Just bought and finished a game of AI War

[X1Alpha]

After buying the bundle on steam and finishing a play through on a 40 planet sized map; i must say, this game is absolutely complex and awesome!

Also after reading the updates and "Lurking" the forums, i have a few questions

1.  How long to standard multiplayer matches last?

2. How exactly does Drop-in and Drop-out multiplayer work in AI War?

3. Can some one direct me to this "Mantis" suggestion "Box", after playing through i have ideas id like to add (normally i'd Mod them in, but to my knowledge the modding i want to do is not supported)

4. Whats the max size (or amount of words) mantis allows me to put in at 1 time, my idea fits across 8 pages (2,474 words) on Microsoft word

[x4000]

Welcome, and glad you're enjoying it!

1. It isn't appreciably different from solo; well, depending on how everyone plays.  Most will take 9+ hours I would say.

2. I think the wiki has a lot of details on that, but basically just go to manage players in the in-game menu (escape), and turn on or off players. If you add players late they won't have a home planet or anything, but they will have a command station home core.

3. Check my sig, or the sticky in this forum.

4. There's not any particular limit, but what you're describing sounds... immense, if it takes that many words. We're always happy to have sugestions, but we'd have to be in an expansion development phase to even consider something that sizeable. Right now it's pretty much small tweaks and balance fixes, but we encourage submitting any ideas ou have while you are thinking of them because next time we go through a big development binge we always go back and look at the prior suggestions. Our next big push is likely Q1 2012.

Again, welcome!

[X1Alpha]

Thank you for responding; And i will admit the idea itself is massive, but most of it is based from my view as a modder, i will post it on Mantis but i can sum it up in this post with a basic reason:

Major factions (friendly and hostile) that are interact-able (Trade and war) and vie for control of the system; (Zenith Remnant, Neinzul, and etc)

My reason: I'd love to explore the depth of each of the Factions while keeping with the cause and effect of the base game

[x4000]

Cool stuff!  I'll note for anyone else reading along that the mantis topic is here: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3715

If this is of interest to folks, they should remember to vote this up in mantis (this and anything else you'd rather see sooner than later).  Thanks!