Suggestions

[spelk]

So as to document user suggestions I thought I'd start a thread here..

A few suggestions to consider..

MINI-MAP representations
Good call on the different mini-map representations for resources, because I was often having to max zoom out, click on a blob just to see if it was a fleet of ships or a metal extractor. Is there also a possibility to make warp gates much more distinct at the mini-map view? When you stack a bunch of tractor beams, turrets, mines and what not at a warp gate, it starts to look similar to your large fleets.

GALACTIC MAP information
Another consideration, in the galactic map, when you hover over your recently discovered planetary systems, there is an information box that displays the contents of the system. Is it possible to configure this info as a vertical list rather than a comma delimited list, its much easier to visually detect key strategic structures and targets when scanning a vertical list of items than when reading a delimited line of text. Perhaps valuable structures such as Data Centers or Advanced Research stations could be displayed as an icon of some sort to immediately stand out? Perhaps use the icons from the main planetary display, and if they are recognisable enough it would behoove players to become familiar with them (as well as providing text for those who are not as familiar with them).

Automatic Priority processing of scouting information
I like the manual priority system you have provided for players to tag those systems that are important to them, but coupled with the more visual method for identifying these structures, there could be an auto-flag of systems with key structures? Perhaps fill in some check boxes denoting the structures you want your command CPU to search for, and then it tags those scouted systems with a Priority marker for attention? Not necessarily grading the priorities, like you do manually, but just bringing your attention to the planetary system... in an automated way. Justification wise, it would be part of your command consoles automatic scout and search mechanism to process the incoming information from your scouts.

Fleet formation pace
I've noticed that setting up a large fleet composed of many ship types, when I send them on a maneuovre, they move at different speeds, and often the speedier fighters will arrive at a different time to the bigger support ships. Is there a way to set up a hotkeyed fleet and have them move at the speed of the slowest ship, so they essentially stay together and can make assaults as a fleet, and not a disparate scrabble of ships coming in dependant upon their engine speed? For defensive situations perhaps this can be extended to ships in the fleet recieving a toggle command to remain in formation, or to fly under their own steam at their own engine pace? So its an option you choose when giving an order.

I see this is already in place.. silly me.


Patrol Paths
Not sure whether this already exists, but I'd like to assign fleets a patrol path in a system, so they are on a Attack-Move command, but in a series of waypoints, in order to patrol multiple warp gates or defensive structures. At the moment I tend to end up with static fleets awaiting my attention in a system, and I have to hunt them out, to move them to a potential threat, it would be nice to have a patrolling fleet that might have a chance to intercept the problem. I'd be able to set up good defensive coverage with a couple of fleets on patrol as opposed to static groups awaiting direction.

[x4000]

So as to document user suggestions I thought I'd start a thread here..

Good idea -- thanks.  That other thread on Quarter To Three is becoming really huge.

MINI-MAP representations
Good call on the different mini-map representations for resources, because I was often having to max zoom out, click on a blob just to see if it was a fleet of ships or a metal extractor. Is there also a possibility to make warp gates much more distinct at the mini-map view? When you stack a bunch of tractor beams, turrets, mines and what not at a warp gate, it starts to look similar to your large fleets.

Are you referring to wormholes?  I'm assuming that's what you meant, but let me know if not.  I think that I've made the wormholes as clear as I possibly can, the fact is that there are just a lot of things being shown at once sometimes.  I've experimented around with this a lot in the past, and I don't have any more ideas on this one.

However, one other sideways idea that does occur to me is that it might be nice to just see resources and wormholes, or possibly even just military ships -- various other RTS games have this for their minimaps.  I'll look at doing something similar here (kind of like the Disp button on the galaxy map sidebar, just for the minimap in this case).

GALACTIC MAP information
Another consideration, in the galactic map, when you hover over your recently discovered planetary systems, there is an information box that displays the contents of the system. Is it possible to configure this info as a vertical list rather than a comma delimited list, its much easier to visually detect key strategic structures and targets when scanning a vertical list of items than when reading a delimited line of text. Perhaps valuable structures such as Data Centers or Advanced Research stations could be displayed as an icon of some sort to immediately stand out? Perhaps use the icons from the main planetary display, and if they are recognisable enough it would behoove players to become familiar with them (as well as providing text for those who are not as familiar with them).

Hmm, the problem here is that there's just not enough vertical room.  Especially when you also have allies, and it's late in the game, we're almost running out of room as it already is.  One thing you may not have noticed is that the AI ships are sectioned, so that it shows their little mobile stuff first, then it shows their larger stuff (like Data Centers and Gates, etc).

I like the idea of doing something iconic in addition to what is already there, though.  I'll look into adding a little row of icons that shows key structures of interest, since that would make it a lot easier to quickly analyze scouting intel for important data.

Automatic Priority processing of scouting information
I like the manual priority system you have provided for players to tag those systems that are important to them, but coupled with the more visual method for identifying these structures, there could be an auto-flag of systems with key structures? Perhaps fill in some check boxes denoting the structures you want your command CPU to search for, and then it tags those scouted systems with a Priority marker for attention? Not necessarily grading the priorities, like you do manually, but just bringing your attention to the planetary system... in an automated way. Justification wise, it would be part of your command consoles automatic scout and search mechanism to process the incoming information from your scouts.

Hmm, I guess if there are high-priority items at a planet, and the player has not set a priority level yet, I could make it so that it shows a star or something.  I kind of like the aspect of players having to evaluate the intel on their own, though, seems like something is lost with that much hand-holding.  With the icons in the intel summaries, seems like that evaluation will go even more quickly.  What do you think?  I'm going to hold off on this one for now, until I hear back from you.

Fleet formation pace
I've noticed that setting up a large fleet composed of many ship types, when I send them on a maneuovre, they move at different speeds, and often the speedier fighters will arrive at a different time to the bigger support ships. Is there a way to set up a hotkeyed fleet and have them move at the speed of the slowest ship, so they essentially stay together and can make assaults as a fleet, and not a disparate scrabble of ships coming in dependant upon their engine speed? For defensive situations perhaps this can be extended to ships in the fleet recieving a toggle command to remain in formation, or to fly under their own steam at their own engine pace? So its an option you choose when giving an order.

Ah, this one is already in there -- was added in 1.004.  You want Group Move mode.  There is a button at the bottom of your hud that lets you toggle it on so your selected of ships all move at the slowest speed together.  Or you can just hold G while issuing a move order, and they will then do it for just that one time.  They show up with a turquoise border when group moving.

Patrol Paths
Not sure whether this already exists, but I'd like to assign fleets a patrol path in a system, so they are on a Attack-Move command, but in a series of waypoints, in order to patrol multiple warp gates or defensive structures. At the moment I tend to end up with static fleets awaiting my attention in a system, and I have to hunt them out, to move them to a potential threat, it would be nice to have a patrolling fleet that might have a chance to intercept the problem. I'd be able to set up good defensive coverage with a couple of fleets on patrol as opposed to static groups awaiting direction.

Patrolling was something that I historically didn't really want to get into, but with some of the waypoint functionality that was added during beta, it is now a lot closer to being possible.  One recent feature (in 1.004) that might negate the need for true patrols is the new Free-Roaming Defender mode, though.  Hold V and right-click to put your ships into that mode (they will show as hot pink borders in far zoom).  Ships in that mode will attack anything that comes into the system, which is great for a defensive force that's covering several wormholes.  Let me know if you'd still like me too look more into patrols themselves, but I think that FRD mode is likely to be more effective most of the time.

Thanks for the great suggestions!  I'll let you know when there is another prerelease out, which will include the minimap updates and the iconic represenations in intel summaries.

[spelk]

MINI-MAP representations

Are you referring to wormholes?  I'm assuming that's what you meant, but let me know if not.  I think that I've made the wormholes as clear as I possibly can, the fact is that there are just a lot of things being shown at once sometimes.  I've experimented around with this a lot in the past, and I don't have any more ideas on this one.

However, one other sideways idea that does occur to me is that it might be nice to just see resources and wormholes, or possibly even just military ships -- various other RTS games have this for their minimaps.  I'll look at doing something similar here (kind of like the Disp button on the galaxy map sidebar, just for the minimap in this case).

Yeah the wormholes, I guess short of making the mini-map bigger theres not much you can do, looking closely I see that the wormholes already have a different symbol it just gets a bit obscured the more other tech you stack up there.

GALACTIC MAP information

Hmm, the problem here is that there's just not enough vertical room.  Especially when you also have allies, and it's late in the game, we're almost running out of room as it already is.  One thing you may not have noticed is that the AI ships are sectioned, so that it shows their little mobile stuff first, then it shows their larger stuff (like Data Centers and Gates, etc).

I like the idea of doing something iconic in addition to what is already there, though.  I'll look into adding a little row of icons that shows key structures of interest, since that would make it a lot easier to quickly analyze scouting intel for important data.

I can understand that your screen space is limited when presenting the quite extensive scouting information, I'd settle for iconic representations, so that at a quick glance on the hover, you can instantly recognise certain important structures.

Automatic Priority processing of scouting information

Hmm, I guess if there are high-priority items at a planet, and the player has not set a priority level yet, I could make it so that it shows a star or something.  I kind of like the aspect of players having to evaluate the intel on their own, though, seems like something is lost with that much hand-holding.  With the icons in the intel summaries, seems like that evaluation will go even more quickly.  What do you think?  I'm going to hold off on this one for now, until I hear back from you.

I think you might be right there, part of having the scout reports is that you can direct the scouting and use the information coming back to make fleet wide decisions.. so having the game flag up important systems might be too "hand holdy" as you say.

Fleet formation pace

Ah, this one is already in there -- was added in 1.004.  You want Group Move mode.  There is a button at the bottom of your hud that lets you toggle it on so your selected of ships all move at the slowest speed together.  Or you can just hold G while issuing a move order, and they will then do it for just that one time.  They show up with a turquoise border when group moving.

Ahh, I only just noticed it in the new build I've installed, the Impulse installation is still at 1.003

Patrol Paths
Patrolling was something that I historically didn't really want to get into, but with some of the waypoint functionality that was added during beta, it is now a lot closer to being possible.  One recent feature (in 1.004) that might negate the need for true patrols is the new Free-Roaming Defender mode, though.  Hold V and right-click to put your ships into that mode (they will show as hot pink borders in far zoom).  Ships in that mode will attack anything that comes into the system, which is great for a defensive force that's covering several wormholes.  Let me know if you'd still like me too look more into patrols themselves, but I think that FRD mode is likely to be more effective most of the time.

Ah another feature that is about already implemented... I like this defender mode, because you can shore up a smallish but capable force and have them cover your back whilst you concentrate on the advancing fronts. The only thing that concerns me with this approach is how does the player friendly AI decide which targets are priority and how does it split a large fleet of ships to tackle the attackers?

With waypointed patrols, you will have a set fleet, and they will patrol that area and attack anything that comes into range, so you sort of know the composition of the defense, and the locational area. With free roaming defender mode, you're not certain of the composition of the defending force, nor where they'll be and how they'll prioritise their attacks, dependant upon location and ship type.

Still, I'm not sure the payoff of putting in a waypoint mechanism, and having players micromanage fleets and patrol routes via waypoints, versus the ease of leaving a force in the center of a planetary system and switching on their pink power! I'd wager its a lot of extra work for not much gain. Most players will probably just use the free roaming defense I would guess.

Thanks for the great suggestions!  I'll let you know when there is another prerelease out, which will include the minimap updates and the iconic represenations in intel summaries.

Ah cool. I'll await eagerly for the new update.

[T-Bone Biggins]

I have a few suggestions myself.

1: Widescreen support: Yes, I know people are saying it's not necessary but the game looks a bit odd in widescreen. Sadly, you can only buy widescreens in stores nowadays, finding a monitor in 4:3 nowadays is a rarity. I got 1440x900 native on my cheap monitor myself, but 16:9 and 16:10 support would be great. I forsee a problem though, and that is the interface shrinking in higher resolutions like it does in many games. Not sure how to fix that without stretching the sprites and GUI and making it look pixelated like a nintendo game......

2: Wormholes seem a bit, well, un-daunting. They sorta disappear on screen. Maybe make them 4x bigger on display and it'd be easier to see them, the mini-map works ok for me to hunt them down at the moment though so it's not critical.

3: A new sort of command ship that increases your maximum number of allowed ships by a small number, say, 5 more of the same class of ship. Like have a squadron leader for Mk1 fighters etc. , but make them inordinately priced in power and materials. This way turtles are not at such a disadvantage later in the game when they can't expand. It keeps the option open for late game when you have too much to spend, too. It won't be as easy or efficient as just researching better units for most of the game, but it will give them campers and turtles a slight chance of punching back when they finally do get their guts pulled together and crawl out of their corner of the galaxy

BTW, turtles in my opinion have the spine of a gummybear but they seem to be at too much disadvantage with lack of access to other systems. Since they're on my team give them a chance to learn and re-organize their strategy in the same game.

[x4000]

Yeah the wormholes, I guess short of making the mini-map bigger theres not much you can do, looking closely I see that the wormholes already have a different symbol it just gets a bit obscured the more other tech you stack up there.

Hopefully the minimap display-style toggle will make this easier to see.  Maybe I'll also make this a hotkey, for quick locating of the resource and wormhole points.  That should be pretty convenient, but let me know what you think after you see it in practice later today/tonight.

I can understand that your screen space is limited when presenting the quite extensive scouting information, I'd settle for iconic representations, so that at a quick glance on the hover, you can instantly recognise certain important structures.

Okay, cool -- let's at least start with that, and then let's see what happens from there, if you still feel like something's missing.

I think you might be right there, part of having the scout reports is that you can direct the scouting and use the information coming back to make fleet wide decisions.. so having the game flag up important systems might be too "hand holdy" as you say.

Okay, glad you agree.  We can always revisit this later if it is an ongoing issue or something.  But part of using Priority 0 is so that you don't have to keep re-evaluating the same stupid planets over and over, which shouldn't make this much of a chore.

Ahh, I only just noticed it in the new build I've installed, the Impulse installation is still at 1.003

Sorceresss and I have both now been able to get 1.004 off of Impulse now -- looks like they are live with that.

Ah another feature that is about already implemented... I like this defender mode, because you can shore up a smallish but capable force and have them cover your back whilst you concentrate on the advancing fronts. The only thing that concerns me with this approach is how does the player friendly AI decide which targets are priority and how does it split a large fleet of ships to tackle the attackers?

With waypointed patrols, you will have a set fleet, and they will patrol that area and attack anything that comes into range, so you sort of know the composition of the defense, and the locational area. With free roaming defender mode, you're not certain of the composition of the defending force, nor where they'll be and how they'll prioritise their attacks, dependant upon location and ship type.

Still, I'm not sure the payoff of putting in a waypoint mechanism, and having players micromanage fleets and patrol routes via waypoints, versus the ease of leaving a force in the center of a planetary system and switching on their pink power! I'd wager its a lot of extra work for not much gain. Most players will probably just use the free roaming defense I would guess.

The automatic AI on the players ships is pretty intelligent.  Ships will try to avoid concentrating themselves too heavily all on one target (usually 5 ships at most, if there are other viable targets around).  And ships in attack-move mode, defender mode, or who are just sitting around and shooting, will always choose their best targets.  So fighters will go for cruisers, bombers for fighters, cruisers for bombers, etc.  They are pretty intelligent overall, and will do probably as good or better a job as most players who would micromanage the process would.

I was thinking more about patrols after you brought it up earlier, and at the moment I am thinking maybe I will introduce a new "patrol post" or something like that as a free DLC unit, either this week or next.  I'm still working out the specifics, but basically it would allow you (or eventually the AI) to set up semi-permanent patrol routes that you can assign your guys to.  It's less flexible than the patrol behavior in other RTS games, but it's got a cool visual aspect and might actually lend itself to some interesting new gameplay options that don't come up with other RTS games.  Plus I think it would be easier for novice players to use, since I suspect they are not in the habit of using patrols in other games.

Ah cool. I'll await eagerly for the new update.

Awesome.  It will be a few hours yet at least, but will be sometime later today (my time).

[x4000]

I have a few suggestions myself.

Awesome!  Those are always welcome.

1: Widescreen support: Yes, I know people are saying it's not necessary but the game looks a bit odd in widescreen. Sadly, you can only buy widescreens in stores nowadays, finding a monitor in 4:3 nowadays is a rarity. I got 1440x900 native on my cheap monitor myself, but 16:9 and 16:10 support would be great. I forsee a problem though, and that is the interface shrinking in higher resolutions like it does in many games. Not sure how to fix that without stretching the sprites and GUI and making it look pixelated like a nintendo game......

Ah... hmm, this is puzzling to me.  The game definitely already supports widescreen, half our alpha and beta testers are on widescreen.  On larger screen resolutions (on some computers, widescreen or no) there was a quality issue until version 1.004, maybe that's what you were experiencing?  If you update to 1.004 through Impulse (or the Check For Updates button if you have the game direct from us), that should resolve itself.  The game should basically be able to display in any possible widescreen resolution, although 16:9 is mostly what we have tested.  Please let me know if this continues to be an issue for you, and a screenshot would be awesome if it does continue to trouble you (just hit the Print Screen key while in the game, then paste it into MS Paint or whatever).

2: Wormholes seem a bit, well, un-daunting. They sorta disappear on screen. Maybe make them 4x bigger on display and it'd be easier to see them, the mini-map works ok for me to hunt them down at the moment though so it's not critical.

This was a decision that was consciously made for gameplay reasons, actually.  If the wormholes are larger, they get so much harder to defend (since you can't place turrets directly on top of the wormhole, and the circumference gets so much larger). They aren't really supposed to be very intimidating anyway, they are just kind of a fact of life in this particular galaxy.

If you want a quick way to switch between wormholes on a planet, try using the / key -- my wife suggested that one during beta, because she was also having trouble remembering their locations on some planets.  The minimap updates that I'm doing at spelks suggestion will hopefully also help you here, especially a hotkey added.

3: A new sort of command ship that increases your maximum number of allowed ships by a small number, say, 5 more of the same class of ship. Like have a squadron leader for Mk1 fighters etc. , but make them inordinately priced in power and materials. This way turtles are not at such a disadvantage later in the game when they can't expand. It keeps the option open for late game when you have too much to spend, too. It won't be as easy or efficient as just researching better units for most of the game, but it will give them campers and turtles a slight chance of punching back when they finally do get their guts pulled together and crawl out of their corner of the galaxy

Ooh, wow, I really like this idea -- yours is one of the first new-ship-class ideas to be suggested (most other suggestions have been about mechanics or interface or gameplay), so I'm excited to see that kicking off.  I'll have to think about how best to integrate this, it might not come out exactly as you described just for technical/resource reasons, but the core concept of being able to selectively increase the caps on certain ship types is something I really like, too.

If you have too much to spend in the late game, then missiles or starships are probably your best bet for burning through those resources.  If you are playing a difficulty that is right at your threshold, you'll usually have too few resources, though.  Probably means you are playing on an AI level that is a little bit too easy for you.

BTW, turtles in my opinion have the spine of a gummybear but they seem to be at too much disadvantage with lack of access to other systems. Since they're on my team give them a chance to learn and re-organize their strategy in the same game.

Haha, in other games I tend to be something of a turtle (a boomer, really), so I understand their plight.  The main goal of a turtle is to be well defended on all sides, and so that means that they should just try to expand in a really circular way, rather than expanding out in a big line.  You can also give ships between one another, so if a planet of yours becomes perfectly defended, you can always give it to them and then take a harder-to-defend planet for yourself.  There's lots of ways you can use teamwork to make everyone on your team comfortable yet still challenged.

[T-Bone Biggins]

Ok, widescreen is working I just logged back into Impulse and checked for updates and there it is finally. I'm about to uninstall the Impulse version and download a trial and unlock it with my serial-key to be honest, Impulse is taking too long on updates and I like to see all the new shiny patches right away.

Back to another few suggestions:

1: This is a biggy....Linux support! I am a new programmer and in early chapters of C++ books, so don't think I'm a pro but did you make the game code portable or easily portable to other OS's? Linux is used on one of my older PC's, Ubuntu 8.04 (new 9 series is unstable) and that's my working PC when I'm working at the PC shop. People are starting to love Linux because the computers we assemble with Ubnutu Linux OS's get free full support from Canonical and the price is about $100 cheaper to buy the same PC with Linux instead of Windows, and of course having Windows and Linux put together on the same PC is just a small charge for extra work time. I noticed Linux is becoming a trend in the PC world and wanted to bring that to your attention, because the Linux gaming community, while small, is focused and buys nearly every game for Linux. I just wanna see if you want a piece of the pie.

2: Didn't see any of these yet in the game so I don't know if you have one already, but Infiltrator ships. They have the radar signature of an enemy ship and can go unnoticed into enemy territory, but have little armor and possibly no weapons, or maybe a weak one. Otherwise it's like a scout. To keep this awesome ability balanced for the enemy AI, make a formula for detection. Say every 10 seconds there's a random detection check. Obviously the higher the AI progression the smarter it is, so use that as a basis for the integer for the formula. Say every 1000 AI progress added 1% to the detection chance. Every 10 seconds the Infiltrator is in an enemy system, that total chance is rolled and if detected that infiltrator can be targeted and killed by the AI, until the infiltrator dies or returns to a friendly system to hide out. Obviously you need to balance it, make the detection time shorter or increase the chance to detect percentage, but it's a simple math formula when put on paper and could spice up the game a bit. Also, to further balance the Infiltrator make it a mid-late game ship, so the AI would have plenty enough progress that you can't just sit in their home system forever. Possibly make a perma-cloaked version for the AI, can't be detected or shot at but the Backdoor Hacker and Stealth Master gets one in every players home system at the start, just one and they can't be built. A way for them to keep tabs on your home and predict your early movements.

[x4000]

Ok, widescreen is working I just logged back into Impulse and checked for updates and there it is finally. I'm about to uninstall the Impulse version and download a trial and unlock it with my serial-key to be honest, Impulse is taking too long on updates and I like to see all the new shiny patches right away.

Awesome, glad that is working better in the new version!

1: This is a biggy....Linux support! I am a new programmer and in early chapters of C++ books, so don't think I'm a pro but did you make the game code portable or easily portable to other OS's? Linux is used on one of my older PC's, Ubuntu 8.04 (new 9 series is unstable) and that's my working PC when I'm working at the PC shop. People are starting to love Linux because the computers we assemble with Ubnutu Linux OS's get free full support from Canonical and the price is about $100 cheaper to buy the same PC with Linux instead of Windows, and of course having Windows and Linux put together on the same PC is just a small charge for extra work time. I noticed Linux is becoming a trend in the PC world and wanted to bring that to your attention, because the Linux gaming community, while small, is focused and buys nearly every game for Linux. I just wanna see if you want a piece of the pie.

The game is coded in C# 3.5, and the Mono framework does not yet support that.  There was a good little discussion about this over at Gamers With Jobs (scroll most of the way down to see it).  So it's an impossibility to bring it to Mac/Linux at the moment, but hopefully sometime soon the Mono framework will grow to the point where it will work.  We'll just see -- but I am interested in exploring that avenue when it becomes viable.

2: Didn't see any of these yet in the game so I don't know if you have one already, but Infiltrator ships. They have the radar signature of an enemy ship and can go unnoticed into enemy territory, but have little armor and possibly no weapons, or maybe a weak one. Otherwise it's like a scout. To keep this awesome ability balanced for the enemy AI, make a formula for detection. Say every 10 seconds there's a random detection check. Obviously the higher the AI progression the smarter it is, so use that as a basis for the integer for the formula. Say every 1000 AI progress added 1% to the detection chance. Every 10 seconds the Infiltrator is in an enemy system, that total chance is rolled and if detected that infiltrator can be targeted and killed by the AI, until the infiltrator dies or returns to a friendly system to hide out. Obviously you need to balance it, make the detection time shorter or increase the chance to detect percentage, but it's a simple math formula when put on paper and could spice up the game a bit. Also, to further balance the Infiltrator make it a mid-late game ship, so the AI would have plenty enough progress that you can't just sit in their home system forever. Possibly make a perma-cloaked version for the AI, can't be detected or shot at but the Backdoor Hacker and Stealth Master gets one in every players home system at the start, just one and they can't be built. A way for them to keep tabs on your home and predict your early movements.

What you are describing are good ideas, and are basically already implemented in pieces of several other existing ships currently in the game.

1. Infiltrators (currently in the game) are tiny little ships that are able to pass through force fields and shoot at ships under them.

2. The Mark IV scout is perma-cloaked, but very slow, so it lets you do very heavy scouting late in the game.

3. Cloaked ships show up with no signature on the radar for you or the enemy, but tachyon beam emitters can be used to reveal them if they come within range.  Also, ships have to decloak when firing -- except in the case of Planetary Cloakers, in which case the Planetary Cloaking Device must be destroyed before everything is revealed.

4. EyeBots are small ships that also act as scouts, with some other bonuses.

Thanks for the ideas, though, and keep 'em coming.  I don't want to do anything too similar to what is already implemented in the game (any new ship classes need to provide some distinct sort of gameplay function), but it's hard for you to know what's already there without having played for a lot longer since there is so much content.

Also, as sort of a side note:  I won't be adding any new "bonus" ship classes (that have the Mark I through Mark IV variants) except in expansion packs.  The DLC is all going to be about support ships, starships, other specialized ships, etc, whereas the expansion packs will introduce a lot of new bonus ship types in addition to their other features.  So feel free to suggest ships that will fit there, I'll credit you in the expansion pack if I use them, but they won't show up for a while, since the expansion pack won't be coming out until late this year.

[T-Bone Biggins]

Ok, so I never made it to the end of a long game yet and didn't see most of those. Sorta proves there's so many ships you gotta take your time to get them.

Last ship idea that crossed my mind, a sorta Leech ship. It's like a cloaked mine, and when an enemy gets near it attaches to the ship and sees what that ship sees for X amount of minutes. The bigger the ship the more energy it can drain to keep itself running, say how much energy that ship uses from the enemy energy pool is how many seconds the leech can stay alive. After this one I'm all out of ideas until I play a lot more.

[x4000]

Ok, so I never made it to the end of a long game yet and didn't see most of those. Sorta proves there's so many ships you gotta take your time to get them.

Also, not all ships are in all games.  In single player, it will take you at least 5 games to play with all the ships, and that's if you have no repeats (unlikely to happen).  So you should be seeing new stuff for quite a long time.

Last ship idea that crossed my mind, a sorta Leech ship. It's like a cloaked mine, and when an enemy gets near it attaches to the ship and sees what that ship sees for X amount of minutes. The bigger the ship the more energy it can drain to keep itself running, say how much energy that ship uses from the enemy energy pool is how many seconds the leech can stay alive. After this one I'm all out of ideas until I play a lot more.

I love this!  Something along these lines is going in next week's DLC as a new DEF tab ship.  This will work really awesomely with things like astro trains, etc, and could provide a whole new way to do some scouting.  Thanks again for the suggestions!

[T-Bone Biggins]

Yeah I started reading on the website, I got tons to do. And about the leech ships, those pesky astro-trains came to my mind, they are uber-annoying to me and what better than latch something on them. Maybe even a Mk2 leech that self-destructs for a little damage when it runs out of energy, not much but enough to count. Blah I'm thinking too much, gotta get back to playing more while it's rainy out, don't get too many indoor days anymore.

[x4000]

Yeah I started reading on the website, I got tons to do. And about the leech ships, those pesky astro-trains came to my mind, they are uber-annoying to me and what better than latch something on them. Maybe even a Mk2 leech that self-destructs for a little damage when it runs out of energy, not much but enough to count. Blah I'm thinking too much, gotta get back to playing more while it's rainy out, don't get too many indoor days anymore.

Cool stuff.  By the way, with regard to Astro Trains: if you REALLY hate them, they are easy to turn off.  But also, the best way to combat them is by diverting them (there's a topic on this in the Mini Strategy Guide, actually).  They help keep you on their toes, depending on their routes.

[x4000]

Okay, here's the latest prerelease version (1.005C):  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1005C.zip

It doesn't have as much in it as I had hoped today, but honestly I've been swamped with correspondence, partly from the slashdotting and partly from a lot of great feedback from new players getting into the game for the first time.  There will be another prerelease version tomorrow, with more.  Here's the feature list for this version:


-The system tray icon has not been needed for a while, and has now been removed.

-The new "very far zoom" should no longer have issues on widescreen monitors.

-The zoom 2 button (E key) now scales outward appropriately when "very far zoom" is enabled.

-The speed of zooming, especially on very far zoom, has been much improved so that it is quicker to use.

-There is now a "Last Scouted" display option for the galaxy map.  Hitting S will automatically switch to it.

-The "Last Scouted" text in the intel summary has been improved.  The colors are a bit more helpful (green/orange gradation before flashing red), and it now shows hours/minutes/seconds timespan format instead of just showing raw seconds.

-When a ship takes damage, its border now flashes for two seconds in far zoom.

[spelk]

I've been mulling over something and thought I'd pose it for discussion.. when your fleet engages the AI enemy, you have commands to tell it to move, and attack-move, you have turrets that auto-fire on the enemy, and you can even set the fleet to patrol/roam and attack any incoming, but is there any mechanism for disengaging the enemy?

I'm particularly asking about an ability for a retreat waypoint to be set, so that when your ships take too much damage they can head for the retreat waypoint and hopefully that place will be secured and protected by something.. basically could there be an automatic way for ships becoming damaged heavily to decide its time to flee to a safer place if possible? I've not really thought it through, but I could see it giving you some chance of damage limitation, if you could have a retreat waypoint to fall back to, perhaps with engineer drones there.

[x4000]

I've been mulling over something and thought I'd pose it for discussion.. when your fleet engages the AI enemy, you have commands to tell it to move, and attack-move, you have turrets that auto-fire on the enemy, and you can even set the fleet to patrol/roam and attack any incoming, but is there any mechanism for disengaging the enemy?

I'm particularly asking about an ability for a retreat waypoint to be set, so that when your ships take too much damage they can head for the retreat waypoint and hopefully that place will be secured and protected by something.. basically could there be an automatic way for ships becoming damaged heavily to decide its time to flee to a safer place if possible? I've not really thought it through, but I could see it giving you some chance of damage limitation, if you could have a retreat waypoint to fall back to, perhaps with engineer drones there.

Hmm, that's a pretty fascinating idea, actually.  Right now you can just get your guys out of there all as one group, but there's no way to have individual ships that are taking too-heavy fire get out of there.  I don't think I would want to make this a new control mechanic, but what I'm imagining based on what you just said is some sort of new support ship -- a mobile hospital or something -- that players could unlock, build, and then bring to the same planet as offensive fronts.  This unit could have a damage threshhold set on it -- anywhere from 80% to 10%, I'd imagine, and any of your ships that fall below that threshhold would retreat to and get healed by it (it would be able to heal one at a time, like an engineer, most likely -- so if you wanted extra healing, you could bring along extra engineers to assist).

Being able to effectively retreat, and having a good reason to do so, is something really missing in the RTS genre if you ask me.  I made it a lot more possible, overall, in AI War -- especially with Starships, it's a very valid thing to do.  But this would add a whole new dynamic on that front, with a lot of potential strategic implications.  I love it!