking):

Name: Carrier
Abilities: Instead of firing ammunition it 'fires' off X number of Micro Fighters (would need a new type of Micro Fighter w/ lower HP and damage plus no cloak) per second. Give it a long range 'attack' like the DN has and you would have small swarms of little ships attacking the enemy automatically (true cannon fodder).

Refire Rate: Don't know about this one, but maybe it shoots off 5 ships/second or 3 ships/second or something.

Micro Fighter: Maybe half the HP of the existing Micro Fighter ship, no cloak, good versus Fighters/Cruisers (+90%, +100% respectively), low damage.

It could either go into a group of its own (different tiers could be Carrier, Heavy Carrier, Assault Carrier) or as an extension of the Dreadnought group (Tier III).

It wouldn't be too overpowering, and I think it would add some more fun to the already great battles.

So there are 2 ideas I have been thinking on, I don't expect anyone to hop on em and make em happen but just wanted to share .

[raptor331]

I posted something like your second idea; the link is below for anyone who is interested:

http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2847.0.html

[I-KP]

'Carrier' style units were previously verboten as per this thread reguarding Minipods.  Since then the Hive Golem has popped along which is, guess what, a 'Carrier' style unit; so maybe there is hope after all. 

Within that thread I also suggested an intelligent munitions launcher for Minipods that could work just as well for Microfighters.  This would have meant taking Microfighters off the general build list which apparently isn't ever going to happen, which is a shame because Microfighters are never on anyone's build list anyway.  If they were a non-player controllable FRD munition then they'd probably be okay as they are now stat-wise when pumped out of a single dispenser unit that is under player control (an effective +50 maximum side ship count per dispenser * dispenser ship cap), much like the Wasps are for the Hive Golem but from a Human angle.

[RCIX]

'Carrier' style units were previously verboten as per this thread reguarding Minipods.  Since then the Hive Golem has popped along which is, guess what, a 'Carrier' style unit; so maybe there is hope after all. 

Within that thread I also suggested an intelligent munitions launcher for Minipods that could work just as well for Microfighters.  This would have meant taking Microfighters off the general build list which apparently isn't ever going to happen, which is a shame because Microfighters are never on anyone's build list anyway.  If they were a non-player controllable FRD munition then they'd probably be okay as they are now stat-wise when pumped out of a single dispenser unit that is under player control (an effective +50 maximum side ship count per dispenser * dispenser ship cap), much like the Wasps are for the Hive Golem but from a Human angle.

CC'd to the suggestions forum.

[carlosjuero]

Ah didn't know about the Golem (should read more I guess :p).

Ok, scrap the Carrier idea - but I would still like a keyboard shortcut to turn off/hide the UI for screenshots

[x4000]

The UI hiding key is definitely on my list of things to do, for my own screenshots as well. Good call!