Prerelease 1.201A (Pausing for many ships, economy, more bg art upgrades)

[Fiskbit]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I really like that you can pause incomplete buildings. I'm sure I'm going to use it quite a bit. I was worried after initially suggesting it about the potential for abuse. Perhaps enemies should still go after incomplete buildings that are far enough along?

I understand your reluctance to add no-power variants of the constructors; that's reasonable, so no worries there. No-resource reactors would be a really great capturable, though, in my opinion, making the world much more appealing from a resource perspective (free energy). Might not be worth the work, but I see that as being a really worthwhile capturable ship that I'd go to some effort to protect when taking a planet.

I like your thoughts on no-power-mode for ships; no shields sounds really neat. Have you thought about significantly reducing 'paused' ships' power use instead of eliminating it, though? A small footprint for paused units might be neat, with them maybe using 10% of their normal power use or something. I worry about the player being able to have too big of a paused infrastructure sitting around, particularly for uncapped units, without cost so that they can just make it all start up just when they want and only incur costs then.

Anyway, about to try the new version now. Should be neat.

[CautiousChaos]

Okay, so this is probably my first bit of negativity with the title.  I am just not into the new mechanic for pausing ships.  I'm not finding it tactically or strategically interesting; more burdensome than anything.  I can understand exactly why the mechanic is there, though I just don't see myself going through the effort of pausing ships knowing that I am going to forget what I paused rendering them useless (or sitting ducks) when invasions come.  I say this of course with all due admiration - everything to date has been fundamentally outstanding. 
-cc

[liq3]

Okay, so this is probably my first bit of negativity with the title.  I am just not into the new mechanic for pausing ships.  I'm not finding it tactically or strategically interesting; more burdensome than anything.  I can understand exactly why the mechanic is there, though I just don't see myself going through the effort of pausing ships knowing that I am going to forget what I paused rendering them useless (or sitting ducks) when invasions come.  I say this of course with all due admiration - everything to date has been fundamentally outstanding. 
-cc

You don't have to use it. 

[darke]

It will probably need a list-button at the bottom of the screen to list all paused ships, just so you can keep track of them even when you're using the feature.

[Echo35]

It will probably need a list-button at the bottom of the screen to list all paused ships, just so you can keep track of them even when you're using the feature.

Agreed. I can see myself pausing ships on some planet somewhere, forgetting them to focus on something else, and then getting wiped.

[x4000]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I really like that you can pause incomplete buildings. I'm sure I'm going to use it quite a bit. I was worried after initially suggesting it about the potential for abuse. Perhaps enemies should still go after incomplete buildings that are far enough along?

Well, if they are paused, then they are the lowest priority of all, I'd say (except if it is a command station).  They are not getting any closer to being done, and they can't do anything to hurt the AI or help the human player.  They are inert.  As soon as they come back to life, or the AI has nothing better to do on that planet, they'll go after these inert buildings anyway.  I see what you mean about abuse, but I'm worried more about making the game more difficult for newcomers with too complex a system for this.  Hence why I'm trying to alter the AI logic instead to combat the abuse potential.

I understand your reluctance to add no-power variants of the constructors; that's reasonable, so no worries there. No-resource reactors would be a really great capturable, though, in my opinion, making the world much more appealing from a resource perspective (free energy). Might not be worth the work, but I see that as being a really worthwhile capturable ship that I'd go to some effort to protect when taking a planet.Anyway, about to try the new version now. Should be neat.

Ooh, cool!  No-cost power stations are a really nifty idea, added to the future DLC list.

I like your thoughts on no-power-mode for ships; no shields sounds really neat. Have you thought about significantly reducing 'paused' ships' power use instead of eliminating it, though? A small footprint for paused units might be neat, with them maybe using 10% of their normal power use or something. I worry about the player being able to have too big of a paused infrastructure sitting around, particularly for uncapped units, without cost so that they can just make it all start up just when they want and only incur costs then.

Well, this is sort of the point also, actually.  I had originally been planning on having a "hangar" type ship that would allow players to do just this.  Although, now the transports sort of work in the exact capacity I had imagined for the hangar, anyway, so that makes that redundant.  I think of it like planes on an airfield for the airforce.  Those planes are very vulnerable and pointless on the ground, but as soon as a threat gets near they can be fired up and are a wicked fighting machine in the sky.  I kind of look at this in that same light, and I think it's strategically interesting and a real bonus for anything "extra" that you want to keep around without incurring your extra energy costs.

Anyway, about to try the new version now. Should be neat.

Great!

[x4000]

Okay, so this is probably my first bit of negativity with the title.  I am just not into the new mechanic for pausing ships.  I'm not finding it tactically or strategically interesting; more burdensome than anything.  I can understand exactly why the mechanic is there, though I just don't see myself going through the effort of pausing ships knowing that I am going to forget what I paused rendering them useless (or sitting ducks) when invasions come.  I say this of course with all due admiration - everything to date has been fundamentally outstanding. 
-cc

You don't have to use it. 

Precisely.  It's not meant for everyday use, or something that everyone must use.  It's an extra option for other people who want it.  That is all.

[Revenantus]

I like your thoughts on no-power-mode for ships; no shields sounds really neat. Have you thought about significantly reducing 'paused' ships' power use instead of eliminating it, though? A small footprint for paused units might be neat, with them maybe using 10% of their normal power use or something. I worry about the player being able to have too big of a paused infrastructure sitting around, particularly for uncapped units, without cost so that they can just make it all start up just when they want and only incur costs then.

I'm not yet sold on this pausing ships mechanic yet, but I'm keeping an open mind - I need to play around with it for a bit. However, I strongly agree with Fiskbit that paused ships/constructors shouldn't incur no energy cost whatsoever, something in the region of 10-20% of their normal cost sounds reasonable, especially since in the case of ships they can still move around.

[x4000]

It will probably need a list-button at the bottom of the screen to list all paused ships, just so you can keep track of them even when you're using the feature.

Agreed. I can see myself pausing ships on some planet somewhere, forgetting them to focus on something else, and then getting wiped.

Only problem is that listboxes in the game only support around 40 items, whereas you can easily pause hundreds or thousands of ships.  There's not really a way I can represent this easily.  Maybe with a special faux-control group on the planetary summary sidebar, I guess.  Actually, I think that could work rather well!  Added to my list.

[x4000]

I like your thoughts on no-power-mode for ships; no shields sounds really neat. Have you thought about significantly reducing 'paused' ships' power use instead of eliminating it, though? A small footprint for paused units might be neat, with them maybe using 10% of their normal power use or something. I worry about the player being able to have too big of a paused infrastructure sitting around, particularly for uncapped units, without cost so that they can just make it all start up just when they want and only incur costs then.

I'm not yet sold on this pausing ships mechanic yet, but I'm keeping an open mind - I need to play around with it for a bit. However, I strongly agree with Fiskbit that paused ships/constructors shouldn't incur no energy cost whatsoever, something in the region of 10-20% of their normal cost sounds reasonable, especially since in the case of ships they can still move around.

See my notes about airfields, then please let me know what you think.

[eRe4s3r]

X4000, whats really confusing is that you call buildings ships ;p Buildings of all kind should have a pause button, but UNITS of all kind, excluding turrets should have a hold fire button and nothing to lower their energy consumption. Because then that'd be more like mothballing them ie - How it works in Space Empires IV and i don't see Ai war having the scale required for that to make any sense ;p

That way i think we could make every faction happy. ^^

I can't even remember what the sense of mothballing in Space Empires was, guess to keep outdated ships around? oh well

[Revenantus]

See my notes about airfields, then please let me know what you think.

Hmm, I see your thinking, but those planes aren't free, they incur ongoing maintenance costs in order to keep them in a condition in which they can be called upon to fight.

[x4000]

X4000, whats really confusing is that you call buildings ships ;p Buildings of all kind should have a pause button, but UNITS of all kind, excluding turrets should have a hold fire button and nothing to lower their energy consumption. Because then that'd be more like mothballing them ie - How it works in Space Empires IV and i don't see Ai war having the scale required for that to make any sense ;p

That way i think we could make every faction happy. ^^

Well, okay, some good points.  I am really surprised that this one is such a contentious issue with anyone, though.  It's so player-friendly, haha.  But, perhaps too friendly.

See my notes about airfields, then please let me know what you think.

Hmm, I see your thinking, but those planes aren't free, they incur ongoing maintenance costs in order to keep them in a condition in which they can be called upon to fight.

Well, this is also true.  I don't know, I really don't want to make two separate modes Hold Fire versus Disable Everything Except Movement.  This is all so closely related, and I hate the proliferation of Modes when at all possible to avoid.

[x4000]

Here's the current design for the next release:  calling this "low power mode," having it work like it currently does, adding a hotkey for it, and making it still incur 10% of the normal energy cost.

[Revenantus]

Here's the current design for the next release:  calling this "low power mode," having it work like it currently does, adding a hotkey for it, and making it still incur 10% of the normal energy cost.

*Thumbs up*