Game Modifications

Yes, the engine supports it. It got removed because of a lack of fun.



No, they don't. You should have them better placed to be covered by your defenses / ships -- they aren't there to engage the enemy.

Think of it this way: when was the last time a cruise ship, oil platform, or oil tanker carried a 3' cannon? A machine gun? Thats not their job. Military does the weapon toting.



Bring some Gardas, bring some fighters of your own (all capitol ships can carry fighters, though a few need leveling up first). Kol's Flak Burst and the Dunov's (or was it Akkan?) magnetic field can also be used to take out fighters.

That's because today the world is not at war. But you should remember that in world war 2 almost all freighter ships carried guns, AA mostly but some had ship to ship cannons too. Look it up. And if you need more convincing watch Star Trek Enterprise, and you'll see that the freighters were armed to fight off pirates, at least untill help arrived or they managed to get away.



That is relaly not the issue here. The flak frigate and the fighters are dedicated strike craft hunters. This is an issue of realism again.
Please show me a military vessel from today that doesn't have anti fighter missiles or AA guns. Come on even some tanks and APCs today have missiles to shoot down choppers and jets flying at low altitude. Need another example? See the subs from WW2, they had a deck gun that doubled as an AA platform.

For a space combat game to be a success, it has to have a little variety.

Oh and here are a few more sugestion:

1. Free travel around the galaxy (read in all directions) - 2 versions:

The easy way:
- Enable Ships to travel between planets with normal propulsion (only inside a solar system). I know it will take a lot longer for a fleet to get to it's destination but it would be a very good surprise attack tactic.

The hard way (but much more realistic):
- A rethinking of hyperspace travel in the game: All ships can hyperspace in any direction but will require to cool down at a certain distance, and give the factions some sort of buildable hyperspace accelerators that work only in one way, and also have limited range, but would enable ships to travel faster in hyperspace and they won't need to stop along the way.
To make a hyperspace corridor like the one in the game, simply build 2 hyperspace gates, one at each end. When building these make them target a location in it's range (chosen by the player of course). The advantage here is that you can make your own HS Gate Network.
This way The hyperspace inhibitor platform would be much more usefull, it would not allow normal hyperspace activity around the planet. You will still have the choice to hyperspace in by gate or use normal hyperspace to arrive at the edge of the ihibitor field and use normal propulsion the rest of the way. The range of the HS inhibitor's range should be at least 2 times larger than the planet's natural gravity well

2. Other sugestions:

- It would be nice if asteroid belts were actualy belts around the star they orbit, not some random fields spread around.

- Replace the asteroids around the planet with one or more moons, or asteroid rings around some bigger gas giants. Not all planets have asteroids in orbit, in fact, most don't.

- Make mines on the planets and moons (come on, you have a perfectly good planet and you don't mine an ounce of ore from it?! - weird)
In asteroid fields make mining stations that send harvester ships to colect ore and bring it back to the station. and make the resource asteroids a lot smaller, but in greater numbers. If it's a performance issue again only render the asteroid meshes only when the camera is close, and when you zoom out, just render a brown dot (only for the small ones)

- Upgrade larger asteroids with weapons(again nothing too elaborate, but to be able to defend itself against a few pirate frigates), production or research facilities and fighter bays.

- Make the pirate base a lot smaller - it's half a planet!

- Enable construction ships to hyperspace (not right away, just make it a researh requiring 10 or 12 civ research stations), or make another builder ship - a construction cruiser (same research requirement).
As an extra, these ships could be made to construct Control Stations in empty space (very long time to build and very expensive, hevily armoured but little offensive capabilities, fighter bays, a small build area and they would be destroyable)

- Also if possible, enable ships to move verticaly too. Remember, this is space, so don't impose unrealistic restrictions to it. The most important thing about space games (and one of their greatest assets) is their unparalleled freedom of moovement.

AND THE BIGGEST SUGESTION OF ALL (this one is for the developement team):

- Scrap Master of Orion game rules and regulations. Buy, Homeworld1, O.R.B., and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, play them for a month or two, and then see what you and the gamers like and dislike are about those games. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, use what was good in those games and improove what wasn't ... so good.

You will never make a good space strategy game if you didn't play one before. I know it's a little direct (and I apologise if I offended someone), but i think it's a good advice. Correct me if I'm wrong.

OK. Then the fact is Gameplay > realism.

Not going to happen period the end. Devs have heard a thousand such requests -- phase lane system is locked.

It boiled down to having "free travel" made the game far more a case of "wack-a-mole" and as a result just not fun. Ergo, no changes will be made at this late date or any other except, possibly, in mods.



Not going to happen. A) Construction ships are planet-centric, and will remain that way. "Empty space" is there for a reason -- it was decided that at least a few "neutral" grav wells, above and beyond the star, were necessary. Removing them is just going to upset the number of people who wanted them in the first place.



Good thing ships do move in all three axis.



Failure to search: I have to go into great detail on why things don't happen.
Failure to think: I start to get annoyed.
Combining the above with insulting the devs, and saying something outright stupid?

This game is in no way a "Master of Orion" remake. Saying so is foolish, in the extreme. On top of that, your arrogant, stupid assumption that the devs haven't played other strategy games, and chosen the setup they have for good reason (in their eyes) is incredibly stupid. Not to mention offensive. I'll let someone else deal with this particular comment in detail, as to why its wrong and why its inordinately offensive. For now, I'll just leave you to stew over this: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Hehe, that is one of the things I like about you Ron. You are a natural born diplomat


Of course, diplomacy should always be secondary to content...and your content is bang on!

As I said before, it wasn't intended as an insult to anyone (even apologised to anyone that thought so in advance), I didn't asume the dev's didn't play other strategy games (in fact I heard that a few who worked on Homeworld Cataclysm are part of it), "You will never make a good space strategy game if you didn't play one before" is a statement, not an assumption.
and I know the differences between master of orion and this game, but I used that comparison to emphasize the use of that static phase lane system (which has been a part of almost all galactic conquest games in one form or another).

About 3D movement: I was reffering to player controled vertical movement, at a specific point and height above the planet's grav well plane. The current system doesn't give you any control on the height. (If it does than please tell me how to use it, cause there's nothing in the tutorials about 3D movement, and searched the forums too). All I found is the "\" key mapped to "Z axis control", but it's too cumbersome to be used in combat. They don't have to reinvent the damn thing, just use something similar to the one in homeworld, because it was the best way to move ships in 3D space (but why nobody else used it still puzzles me)

About free movement: Did you read the second method entirely, it actualy uses the phased jump network but the players get to make it. And why do you say the game will turn into a "wack a mole" thing.

Gameplay>Realism? Sorry, to contradict you again but the current tendency is
Gameplay->Realism (The gameplay tends to be as realistic as possible theese days). I know realism in a sci-fi eviroment is something pretty hard to define but it all comes down to making the game beliveable. Projectiles shooting in a direction perpendicular to the gun barrel is not a step in that direction. And neither is phase-jumping to a planet half-way around the map and not being able to jump to a planet next to yours. Actualy, if they gave the Phase jumping drives on the ships a certain range they would acomplish the same thing by carefull posiotioning of the planets (see Empire at War). But it's the freedome of choice that will keep the game alive, not "Unrealistic Limitations" (or "the setup they have for good reason" as you called it)

Also I'm gonna need a little clarification on the "failure to think" part. When someone makes that kind of statement I expect at least a reason. And just because I'm new to these forums and have a few ideas, doesn't mean that I'm arogant, just anxious to share and talk about a few ideas after playing the beta for a few days.
Actualy I never had much hopes the devs would implement these changes anyway (except the ones related to recourcing and asteroids,perhaps ), that's why I posted in the moding Sub-Forum in the first place, to find people interested in making changes like the ones I posted above. Who nows, maybe they'll make a patch for modders, later on.

Hi CG47.

1. You can use the ~ key (or whatever you mapped it to) to send your ships up or down on the z axis. It is pretty easy to use, not much different than Homeworld. It is just that gravity wells in the game are so small, and planets/installations so close together that there really isn't much point in vertical maneuvering (or very little point). I suspect that modders will push the z axis to the limit at a later date though. We'll probably also see mod maps with much larger gravity wells and orbiting planets as well.

2. There is a 'fully connected' map available on the forums that gives you a chance to try out a map without connection limits (just turn off the phase lane display so it doesn't look like a spider web). Play it, and then get back to us if you think that fully connected maps are still fun to play...in fact, get back to us with whatever you thought of that type of map. I am interested in getting other players feedback on fully connected maps for modding purposes.

So, we can already make fully connected maps. They are just extremely hard to play against the AI. Hmmm, maybe they would be more fun against other humans than the AI?

Anyway, a lot of what you mentioned/asked has been dealt with several times over in the forums. Simply check out older posts and you'll find the answers to many of your questions. I suspect your lack of checking out past topics is in part what irritated Ron. I can fully empathize with him on that point as it gets tiring seeing the same topics coming up again and again.

Later

you shame yourself ron!

Traveling at normal speed to other wells is not an option... There is no surprise in having a sizable portion of your fleet in transit for hours. You start your move, and the game ends some time between then and when it arrives at your target... If they were really close together, maybe you'd last long enough for it to get to the target before you died, but it can literally be hours to travel the distances. It's not a surprise attack, it's a necromancer raising your rotting corpse to strike from the dead.

Getting rid of phase lanes... Haven't played nexus or orb unfortunately, too many games in the world and too many bad apples in the space rts department. Really bad apples some times... They are on the list though, along with imperium galactica. I have played homeworld though, there isn't exactly anything to use there. It would work out about the same as the campaign missions did. Jump into area x, surprise the shit out of the enemy, wipe them out before reinforcements come, next mission. Of course, it wouldn't be a campaign, it would be you wiping out one place after another till either you got unlucky as shit and went to the same place the enemy fleet was at or one of you finished killing the other off. Not a whole lot to it...

Phaselanes aren't just some archaic method of transport that people are too limited to get past, they are fairly realistic limitations that vastly improve the playability of the game system. Without jump points or similar way-pointing that limits your movement, a space game on a large scale either becomes impossible to navigate due to crossing it taking forever, or impossible to defend in a realistic manner due to defending being impossible thanks to people instantly warping to where ever the hell they want to. It would be like a game of supreme commander's scope having all the units teleport on demand to anywhere. The game would consist of spending all your time chasing the enemy structures around avoiding defenses while your opponent did the same till one of you ran out of things to kill and won.

Sounds like someone is talking about "Whack-a-Mole".

Well, in the first version I stated that normal propulsion would be usable only in a solar system. But after looking a little bit at how the game works, this can be done by tinkering with the size of the grav well of the stars.
About version number two, grav well still limits normal hyperspace activity, so warping anywhere they want to is out of the question, you can also build orbital HS Inhibitors that greatly increase the interdiction radius.

And why should it take a long time to cross space?? Build your own HS Gate network
The concept of the Hyperspace Accelerator (Gate): the HSA works in conjunction with the HS generators on board the ships and sending them at a fixed point in space within the Accelerators Range (selected when you build the HSA and unchangeable afterwards). How to build this network?, Well first, build a HSA and target a nearby planet, jump there, capture the planet and then build another HSA that targets your departure point, the first segment is completed. The ships are able to travel withow using the HSA network, by using their onboard HS generators. It will take longer because the HSG have limited range, so the fleets will stop between planets to recharge them. The HS interdictor module will increase the gravity well effect of the planet, so the enemy fleets will exit HS farther from the planet (interdictors won't affect friendly ships).

So the enemy will not pop up anywhere on the map, and certainly an enemy fleet won't appear in the middle of your "orbital base". You'll have to rethink your defensive strategies though, they'll have to be more versatile. So yo can defend yourself, but you'll have to rethink the location of the gun emplacements.
Being able to construct structures only around planets or large asteroids, you won't spend your time chasing structures. If you want to chace down a retreating fleet, that would be your choice, nobody is forcing you. The objectives are the same, capture all the planets held by your enemies. The only difference is how you get there,and now you can choose from where.

A lot of these can be simulated with carefull level (well map ) design, but it would be neat if they could include these features in a patch someday... for modding purposes.
-------------------------------------------------------

To Paradoxnt:,

Nice map. Defending your starting planet is challenging, especialy when playing against 2-3 enemies. Walls of gauss turrets don't work here, you'll have to establish a propper perimeterimeter.
Sugestions: Remove the paths that intersect a planet's grav. well.
Change the ownership of the ships orbiting the planets to local militia
A pirate base would be nice.

Thanks That said, I am (well) aware of my lack of tact. I try to compensate... sometimes I loose my temper however.



So your arguement is... "They need player controlled Z axis, because the player controlled Z axis is hard to use". Excuse me for being a little weirded out there.

Anyway, on most of your other "ideas"... you forget that there is no time to implement squat. They need to be ready a little under 6 weeks (end of November) in order to meet deadlines. Which is to say, they need 2 months for QA + time to distribute.

It may have irritated me, but what ticked me off was the end part, as I said.

I thought the is supposed to be released in february 2008.

PS: Guess you missed this part

"Actualy I never had much hopes the devs would implement these changes anyway (except the ones related to recourcing and asteroids,perhaps ), that's why I posted in the moding Sub-Forum in the first place, to find people interested in making changes like the ones I posted above. Who nows, maybe they'll make a patch for modders, later on."

And this one too:

"A lot of these can be simulated with carefull level (well map ) design, but it would be neat if they could include these features in a patch someday... for modding purposes."

The game is supposed to be released in February 2008. Which means they have a month and a half (or so) to finish it.



Or misread it. I have a one track mind. And I kinda was seeing red after that earlier part. (Edit: And yeah, thats an apology. Sorry I didn't read closer)

Don't worry about it.

In the imortal words of the Predator from the second movie: S*** (read "bad things") happens.

Try the "Whack a Mole" map for a quick idea of free travel.

Like what was said earlier, many of your questions have been asked, and answered already. The game as it stands now is almost set in stone with a few minor exceptions. Beta 4 will be the final beta, and that is an actual game play, and balance (for tec at least) beta.

IF what you are asking can be modded in has yet to be seen. We can change many things right now, but we do not have the full battery of mod tools yet. Fully connected maps are confirmed (as "whack a mole" proves). Orbiting objects, or multiple planets in a single grav well has yet to be done.

TEC + one more race

Yeah, I was really holding out for the mutiple (fully functional) planets in a single gravity well ability.

That would be GREAT, really. Binary planets, a planet with (a) moon(s) etc. It would also make some gravity wells bigger and more tactically challenging.

My thought was to have an entire solar system inside a large star gravity well. Orbiting structures would be placed on planets as they are now, but the battlefield itself would be much bigger.