Matrix Games Forums

ok so ive just about played all the way through a whole game and experienced everything there is. it was like one long ten hour session spread out over the whole weekend. first i played one game with a 150 stars and 8 aliens then i played another game with 50 stars and 8 aliens but by then i knew what was going on so i won that time.
1. later in the game it does slow down a lot. you usually get bogged down with trivial things to do like negotiating with the other races or patroling places for pirates and stuff like that. i agree that something you be done to make the latter half just as interesting as the beginning. what if they added in like some sorta space monsters or something. not the sentinals on the planet but just random monster creatures that wonder the galaxy like in that star trek episode with the doomsday machines that blow up planets. or better yet, what about half way through the game you add something like the borg some evil race that springs up and goes and captures system after system thats like super powerful and all the other aliens have to rise up to fight against it.

2. as for those research artifact wisdom things i have no idea how those work usually i collect either the advanced research or the wisdoms and im not sure which is neccassary to move up an age? what if you took another idea from star trek and made it so that ships had to explore space like the options to explore random anomolies like black holes or collapsing stars and for each amount of data you research like a point system the game you rise in a level until you can advance up to the next age. i would think it would be cool to add in spatial things like that, like the ships battling around a black hole. i noticed when the ships fly near a sun their shields get damaged? or maybe i was mistaken? makes for an interesting strategy especially when the pirates try to hide near the sun and my more powerful shielded ships quickly overwhelm their weakened melting shields.

3. as for weapons and what not, im surprised there arent actuall researchable weapons that let you blow up whole planets. not the artifcats but just some sorta death star beam. or a missile that blows up a sun and takes out all the planets i know thats a little extreme so youd have to have some sorta counteract to it. the other night i tried to think of things you could add to the game and i was really drawing a blank. for my space empires iv mod i made just for myself, i created a stellar cartography, a deflector dish, a battle bridge, an engineering section, and a structural integrity field. just some ideas for more ship components, for instance the structural integrity field could be like force fields that act as armor but dont take up any of the ships space. thats how i made them in the mod. everything else i did was just changing the name of already existing components to star trek ones.

the two games just need more interface polishing really. great games on their own. as for the extra stuff, its not really neccassary its just cool to have in their. like i wish i could form fleets permantly instead of ordering fleet one to form up then do this then have fleet one disband. its such a pain to have to select them over and over.

so to sum it up, stuff like black holes, nebula, asteroid fields that sorta stuff. then with some new enemies, like monsters or ghost ships or those crazy robot ships that go insane and are bent on taking over the universe, just really random crazy stuff. like say you find a derelict space ship with all the crew on board dead but its like a cruiser class ship armed to the teeth. and you claim it as your own. i dont mean like it was one of the other enemy ships just you find it, its yours you get a new ship. and not the instant ship thing either. this ships floating in space.

i also feel that the spacedocks dont stand out enough and they shouldnt be directly over the planet they should be off to the side like the jump gates. you can tell its slowly getting bigger but it doesnt look like a real space dock just like something floatin in space while on the other hand the jump gate now thats really cool. noticed that everytime the ship goes in it makes a toilet flushing noise. i for one think itd be cool to have starboard and port shielding and starboard port firing weapons. of course thatd change everything and youd need more space for the shields and components and all that play balancing.

in the retail version i kinda miss the old shareware version ships. do you think itd be possible to update the shareware ships into the divided galaxies version?

there needs to be some more options for diplomacy like sometimes i wanted to do some of the options but they were greyed out for no reason? i couldnt make demands from my enemy. i guess it was becuase i was far more advanced then him and had all the systems captured.....
my final last want for this game would be the space base option. the ability to have just floating in space large space stations. think of it as a component where you add like an engineering thing onto a starship and then the starship is like a floating engineering post and it can repair other ships and build space stations. so then you tell it to go to a system and build an starbase there and next thing you know you have a starbase, kinda like a spaceship/planet. you can build components and it has personal and weapons and some space stations can build small ships and they can repair damaged ships. but it cant move. that would be my number one want. space stations. then the weird borg things that try and take over the universe. just like cyborgs or robots bent on galactic domination. :rolleyes: is that so much to ask for? is it?

My bitch-

1.- The game doesn't know when its beat. I hate having to hunt down every nook and cranny race when I already control 80% of a large universe. Its just plain boring but walking away without a victory graphic leaves the anal retentive unsatisfied!

2.- Diplomacy SUCKS! You can't choose what should be choose able options (such as demanding a surrender or certain bardering options). It also is very hard to get a read or feel where you are with another race when trying to establish alliances.

3.- The AI seems to lack aggression.

However, this is a GREAT GAME! Its simple & fun which it does VERY well.

i agree i cant figure a lot of the controls in this game. like it took me forever just to figure out how to send ships to other systems by clicking on them. i think that control aspect should be worked out. for example are there shortcuts on the keyboard to do stuff?

i think the only problem with this game is the fine tuning of the controls and some other minor things like the art work and stuff. as for the technology, there is so much stuff already i cant think of anything to add. i think the art work could use a good helpin over with, dont get me wrong its very pretty now, just a little bit more of a budget and time to work on it. for example, with the engines, theyre all the same! sure rocket drive is slower than warp drive but other than in name and speed there is no difference.
i figured maybe you could add in a unique little ship animation for each type of engine. for example with the rocket drive the engine flairs up and there is this bright explosion and the ship flies off into space with a cool roaring sound. or the warp drive has the ship stretch out and stuff. i dont know how hard that would be to do but it sure would be cool lookin.
i think there are two just broad general areas one of the controls area and artwork and all that kinda stuff then the other is an overall addition of new game stuff. like whatcha going to add for the sequel you know?
things id like added to the game:
1. space probes perhaps? like in star wars with those little droid things that you just shoot off into space to explore.
2. isnt the torpedo animation and the missile animation and even the pack rocket animation just the same thing with missiles flying with smoke trails? or perhaps i was confused. you should just seperate both of them entirely. for example missiles stay just with the rocket flair to them, while torpedeos are like the ones in star trek where they are really bright and they fly out at the target with no trail on them.
3. whats up with the replicators? its cool how you have replicators and teleporters and the federation and warp drives and intertial dampeners and tractor beams and they all work the way theyre supposed to! except the replicators. ya ya i know they reduce production and that sorta stuff but what about replicators on board the ship? shouldnt they be able to slowly rebuild parts of the ship thats damaged or better that! produce things that the ship needs like missiles and standoffs. say it uses energy and replenishes your weapon supplies or something like that. same goes for the nanotechnology, if you had nanotechnology maybe you could have a component or an engineering bay that repairs your ship while in space. say an engineering section in general and it repairs parts onboard the ship and it could use nanotechnology to have increased repair capabilites or replicators.
4. nanotech weapons perhaps? muahahahaha. it was just a matter of time before someone brought this up. little machines that could tear enemy ships apart atom by atom. much like voyager using them against species 8472. of course there is always the small chance of the little buggers turning around and attacking you......
5. what about like how there is just one broad general fighter option now broken up into two seperate sections sorta.
a. a defensive fighter, basically a fighter squadron that would launch and shoot down enemy fighters and missiles and torpedeos and stuff much like defensive lasers and all the others. and
b. a bomber division where everything else is bombers, like a heavy squadron of bombers armed with nuclear missiles that are completely helpless and they just fly around shooting their missiles at the enemy ship with no other way to defend themselves. poor fellows. except of course the defensive fighters would be there to defend them. itd make the starships armed with fighters more like carriers instead of destroyers armed with some extra fighters just for the heck of it.
6. freighters armed with pop guns. maybe i already mentioned this? im getting a lot of my ideas from enterprise episodes. so i figured everytime i attack the freighter it puts up no fight which is understandable but often times a little lame. i mean in this one episode of enterprise where they have the freighter getting attacked by pirates, they at least armed their ship with one phase cannon so it would only make sense for freighters to have some weapon system on board even if the thing is like a catapult to fling rocks at attacking pirates. say a weak weapon system just to put up a challenge that gets progressively more powerful as you research new freighters.
7. another idea from enterprise, but its also being added into galactic civilizations. universal translators. ya ya how you going to implement it into the game? well initially i figured it would give you a bonus with all other species right off the bat like ten percent more liked or something. but on a more farfetched note i figured what if you made it in the game so when you first contact other aliens you can sorta talk to them but you cant read what they have to say so its all like alien writing and stuff but some of it is in english. or you have to gradually learn it over time like over fifty turns you eventually learn each others language but with the univesal translator as soon as you meet a new race Boom! you two can start communicating and they like you a whole bunch because youre speaking their language.
8. trade routes to alien words. its a small idea i admit. say you build a trade route to your aleins homeworld and his other words and you get an added bonus for research and a little more money coming in each month, plus you negotiate some sorta trade deal with hima fter you aligned or a nonagression pact you could add in a whole new aspect to the game with trade embargoes and stuff or having a strong economy help out a weak one. a bit of a stretch on that last bit but the overall concept i feel is interesting.
9. i just got this idea from the last one and its already been done in a couple games like this already and im not sure how youd implement it but like one of those senate ones where all say you have five people in your federation and you all come together to vote on something or say all the races of the universe vote on things together like um eh i dunno, one alien race is creating dangerous stuff and another alien race feels that the dangerous race should be inspected and kept in place or all the other races will have to band together to stop the dangerous race from trying to take over the universe or something.

now im guaranteed to get a response to my post no matter what. that is if people are even reading this.
you also said you are going to add a random event system. can you give us an exemple? i hope its something super stellar and not those normal lame random events. take for example, birth of the federation which had the stupidest random events. things like this planet was hit by an asteroid and ten million people died, or a plague devesateated this planet and four million people died or the one i hated the most was a spatial event has happened and warp travel in the universe is no longer possible then four turns later warp travels returns. the whole game just stops for four turns. imperium galactica II now there was a game with some interesting random events. like a planet is about explode so you capture a scientist who researches a coolant device that saves the planet. or pirate colonies and bases have to be destroyed by you or terrorists threaten to release a virus on one of your planets if you dont pay them money or you could just blow them up before they make it to the planet. birth of the federation had one kinda cool random event. the borg. man did that even a game up fast or what. one second your the top dog of the universe and the next youve got five borg cubes in your backyard eating klingons for breakfast and your next. send in your fifty sovereign class warcruisers (newly build with that new spaceship smell and the paint still drying) just to watch all fifty ships get assimilated into the collective before they launch their quantum torpedoes. woe is me of course in the game the ships were never assimilated which was very disapointing they were just destroyed. same with the planets instead of assimaliting the planets they were just wiped out with all life killed. most disapointing 4x game ever. well not as bad as the reach for the stars the latest version. that was a really really really really really really bad game. painfully bad. it had no options at all but it was very well presented and kinda interesting while on the flip side space empires iv had tons of options just bazillions of things to research and do but god was that boring. of course along comes starships unlimited and all my prays are answered. a perfect medium bewteen the two. which brings me to number ten on my requests:
10. an editor type of thing! i know this game is mostly built by hand and what not, but it would be most useful if you could make it more customizable. space empires iv is hugely customizable and because of that it has a huge fan base with people making their own ships and mods and little tid bits and what have yous. as far as editing is considered. i know its possible to add ships, which id love to do but dont have the capability, i wish a star trek fan would make some enterprises and birds of prey. i also know you can add race pictures which looks somewhat easier, yet still highly complicated and sure id love to add some race pictures of star trek type, not as much as id love to add in the ships but still anyone out there want to make a mod for star trek? ya i thought so........
what i feel still needs to be made moddable is just two more things, the technology lists and the maps.
A. for the technology you should be able to make it so we can at least add in ship and planet technologies, not neccassarily weapons or anything that needs extra animation but just simple stuff like an ability to name what the technology is, give a descripition of it, and then i little list that we can select of special abilities it can do like it repairs systems or acts as armor or increases production of parts or something like that, and whatever the cost will be.
B. as for a map editor. its cool how the maps are all random and stuff but itd be nice if there was just someway you could select precisely where you want the system to be, the number and types of planets in that system, and the name of the system and all that other neccassary stuff. nothing too complicated. seiv had a great map editor. i got off the net a map that someone made for that game that had the sol system in the very middle with earth and all the planets, then i changed all the systems around sol to be of a star trek like nature, for example the romulan system and the klingons and andorians and vulcans. ya i know i got a lot of free time. than i added in each race with their respective ships in theyre section of space and used a technology list with technologies i made and played out a game from the beginning of the federation to the point where i was eventually wiped out by the combined forces of the romulans and the klingons............
stupid vulcan wusses didnt put up much of a fight and they were the first ones to fall. andorians wiped them out within the first one hundred turns. at which point i was thoroughly screwed.


11. ahhh idea number 11. time travel! no just kidding. well. actually it is an interesting concept. say you built a ship that could travel back in time and as you started to build it, the ship appears and warns about your allies who are planning on back stabbing you and destroying most of your stystems in one hundred turns and that you must beging to build your defenses or youll be crushed so you build up some warships and save yourself from being destroyed. or perhaps its at the very end of the game you have your homeworld left all the other races kicked your a$$ youre at your last starship but luckily it has a timespace drive so you send it two hundred years back in time and warn yourself of the future events and give yourself all the technology you had in the future. with this tecnology you begin to take over the universe muahahahahaha. i know i ought to stop while im ahead but i have just one final last idea id like to toss in.

12. neutral zones. i always wanted that in a space game. most games have kinda half neutral zones usually its just disputited territory but i want a real neutral zone. i mean a line of star systems seperating me from my neighbor in which no one goes to those systems to gather resources or to fly through them or anything. completely sealed off. a line seperating them from me.

just a couple other things. what the heck is a holosphere anyways? how about a real discription of what it is. its just a holodeck with a different name right? if so why does it add production bonus instead of something like entertainment bonus?

another thing this is a link to galactic civilizations technology list
http://webpages.charter.net/trevorpowdrell/
i dont recomend galciv at all i havent played it but i know that if you want to you have to pay a fee or be a member or something and pay monthly or some bs plus its like forty bucks a month compared to one lump sum here. but i figured itd be worth seeing what other games have technology wise that could be added into this great game.

don't everyone respond at once.


13. captains. i had this idea in the shower. some sorta system where you have just like a faceless captain in command of each ship. say at first you start off with captains and then you research admiral, fleet admiral, commodore or something like that and has your captain gained experience he would advance in rank. the way it would work is you start out with your first scout ship, it starts out with a captain just some random captain name like how the ships are random and the planets, then the ship goes out into space and goes on all these exploring missions and attacks people and stuff and the captain gains in experience and as he gets better he has these natural bonuses that get added to the ship depending on what weapons he fights with and against. say you fight against one race that uses missiles and he keeps winning battles than he'll have a bonus defense against that race with missiles. then you could transfer captains, so as the captain gains in experience and your ships getting bigger you put the experienced captain(whos now an admiral due to all his space exploring) into a bigger ship in order to make better use of all his talents.

14. more missions. so right now there is the explore system mission, explore wormhole mission, rescue stranded ship mission, pirates,debris, attack planet and capture planet missions. there should be more missions above just this. some sorta random mission generator.
lets take for example, say just where your ship is in a system and it finds an abondoned ship floating there in space and you get three options has to what to do with the ship, A. leave the ship alone and fly on to the next system B. explore the ship and find out if there are survivors C. takeover the ship and claim it as our own.
then from these three options you decide what the captain should do it depending on what he chooses something different will happen like say you choose A and nothing happens and you fly on to the next system than ten years later your under attack and you find out your allies found the ship captured it, it had super futuristic weapons onboard that they gained and now theyre using them against you. say you choose b and you find survirors and you help them get back to their system and they give you the technology to have planet killers or some uber thing like that or say you choose c and you find survivors kill of all of them take the ship bring it back to your shipyards discover a whole bunch of super ship weapons and use them to slowly take over the universe.
that was just an example.

just to sum up all my differents ideas or at least my most favorite, the universal translator, the engineering component that repairs ship parts and can build space stations, captains, neatrul zones, more random events, and big time map editor!!!! so you can build ur own systems!!! please?