SE5: Cultural Learnings of Space Empires for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Malfador

Oh I complained about the naming process in SE4 also -- Ask my wife.
One great thing in comparison is SE5 allows ships to have the same name unlike in SE4. No more guessing, "Hmmm, damn... Guess I already named some other ship Garbage Scowl."
So usually when I build Orbial ship yards and Orbital defense posts, I just name them as such, and eliminate the designation numbers and name all together.

Yes, my Nvidia drivers are up to date. The system does pretty good even when I simulate about 200 ships going Republican.
Requesting that the game offer multi-monitor support would be great. But I don't see it a happening anytime soon.

Another minor thing is I built one of those fleet training centers -- The Psychic one. Well, within like 20 turns practically all the ships in the system had experience levels of, "Jesus Christ Superstar." 523,969 points a each. This was within the balance mod 1.01.
I haven't updated to the new one since I'm in the middle of my game.

I agree that having some fleet formations that are meant to be based around warp points would be the good stuff. I've been still playing with the formation controls. There is room for much improvement. It seems if you try to turn around with the fleet during a battle, significant problems arise.

Hell, half the battles I've gotten into with a fleet, the enemy was placed so close to me that we didn't even have time to get into formation.
It seems as most of the formations were designed to be pretty and cool looking rather then effective at using their particular weapons. There is almost no benefit to trying to flank the enemy with another task force. Most ships seem geared to going max speed anyways in combat including the AI's. So it is difficult to get frigates/destroyers to the flanks in time before the heavy hitters show up.
I am no coder, so it's pretty much impossible for me to do heavy modifications to the game. However, my ideal tactical combat would be:
Smaller ships (Frigates/Destroyers): Harder to hit, and fast.
Medium ships (Light Cruiser/Cruiser): Decent speed and turn rate.
Biggin ships (Battleships/Dreadnoughts/Baseships): Slow moving, slow turning. But they bring the freight train of pain with everyones favorite class of vessel, "The Cripple Smacker."

Would love to see directional weapons. Expecially on large mounts. Larger the mount, smaller the arc.

Smaller ships should get additional bonuses the closer they get to the enemy ships. They currently have a bonus for being smaller, but it doesn't persuade the user to move in closer.

Those of you whom are familiar with the old Dos game "Begin 2" might see the concepts. If anyone is interested in it, it is free and there are several yahoo usergroups.
Please never put a Z axis on the game. I played Star Trek Final Unity, and you had to select the system you wanted to go to in all 3 axis'. Realistic? Yes. PITA? Bigtime
SE6, anyone?

With the simulator, it would be great if you could select a sector on the map. Example, a warp point you have your fleet stationed at. And in the simulator, you can simulate different forces coming thru that warp point to see how well they do. I guess you could technically try to count how many of each ship you have are present, then try to match how you laid them out at the warp point. Then imagine that the enemy comes thru the warp point.
I'll admit it, I'm too lazy for all that work.

I spent some time chasing an enemy ship that was stuck in my space. My ships were just barely faster than it, but the combat would end before I got him. I ended up having to exploit another weakness in the game to get him. I had one ship keep chasing the ship from one side of the screen towards a fleet of ships I had on the enemies oposite side. Then the game would place the enemy and my ships all right next to each other in that sector. Then we took turns beating on him.
I didn't care much for that. I wouldn't mind it so much if I was chasing them, and ever time I moved into his sector, we were that much closer together so I could eventually catch up and kick a hole in him.
Or, if I could mine that other side, and the mines actually get him when he moved into that sector due to the combat retreat.

Also, when I steer my ship back and forth like a madman in tactical combat, does it actually help avoid the beam weapons? It seems to.

Another neat thing would be a list of planet names applied to all the systems. Rather then just basing them off of the system name + numbers. Nebula's too. Also, what happened to the moons around planets? I don't think I've seen one in SE5.

So, how good do asteroids and nebula mask ships? It says the sector is opaque to most scanners. Define most? Whenever I hotwire an enemies ship with intel, I run the ship into the nebula to become a snitch in their system.

I thought all was good and raining puppies in my star system. Since I clicked on my sun and it didn't say anything was wrong with it. However, I right clicked on the sun, and went to star report and that's when things began going south for the home system. "The star is prone to violent [girlfriend esque] eruptions and has an unstable [logic] core." If she had told me up front that she was so unstable, I might not have moved in with her.

As you advance in levels in ship construction, do they get better at turning? Or is it a static rate based on their mass?

Thank you, come again.

Another thing with the naming is you cannot use the mouse to highlight object name. So to erase it, you have to get heavy handed on the backspace button.
I'm pretty sure SE4 highlighted the name so you could quickly dump that name.

Ship naming is an interesting science when playing multiplayer. Your oponent sees a lone ship named, "The Cripple Thumper" chugging along. They assume it is some heavy hitting warship who plays the part of Kirk style of breaking off the aliens antenna in a fist fight rather then the Picard style methodology of shoot, evaluate how much damage you did. Try to talk it over. Get your shields beaten down below 30% for dramatic effect. Then fight a little more. Then find some over complicated way of winning.
Anyways, the idea is they pull their task force off a planet to go teach it a lesson. Unfortunately for them it is actually a mine layer and has deployed its mine field around itself.
In the News, there is a picture of Nelson from the Simpsons laughing and pointing, "Ha-Ha."

Basically, it adds depth of play to the game. It offers the user a richer roll playing enviroment to see a battle group of specific ships engage the enemy.