SEV 1.74 misc. Issues and Suggestions

1. During race generation the race and government modifiers use double negatives:
Production is increased (Positive) 10% = correct usage in English
Production is decreased (Negative) -10%= incorrect usage in English and actually means + 10%

Possible solution is:

Production adjusted (+/-) 10%. Rather then using increased/decreased.

2. During non-finite resource games the resource % on asteroids decreases as you remote mine them, but planets remain the same.

3. During finite resource games the computer should auto-fix your production so the you don't extract resources that cannot be stored or used during that turn. This would extend the resources that your planets actually have.

4. Create strategies that are useful:
Defend warp point.
Defend planet
Defend ship
Defend space station.

5. In solar system view reduce the system modifier descriptions to 1-liners:
Mineral production +5% vs.
System Mineral Scanner increases mineral production by 5%.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

I would like to see a button on the tactical combat screen for "All Ships Hold Position" that would be very useful for the beginning of the turn where all the ships are where I want them. Having to go to each ship, select it go down to the Goto command and click on the ships position is highly irritating.

I notice that when I scrap a ship that the supply and ordnance it has is not transfered to the planet. It should be.

I think it would be great to be able to select the number of AI empires that the new game will generate instead of a fairly wide random selection.

You can edit the settings.txt file to make the ranges a fixed number. Its indirect, but entirely possible.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

It would be good to limit AIs to cruiser sized ships, I'm in an advanced game and what was a good rival has started building Base ships - they look impresive but get wasted by 3 cruisers or 4 - 5 destroyers with minimal losses. Where as earlier in the game they had fleets of cruisers/destroyers and frigates which provided a reasonable fight.

Being able to turn-off the visual ship movement at the start of a turn or when you move a ship in the turn. You know where its going - you sent it there, therefore confirmation is not required.

Drednoughts and Base ships way out of proportion to the rest of the ships - almost as big as a planet, yet only a bit more than twice the size of a cruiser. I would like a base ship that is large enough to be self sufficiant, but small enough to still be able to warp - approx 10,000kt? (12 x the size of a cruiser)

one annoying thing i find, is tactical combat around planets. if a ship goes "over" the planet, you cant give it orders and it sometimes gets stuck offscreen. make it so you cant order through planets or shoot over or through them (maybe implement accuracy modifiers for asteroids?)Also, if an enemy has a large fleet and brings it into tactical combat, ALL the SHIP ARE STACKED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!! they cant move independently, look ridiculous and make it very hard ot pick a target.

Add new space statio abilities, such as making space stations have population, facilities etc. bases shouldnt be spammed, they should be cities in space.

Pop would need some serious codework, but giving bases "Facility" abilities is doable.

Though only usable for orbiting over colonies.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Which components do you find yourself wanting to use obsolete levels of, and why? Suggestions of how to fix those components are far more practical and doable, given that it would be a lot more work to overhaul the UI with support for selecting obsolete levels.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Another reason for using old designs is to keep certain units buildable in reasonable time by planets without ship yards. e.g. forgot to design a mine costing under 500 and now can only build three per turn instead of 4 at a tiny planet. Might make all the difference sometime.

Another example, could use a higher level warhead with a lower level mine hull to keep the cost below 500. Could do something similar with fighters.

I posted it elsewhere: no more than one refit each turn to avoid retroseries.

Another: have a choice in the game setup to turn off resource trade. Currently it is free resource generation from nowhere without any mining: I mine 100,000kt minerals, my trade partner mines another 100,000kt, both of us get 30,000kt for a total of 260,000kT produced.

I don't get your math here.... each player is mining 100k. and trade gives you 30k... thats 130k for each player. not 260k.

260k for both playres combined. but then they are already mining 200k... so it still doesn't make sense.....

Why makes no sense? 2x(100kt+30kt)=260kt which is 60kt more than what was mined. Now please tell me where that 60kt is supposed to come from.

What is wrong with these 60kt representing trade? It is just a game convention. If you really hate it, however, no new option is necessary as you could easily change trade increase in Settings.txt from going up 0.5% per turn to just 0.

i had an idea similar to this a while ago. just have a space colony component higher up in the tech tree than ice/rock/gas colonization. instead of selecting a world to colonize have the ship(or base) function as a colony(the component provides the space for facilities and population proportional to tech level) once you load it with population. this could also lead to an interesting racial setting of being fleet only(disabling the ability to colonize planets but starting with a space colony and ship yard equipped ship.

and I've always thought that the warp point creating components appear far to late in the tech tree, especially when it comes to no warp point games. maybe this is simply because its the only way to get to other stars besides previously existing warp points. a good solution is to make a component that allows a ship to travel to another star(or nebula, black hole what ever) on its own without creating warp points(one component, one ship, if you want a fleet to do it every ship will need the component) i think the requirement of every ship needing it to travel would balance it against the higher tech warp point generators(which allows an unlimited amount of ships travel through)

Here is how I look at it.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

It is wrong to assume that every race uses every last thing that can be dug up, harvested or otherwise refined/processed.

An example of sorts.
Race A might have a reliance on iron since it was the most abundant mineral and smeling and producing allows for it is easy for them, but never really developed tech that relied on Aluminum since it was never worth dealing with it for any number of reasons.

Race B evolved and developed in a way where Aluminum was their most used material, but due to some sort of factor, iron is not practical for them and is little used.

Race A trades some of their bauxite ore 'accidentally' dug up while digging for Iron, Race B can easily use the bauxite ore to make Aluminum, and in return, they trade some of the abundance of otherwise useless (to Race B) Iron ore they have laying around. Over time, as things improve, each develops more effective mining/harvesting/refining techniques allowing them to trade away their 'unused' resources in a more readibly usable form rather than the raw resources they come from.

The Buck Rogers TV series also comes to mind.
I forget the episode, but a 'side' thing going on was Group A (Earth Defense Force?) was badly in need of a mineral, and were in difficult negotiations with Group B to get it.
Another planet, of Group C, whose planet Buck Rogers ends up on, notices it has some sort of mineral all over the place, so common it can be picked up off of the ground, but the people of Group C have no idea what to do with it.
Buck Rogers is suspicious about the mineral since it looks 'familiar'.A sample of the 'common' mineral is taken by Buck Rogers, and it is revealed to be the badly needed mineral that was needed by Group A, who cancel the difficult negotiations with Group B, and open a trade agreement with Group C, who is more than happy to trade away what they have no use for in return for things they can use.