Master Wishlist Thread

[Bingeling]

Unload Troops

I tried to automate my fleets a bit (it is nice for them to manage fuel and return to base).
The idiots loaded troops on all ships.

There is no way to get rid of the stupidity without ordering about 100 ships to unload one by one. The same issue is there also when reinforcing, no "unload troops" at fleet level.

Please allow unload troops at multi selected ships and in particular fleet. Btw, I have noticed AI fleets having unload order.

[Bingeling]

AI Diplomacy

I run my game with AI diplomacy and one thing is glaringly wrong:

Allies call for help. I am asked even if treaties and war is automated. If diplomacy is on suggest, it should also state opinions on all kind of stuff popping up.

That is, an AI adviser should advise whether to say yes or no. And if automated, he should decide, but maybe notify (clearly, loudly) on changes in war status. I have not had the AI declare war, so I am not sure if that alert exists or not today.

[arioch]

Wow, started reading this thread from the beginning and gave up after about page 18. Went to the end and saw page 53! Whew. Nice thing is that I noticed different wishes that were granted so kudos to Matrix & Codeforce! Thanks for having a suggestion box and acting upon it.

My wish is to extend the "Legends" concept with high level character advisors who would report to the leader, such as...

Economic Advisor
Responsible for all economic decisions such as tax rates. Advising on budgetary matters, keeping the money coming in, etc... aka Secretary of the Treasury

Economic Advisor screen would have several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 for viewing/setting various tax rates.
Tab 3 for expand/collapse version of balance sheet.
Tab 4 for economic automation options.

Military Advisor
Responsible for military decisions. Design & create ships & Fleets. Set attack & expansion targets. aka secretary of defense

Military Advisor screen with several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 to view current ship & their designs.
Tab 3 to view all fleets.
Tab 4 for designing ships & bases.
Tab 5 to view the budget for military; how much is coming in from the budget and what are we spending it on such as the military advisor, fleet admirals, bases, ships, etc...
Tab 6 for military automation options.

Intelligence Advisor
All matters of spying, such as gathering intelligence, sabotage/destruction of other races bases & planets, stealing techs, cyber warfare, stealing or assassinate other empires characters, etc...

Intelligence Advisor screen with several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 to view all intelligence agents and their assignments.
Tab 3 to view the budget for spying; how much is coming in from the budget and what are we spending it on such as the intelligence advisor, agents, training, etc...
Tab 4 for intelligence automation options.

Foreign or Diplomatic Advisor
Optimizing relations with other empires, pirates, etc... aka Secretary of State

Diplomatic Advisor screen with several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 to show the current diplomacy screen in DW-L.
Tab 3 for viewing all diplomats and ambassador & their assignments.
Tab 4 to view the budget for diplomacy; how much is coming in and what are we spending it on such as the diplomatic advisor, ambassadors, credits paid to other empires or pirates, training, etc...
Tab 5 for diplomatic automation options.

Social Advisor
Advocating for planetary development & social programs

Social Advisor screen with several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 for current DW-L planets screen & developments
Tab 3 to view the budget for planets; how much is coming in from the budget and what are we spending it on such as the advisor, governors, planetary developments, training, etc...
Tab 4 for automation settings

Research Advisor
Responsible for all matters related to research.

Research Advisor screen with several tabs.
Tab 1 to see all their recommendations and actions taken.
Tab 2 for Weapons research (as what's currently in DW-L)
Tab 3 for Energy research
Tab 4 for High Tech research
Tab 5 to view the budget for research; how much is coming in from the budget and what are we spending it on such as the research advisor, researchers, research stations, training, etc...
Tab 6 for research automation settings

Other high level areas?
...

---

The basic idea is that this would put a face to & add some realizm to the automation screen. The advisor's attributes or traits (sober, drunk, intelligent, etc...) would affect how well/poor they do. Your automation settings would determine if the new advisors make all the decisions or make recommendations to you, just like the automated settings currently. But even if their area of expertise is fully automated, there could be some randomness to their performance. This would add more to the realism or feeling that the game is alive, one of the best things about the game. For example, your military advisor is 'lazy' so this could have a trickle down effect on the whole military, resulting in penalty for creation & performance of military units. Creating new military units takes a little longer, attacks have a small penalty. Another example is your economic advisor is 'wise' so they are good with money, maybe this results in lowering corruption in the empire, or if there is a money surplus they can get a higher rate of return.

In conjunction, each of these advisors would be allocated a budget. It would be up to you, the player, to decide where the money goes. What percentage, via sliders, would go to military, intelligence, diplomacy, research or social. The more money allocated to the military, the better the military would be. The less the social programs receive, the poor the planetary development would be. There should always trade-offs or difficult decisions regarding how to allocate the budget. No advisor should be satisfied with what you've allocated to them. They would always want more. They may, at times, overspend their budget and go into the red either randomly or because of one of their traits. You may have to dismiss them and appoint a different character to the newly vacated advisor position.

Each legends character, current or new, would have a maintenance cost (salary) just like ships & bases. This would be part of the budget for each area (research, military, etc...). The better the character is or becomes, the higher the cost to retain this character. You would need to decide if the salary cost justifies the benefit of this character. They may in turn feel they are not being adequately paid and may decide to 'defect' to another empire. Intelligence agents may be assigned to find other empire's valuable characters and assist them to defect to your empire for the right price. May cost a little (if they are already unhappy) or may cost a lot. Or spies may be ordered to assassinate these valuable characters to disrupt other empires' operations.

Somewhat relatedly, I'd like to see more characters in the game such as intelligence spies, ambassadors, etc... and add ship captains, especially for capital ships. There would be the candidate pool from which to assign open positions. Currently when you need somebody, or have an open slot, they just pop up and you don't get any choice. It would also allow you promote up through the ranks to your fleet admirals, or eventually up to advisor and leader. Personally I'd like to send a lot more spies out to enemy AND friendly sites nearby.

As the creators of DW-Legends, you may want to make this an option since there are probably folks that would not want this part of the game...

Thanks for a great game and a forum to express ideas to make the game even better!

[ajarnlance]

I agree 100% with the 'right-click' ability suggsted below. I would like to extend this to include being able to right click on an enemy ship/ base/ planet and call up a list of your ships to attack it with!

Oherwise it's a fantastic game!! The best 4X out there by far!!

ORIGINAL: Tycow

Improve the right click context menu:
--> Have retrofit costs displayed on the menu
--> When right clicking on a moon/planet/object, have the ability to dispatch an unselected ship there to do a task, i.e. right click on a planet, choose to send an exploration ship to explore, or send a construction ship to build a mine etc.
--> Have the ability to instruct a fleet to head home for refit to the newest model of the respective ship types

Ability to force shipyards to start building a military ship, should there be a civilian ship being currently built there.
Instructing a shipyard to do this should cost more money than the ship you want building (because the State has to compensate the civilian for the loss of their ship/money thus far).

Design Ship Screen:
--> Someone else suggested this (sorry, can't remember who it was), but multiple components of the same variety should be listed as "Component x7", rather than seven entries.

[Antiscamp]

I see Shadows is going to reform how armies are used. There's also going to be a land battle resolution screen. I applaud this, because the land armies need an overhaul. Space battles are really exciting and meaningful, whereas I find land campaigns quite boring really and, actually, hard work moving all those troops and grinding the enemy down.

I want to bunch together armies just like it's possible to put together fleets. It would then be possible to have 1st Army, 2nd army and so on and possibly (with Shadows) specialized armies as well, like 1st Commando, 2nd Heavy Armour, 3rd Light Infantry and so on. Armies should have a home colony, like fleets, and new regiments raised would automatically transport over to the army headquarters, just like with starships.

With additional functions, it would make moving armies around a whole lot easier. I'd also like to see a revert in troop numbers to the original DW game's style. I mean, right now, empires in my Legends game raise such a lot of troops that invading them is only hard work. Fewer regiments, but greater meaning to those few is what I'm looking for, and I think a lot of it will be catered for in Shadows.

[ajarnlance]

Is there a way to build 'goldilocks' zone criteria into planet generation and postioning?? Currently I'm playing with 2 continental planets in my home system. One is very close to the sun (say same orbit as Mercury) while the other is a moon orbiting a gas giant at about the same distance as Neptune. In reality one planet would be way too hot, while the other would be an ice cube. More realistic planet placement would be great!!

One last request: could you add 'range' to the ship design screen. While it's great to know the speed it is also very imortant to know the range of the ship.

Loving the game and can't wait to buy 'shadows'. Thanks! [:)]

[Antiscamp]

Rebellions and Civil Wars

I imagine when people move out from their homeplanet and found new colonies out there, they develop their own culture and soon start feeling independent and distanced from the original home colony. Much like the Americans rebelled against the homeland rule of the British, I'd like to see such breakaway attempts from the empires in DW. Breakaways would fight for their independence, or the mother empire could just let them go if it was decided that it was in the best interest for all. This would create a lot of interesting political situations in this already politically/diplomatically interesting game. Imagine taking sides in an ongoing civil war in a neighbouring empire, making use of the new situation or even intervening militarilly on the behalf of either side. Of course, the same could happen to the player if the early signs of rebellion are unchecked.

Maybe introduce political factions, parties and groups within each empire that strive to attain different goals, such as independence for a certain part of the empire. I would also like to see an expansion in the areas of terrorism and resistance fighting.

Yum, the possibilities.

[Gorofin]

I played the game one year ago and I liked it very much. Now I am waiting for the new addon. For that part I have a small wish, but I think it is very usefull for all gamers. It would help a lot in with the micro management:

I like to get an additional table in the Empire Navigation Tool, maybe called something like "Special Interest".
Then we need a check box next to every ship/station/planet even in the build order menu. So if we set the check box "Special Interest" e.g. for a ship with special proposes in the build order we always will find it quick in the "Special Interest" Empire Navigation Tool.

[jpwrunyan]

Please improve the troop interface list:

1. Please allow multiple-selection for the "disband troop" button. (If the user selects multiple troops disable the "go to troop" button.)

2. For the love of god, please stop reseting the cursor position to the top of the list. Preserve the scroll bar position so I don't have to go search yet again for planet Boondocks with its dozens of Angry War Parties for yet another single click of the "disband troop" button.

This is low-hanging fruit guys. UI crap like this is unacceptable.

I don't know how the peeps who play epic length games in gargantuan galaxies keep their sanity with this boondogle.

[arioch]

Blame the master, not the dog
-----------------------------
Add more variability to the race aggressiveness by making the leader more of the determining factor in how the race behaves. Two most familiar and extreme examples are Hitler and Gandhi. This would allow for passive Slukens or aggressive Securans.

ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_aesop_two_dogs.htm

Change the current race aggressive characteristic (extremely -> very -> quite -> slightly -> very cautious -> quite passive -> very passive -> extremely passive) to be more like inclination. They still exist but will be influenced by the leader.

So if the leader’s aggression is, the modifier would be:

Code: Select all

Extremely		multiple with race inclination by 1.8
 very  			“ “ 1.6
 quite 			“ “ 1.4
 slightly 		“ “ 1.2
 			no modifier
 very cautious 		“ “ .8
 quite passive 		“ “ .6
 very passive 		“ “ .4
 extremely passive	“ “ .2
 

Note, not sure how the game logic works but the above example, you can see that the leader’s modifier would increase or decrease the race’s inclination.

Likelihood of leader’s aggression would be like a bell-curve, with most leaders weighted in the middle somewhere but the game logic would randomly determine what the aggression modifier would be.

Allow for the possibility for the leader’s aggression to change over time such as grow while they are young and then maybe taper off as they mature?

Conflicts with the government type such as extremely aggressive leader of a democracy? Or passive leader of a military dictatorship.

This would provide more incentive to use your intelligence agents to find and assassinate the enemy’s leader character. With the extremely aggressive enemy leader gone, a new leader would be promoted or generated which is likely to be more advantageous for you.

1/9/2013;

Factor in game difficulty level so that on the easier settings then decrease the likelihood of leader aggression (-5%/level) and on the harder settings increase the likelihood (+5%/level). This would make the game more challenging on harder settings with more aggressive empires to play against.

[SecuransRule]

A few months ago I played Stardock's Fallen Enchantress fantasy 4X game, and although it's not a bad game, as 4X games go DW blows it away. One thing FE does really well though, in fact better than any 4X game I've ever seen, is that is has a really good customized faction creator where you can customize not only the race attributes, but also the physical appearance. What's more, you can even play against factions you've created. Although I've already tweaked some of the factions in DW with mods, it would be very cool if DW had a strong custom faction creator like FE.

[Dd_01]

My suggestion is simple - to make resources more important, because now it's not difficult to never have shortage of iridium, steel, argon (for now, gases are just infinite and player never bothers about them) etc. The entire part of the game is just wasted. I think it can be fixed by the following:
1. Decrease output of Mining engines and Gas\Luxury Extractors.
2. Make planets with resources less common - I mean more of totally BARREN planets or planets with lower resource percent.
3. Increase resource requirements for construction (especially gases).

[Modest]

I have little, tiny sugestion. Actually it is smaller than tiny...

I would like to see a possibility to increase amount of energy that my ships may store withouth adding another reactor (which is big and heavy). So I simply suggest to make Energy Cells component which would just increase the amount of energy that a ship may have.

[arioch]

Hi-

Can the wishlist be promoted from a thread to a forum?

At the same level as:

+ Tech Support
+ After Action Reports
+ The War Room
+ Design and Modding
+ Master Wishlist

From my perspective, it's a lot to go through 50+ pages to find if someone has already submitted an idea or wishitem to Matrix/Codeforce. I also don't want to "steal" someone else's idea. It would be nice to browse, add or clarify an existing idea.

From Matrix/Codeforce perspective, how can you effectively read and process all the ideas lumped into this structure? I'm sure there are numerous ideas from your customers/supporters who all want you to succeed and make DW even better.

If you have each idea as a different thread in a wishlist forum, it would make the process easier for all.

Regards.

[simsum]

Scalable GUI

Pretty please? As it is I'm forced to choose between low-res illegible fuzzies & hi-res illegible minieverything.

Configurable On-Notification Auto-Pause

IMO the single greatest improvement possible. I'd happily pay expansion pack price monies for this feature alone.
Basically just add "pause the game" ticboxes alongside the existing "popup notification" ticboxes.

A further "centre on event location & select the relevant playing pieces" ticbox would be extrawesomesauce, but auto-pausing functionality is what matters.

EDIT: Since I'm wishing for stuffs...

Game Manual v2.0

I'd like a game manual that's an actual manual. Like, one that describes precisely what's in the game, where in the game it is located, and the exact mathematics integrating it into the system.

More importantly, I'd like Ebook Reader friendly versions of all existing and future game documentation. Reading the ~80p. Quick Start guide on a panel was so much more painful than it had to be, and having bought the whole DW pile at full price I couldn't afford to blow an entire ink cartridge on printing the silly thing :p

[Blackadar1]

I agree with the UI issues and stuff like that. Lots of good suggestions. But how about some sort of victory score, high-score list and recap (AKA the Civilization series)? The "YOU WIN" screen with the juvenile sayings from the other leaders just doesn't cut it.

[CyclopsSlayer]

My biggest pet peeves are as follows;

1. I sometimes use auto-update to ease updating large fleets, and the way the game chooses systems is very poor. It chooses the top-most and furthest to the right systems over any level of rational function. Weaker, less fuel efficient reactors over a better but one ranked lower hyper-fusion. Weaker shields, Slower hyperdrives, just because they are one line higher on the tech chart? Not because they are worth having. Having to go back and re-edit each design obviates the value of the auto feature.

2. Independent colonies that are in Foreign space disappear from Expansion planner, enemy target or any other tracking. You have to visually search the map for the circled systems to launch an invasion.

3. The left hand side shortcuts, can there be some sorting functions added? Ship/Planet names, resource specials etc, can force the automated indicator arrow off the window. It would be nice to see ships with no missions clustered, rather than scattered throughout the lists.

4. Is there someway to implement a map search feature for systems I have explored? For things on the lists, the flashing circles are great! But there isn't a list for everything. If say I want to go to the XYZZY system, just typing the name in a box and having the map center would be great.

[silentbob981988]

If not mentioned anywhere or already possible (im learning resistant btw),

1. A option to add a race family into mods, like parasite.
2. Creating own modules for specific race only, with a guide not to screw over the balance.

Someone mentioned before, coloniseable gas giants or barren rocks planets, should be interessing if
someone wants to create a gasous race or having an outpost on a planet instead a station in space.

[Kayoz]

1. mute function. "Mute" means no sound. No beeps, blips or anything. Stop making noise. Period. DW does not currently do this.
2. Take a close look at blockade mechanics. It's absurd how easy it is to abuse them.
3. Population control. More control of racial migration is needed.

[Kayoz]

Colonies screen needs some indication of population max - preferably as a percentage.

Currently there's no indication as to how full the planet is until it reaches maximum population level.