Player Requests

[Tom_Holsinger]

Sean,

I have some specific suggestions for Armada 2526, presented in order of priority.

1) Add a multiplier of ship-building costs based on empire size (population as well as number of planets or systems). This is a repeat of my 2:49 pm October 29 post here. It is critically important that the game has a mean of extending the period of relative power parity between players and AI empires. The most common failing of these games is that the AI empires can no longer present a challenge just as the game reaches interesting tech levels. What is the use of having high tech levels in a game if you can’t use them enjoyably?

Emrich’s solution of the empire-size building multiplier was probably THE greatest design innovation in Master of Orion III. It has been wildly successful. I have a blast playing MOO3 six years after its release, despite all the micromanaging, because its AI empires are so challenging for a hundred turns even after my empire is capable of offensive action.

So please, please, add the empire-size multiplier for ship-building costs, make it moldable, and give the AI empires advantages on it based on difficulty level. This is that important.

2) One of the most aggravating aspects of space 4x games is the need to manually redo most to all planetary build ques when new ships are designed based on technological developments. A feature to automate this somewhat would be very helpful, and I suggest the following:

Create a limited number (say ten) of player-defined “categories” of ships to build, in addition to ship “classes”. Give players the option of putting ship Categories, or ship classes, into planetary build ques. If a Ship Category is in a build que, the planet will select the newest (by game turn) ship design in that Category to build when it is done with whatever ship it is currently building. That way players need only update the Category for a ship type, with a newly designed ship, instead of each individual planetary build que. Example:

Players select one of their available Categories (say A1) for their newest, biggest and best fleet carrier. About twenty of their hundred or so worlds are building fleet carriers. Instead of having to insert a newly designed carrier into each of those twenty planetary build ques, players instead have those worlds building Category A1 ships, and they just change Category A1 to have that new ship at the top. Each of those twenty worlds will switch production to the new carrier design at the top of the Category A1 list when they finish whatever they are currently building.

Planets should not be limited to ship “Categories” in their build ques. It should still be possible to assign individual ship classes to planetary build ques. “Categories” are just a convenient way to update the most common ship types being built at any given time. I would have at least four Categories (for carriers, missile ships, beam combat ships and troop transports), and probably no more than ten.

3) An effective “fast combat” mode is desperately needed. Most space 4x games have them, but they vary wildly in effectiveness. MOO3’s is one of the worst. Most space combat in 4x games is one-sided planet-bashing – an overwhelmingly powerful fleet of starships destroys the defenses of a single planet or star system. That can’t be helped – it is inherent in such games. The most designers can do is make that as little aggravating for players as possible, which means speeding it up. AFAIK, all turn-based space 4x games have a fast aka strategic combat feature, but MOO3’s is a failure because it uses the wrong algorithm. A huge fleet against a planet defended only by fixed defenses – planetary bases and some orbitals – consistently takes 10% losses when the strategic combat option is used, as opposed to none when the battle is done under player control. This discourages use of MOO3’s strategic combat option.

The MOO3 designers’ mistake here was that they had never heard of Lancaster’s Rule – that combat power is the square of the numbers involved when all other things are equal. Basically a sufficiently large force can destroy a small one without taking any losses. Please have Armada 2526’s strategic combat option produce no losses for the attacker when a huge fleet attacks a planet with only local defenses.

A related problem here is mop-up when a battle is done under player control. Even the most exciting fleet actions often end with one, and it is aggravating to have to spend time doing boring one-sided mop-ups. MOO2 had a hot-key to put tactical combat under computer control, and speed it up immensely, which effectively solved this problem. MOO3 lacks such a feature. Please include one in Armada 2526.

4) I suggest that planetary and orbital defenses, and system defense ships (non-starships if you have them) be cheap to build. Whether system defenses should be quick and cheap to build depends on what type of early game play the designers want to foster, particularly concerning early game wars and pacing. If system defenses are slow to build, there will be a lot more early game conflicts over starting colonies, but expansion will be slow, particularly for players who tend to be more careful in protecting their colonies. This is because the necessary AI production cheats for higher game difficulty place players at significant early disadvantages in fleet size. Slow expansion means slow early game pacing. This is generally what happens in turn-based space 4x games.

If system defenses can be quickly built in the early game, expansion and early game pacing will be faster as new colonies can defend themselves effectively against early game fleets. I personally favor faster-paced games.

This is definitely your call. I want you to be aware that you do have a choice here – you don’t have to make the common choice of slow-building system defenses, which definitely controls early game pacing. Just make it possible for players to modify the speed and cost of building planetary/system defenses so those of us who like faster-paced early games can mod our preference.

It is common to have planetary bases be automatically upgraded with weapons and shields, but not orbitals and local defense ships. I advocate that the latter be automatically upgraded too. What usually happens, for both AI empires as well as players, is that orbitals and system defense ships are built in new or newly conquered systems, and then ignored until enemy forces reach the area at which point they are obsolete. Only the automatically upgraded planetary bases remain effective.

I propose that all such defenses be automatically upgraded so system defenses remain viable for the entire game. This will give empires a chance to react, before too much damage is done, when enemies break into their rear areas by surprise. The sudden invader will have to concentrate their fleet so as to overwhelm an individual system’s defenses, instead of breaking it up into multiple smaller fleets which take out several systems a turn.

The rationale here is that system defenses exist only in inhabited star systems such that they can be upgraded all the time, as opposed to starships which are generally in transit. Plus starships undergo significant stresses in faster-than-light travel such that they need constant repairs just to keep them working the way they were originally designed. Orbitals and system defense ships do not suffer such stresses so proportionately more of the greater time for working on them can go to refits/upgrades as opposed to maintenance.

I’d adapt the ship design system used by AI empires to determine the upgrades for orbitals and system defense ships. AI empires in all these games have one new design for each possible type of ship and orbital, based on whatever hull sizes are currently in production. Just have existing system defense ships and orbitals always be upgraded to the newest one of their type and hull size.

And such upgrades cost nothing. The cost of constructing new orbitals and system defense ships is normal, but they are automatically upgraded to new designs for free. Sure this could be used as a player cheat, by building empty hulls, but it wouldn’t be much of one if their construction cost is low to begin with. Furthermore such players will have to put more work into designing orbitals, etc., that same turn which have full specs or all their orbitals will end up with empty hulls at the end of the turn. Any cheat which creates work in avoiding side-effects is not much of a cheat.

[Iceman]

Or you could just try the game first. Too late to make the beta, but Bob will continue improving the game even after release. But you should check his own thoughts on how the game is supposed to play, and the screenshots also shed some light on some of these matters (auto battles, turbo button, etc).

[Tom_Holsinger]

Iceman, who is Bob and what tech should I use to check his thoughts?

[Iceman]

Bob Smith
Managing Director
Ntronium Games



Oh, and try Hypersense, in the Psychic branch of the techtree :p
Or if you prefer more mundane options, just read stuff, like the game's webpage..

[Tom_Holsinger]

I request that Matrix put the main Armada 2526 theme music up as an MP3 for us to download.

[cdbeck]

I'm guessing that release is getting too close to make much of these changes... but maybe you should wait till release to see if you really want these things changed! [;)]

I'm wondering if modding will also be easy?

[noxious]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

I'm wondering if modding will also be easy?

Yep, a lot of stuff is in plain xml files, and as Bob indicated, sound, 3d models (d3d .x format) are all standard formats that don't need any special plug-ins.

And he's going to keep actively developing after release, both maintenance/new features and possibly add-ons
You know you want it
Cheers,
Nic

[Ntronium]

You can listen to some of the music at the composer's website.http://www.brianbarsda.com/music/index.html

The main theme to the game, is a specially extended version of "The Forge"

"Chase", "The Road By Wells" and "Alive" also feature in the game.

Altogether there are nearly 40 music tracks in the game

[Aroddo]

I never commented on the music while playing the game. It's pretty good but what I like especially is that each race has it's own theme song which you hear in the diplomacy screens. Just like good old Star Control 2.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Thanks, it's the trailer music.

ORIGINAL: Ntronium

You can listen to some of the music at the composer's website.http://www.brianbarsda.com/music/index.html

The main theme to the game, is a specially extended version of "The Forge"

"Chase", "The Road By Wells" and "Alive" also feature in the game.

Altogether there are nearly 40 music tracks in the game

[Tom_Holsinger]

Bob, I have some requests concerning game music.

I'd don't like attention-getting music as the main theme in turn-based 4x games. I want restful background music. I want attention-getting music for particular matters, notably combat but also diplomacy. MOO2's music was close to ideal in that, though my absolute all-time favorites are the Federation and Klingon themes in Birth of the Federation. I'd love to have those two as MP3's to add to my collection of space game music.

The Forge is not suitable theme music for me because it is loud and distracting. It is good battle music, and serves that purpose in the trailer, but I guarantee that I will play Armada 2526 with its game music off if I have to listen to The Forge while managing my empire. I might have your battle music on if you have some good themes there plus an option to play game music only during battle. Other players' milage may vary.

Consider an in-game music control panel in a patch, with players being able to change the default music tracks for particular displays. It would be wonderful if we could add our own MP3's to particular displays, such as use of the Mars track from Gustav Holst's The Planets as battle music.

[Ntronium]

Don't worry, the Forge is only played in the opening menus. The music for the star map is far more restful.[/align]

[Tom_Holsinger]

Ah, thank you. Could you make the star map theme music available for download?

[Aroddo]

I guarantee that the music will not bother you. Quite to opposite, really.