Bringing the Galaxy to Life

it may sound a bit odd, but orbiting planets would actualy change the game dynamics in my opinion. only because it would change the movment distances between planets and warp points (assuming that warp points didnt orbit the star also).

especialy early game where your warp point pickets need to bounce back to a planet between fights to rep and or upgrade. having that planet getting further or closer to the WP could mean the difference between wining and loosing the next fight if the planet was on the opposite side of the system from the WP in contest your in trouble on the other hand if its on close approach your at an advantage. still thats a small issue i guess sinse its easy to build a dedicated repair ship to station with your WP fleets

heh its prolly just me but i have a hard enough time keeping track of systems as it is w/o moving planets around on top of it. for it to truly look right planets would have to orbit at different speeds, for example, close in planets orbit faster than those further out and that would in turn add alot to processing turn times since every planet movment would need to be calculated each turn. and given the ease that you can change views of a given system by camera rotation, unless you locked the camera view you wouldnt even notice the planets movments untill it effected your in system fleets jump distances. i agree that it could use a bit of livining up though. perhaps just the planets/sun rotating would do it for me. that way i could see movment without actualy dealing with a change of distances.

Planets rotate already. They rotate slowly, but if you stare at them long enough you'll see it. In fact most non-ship space objects rotate - warp points, asteroids, storm clouds, etc.

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Watch for my mod - codename: Dimensions - coming by Summer, 2007!

If planets did orbit their stars they would not do so at all quickly as the turn length is 1/10 of a year after all and some outer orbits could be 100's of years long

Other than that most of the objects on the system screan are very definatly animated

Moving planets i think would be program level code not data level like mods. But would be nice to add to the wish list for VI. Since VI is YEARS away if may be something to look for.

As for comets there hinted at in the settings File. that and a few other things.

I dont see the rotation, then again i seldom stare at the system screens for very long. i do wonder though how one would go about hiding behind a planet. i was under the impression that as long as something was in sensor range in open space you could atleast see it if nothing else.

something i think would be really cool would be 'ghost ships' , to rip a page (kinda) from GC II. their freighter routs show up as ghost lines. i think thats a great idea only i dont think it should be tyed to any player action for the most part. i think it should be more along the lines of a 'civilian' action. the bigger and better protected systems should over time start spawning civilian ships flitting from planets to planets, along with maybe other things like space stations (for civilian commerce or research), or even mining operations around the asteroid belts (being a civilian operation they wouldnt acctualy take enough resources to effect the belt its all just for show).

ive often though that in these games that space in a well run empire should come alive. i find it odd that all civilizations have no civilian operations in space. your goal is to expand your space to benifit your populations. a visual feedback like what ive suggested would bring that population alive more so than a dry stat in a planet screen ever could.

what im really seeing in my minds eye is the traffic patterns in games like Sim City. the bigger your city areas grow the more cars/dots you see in the roads. something like that in space would be very sweet. and again i stress that you would NOT actualy interact with them, they would just be a visual cue to how large/secure a given system is in your empire, and also serve as a quick aid to see how well an enemy/allie system is developed too

Nice idea and not I think that hard to do if the civilian activity was basicaly fluff which had no real game effects

I would like to see things like populations wanting certain trade goods that are manufactured by planets like in this game Victoria made by Paradox Interactive. Different races could have different tastes as well, like one race might like to buy personal weapons while another refuses to. These goods could also generate income in the form of money that could be used in some way but thats option since money isn't used in this game and it would have to be worked in.

Seeing merchant ships transport them to planets, and if a blocade occurs that planet losing morale if it can't get... say.... rubber for shoes like what happaned to Germany in WW1.

Also, since there is migration, would be nice to see transport ships moving immigrants around.

That would add more life to the game and not change the gameplay completely like moving planets would do.

there could be other interesting things like hiring mercenaries, or special captains like in Master of Orion 2.

You could also go further with the trade goods idea and have certain componeants require certain trade goods as a resource like they do with Minerals and whatever now.

i agree Kanaric. id love to see a fully developed civilian 'economy'. but i dont want too have to manage it. id love to have different civilian based resources on the various planets i aquire and have my population use them any way they see fit. building and ballancing a millitary game is about as complicated as i want to get from a game control point of view.

id love to see some kind of civilization automation though, so i can see my lil baby chicks im off fighting wars to expand their territory for actualy DO something. it could have a small impact on how you play the game though, for instiance if you set up a civilian trade pact with another empire and your civ starts to get a good like , ohh i dunnow lets say widgets, and you want to declare war on that trading partner but your population will have a fit, it makes you really need to see where they are getting the widgets from and attack that planet first to insure your supply.

anyhow my point being that often in these games you loose motivation to continue. you end up setting up a well run empire and if your anything like me, once you break the back of the work setting up that empire and you know that given enough time you can eventualy beat everyone than you just start a new game and dont actualy finish an old one. that comes from bordom and just clicking next turn untill you get the next set of tech you need to launch your next wave of conquest. there is nothing to watch or do between tech stages to keep you really interested in your empire. id like some kind of civilian feed back to keep me motivated and interested in expanding my empire.

in all the great sci-fie fiction you have basicaly the millitary fighting wars but those wars are in the larger context of expanding civilization. the wars are being fought for a reason not just an expantion of living room. that is one of the major lacks in this game genra, you dont fight wars for any other reason than to get more resources to fight more wars. i dont know about you guys but id like to pause and smell the roses now and then. id love to see all my lil peeps flitting about the universe ive gained for them going about their meaningless little lives and worshiping me, their grand leader. as it is now, you take a planet because you need more research room, or more resources, or its a good tactical move to set up a forward base, but their is never any thought given to making those your supposed to be fighting FOR lives better. they have no lives, just one box of statistics in the planet screen that is largly irrelivent unless they start to riot and you need to send in troops for a few turns.

i call for more civilian feed back. both in visual and economics and social terms. even something as simple as a view of each of your planets 'major' citys , something like in the game civilization where you see them expand over time, couple that with those 'ghost ship' in space i mentioned, and perhaps some random civilian feed back in the empire screen. perhaps you get a free random tech if your peeps are happy once in a blue moon, or you loose a very few resources to a rebellion raid on a planet where they arent. nothing earth shaking or game changeing , just something too bring your population out of the statistics box and into your motivation range.

i want to be an emperor not just a general. i got some more ideas too on how planet development could be changed to re-enforce concept this but those are for another day

That would be so cool! It is similar to what Pax Imperia and MOO2 did where you could see the facilities sprout! I admit the lights on the globe taking shape as zones populated and expanded would be awesome.

Heh build my first dyson spear last night, guess i was wrong about the rotation thing. just needed a huge dyson spear to see it properly (damn i need new glasses). anyhow seeing that huge door open and shut each time you launch a ship or fleet would be a good start on making things look more alive well then again perhaps not, things are way out of scale. in a true dyson spear scale that door would be large enough to launch 20 or 40 jupiters side by side at the same time, you wouldnt even be able to see even the most massive space stations to say nothing of itty bitty lil dreads.

i have to admit they were both a let down and kinda cool, cool in the sence that its the first game ive played where they had ring worlds. (im a big fan of Niven) but a bit of a let down in reguards to the fact that the ring world was only the same size as 4 huge planets. a true ring world would have about the same size as 3 million earths according to various research done on Nivens ring world theory its a bit of a let down (though i understand that there isnt the ability to actualy put something that large into a game and make it even semi -realistic). that plus the fact that you cant build more than one construction yard on it (something that should be changed imo)they arent really of much tactical use. by the time you get the tech to build em, you dont need em. BUT its a great ending statment on just how powerful you have become. that alone is worth building half a dozen of em.

sorry i got a bit off track, but not really, building a ring world or a spear is a cool goal all in itself. heh i actualy ended up moving the whole galazy around so i had a ring world as the center of my empire, with 6 or so systems warpholed into it and just one wormhole out to the rest of the universe. really gave me a bit of an "ohh yeah" feeling when i just sat back and admired my empire for a few turns. now to get some sims there to admire it with me and send me messages of reverance for my mighty leadership down through the eons to get us all to that point. somehow the enemys sending me messages about finding a mineral planet just doesnt work after i build a ring world.

Wyatt,

It's funny you should mention these things, because I have felt the same way about 4X games myself for a long time. I just get sick of expanding my empire for the sake of expanding it... I want to see my civilians build structures, space stations, and ships of their own. I want to see a civilization develop.

I think the best way to accomplish this is to introduce new AI entities into the game called entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are civilians who see there is a need in the empire, and they build the facilities necessary to meet that need and sell their services. More and more entrepreneurs appear as the empire expands because there are greater needs, and entrepreneurs create more needs themselves... For example, migration says civilians want to move from planet X to planet Y... let's say that instead of moving the civilians to planet y automagically like the game does now, an entrepreneur emerges that says, "I could make money if I bought a transport to move people from planet x to planet y". Then another entrepreneur emerges that says, "I could make money if I built a space station with a shipyard so I could build transports for entrepreneurs. Finally, a third entrepreneur emerges that says, "I could make money selling the minerals required to build stations and transports. Then all of these entrepreneurs enter the game, take a loan, build their facilities, and start transporting civilians.

You can see how quickly your little empire comes to life... stations, ships, and buildings appear in your empire that you didn't build and you don't control. The ships start transporting your population around your empire handling migration. Your enemy can destroy civilian shipping thereby blocking migration... your enemy can also attack your civilian economy. Meanwhile, all of this happens with no management from you... migration still takes place with the same amount of effort from you, but now the universe has sprung to life, and there's more strategic depth to the game.

This idea can be expanded far beyond migration... you can have consumer products produced by some planets and desired by others... etc. This gets tied into your population's happiness level. The shipbuilding entrepreneurs could even sell ships to you!! or to your enemies!!! The transport entrepreneurs could transport things for you or your enemies!!! Imagine pirate, privateer, or mercenary entrepreneurs!! The possibilities are limitless... This is where I hope 4X games are going, and if I ever find the time, I someday dream of building my own 4X game that takes this idea to its very limits. Sadly this dream has been postponed for years as real life has always gotten in the way... oh that someday I become independantly wealthy and can work on whatever projects my heart desires.

However, it makes me very happy to read posts like yours Wyatt... because it tells me that I'm not alone... and if I someday to create my dream game, other's might just play it... or maybe someone else will build it for me! MM?
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The goggles... they do nothing!

im with ya webber. ive heard various comments about this kind of senario over the years spoken witha snear by some, you get the attitude that they dont want to play 'sims space' , well neither do i. i play the game to fight clearly i just want some other stuff to go with it.

the first ever PC game i played was the original Age of Empires, i was struck by how much fun it was to build both an economy and an army. with my lil piss ants going out and cutting down trees, and planting crops and such, it made the enemy armys more 'real' for me when they sent over a couple of horse men and started wacking on my lil guys. , in short i got invested in the game. i cared what was going on with my corner of the map.

to me the big draw to 4X games is the planing and building of an empire, a huge empire. not just building ships and fighting everything that moves. though thats a part of it. but it needs to be brought into ballance with the rest of it. if all we wanted to do was go kill things there are lots better genras to accomplish that. we could play C&C or warhammer, or any other RTS out there. but for me atleast 4X games should be epic. it should be a total package, of both civilian "sims" style building, and combat, as well as a touch of the old spread sheet style "tuning" of 5,000 different factors to make your empire not just workable but the best it can possably be.

alot of people paned MOO 3, well im one of the ones that liked it to an extent, they were totaly on the right track as far as the whole building an empire part anyhow. the opening CGI alone made me want to get started, the "politics" of the game would have totaly kicked ass had they actualy worked. i like SE Vs combat far and away better, but even the MOO 3 combat wasnt horrible as some games i could mention. atleast it wasnt just rock, scissors, paper with just bigger and bigger hulls like GS II is, anyhow i bring up MOO 3 for one reason, it set a great story to play by, it really made you think epic when you played the game. i like being able to toss in the odd game now and then using star trek mods, or star wars. but the truth is unless the game is build under license to actualy use those features, the best you get is some eye candy and thats usualy it. its like a river a mile wide and an inch deep. it looks like ST but it aint ST and im sad to say my immagination isnt up to faking it for more than one or maybe 2 games.

i really REALLY like this game. its one of the best if not thee best 4X ive played. finish the bug squashing and put as much effort into the civilian side of the game as was put into the combat (and no, there is no reason you cant do both despite what various people would have you believe like the half whits at GC) and this game , wether made by MM or who ever, would go down as an all time classic and the standerd for all future 4X games.

when i find a game that finaly relizes that epic doesnt just mean bigger ships with bigger guns, and your civilian building is atleast as importiant as blowing things up. why id never play another PC game again, till then this one is as close as ive seen to what i think would be perfect. its certianly better than all the other games ive seen latley in the genra where it seems more and more the trend is to turn 4X into RTS in space with planets instead of troop factorys, or tiberium harvestors. and let me say that the combat side of this game is , outside of bugs, perfect. meaning i love how its set up, with lots of valid choices. valid being the key word. and very real depth and complexity. it matters what armor you use and what weapons, even small things like how good your sensors are and how much supply and ordinance you can carry. the combat side is fantastic (again with the exception of the bugs that im sure will be worked out in time) now add a civilian side to the game to match the combat and damn ..........

ohh and before i forget, your ideas are great, and alot more solid than my vague ramblings were, id play your game in a second and im sure love every minute of it

I would love that type of game too. Let's hope that MM will eventualy make this dream a reality!

THIS WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE. Period.

Planet creators
Planet destroyers
Star creators
Star destroyers
Nebula creators
Nebula destroyers
Black Hole creators
Black Hole destroyers
Storm creators
Storm destroyers
Warp creators
Warp destroyers

I was unaware that the AI is currently unable to use these features. That is unfortionate and disapointing. (Ring Worlds and Sphere Worlds too?)

I will probably purchase the expansions, 'Dark Avatar' for Galactic Civilizations II and 'Warlords' for Civilization IV.

I will return here periodically to check for better patches and I hope to see and purchase an expansion for Space Empires V soon.

Priorities that I want in a patch:
-the above features implemented for the AI
-better AI
-"the fog of war" issue fixed/implemented(Opponent planets, ships, fleets, bases, etc. shown faded out with the date that information was last seen.)
-option at the begining of an encounter to not fight; the AI use this often; and let the choice affect relations
-An alliance victory; tone down Mega Evil Empire; relations should gradually decline; alliances that MEE has should decline even more gradually; empires further away should be less affected towards the MEE
-scrapping population causes unrest and lowers relations with others; mass destroying opponent population lowers relations with others

Priorities that I want in an Expansion:
-refined research and economy system; (I'm uncertain now how this might be done; research facilities could have increasing maintenace of all three resources, currently research seems "free"; an "overall economy" slider?, one side is production and the other is research; economy sliders for each planet also?, incorporates amount of population per facility?)
-space entities/creatures that spawn/duplicate; not all hostile; can help some ways if friendly; can provide resources or reasearch if captured and "dismantled" or studied
-exploration discoveries on some planets and in space; the ruins along with relics, ships, information, resource stash, primitives on planet, etc.
-Faster Than Light travel along with the warp point travel; events and encounters in "deep space" between the stars; I know that this is a big one and a popular one. Perhaps it is better suited for Space Empires VI. But it would be nice if an improvised system was in an expansion.
-a bigger map with more stars; map as a galaxy and not a quadrant; star systems are the best or average of other minor star systems between them
-neutral empires that can travel and colonize other stars. Their advancement is slowed due to mental intelligence(evolutionary level), metabolism, religious and philosophical beliefs, etc.
-ability to create planets without using asteroids, using the hyper-density cables and plates used for Ringworlds and Sphereworlds; this technology should be in the technology tree/chart between creating planets with asteroids and creating Ringworlds.

Priorities that I want in a sequel:
-Perhaps this is an idea that would work well if this game ever went massive continuous multi-player on the internet. But it would also be nice to see it implemented in a single player game: a system that allows random empires to start more advanced and bigger; minor empires could be like neutrals; minor empire's many stars could appear as one star on the map to a major empire; there could be levels of these majors and minors such as: infant, young, adult, mid-life, ancient, etc.; maybe a major can not/will not attack a minor; or if a major attacks a minor his relations with others will lower; a major and minor could still use diplomacy to communicate and trade: this could help the minor to advance to next level.
-planet maps with slots for facilities; planetary invasions and bombardments take place on this map
-AI have standard race names BUT random empire names that could vary much for each game
-galactic map for main view that can be zoomed in and out

A unit is missing, the "Shuttle". This unit would be an intra-system freighter. Like fighters they could not leave the system but could be loaded in cargo.

There would be civilian shuttles automaticaly generated and controled. They would be used for system transports as transporting ressources from planets to the system space port, resupplying ships in space, etc.

The player could also build shuttles. The space ships could load some of them in cargo and use them when they enter a system where there is multiple cargo to deliver or take. Instead of moving the ship, freighter or others, at each planet locations, you would lunch the shuttles and send them everywhere it needs to go. That would be faster to manage system business and also more realistic.

Neutral races should not know how to build space ships, since those ships have all the technology to leave their systems. They should only be able to build fighters and shuttles plus planet defensives units (WP, troops, etc.). Unless a major race give them the technology to build bigger hulls. Then they could start expanding in other systems...

Wyatt,

What you mentioned about the missing background story brings to mind another aspect I want to see implemented in my dream game. Star control 2 remains the best game I have ever played... because the story just sucked me in with the idea of exploring this mysterious universe searching for alien allies, mineral resources, and stopping an evil plot before time runs out. Unfortunately, the replayability wasn't very good for star control 2 because the universe didn't change.

Well, flash forward to the 4X genre, where universes are randomly generated every time you play, and a tantalizing possibility emerges. What if you took the kind of story and RPG elements of star control 2, and added them to a 4X game like SEV? All of the sudden, there's another thing to do... explore the universe in a much more exciting way, because now you're not just looking for potential new colonies, you're looking for mysterious artifacts and anomalies. The way I imagine it, each race in the game would have it's own unique background story... its own epic mission that it's trying to accomplish in setting up its empire. For example, terrans could be a band of refugees who fled Earth when it was conquered by unstopable alien invaders, and their mission could be to reseed humanity and eventually raise a fleet with the capacity to retake Earth. Initially it should appear as though each race's story is separate, but links and interdependancies should appear between the stories as you play and the story develops.
As you explore, you would find mysterious artifacts on various planets that can be used to upgrade the abilities of a single ship, or a single planet. Some artifacts could be combined with others to make more powerful artifacts, and ultimately this should lead to super artifacts that will help you in your race's mission. Part of the game becomes a race to collect the artifacts, and you have to cooperate with other aliens to trade for artifacts that you need that they have. All of this leads to a much more interesting game than just: expand and kill them all.

I also had an idea of how research and technology could work differently. Link science and tech into the environment. For example, the only way to be able to research gravity weapons is to discover a black hole, and send a ship with a science station out to investigate it. After the science ship has spent X turns studying the blackhole, it reports back that the researchers aboard have a theory for building a gravity weapon that you can invest research points into. Maybe you would even have to build entire stations in various places in order to get some technologies... this makes research more challenging, but more interesting. And not every technology would require all of this, just the most powerful ones. This idea comes from my love of Star Trek TNG... because you would want to emulate the federation by building giant science scout ships (like the enterprise) and sending them out to explore and study anomallies around the universe... because this would lead to new technologies that could eventually give you a decisive advantage.

All of these ideas provide much more impetous for exploration and make exploration much more interesting, which is an aspect of SEV that could be improved. Right now, I discover a nebula or a blackhole, and I think, "darn it... this thing is sure going to get in the way"... but I could be thinking, "ooh, I should study this and maybe I'll discover a new technology".

This is not to say I don't like SEV. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love this game, but it has so much more potential!!

The goggles... they do nothing!

yeah the idea of weaving the tech 'tree' into the game as something besides simply clicking on a slider is a great idea.

i think , off the top of my head, that it could worl somthing like this. you wouldnt do away with the tech tree and sliders totaly . but instead do something like this.

in the game now you have the theoretical sciences you need to research , that open up lots of other branches. well just connect those theoretical branches to your ideas of studying black holes and such. for instiance, the tech that allows cloaking could come from studying a nebula for 8 or 9 turns. i dont think all the science should work this way mind you, it would be a nightmare to code for the AI, but it should be simply enough to tye the root tech branches into something you would need to do in game to open them up besides just picking it out of the list and dumping RP into it.

another aspect that would fit nice with this is that the race traits could be tyed to what system a race starts in, for instiance if you started in a system with a double or even tripple sun, you would naturaly be a crystol based race. start in a system with a red dwarf star that would imply that you would be an acient race and thus use the time manipulation tech tree, and so on. but this would only apply to the AI, as a PC you could choose your own race details as part of your own story.

another idea thats been kicking about in my head for years is the idea that you would actualy have an avitar in the game to represent you. wouldnt have to be anything fancy mind you, just treat it like a unit of cargo for coding sake. but it could be used to open up lots of options, such as ........ you have a planet in rebellion, load your avitar into a ship and send the ship to the planet to talk peace, enemy empires want to talk about a treaty? well then agree on a place to meet with your avitar and theirs and have a talk session "face to face" as you will all at once untill you either work out a treaty or talks break down and you/they leave. that would open up the chance to ambush both enemy leaders and for your own avitar to be ambushed also. you could choose the avitars traits just like race traits. so if your avitar is on a planet then just that planet could have a small increase in reproduction and happyness while its there, or if its on a fleet then it could inspire moral and shooting skills, the list is pretty much endless. nothing to huge mind you just something in the game that makes you less of a 'god' who doesnt really exist and more of an emperior that does. it would also open up the choices of government style more, if you chose any form of democracy you would stand a chance of being voted out. and would need to shuttle your avitar around your empire every 10 years or so to basicaly campaign for re-election.

there are lots of little things that could be added to bring the galaxy more to life and make the game more than just load, pick a fight, destroy everyone else, load a new game. as ive aid, the combat side of this game is awsome. now make the civilian side as good and man it would make spore look like pac-man

no, i played GC II , outside of the freighter ghost lines they have nothing like what we have talked about here.

i wasnt impressed with GC really. i keep hearing all this talk about its "awsome" AI and i just dont see it. the game is built so that its simple to code an AI that looks smart simply becuse you dont really have any choices when building an empire, only a scripted plan of Build X, Y,and Z in this order, and research A,B and C in this order will keep you in the game. and the ship building is about the worst thing ive ever seen, pick a weapon system beam/missle/gun and follow it to the end, researching larger and larger hulls as you go. *yawn*. but its got this silly super duper ship design feature that lets you creat the looks of your ships, big woop. there are a bazillion ways to make a ship look, thats nice, but the actual meat of the ship is as deep as a mud puddle in July. who cares about wings or struts, or flashing lights when your ship is limited to one set of real componants?

and the game has none of what we have talked about here, your 'scout ship' can fly around at the begining of the game and 'discover' things, but after a dozen turns at most thats all gone and nothing you discover is really worth the effort of chasing it. there is no more a civilian side to taht game than there is to this one.

SE is for me atleast a far better game, i like the combat aspects far and away much better than the GC nonsence of rocks scissors and paper, the 'awsome" AI in GC is gained at the expence of any real choices in how to set up YOUR empire since anything with any depth or complexity would leave this 'awsome' AI drooling as bad as the AI in this game does, the ship design features is kinda cool, but its something that i can do without and certianly isnt a 'selling point' for me. i asked for eliments of the sims in space, but picking my ships hair color and style isnt really what i ment .

in point of fact GC is even further away from my 'ideal' game than this one is. but neither of them have anything even like what we been talking about here.

this thread should return, it has some great ideas.

What about if once per year, at the first turn of each year the planets moved some hexes around the star? That would simulate revolutions and woiuldnt cause any problems with game proccesses because its once every ten turns! And i love the idea with the researchfueled by studying the enviroment!!! HOW COULD IT BE IMLEMENTED!!!!!

Think about this b-spud: How much slower would the game go if it had to track the movement of every possible planet/moon/comet/asteroid on top of everything else? A large map itself could crash the game early on. It's definitely a great idea but it will have to await improvements in both software and hardware.