Master Of Orion Deluxe...
Ortwin
(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
ill see them.
oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
repeat those...
thanks...
jim
Dutta
>.
Will it support modem play by any chance?
Shannon Bradford
thanks,
Shannon
--
Shannon
Michael Wiik
>We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>you'd like to see put in this time.
>oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
>repeat those...
I'll try not to repeat myself. I don't own or buy lots of computer
games, but enjoy MoO so much I'd pay a very high price for some sort
of deluxe CD-ROM package with 100 different races and an improved AI.
I hope the multiplayer capability will not deter efforts to improve
the AI.
1) Allow the "New Republic" during a final war situation to come apart.
For instance when revolt spreads thru a new republic member then perhaps
its alliance with the others may hold but they become open for diplomatic
discussions with you. (Perhaps a 2nd revolt may cause them to lose
alliances. This idea needs to be combined with a more aggressive new
republic strategy that targets your worlds and (mostly) ignores building
new colonies.
2) Lots more random events! Include some that change the gameboard by
moving stars about perhaps. Extragalatic invasion (by dozens of huge
ships, not just single monsters).
3) Options for specifying scenarios exactly, i.e. which CP races to
compete against.
4) Options for limited intelligence for non-contacted races, as in
no listing of such on the map display and no CNN news items about them.
5) Ability to destroy one's own factories. This could be automatic if
not under assault and a probablity based on number of troops removed
from defensive posture during an assault.
6) Mines: long-term mines forming around friendly planets would help
defend them during the late game. Mines as a tactical weapon would be
dropped by ships: similar to missles except they don't move (and don't
activate till the minelaying ship leaves the square. BHG mines could
be particularly devastating.
>thanks...
>jim
-Mike
--
| o==== . : ... : : . |Mail Me Neat $tuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203
--@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : | mw...@netcom.com
| ... : : |-----------------------------------------------
mEssAGE fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs | Plot Globally Attack Locally
Ritvaliisa Snellman
Ortwin (JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU) wrote:
: We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
: thanks...
: jim
It would be nice if it would be spread in a data disk at 1/2 cost for those
that own the original.
Make a customizable difficulty option, so that those who can win on impossible
can (for example) multiply computer production by 2 from the impossible rating,
or give them some other bonuses.
A custom race builder, with which you could choose different advantages&dis-
advantages, that would all have a certain point value.
Better bug-control before releasing :)
-Poke Snellman
Roger M. Opperman
1) The ability to globally adjust planetary spending. I.e. you should
be able to go to a central menu and have all planets spend 20% on
defense until they have at least 10 bases. Once you have 30 or so
colonies dealing with building bases is a major pain ...
2) Ditch the POP = infantry abstraction. Have named units with
different types whose equipment can be updated with new tech. Allow
emergency conversion of population to "untrained militia infantry" in
an emergency. Allow the formation of "national guard" units on planets
for defense against invasions at a maint. cost. Allow invading units
to capture/destroy missile bases with space-dropped troops -- this gives
races like the Bulrathi a chance in the end-game -- if they are willing
to pay the price in fragged units and assault transports.
Colin Kameoka
AIs than MOO. Also, I don't like this "team" computer stuff. If I play
against 5 computer players I REALLY want to play against 5 computer players.
Please cut down on the computer cheats I don't like playing REAL long games
its really the only way to win. Make better AIs instead.
Make more kinds of planets. Yeah I know that there are lots already but
how about even more variety?
Please playtest MOO Deluxe more I didn't like all the $%@!#@# Bugs in MOO.
-ukyou
--
Friends don't let friends drive 78. SD No. County saying.
Clusters!!! Zurak
"Was that absolutely necessary?" ukyou
John Novak
take with troops than other planets. Significantly more
difficult, because literally every man, woman and child should be
fighting to protect the home planet.
Likewise, if a home planet is lost, there should be penalties for
the player who loses it. Perhaps a different set of penalties
depending on whether thhe planet was bombed to a cinder or taken
over to provide slave labor...
Someone else has mentioned ditching the abstraction of population
equals militia. I agree. Anacreon, a favored game of old, had
more than one form of military troops. One was a normal shock
troop marine type unit. The other, available only after a few
tech advances and the production of a special drug, were ninja
units, which were significantly nastier. A spectrum of advanced
combat troops might be intriguing.
Taking a leaf from Civilization, there should be a number of very
large projects that empires could use to enhance their standings
and capabilities, like the Civ wonders of the world. Better,
perhaps there would be a number of wonders that anyone could
build, and a number of wonders specific to each race, dependant
on their inclinations. Sabotage should always be an option...
Non-aligned planets would be interesting. Sprinkle a few
highly xenophobic worlds around the galaxy, which never expand
and are difficult to capture, but provide benefits once they
fall.
Someone else mentioned the possibility of putting _lots of
options onto a large CD version of the game. I agree--go for it,
and do it right.
--
John S. Novak, III Minions wanted
j...@cegt201.bradley.edu See .plan for details
REINALDO F. PASTORA
>thanks...
>jim
1) Go CD
2) Make different endings for every race.
3) The ending should be different when you conquered the universe militarily
as opposed to diplomatically.
4) Have good cinemas depicting the battles between races for a planet or in
space. For an idea of what I'm talking about see Battle Isle II.
5) Instead of conquering universes, conquer galaxies. By doing this you
can make the game huge and have hundreds of races. What I mean by this is
that you should have what you call the "Universe" in the current game and
have that be one galaxy. After you conquer that galaxy, you should be able
to move on to another as a New Republic or as a race if you won through
genocide.
6) When you move on as a New Republic to conquer another galaxy, you should
allow the player to meet regularly with leaders of the member races in order
to discuss strategy, develop new technologies, or conduct diplomacy in the
same way as it was done in the first game, but with less chances of
hostility since you are now attempting to conquer a new galaxy with
different races. This is similar in concept as Starfleet or the U.N.
I'd appreaciate any feedback on these ideas.
Robert Dejournett
different types of troops and 'wonders of the world' ala civ. However, i
think that expecting a data disk is unrealistic, becauser of the fact that
the engine itself will change, w/ the addition of multiplayer, etc. This
being said, let me give you my $.02.
1) New weapons, like a beam that splits into 10 dift beams of 10 points of
damage each.
2) More development on worlds allowed, more than just missile bases and
factories. For example: things to boost the tech ouput (research cetners),
things to boost your ecological output, etc.
3) More races w/ dift race attributes.
4) Have the home world actually mean something: penalities for losing it,
etc.
5) Bonuses for not being a ruthless conqueror, etc. (for staying in peace
the longest, for ex.)
6) Clean up the trade function: It is so slow to reach anywhere near max.
I rarely get more than 1/2 of the total before they declare war on me...
It would be nice to get 3000MC extra in trade but it is hard to do if
they continuely declare war on you...
-Rob
Mark Krischer
|> JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU (Ortwin) writes:
|>
|> >We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
|> >(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
|> >you'd like to see put in this time.
|>
|> >oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
|> >repeat those...
|>
|> I'll try not to repeat myself. I don't own or buy lots of computer
|> games, but enjoy MoO so much I'd pay a very high price for some sort
having just bought a CD-ROM and seeing its potential with Rebel Assault and
Groliers Encyclopedia, i definitely agree with Number 1. Including voice for
everything would be a definite plus. also an increased number of technologies
would be good too.
i really enjoyed MOO, but i didn't find it as enjoyable from the long term
prospect as it seems some of the readers of this group do. so any method of
of changing the possible gameplay (beyond just hard, harder, and suicidal) would
be great.
after playing x-com i've become a big fan of tactical combat. increasing the
intricacies involved in space combat and possibly making ground combat a little
more interactive than watching the numbers of your soldiers decrease and praying
you get lucky and kill their last 3 before you lose your last 5.
and lastly, in terms of AI, i have a real problem with games that increase
difficulty levels just by placing the player at an even more unfair disadvantage
than at easier levels. i realize the difficulties in making a SMART AI, but you
asked for our thoughts, and there it is.
mark
Chris Gannon
All of these ideas sound really great, in theory, but imagine the game
itself...
1) Having "hundreds" of different races would take away from the game.
These only some many variations you can have before they all sound
alike (IE: "The Gimbrats are like the Bulrathi, but they're a little
weaker and a little smarter")
2) I don't want civilization in space. Forget the "wonders" BS, the
current technology "system" is sufficent.
3) Super control of ship and ground combat. Improved ship control would
be nice, but adding ground combat would be too difficult and unrealistic.
The REALLY good ideas I've seen are:
1) CD version with speech, etc.
2) Another production bar for military (Maybe marines and navy instead of
just ships)
3) Added ship sizes.
4) Having genocided races suicide attack either A) the race that killed
them or B) the race they hate the most, but it seems that A would
wuickly become B
5) New, different Random events (IE: unknown fleet invasion)
6) New endings, etc.
Now, here are MY ideas.
1) Have the planet type effect what does on more. In realitity, there is
no difference what type of a planet you have (Steppe, desert). If the
Marines instead of population idea takes over, maybe troops trained
in one enviornment have a disadvantage in other ones. Or maybe troops
trained in hostile enviornments can more easily destroy troops
trained in whimpy terran enviornments.
2) This will be tought (I think) to add, but HAVE GROUND COMBAT LAST MORE
THAN ONE ROUND, let time for reinforcements on both side to arrive.
3) Have ship combat be three dimentional. And then maybe...
4) Give ships "time units" (IE: X-COM) to move, turn, fire, etc.
This might make things very complex, but it allows for much more
detailed fighting, especially if there are obstacles.
5) More detail in ship design and control. Add a separate space for a
power source,and have everything on the ship use up power. Have to
ability to add, 35 heavy ion cannons, but theres
only enough power to fire 20 while your level 3 shields are up, or
you can turn off the shields and fire all 35. This would also allow
for more varied weapon selection, (IE: The super-blaster uses twice
the power, for twice the punch, The Conserver special uses a lot of
space, but cuts your power consumption on weapons to 1/2)
There have been only three games in my experience that I have liked
enough to play for than a few weeks. MOO, Dune II and Starcontrol II.
MOO deluxe would be the greatest game in the computer entertainment
industry.
CG
Emeritus
Emeritus
enough suggestions that basically seek to increase the scope of the game, ie.
more technologies, events, planets, races, graphics, sound, speech and so
forth.
What I would like to see is combat that goes beyond the standard norm in
space conquest games, personally I am sick to death of the flat 2-d
fly-across-to-the-right of space combat. What I'd like to see is incorporating
combat into 3-D.
Instead of representing each ship group as a flat 2-D icon, represent it
as a reasonably detailed 3-D model. Create a 3-D space around the planet (the
planet being perhaps in the centre). You would then be able to adjust your
viewpoint and modify the position/deployment of your fleet in 3-dimensions.
This would naturally open up movement in the Z-axis, giving you a lot more
freedom to manouevre in space combat.
Bringing combat into 3-dimensions would also open up the issue of weapons
placement. Now what matters is how many Mauler devices you allocate to the
forward facing main batteries, how many pulse phasors do you deploy on the
sides of the ship to intercept hostile fighters.
Of course, it's quite impossible to represent thousands of ships in this
way. What you could do is allow a maximum of 3 groups for each different class,
meaning that you'd have a maximum of 18 units to control in combat. And
naturally you'd also have a very handy quick play option if you wanted to skip
through this detailed combat. While representing possibly thousands of ships
as a single 3-d shape might be a bit extravagant, I still think it'd add to
the atmosphere of combat. It might perhaps give a bit more atmosphere and
'whizz bang' to space combat, with a bit more flair (and explosions) along the
lines of, dare I say it, Wing Commander or Tie Fighter (without the joystick
antics of course).
Asking for more available active ship classes is a
double-edged sword, and probably should not be included. The idea of a
'carrier' class of ship forsmall one-man fighters is a good idea and should be
pursued. Reducing the abstraction in ground combat should also be a priority,
but I don't know how to approach this. Thanks for reading this far ;)
Emeritus
Michael Tiller
approach to systems. I think the star systems (denoted by the shiny
objects on the map) should some random number of planets. Selecting a
star system would bring up a map of that system and show the different
planets. I really think this would enhance the game. You could have
different races occupying the same star system.
Lastly, I think it would be nice if you could establish covert
military bases in asteroid fields of nebulae or something. Basically,
a hidden jumping off point for ships.
Michael Tiller
University of Illinois
(til...@solace.me.uiuc.edu)
Unknown
1) Technologies dependant on resources from limited worlds, e.g.
super-dooper stardrive X depends on the mineral Y found only on
planet Z
2) Ground combat could be made a lot more interesting. e.g. take
into account the planets topology/type. Maybe have a hex based
battle a little like Battle Isle or Empire (the Unix version).
Maybe make it optional for those who don't want to fiddle with
the finer details.
3) Scavengeable scrap/raw materials/technology from the debris left
behind after space battles.
4) More variation and possibilities in diplomacy. e.g. slave races.
5) More than 6 types of ship current at once. Not infinite maybe,
but at least 12-15 different types.
6) Open ended galaxies with a potentially limitless number of stars.
Winning could be by reaching a certain number rather than a percent-
age.
Richard
Stan Ragan
> Lastly, I think it would be nice if you could establish covert
> military bases in asteroid fields of nebulae or something. Basically,
> a hidden jumping off point for ships.
>
> Michael Tiller
> University of Illinois
> (til...@solace.me.uiuc.edu)
** Idea #1 :
I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la death
stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in the
middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to move
at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving planet'
with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and guns.
Maybe even a stargate :^)
THIS WOULD BE COOL !
** Idea #2 :
The ability to intercept ships in mid flight between plantets. (Once you have
hyperspace communications)
-Stan-
Stan Ragan
University of Alabama Health Services Foundation
INTERNET : sra...@hsf.uab.edu
------------------------------------------------
Nai-Chi Lee
>We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
>as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
>ill see them.
One minor feature I like to see: after the final war broke out, there
should still be dipolmatic channels availble, but with only two options:
1. Demand surrender
("Yield or die! You worthless insect.")
2. Give up
("Have mercy and make it swift.")
One major feature I like to see: more control for ground battles. One
should be able to design vehicles and carry out land combats similar to
space combats.
By the way, is it too much to ask for the game engine in UFO/XCOM? ;-)
--
Nai-Chi
=============================================================================
"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" -- Silicoid Emperor in MOO
=============================================================================
Michael Roca
>Subject: Master Of Orion Deluxe...
>Date: 14 Aug 1994 13:11:43 GMT
>thanks...
>jim
Wow! You've been getting lots of replies to this, so I'll respond to some of
those as well as give my own ideas.
DON'T:
1) Make the game on a much larger scale (ie. multiple galaxies, a full land
combat system). The game is big enough. I doubt you were planning on this
anyway.
2) Add a bunch of races that are pretty much like the current ones. If you
have some genuinely new ideas, that's fine. But I don't see the point of
adding "psuedo-Klackons".
3) Add a bunch of weapons. In fact, I think you could cut back what's there.
My preference is for a few weapons which are clearly distinguished from each
other in ability.
DO:
1) Better AI (yeah, easier said than done) In particular, I find it weak in
space combat, in how it prosecutes a war (I often just ignore declarations of
war because the AI can't figure out how to attack), and in building up its
infrastructure and economy.
2) A little more sophicticated diplomacy. I'd like the options to be broken
down a little finer, and more of a proposal, counter-proposal system. For
instance, I might propose to trade range 5 fuel cells for ion cannon
technology. The computer player might then counter by offering ion cannons
for inertial stabalizers.
3) More direct player control of difficulty. Let the player set the
difficulty by picking how much advantage/disadvantage a computer player gets
in different areas, then derive the difficulty level from that. If you wanted
you could add in racial abilities here: play a more powerful race, get credit
for less difficulty. If you really want to make it tough, allow the computer
players to have existing empires of a few stars and have the human try to
force his way in.
4) Multiple planets around a star. I wouldn't want too many, but, for
example, I think the solar system would have three "habitable" planets by game
standards: Earth as Terran, Mars as Barren, and Venus as Inferno.
5) More than six ship designs. Ideally I'd like the limit to be so high I
won't ever see it.
6) More flexability in space combat. I know a full-blown tactical system is
out of the scope of the game, but I'd like to be able to stack my own ships.
7) More control of planetary production. I'd like to be able to tell a planet
to build until it got X defence bases, then stop. If I'm starting to build
defences on a planet for the first time, I don't automatically want to build
shields first and bases afterwards (usually the other way around). This is
mainly a problem for defence and planetary enviroment spending.
8) Build ground troops like anything else. At least you should have to build
them for offensive operations. Planets should have some sort of
milita based on its population, however.
Bradley R. Gabe
I like the idea of the 3-D battlescape. One thing I've found is that
there's essentially very little strategy involved in the movement during
battles. Thanks to XCOM for changing that kind of game situation... that's
probably why XCOM is so popular. You can bet that more battle complexity
will be expected in new games, including a deluxe MoO. You shouldn't have
to go overboard, but there should at least be the possibility for a weaker
fleet to defeat a stronger fleet due to more tactful maneuvers (i.e. fall
of Spanish Armada) as opposed to just random luck. A 3-D interface would
mean using a polar lattice instead of the 100x100x4 kind of block in XCOM.
Picture this... a 3-D battlescape, radius of perhaps 50 spaces with planet
in the center. Planets can occupy up to radius 10 depending upon size
variable. There should also be moons orbiting the planet, and perhaps the
small clusters of asteroids we've seen. Planets with 3 moons should have 3
moons every time they are attacked, so there might be a status bar on each
planet describing its type, radius, mass, number of moons, and floating
debris situation (say!... you could even generate rings by forming a
complete circle around the planet with asteroid clusters) These moons and
clusters will move after each turn in a predictable pattern, e.g. their
orbits. And objects which are closer to moons or the planet should have
the ability to slingshot... i.e., their max movement increases in forward
direction, but decreases in backward and lateral movement. This movement
should also vary depending on ship and planetary or moon mass.
You'd need a new battle interface... I imagine clicking on a ship sprite,
holding the mouse button, and a transparent sphere appears around the ship
defining its range. The shape of the sphere varies depeding upon
gravitational influences, as mentioned earlier. Also in the sphere is a
solid radial line from your ship which you can move around the sphere to
define direction. Then the sphere disappears, and only the radial line is
left. The length of the line is now what is variable, so essentially, each
movement requires first directional selection, then range selection. There
would also be weapon spheres allowing the user to know who's in range of
what weapons.
This kind of battlescape will allow for a much more strategy oriented
battle without getting too complicated. Imagine, hiding a bomber squadron
behind a moon, while it orbits past an enemy fleet of fighters, then
slingshoting close to the planet, releasing the payload, and hyperspacing
out, before the faster and better equipped fighters can get in range. At
the same time, imagine losing half a bomber fleet because you miscalculated
the orbit of an asteroid cluster you were using as missle cover, and they
orbit right through your fleet, taking out ships like a mass driver would.
Imagine the planet deploying defense satellites, or mines as mentioned in
other posts, which also orbit and help planetary defense. Imagine a huge
ship with a new kind of weapon which shifts the orbit of a moon such that
it smashes into the planet taking out the defense shield, shifting the
planet orbit and causing an atmospheric change, etc...
The idea is just to make battles more thought intensive than simply moving
your ships from left to right, and firing when enemies are in range. I've
played MoO a lot, and never had a battle where I thought... "Whew! I was
clever enough to pull that one off."
I'm a programmer myself and can understand what kind of nightmare this
might be to produce, especially the AI... but I can dream, can't I?
My other, more realistic suggestion is simple. A ship editor which allows
you to draw the ship from scratch if you wish. It could have simple tools
which help with general shapes and shading.
-b(R)ad
******************************************************************************
Generic Humorous Quotation Bradley R.
Gabe
Swarthmorula
Enterprises
500 College
Ave
Swarthmore, PA
19081
John Novak
>One major feature I like to see: more control for ground battles. One
>should be able to design vehicles and carry out land combats similar to
>space combats.
Hmm.
I like this one.
The only thing is, the ground combat should be different from the
space combat, to break up the 'monotony'. I'd be disappointed to
see a scenario where all you need to deal with is six vehicle
classes vs six vehicle classes jousting on the ground as the
ships joust in orbit...
Richard Sullivan
Here are some of my suggestions for Master of Orion Deluxe.
As another poster suggested, I would like to see a separation between
the population of a planet and the soldiers defending it. Letting the
population fight as a militia at various levels of effectiveness for
different races would be a nice touch. A very militaristic race's
citizens might fight as well as some pacifistic race's elite troops.
Some races might not even have separate civilian and military
personel.
Along with this change I would like to not have to wipe out the
population of a planet to capture it. This would open up possibilites
for rebellians, returning planets as part of peace agreements, etc.
Killing civilians could help control rebels but it would enrage the
race the victims belonged to and have some effect similar to genocide
on the policies of the other races. Colonies could have a loyalty
index related to the races involved an govern how much effort it takes
to control it and how much it produces. Good treatment of a captured
planet could eventually bring that planet fully into the players
empire. I would also like to send colonists to captured planets
resulting in planets with mixed populations. I would be a lot of fun
to "liberate" captured planets.
I also think we should separate technology from basic science. Just
because a race knows how a black hole generator works doesn't mean
they know how to build one that can be effective in battle. Some
things like shields are a question of technology. "We know how
shields work but outside the laboratory we can only get level three
generators to work." Technology can be spent for separately and basic
research levels in general can add to technology spending. Stealing
scientific knowledge should be much easier than stealing technology.
Maybe spies can only steal science and a planet must be captured to
steal technology.
Richard
--
Chris Kessel
|> In article <32l56f$b...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, Ortwin <!not-for-mail> wrote:
|> >We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
|> >(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
|> >you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
|> >as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
|> >ill see them.
|>
|> By the way, is it too much to ask for the game engine in UFO/XCOM? ;-)
|>
ACK! As if MOO doesn't take long enough already :). I liked the game,
but the idea of making it take any longer than it does now is rather
frightening.
A feature I'd like is some automated governors for planets. Give the govener
some simple goals like produce as much tech/bases/ships as possible or assign
some percentage goals for each area and then let the planet manage itself.
I get tired of going into each planet every time I ship colonists in/out and
micro-managing all the bars again. It would be nice if the robot-governor
adjusted the bars for you when conditions changed.
Chris
chr...@protocol.com
--
For a long time I figured myself a conservative, but at this point
I suspect I'm an actually an anarchist.
John Novak
>3) Have ship combat be three dimentional. And then maybe...
>4) Give ships "time units" (IE: X-COM) to move, turn, fire, etc.
> This might make things very complex, but it allows for much more
> detailed fighting, especially if there are obstacles.
These would be very nice, but they'd probably kill even so much
as a _chance_ that the tactical AI could compete with a human
being.
If these can be done, I'd be all for them. But frankly, I have
my doubts.
Taki Kogoma
<bgabe1-15...@zygote.swarthmore.edu> in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic:
>Picture this... a 3-D battlescape, radius of perhaps 50 spaces with planet
>in the center. Planets can occupy up to radius 10 depending upon size
>variable. There should also be moons orbiting the planet, and perhaps the
>small clusters of asteroids we've seen. Planets with 3 moons should have 3
>moons every time they are attacked, so there might be a status bar on each
>planet describing its type, radius, mass, number of moons, and floating
>debris situation (say!... you could even generate rings by forming a
>complete circle around the planet with asteroid clusters) These moons and
>clusters will move after each turn in a predictable pattern, e.g. their
>orbits. And objects which are closer to moons or the planet should have
>the ability to slingshot... i.e., their max movement increases in forward
>direction, but decreases in backward and lateral movement. This movement
>should also vary depending on ship and planetary or moon mass.
Bleah. If I want to play a 3-D battle simulator, I've got TIE Fighter
on my hard drive.
MoO is, IMO, primarily a grand-strategic level game with considerable
economic/political aspects. Enhance these aspects; don't try to bolt
on a fancy-schmancy tacticl starship game on the side. As others have
said, the game's large enough as it is.
>[...]
>This kind of battlescape will allow for a much more strategy oriented
>battle without getting too complicated. Imagine, hiding a bomber squadron
>behind a moon, while it orbits past an enemy fleet of fighters, then
>slingshoting close to the planet, releasing the payload, and hyperspacing
>out, before the faster and better equipped fighters can get in range. At
>the same time, imagine losing half a bomber fleet because you miscalculated
>the orbit of an asteroid cluster you were using as missle cover, and they
>orbit right through your fleet, taking out ships like a mass driver would.
>Imagine the planet deploying defense satellites, or mines as mentioned in
>other posts, which also orbit and help planetary defense. Imagine a huge
>ship with a new kind of weapon which shifts the orbit of a moon such that
>it smashes into the planet taking out the defense shield, shifting the
>planet orbit and causing an atmospheric change, etc...
What you describe are tactics. Tactics are how you win battles.
Strategy is what battles you chose to fight. Since I'm playing the
ruler of a starfaring race, my job is to work on the strategy. The
tactical starship combat engine is sufficient to let me fight a quick
battle with some input as to doctrine. I don't want to spend 30
minutes trying to fine-tune the 'perfect' tactics for each battle.
Again, if I want to do that, I can load up TIE Fighter...
>My other, more realistic suggestion is simple. A ship editor which allows
>you to draw the ship from scratch if you wish. It could have simple tools
>which help with general shapes and shading.
Now, a ship icon editor wouldn't be a bad thing at all... ;-)
I do agree that some enhancement to the ground combat system would be
good. Don't bother trying to emulate XCom; just provide some variety
in production options - and I agree that invasion forces should be
purchased and maintained separately from the rest of the planetary
population. An interesting idea would be that 'regular military'
are twice as effective as 'militia', but do not provide BCs (or only a
fraction of usual). You could even arrange for several 'grades' of
military units; for example: 'militia', 'green', 'average', 'crack',
and 'elite' with increasing combat effectiveness (and maintenance
cost). (And then you can give the Bluthari the special bonus that all
of their troops fight as one or more grades 'higher', Klackons have
their troop units produce BCs at normal rates, etc. ;-)
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) kog...@unm.edu
I'll get a life when someone demonstrates it would be superior to
what I have now.
Haruka Takano
3) More races w/ dift race attributes.
4) Have the home world actually mean something: penalities for losing it,
etc.
5) Bonuses for not being a ruthless conqueror, etc. (for staying in peace
the longest, for ex.)
6) Clean up the trade function: It is so slow to reach anywhere near max.
Along these lines, how about if each race had different victory conditions?
A merchant race would emphasize (and have bonus skills in) trade; a diplomatic
race would get points for years of peace; etc.
--Haruka
Eric Demers
1) Navy strength should more evenly represent technological advantages
present.
For example, I only had a few ships with zero shields, black hole
generators and death rays. With those, I was able to destroy most of the
other player's navies (even stacks in the 32k range). However, my rating
was much lower in terms of fleet strength.
2) It should be possible to win without having to destroy everything. For
example, if I'm playing 5 players and I control 1/2 the universe and my
navy is by far the strongest, it should be possible for me to win without
too much trouble. For example, if I could win by conquering all the other
races' home planets...
3) I would like a much stronger AI. Also, diversity in the AI would be
good. For example, we could have very aggresive races/leaders who are
always trying to fight... Or races that work through trading...
4) Have SVGA graphics. It's not a fast moving game were graphic speed is
necessary. However, being able to display better looking maps, planets and
ships would be great!!
5) Have the ability to zoom in and out of sections of the map.
6) Have more diplomatic options. For example, it should be possible to
attempt to kill the leader of an opposing race, which might change how they
behave...
7) Instead of allowing races to cheat, the difficulty level should instead
change factors such as ability to gain technology or even spontaneous
discoveries (oh, we just discovered warp engines when our tech level is
only 15).
8) Add sub catagories within the different technologies. For example, the
shield development should be split into 4 sub categories: ship shields,
planet shields, personal/combat shields, other (ie. cloaking device...).
Same goes for computers (robotic, combat...), weapons and all the others.
It should then be possible to assign sub percentages to each sub category.
9) Let it keep on working under OS/2!!
Thanks!
--
===========================================================================
=
|| My opinions are my own, or so they tell me. ||
||-----------------------------------------------------------------------||
|| Eric Demers || Graphics Interactive Systems Division ||
|| Silicon Graphics || Email: sir_...@esd.sgi.com ||
===========================================================================
=
Brian Armontrout
taking over entire planets, after all. Allow for tanks, planes,
your spaceships hovering overhead, ships in the water.. Imagine
how much fun combat would be this way(although lengthy, maybe
an auto-combat option could still be available)
-- Brian
Jim Dietrick
This is a real stretch of a wish, but how about a unix port, for X?
I know of some machines with 24-bit graphics I would like to see this
fly on...(Sparc 10, well and a Sparc 20)
-jim
Steven K. Chang
--
Steven K. Chang
stc...@leland.stanford.edu
Chris Gannon
Bradley R. Gabe <bga...@cc.swarthmore.edu> wrote:
>In article <32l56f$b...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU
>(Ortwin) wrote:
>>
>> We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>> (month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>> you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
>> as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
>> ill see them.
>>
>> oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
>> repeat those...
>>
>> thanks...
>> jim
>
>
If anyone out there has seen/played the game Maelstrom (not a great game)
You can picture the type of 3-D combat I'm suggesting, but of course
improved for orion...
Quite frankly, no matter wheter you're in 3-d or 2-d, space combat is going to
be 1) Get in range, 2) shoot until dead, so 3-d combat isn't going to be
too hellishly difficult in the AI aspect, UNLESS, as someone pointed out,
you add more barriers, obstacles, etc, ability to place forts on Satellites,
including moons, etc. OR, (and this sounds like a good idea) having
the ship be designed more detailedly (IE: Ion cannons on right, Black hole
generaor on he front. Heavy shields in fron, but weak in back to save power.)
A new idea I had:
Instead of combat transports, have a special on a normal ship be troop
carriers. They'd be very inexpensive, but take up a lot of room. This
way, a gourp of ships could travel to a planet, the fighters would
attack the defending ships, which the troop carriering ships would try
to "bomb" the plante with troops, and trying to get out. This would be
great if the idea of combat taking a few turns in implemented. Imaging
having ony about 10 forces left on theenemy world, and you need to get
more troops there this round, or you'll lose the planet. You send in
a fleet of medium-large ships, with one or two troop transports, and
quickly "paradrop" 40 million troops before you're wiped out.
I realize ground combat can't be more complex, but you should have a few
options while fighting. Maybe a window comes up like when you have ships
above an enemy planet, and asks whether you want to attack, defend (+40
to defense, but minimal damage to enemy) or retreat.
Everyone talks about building troops, and that sond like a good idea, but
I wonder how hard it will be to implement, ESPECIALLY if you add in all
this other goodies like Satellites, etc. A planet has so much production.
and you need to spread it out. If you need to but factories, ships,
research, armies, defense, etc. You're going to run out of money. It will
take 40 years to build a medium ship with 4 lasers.
Ignoring that, though :) A good idea for building troops would be to
select what kind of troops you're "building" and have th cost vary. Normal
troops would be cheap. If you're on a jungle plant and you want to train
jungle "rangers" (+20 in jungle, -5 in all other) that might cost more,
but be more effective against enemy jungle planets. The ability to select
what weapon your troops carry should be an option. Noting too complex,
but other than using the "best" all of the time, you might want more troops
at a cheaper price. Or maybe you want the troops to carry different
weapons; ioilogical ones which kill troops, AND civilians. Unless you
have good computer technology, you wuldn't want to bomb a planet during a
batttle, or you might kill your own troops.
I think these are good plans for making ground combat more complex and
detailed, without actually going to the point where you actually
use strategy to control the troops. Save that for ship combat. :)
CG
Jim L. Brown
>We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
>as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
>ill see them.
(1) It would be nice if spies could find out what their target race is researching.
(2) It would add versimilitude if planets had to build shipyards, clone banks,
and other improvements as in CIV. This could also provide a wider range
of specific targets for sabotage activities.
[3] It would be nice if the player could offer bribes instead of tribute.
In other words, the offer would be contingent on some action being
performed.
[4] Proximity targetted missiles that target the nearest enemy ship.
[5] It would be nice to build defense satelites as well as missile bases.
[6] It would be nice if research could be redirected. Possibly at the cost of
losing all investment in the abandoned tech.
[7] The AI could be improved to at least have the computer player break off
from attacking Repulsor equiped ships with ships that have only range 1
weapons.
[8] Add a little more variety by:
[a} Allowing the game to be quick started with all the planets already
occupied.
[b] Allowing the players to start at higher tech levels. This is already
covered somewhat by the possibility of finding artifacts. But, I would
like a little more control.
[c] Allowing other star configurations than the cluster.
[9] The multi-player mode should not require multiple networked computers.
John Novak
Well, this is a deluxe game, after all.
Perhaps one could specify the level of detail to which one wishes
to sink...
I also like the idea of differing victory conditions for
differing races.
Kevin Vigor
First, a feature I haven't seen asked for: allow the player to specify a
maximum number of missile bases for a planet to build (on a per-planet
basis), after which they revert back to tech (with a "newsflash"). Every
other planetary spending category has an upper limit (except tech, which
you can never have enough of!), and I find the inconsistency annoying
(particularly in huge galaxies; every 20 rounds or so, go through the
entire planets display looking for rampant missile builders; whoops,
they build 150 already? go scrap some...)
And second, a "feature" I am seeing lots of requests for that I *don't*
want; I have no use for a bloated CD-ROM version with voice for every
event and movies for invasions and diplomacy, etc. How many people
actually sit through the "colonization" and "planet invasion" animations
now? Sure, they're pretty to see the first time you play; now I can't
get rid of 'em fast enough. Besides which, pretty audio and animations
are expensive: they cost a lot to develop, take up lots of disk space,
and mean you require additional hardware from the customers. I'd much
rather see the money put into a better AI (at least make the cheats a
little more subtle!) or more play options. For the trust in advertising
act, btw, I do not currently own a CD-ROM player and so am prejudiced
against the whole notion (though MOOD on CD-ROM might just convince my
wife that we need one; she's as addicted as I am!). However, if you do
need a CD version, please fill it with *features*, not "multimedia"
fluff.
--
Kevin
Chris Jones
: We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
: (month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
: you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
: as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
: ill see them.
: oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
: repeat those...
: thanks...
: jim
Ok, MOO is already pretty good, but it would be great if:
1. You added speech (possibly on the CD version).
2. Increased the number of spaces for special cargo.
i.e. not just a black hole generator, subspace
teleporter and a lightning sheild, but however
many neat special weapons as you have space for.
IMHO, the way it is now limits the types of ships
you can create too dramatically.
3. Add more races, but not races that are like so and so
but slightly more blank. ORIGINALLY different races.
I know, harder than it sounds isn't it?
4. A THUNDERING soundtrack, would be nice. If we're
obliterating planets, it should sound like it.
5. Like everyone else says, better AI, not just AI that
cheats better.
graphics for different weapons, not just explosions
on top of your people. Not that you have to make
it a big part of the game like everyone else is suggesting,
but make it prettier.
7. SVGA would be nice, especially since this game isn't
to hard on the processor.
8. I would like larger galaxies as well. I know the games
would take more time, but with more races, the bigger
the galaxy, the better.
9. Don't fall prey to these people on the net who want
EVERYTHING in this game. That would ruin it. I will
settle for a significantly improved version of the
original with a few completely new things. I would
hate something that was called MOO Deluxe and didn't
look a bit like the original
And finally, if you need a Beta Tester, you can
call on me.
Here are my many email addresses and my system specs.
jo...@vision.mse.vt.edu
jo...@risc.mse.vt.edu
jon...@vtaix.mse.vt.edu
486DX33 LB w/Tseng 4000 SVGA
PS if you decide to port it to UNIX, I can test it there too! :)
Chris
--
___ _________________________________
\ \/ __ _________________________/ ".. and the Fox 15 went down
\ / / / Chris C. Jones in flames!"
\__/ /__/ jo...@vision.mse.vt.edu
6. Better graphics of the ground combat. Make different
--
___ _________________________________
\ \/ __ _________________________/ ".. and the Fox 15 went down
\ / / / Chris C. Jones in flames!"
\__/ /__/ jo...@vision.mse.vt.edu
EMeyer
(Michael Tiller) wrote:
> I think the star systems (denoted by the shiny
> objects on the map) should some random number of planets. Selecting a
> star system would bring up a map of that system and show the different
> planets. I really think this would enhance the game. You could have
> different races occupying the same star system.
>
> Lastly, I think it would be nice if you could establish covert
> military bases in asteroid fields of nebulae or something. Basically,
> a hidden jumping off point for ships.
I agree with this 110%! The one really grating thing about MoO is the
fact that every system has only one planet. I'd love to be able to build
a (secret) military base on the moon of a gas giant and then launch an
assault on an enemy colony in that same system. This would necessitate
system patrols, so that your enemies can't do the same to you. The chance
of building a base/assembling a fleet unnoticed would be related to the
number of patrols. Of course, if a race has hyperspace scanners, they can
see the traffic in and out of the system, which would raise their chances
of finding a base (since they know they're looking for one).
Another thing I'd really like to see is the ability to split ship
stacks. I find it very annoying that all ten thousand fighters are in one
stack. Why can't I split them into five stacks of two thousand and send
each stack after a different enemy group? Of course, this assumes that
the combat system remains basically the same; that is, a large 2D grid
with ship stacks/groups/whatever. Related to this: better control over
numbers in general. I'd MUCH rather type the number of ships I want to
send than fiddle with arrows. Ditto for a lot of things, like ship design
(which can be quite boring when building high-tech Huge ships) and moving
reserve cash to a planet.
I also agree with the suggestions to increase the number of ship
classes, the number of ship sizes, and the ability to design custom
races. Especially if you included the ability to design the banner for
your race.
I remember that back when I had time to play MoO regularly, I had a
bunch of ideas for improving it. If I remember them, I'll post.
-EMeyer
Unstable condition--a symptom of life |Eric A. Meyer (ea...@po.cwru.edu)
In mental and environmental change |Library Information Technologies
Atmospheric disturbance--the feverish flux| Software Support Technician
Of human interface and interchange- (N.P.)|"What do you think, sirs?" -Joel
Jason I. Hong
1) Not CD-ROM only (only logical, of course for a wider base of players)
2) Instead of ranges of ships, they carry fuel (yeah, I know, harder to
remember which one is which and where, but more realistic). This could
also be some more techs - like a Star Trek Bussard scoop that picks up
deuterium along the way, etc
3) Slide bars for ships, instead of clicking over and over, or just direct
number typing
4) Changeable speeds for ships. For example, timing an invasion with
different speed ships from different planets. Or if there is fuel,
conserves fuel (How ecological! :)
5) Trade is more important. Look at our world today. And perhaps an option
to interdict trade between other groups. Or trading ships.
6) Some random luck discoveries (look at how many discoveries we've had
thru serendipity! :) And, some fake discoveries (a la cold fusion du pons
et fleischman) that set you back
7) An enemy can opt to surrender (like resigning in Chess...you KNOW
you're beat when it's three moves no matter what).
8) Instead of the colony ships being dismantled, what if it only carried
colony bases. More bases could be produced for it to carry. Handy if a
multiplanet star-system is implemented.
9) I like the idea of being able to intercept incoming enemies once tech
is high enough. What about feints? Like if they have exclusively cloaked
ships, they won't show up until they're close enough. Or it only looks
like 1 scout...
10) I also like the idea of a multi-player game that could be played on
one computer, or on multiple computers (I know, I know, harder to write)
My 2BC's worth :)
Jason
--
I never saw a Purple Cow Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" --
I never hope to see one; I'm sorry now, I Wrote it!
I could tell you, anyhow, But I can Tell you, Anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one! I'll kill you if you Quote it!
Joseph Robertson
Global Conquest. That is, modem play which would allow three or more players
at the same time. If such was part of MOO Deluxe, you wouldn't have to spend
a terrible amount of time imprvoing the AI.
Joseph Robertson
da...@jax.jaxnet.com
Kijin Jung
In a previous article, JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU (Ortwin) says:
>We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
>as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
>ill see them.
>
>oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
>repeat those...
>
1. Allow troops to be captured as prisoners of war, and then
be used as bargaining chips at negotiations. As it stands now,
it's quite easy to replace destroyed populations, but training the
population as soldiers would increase their worth.
2. Get rid of overly powerful weapons and/or set a reasonable
limit of how many ships a race can build. The black hole
generator, IMO, upsets the balance of every game in which
it is present, since I can destroy stacks of 32000 ships
easily. Or else, don't allow so many ships to be built in
the first place. (Also get rid of that integer bug!)
3. More ship designs, and perhaps a ship design editor in
which you may draw your own.
4. I like the idea of planets orbiting each star. After all,
this is how it really is, eh? Maybe a zoom a la Star Control II.
5. When a random event occurs which negatively impacts my
game (such as nova, assasination attempt, rebellion), I
find myself reloading from an earlier saved game. I'm not
sure how this can be accomplished, but once a random
event occurs, make it occur in the same year even if one
reloads an earlier game. Then it will be unavoidable. (Not
sure if I made myself clear on this one).
Martin Snow
look barren to the Humans, but it could be "terran" to the Klackons. That
way you may be willing to cooperate with other races a bit more when dividing
up the galaxy. I think that Spaceward Ho! had something like this.
--
Martin Snow "What is good in life?"
"To crush the grains of your enemies,
sn...@ucsu.colorado.edu and hear the fermentations of their barley."
-- Conan the Zymurgist
Kevin Vigor
with colorblind folks. I (and roughly 10% of US males) am red-green
colorblind, and have a very hard time distinguishing certain
combinations of opponents (this is only really a problem until planetary
scanners, at which point I can at least click on the planet to determine
who owns it). An option for a ugly palette that I can easily distinguish
would be pleasant.
--
Kevin
Greg Bowers
as it goes on. A couple of things to look at:
1) Someone mentioned it already, but a global menu to set planets
spending.
2) The ability to set a limit on the number of bases.
3) A save ship design so that we don't have to lose our Huge ship every
time we want to design a small one and then set the next huge one
from scratch. At the very least retain the previous design in each
size.
Other ideas:
4) I like the simple, quick combat. If you beef it up then maybe give
a simple/advanced combat option.
5) The current version seems to have a point during the middle game
when you're either going to lose or going to win. It seems that
I suddenly jump ahead of the computer players at this point, or
they're too strong to beat. I've yet to have a challenging end game,
one I get there it's just a case of my huge ships crushing the
opposition at will.
6) Better AI :-)
7) Good General MIDI, or even better Sound Canvas GS support.
--
Portland TrailBlazers Pacific Division Champs: 1978, 1991, 1992 |
NBA Champs: 1977 Western Conference Champs: 1977, 1990, 1992 |
Manchester United FA Premiership Champions: 1993, 1994 |
al...@rigel.cs.pdx.edu 1994: League & FA Cup Winners, CC Cup Final |
mar...@waikato.ac.nz
> I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la death
> stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in the
> middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to move
> at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving planet'
> with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and guns.
> Maybe even a stargate :^)
>
> THIS WOULD BE COOL !
It sure would. It could only be built by large planets who have already built
a space construction platform - AND a portion of the home planets population
would have to be transferred to the battle station before you can take it on
the road (so to speak) - maybe 20 million + any fighters, escorts etc. It
should be really expensive though. Perhaps resources from more than one planet
would need to be channelled into its construction. Similar to sending caravans
to help out building wonders in CIV.
>
> ** Idea #2 :
>
> The ability to intercept ships in mid flight between plantets. (Once you have
> hyperspace communications)
>
Yes, It would be good to be able to send off some interceptors to try to turn
back an incoming enemy fleet.
> -Stan-
Mark.
Man-Zok Suh
More pictures: Have the Lab, Planet, etc... Pictures change
with each race, and with specific tech. advances. When I "talk"
to the Klackon leader I want to see her (him, it??) in it's
brood chamber with 100s of Klackon workers, and I'd like the
brood chamber itself to change depending on what kind of techonology
the Klackons have. Same with other races and other screens. This
would add flavor to the game and give you the feeling of tech. advancment.
Also would be nice:
I second the idea of a ship icon editor. Or you could just allow
advanced players to import/export PCX (or GIF etc..) pictures.
An AI advance, so that at the start of the game you have to
manually adjust everything, but as you progress more and more
could be automated. (In the larger games many times I just ignore
planets because I am busy. I would like to be able to have planets
"automatically" get max pop, max industry, etc... with out having
to mess with them. )
The ability to adjust all of your production at one time for
a specific set of planets. For example I would like to set
all planets that are currently producing the "mega blaster" ship
to change over to the "mega blaster plus", But I don't want
a new planet to stop producing factories. (Perhaps you could
have the AI advance take planets out of a general production
pool until they are at full production levels?)
Greg Steckman
|> Personally, I would prefer that there be a slightly more hierarchical
|> approach to systems. I think the star systems (denoted by the shiny
|> objects on the map) should some random number of planets. Selecting a
|> star system would bring up a map of that system and show the different
|> planets. I really think this would enhance the game. You could have
|> different races occupying the same star system.
|>
Thats an excellent idea, and then maybe if one race has colonies
on all planets in a star system they can setup a system wide
defense so that invaders would have to destroy that and then
attack each individual planets defenses.
Also something I think is definitely needed is a way to view
all planets spending ratios in a single screen, like the
planets screen, but more detailed showing ratios for
everything. In a huge galaxy it takes forever just to make
sure your planets are not wasting resources which could
be used more efficiently.
--
--------------------------
Greg Steckman
Email: stec...@rc.trw.com
Greg Steckman
How about an OS/2 version? Using a GUI's graphics driver
will allow even better while maintaining compatability with
lower graphics levels.
Mike Lemons
: We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
: (month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
: you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
: as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
: ill see them.
1) Add the ability to change the tech being researched at any time even
after research is begun on the item. It would be fair to lose all
research points accumulated in that catagory.
2) Add the ability to see what planet you are sending a fleet to. When
you select a fleet, a catalog of all of the ships in the fleet appears
in the planet box. This should change to a description of the
destination planet when you click on the destination planet. I don't
know how many times I've had to abort a movement command in order to
make sure that the star I am sending them to is really the one I want.
3) Add a button at the bottem of the combat screen labelled "SPLIT".
It would allow you to launch missiles from a planet against more than
one ship type. Use a bar graph to send 50% of the missiles at one
group, 25% at another, etc.
4) Global overview screens in MoO don't work very well. The Planet
screen doesn't show production ratios. (It would be a major improvement
to show the currently selected planet in the middle of the screen. I'm
tired of having to page up and down through the thing!) The fleet
screen uses way too much space for each ship for the small amount of
information it conveys. (the whole fleet screen should be replaced with
a graphical display with fleet composition and e.t.a.'s. Who can
remember where those planet names are?) The map portion of the screen
should display fleet information so that we don't have to click on the
fleets all of the time. There is a problem with mouse resolution so
that you may have to try three times to give a fleet a movement command
because it keeps selecting another fleet when you try to click on the
destination planet.
5) Add funny race things and GNN stories. For example if you were
playing the Alkaris, an ambassador could call you in to explain that
they decided to invade and kill everyone on one of your colonies because
hats with Alkari feathers have become high fashion in their empire. Or,
some one's love/hate bar could go up 20 points when they discover a picture
in one of their holy books that looks just like you!
6) You could add a whole new area to the game such as the ground
exploration of artifact planets. The artifact planet would have several
techs that could be found, less if pre-owned by CP's. There could be
some kind of megaweapon that must be assembled from pieces distributed
on every artifact planet in the game. This new weapon should be a
stack-killer to compliment the death ray. Or, there could be unmovable
artifacts with special properties. (This works the same way as John S.
Novak's wonders suggestion.) These special properties could include:
something that makes you more likeable; something inexhaustable that
other races will buy, thereby increasing trade income; something that
makes other races less likely to declare war; something that helps with
spying; a corbomite device (just kidding 8^)
CHARLES P. GREIG
like to see 2 ideas from that old game implemented.
1) Psychological weapons (and the accompanying enslaved populations, etc.)
2) Carriers
--
"No colours any more, I want them to turn ASCII." - Mick Jagger?!
Held Prisoner in: York U. Computer Sci. Dept.
EMail - cs93...@ariel.cs.yorku.ca
Robert Thomas
I'm sure this is NOT in the works but....
How about 3D combat in some form. Right now combat is the most boring aspect
of the game. I don't want ANY arcade type of garbage but it would be nice
if combat were taken to a higher level.
also
Rather then being able to populate a planet as quick as MOO allows, you should
be able to conquer planets and use the work force on them. This will add
a whole new aspect to the game as well but a planet with all the people on it
should be better then a planet with just the factories.
RT
Keith Meng-Wei Loh
at the battle because it's so boring. After forty or so battles, it becomes
rather routine when you are just brushing aside the pitiful attacks of
the weaker enemies. Have an option of Tactical View Battle (yes/no) and
if NO, then just the result of the battle.
In advanced tech, have armed transports that might take out at least
some of the defensive ships or bases before they are wiped out.
Like in another game, REACH FOR THE STARS, have the galaxy move. This
would change the transport part of the game more.
Another random event could be the arrival of an insidious race that just
attacks everyone and cannot be negotiated with.
Among the planet defences, make beam weapons. It'll give some variety
to the space battles when it comes to just pounding the planet. It
would also make sense, seeing as in the present game it seems stupid
that you can develop major beam weapons for your ships like the Death
Ray and not be able to base them on your planets too.
In advanced flight tech, make it possible to intercept ships en route.
This would be a major bonus once you get up there in tech.
Please don't attempt to make the land battles more tactical. It would
needlessly complicate a nice, simple game. However, you might give
the option to retreat back into space if you're losing a battle.
--
############################################################################
Keith Loh / l...@helix.net / Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada / frequenter
of rec.arts.movies, alt.cult-movies / MUD developer / unemployed otherwise /
John Amenta
1. Keep ground combat simple as is. The game is Strategic, not Tactical.
However, you might add some additional technology developments for
Ground troops, and add the animation to show the new techs - e.g.
flying tanks. Also, terrain conditions of planet could be added.
2. Multiple planets in a single star system. Asteroid belts. Outposts.
3. Biggest problem in game for me was AI. Once I could beat the game,
came up with a system, I lost all interest. Putting it higher levels
just showed the computer not playing by the same rules I was, so it
just wasn't fair - the computer cheated.
By improving AI you are improving the heart of the game, and also its
overall staying power in the game market. I think the computer gaming
industry has yet to see a game that really has achieved superb results
in AI, (except perhaps for Chess), but whoever decides to spend the
resources (is wise enough to do so) will have a computer game that will
last as long as Monopoly did and does today.
Improve the AI. Work on guerilla type tactics by the computer
opponents. Often when I was stronger, I was not attacked serioously by
a computer opponent. The game should allow conflict to occur and some
attrition to take place even if one race is superior in technology to
another. It should allow even a weaker race to seriously threaten
a stronger race - at least on the outer fringes. That is, war with
any race will have a cost regardless of technology differences (unless
it really is just too big). This will allow for more Strategy to occur
then simply out-teching all your opponents.
Create different plans a computer opponent can select for
attack/defense. Build code that detects conditions which allow for
these various plans to take place. Expand the options a computer
opponent can have during a game, that is EXPAND the number of plans
available to an opponent. A computer opponent should be able to
recognize a variety of strategies being used against it, and be
able to react to these plans appropriately.
Finally, through the use of C++ (I use it myself), you can polymorphize
Search, and low a limited Search capacity in certain strategic areas
of the game.
4. Give the game graphics an upgrade, in regards to looking at the Galaxy
itself. I got tired after awhile of just looking at colored spots on
my screen. A bigger galactic umph seemed necessary.
2 cents
John
Rey Kanzaki
about the actual look of the ship. I like most of the ship designs in MOO,
but sometimes I just want to add my own personal touch. I know it's
nitpicking, but we are talking deluxe.
--
Rey Kanzaki : "Megami ga matteiru nara tengoku
rkan...@netcom.com : datte nobotte miseru sa"
:
Tim Chown
>i really enjoyed MOO, but i didn't find it as enjoyable from the long term
>prospect as it seems some of the readers of this group do. so any method of
>of changing the possible gameplay (beyond just hard, harder, and suicidal) would
>be great.
I think one of Moo's few downsides is the winning condition. It would be
more interesting if there were other ways to "win" than either eradicating
everyone else or winning a council vote. Perhaps a list of victory points
could be devised, and these would be different for each race (thus making
playing each race more diverse in strategy).
I'd like to see population split from troops, which would make trained
troops much more valuable and ground assaults more critical. Some sort
of ground assualt graphics more like the space combat would be fun, but not
essential.
Maybe allow more designs to be active at once (the number of active designs
in a way is a kind of difficulty level).
Moo's diplomacy element is nice, so some more options on that front would
be excellent.
Tim
no one of consequence
you pay for, not just in five point increments.. i.e., having shield
strength increase by 1 when you spend enough BC.
Have a set minimum # of bases to be built before going for planetary
shields. Between 1 and 10 bases or so..
--
|Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus) wol...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu|
|Member Lovely Angels Fan Club/Fire Support Team/Cleanup Crew |
|"Never pilot a mass produced Mobile Suit design"- Anaheim Custom MS's |
|Wittier remarks always come to mind just after sending your article....|
Bill Hyman
to Named Pipes or IPX. Winsock is fast becoming a good solid
standard in the Windows world and would invite a huge new
audience of players that don't have to be on the same LAN to
play against each other. Please, please, please, Winsock is
the way to go!!!!!!
Bill Hyman
bhy...@develop.bsis.com
Tomi Haarala
>** Idea #1 :
>
>I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la death
>stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in the
>middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to move
>at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving planet'
>with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and guns.
>Maybe even a stargate :^)
>
>THIS WOULD BE COOL !
Vote to this!!
>** Idea #2 :
>
>The ability to intercept ships in mid flight between plantets. (Once you have
>hyperspace communications)
and this!!
Tommy
Helmut F. Wirth
I have written this down as I had the ideas. Some of this ideas were
mentioned here before, but I am not following this thread too close.
Please excuse me saying things others have mentioned before.
Ship design:
+More than 6 current designs possible (8 to 10 current designs)
+Allow REDESIGN of some parts of a ship (Weapons, Special devices), but
for a price (Energy problems, higher costs, etc.) There should be some
cases where changed ships are better than a new design. This should
also use up one of the current design slots, so I can have older ships
and newer ships of the same type.
+Allow more than 3 special devices for large and huge ships, (up to
4 for large, up to 6 for huge), but limit this possibility via weight/space.
+Make the smallest class incapable of interstellar flight. It should be
local. At a higher technology class huge ships with a special device
can serve as carrier. (Each special device can carry N small ships).
This would prevent silly high numbers of tiny ships.
+Allow "space fortresses", i.e. huge ships without interstellar drives
serving as pure defense stations. The saved space/weight should be allowed
to go to shields/weapons. One example for this could be the Guardian.
Galaxy sizes:
+I would apprectiate a "super huge" galaxy (say 200-300 systems).
+More than 5 races at one time. I do not need more races total.
+More than one usable planet per solar system. This makes "super huge"
galaxy possible without more solar systems. (Say SOL1, SOL2 and SOL3,
one is EARTH, two of them are HOSTILE).
+The first interstellar drive could be "NUCLEAR", with the drive at the
beginning (THRUST, I think) no interstellar travels are possible. If I
have more than one planet (see above), this would lead to a smooth start.
Misc (see also diplomatic options):
+Allow to give up a planet saving all people living there. I think of this
as diplomatic option. The player is able to give up a planet and to
save/destroy all factories. The people must be transported to another
planets which have enough space to save them.
+Allow to share a planet with another race under certain conditions.
+A planet under attack should not necessarily be destroyed in order to
win it. I think it is rather cruel to eradicate a complete alien planet
with all people living there. This should be possible as it is possible
now, but it should have a GREATER DIPLOMATIC IMPACT than using biological
weapons. An alternative is to force the people to leave their colony when
the planet is lost. An even more sophisticated solution could be: I won
the planet with say 80 million aliens. Now I have it, and my people are
living there too. I can now negiotate the return of the alien POW's to
their planets.
+It should not be possible to transport an unlimited number of people
without cost.
Diplomacy:
+New option: Tell or force another race to STOP their war with a third
race. For example, if I am human, I want to be able to say: X stop fighting
against Y or you will have war with us.
+Ending senseless wars with the computer opponent, option to give up a fight
for a price. (See above, giving planets away).
+Allow the computer opponent to give up.
+Make the first council happen at a later point in the game. Now it is, when
2/3 of the galaxy are colonized, I think it should not happen before 4/5th
of the galaxy is colonized.
+If I lose the election against the computer opponents, it means final war.
If the computer opponent is without chance he should give up, and try to
restart negiotations.
+Allow one race to help another race in their fight, in a way to merge
DEFENDING fleets. So if I have an alliance with race X, I am able to station
fleets in the orbit of their planets and defend them. This works with the
current MOO, but not always. This should have a great diplomatic impact and
it should be an option in diplomatic negiotations.
+Allow relief and support options (i.e. if they had some catastrophic event,
I can give support). Should have major diplomatic impact.
--
Helmut F. Wirth | Opinions expressed above
E-mail: wi...@zerberus.gud.siemens.co.at | are my own. I do not speak
Tel. : +43-1-60171-5204 | for my employer.
FAX : +43-1-60171-5202 |
Chris Brinton
2) CD - with lots of cool graphics and sound (duh!)
3) Lots of new races, but keep the current ones too (maybe with some modification,
though)
4) Better diplomacy. This has been mentioned before, but I think its important. Give
the players (computer or human) all of the same diplomacy options, and more of them!
---
Chris Brinton "So, how long have you been a robber?"
bri...@pwcm.com "4 foot 2"
Joseph Michael Wolf
EMeyer <ea...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
> I also agree with the suggestions to increase the number of ship
>classes, the number of ship sizes, and the ability to design custom
>races. Especially if you included the ability to design the banner for
>your race.
I have read postings by several who suggest increasing the number
of ship classes allowed and increasing the number of specials alloted to
each ship. I think this is a bad idea. First, I have never had a need
for more than six ships. The technology in the old ones gets outdated
fast enough that at least one ship class can be decommisioned. Second,
I have found that having only 3 specials has been a problem, but it
adds to the level of strategy. For example: Should I include the Zyro
shield or the Advanced damage control. Adding more specials would
eliminate the need to make these choices.
--
______________________________________________________________
Joe Wolf | "It's a feature, not a bug"
jm...@virginia.edu | --Ada Lovelace (probably)
University of Virginia |
an agent in and out of love
The important point to keep in mind is that MOO is a STRATEGIC game.
So any improvements in tactics are nice but not important.
My idea for
a strategic improvement would be a more detailed system of detecting enemy
ships/troops. The farther out enemy fleets are the less you should be
able to see details of the fleet. E.g. at first you could see that there
is a fleet "consisting of large and medium ships" is advancing, later you
discover that "there are 1 large and 12 medium ships" and finally the
individual ship types. Similar ideas apply to pop. and #bases of enemy
planets. Maybe one should go so far as to add "stealth" technologies to
the game...
Another minor point I'd like to see added to the fleet specs menu is the
number of ships built per type (yes, I'm the statistics type...)
-Stephan
John Fraser Chappel
like to see more detailed space and ground combat too, but whatever you do, make
sure the player can select the level of detail desired.
I'd like to see planetary defense systems expanded. Instead of building generic
bases and shields, how about having a list of systems (depending on tech) that
I can add to a planet.
This idea can also be used for non-defense systems. Perhaps every planet
is capable of building small ships, but I need an appropriate starport
to build larger ships.
Other planetary system ideas:
Factories
Deep space scanners
Hyper space communicators
Fortifications for ground combat
Spaceports
Anti-ship weapons
Shields
Research centers
Spy training centers
Ground troop training centers
Stan Ragan
wi...@zerberus.gud.siemens.co.at (Helmut F. Wirth) writes:
> Ideas for MOO DeLuxe:
>
[snip]
> +Allow "space fortresses", i.e. huge ships without interstellar drives
> serving as pure defense stations. The saved space/weight should be allowed
> to go to shields/weapons. One example for this could be the Guardian.
>
DITTO to this !
-Stan-
Stan Ragan
writes:
> One of the problems I've experienced is that the game becomes tedious
> as it goes on. A couple of things to look at:
>
> 1) Someone mentioned it already, but a global menu to set planets
> spending.
Ditto to this, after one gets like 20 planets or so it gets tedious tweeking
each one to do what you want. It would be great to be able to adjust my
spending ratios for each planet on one screen (the planet menu). Depending on
the planet you have selected, you could have ratio bars for spending control.
-Stan-
Stan Ragan
University of Alabama Health Services Foundation
INTERNET : sra...@hsf.uab.edu
------------------------------------------------
Michael Mondy
>We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
>(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
>you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
>as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
>ill see them.
>
>repeat those...
>
>jim
As of this posting, there are at least 63 posts in this thread as of
14:30 CST on tue 8/16. A lot of good ideas. A lot of bad ideas.
A lot of conflicting idea. Enough material to make make multiple
different games.
Jim, I hope that somebody at SimTex is collecting all of these
posts. I imagine that somebody has to prepare a summary -- a list of
various posslble changes. I'd think you'd want such a list for your
decision making discussions. How 'bout collecting all of the suggestions
into a single halfway organized list and posting the list back. I think
that effort would be a nice gesture and good re-payment for the group's
efforts.
--
Mike Mondy
John Amenta
I second the above. It looks like you guys have an excellent resource
here on the net, of gamers who have play tested your first version!
You might even have a resource of future gametesters.
John
Kenneth Chan
|> In article <32l56f$b...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU (Ortwin) writes:
|>
|> >We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
|> >(month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
|> >you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
|> >as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
|> >ill see them.
|>
|> >oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
|> >repeat those...
|>
|> >thanks...
|> >jim
|>
No, not a CD game again, please. I'm getting a bit pissed off that many of my
favourite games are now in CD format only. There's still a lot of people
around with no CD-ROM.
--
Kenneth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth Chan, Trinity College ! YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE
E-mail address : whk...@phx.cam.ac.uk !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMeyer
wrote:
> I remember that back when I had time to play MoO regularly, I had a
> bunch of ideas for improving it. If I remember them, I'll post.
Okay, so I'm following up my own post. Here are the things I was able
to think of last night but haven't seen here (at least not quite the way
I'm thinking):
* A 3D galaxy--in other words, the strategic map would be a rotatable
cluster of stars. I think that 3D tactical is a little too much for MoO,
but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
* Black holes--basically, another star type, but one which obviously has
no planets. They would be no more than navigational waypoints, really,
although they could carry the risk of the destruction of ships which stop
there. (Just an idea--perhaps not too useful.)
* Wormholes--natural Stargates. Control of these in the early game could
be crucial. They should be discovered when a system is explored, at the
same time the planets are revealed.
* Planet busters--this would speed up final war, I think.
* Nova generators--which would have REALLY negative diplomatic
consequences. Seem awfully powerful, though. May be too unbalancing.
* Ring cities--a large ring encircling a planet, linked to the surface by
orbital towers. Found at high Construction levels, this would add a large
number of POP and a number of IND without changing the environment. Could
then allow the "Ring city falls" random event which would kill a lot of
people and cause widespread destruction. Ring cities might be targets in
combat, and if hit hard enough which might fall.
* Shipyards--required to build interstellar ships. The home planet could
start with one, so you can get going immediately (and explain the presence
of the "freebie" ships).
Oh, and I'll agree fully that there should be a lot more diplomatic
options. Surrender, demands for surrender, etc. I like the diplomacy a
lot and any improvements to that system can only benefit the game.
-EMeyer
Unstable condition--a symptom of life |Eric A. Meyer (ea...@po.cwru.edu)
In mental and environmental change |Library Information Technologies
Atmospheric disturbance--the feverish flux| Software Support Technician
Of human interface and interchange- (N.P.)|"What do you think, sirs?" -Joel
Timothy Jehl~
Stupid Feature List (tm)
1) Fast Moo: limit amount of time that can be spent on a given turn based on
a real time clock.
2) Multi Moo: I know you know, but it just doesn't hurt to say it one more time.
3) Programmed planet development: screwy thought about the ability to program
a planet to handle itself based on players desires. This might allow, for
instance, that a planet automatically rebuilds factories or bases when
sabotage occurs.
4) Ability to type in numbers if preferred over slider settings.
5) Varied victory conditions: something to rid the game of the conquer everyone
or die mentality. For instance: I'll vote for you in council if you make me
the Viceroy of Quadrant 3.
6) More varied communication interface between player and computer players.
For instance, a computer player can demand specific technology when you
ask for peace, but the human player does not have similar capabilities.
Similarly, the computer player can declare war without attacking, while the
human player can't.
--
John Novak
>* A 3D galaxy--in other words, the strategic map would be a rotatable
>cluster of stars. I think that 3D tactical is a little too much for MoO,
>but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
Now _this_ is a class one idea. If Star Controller I could
manage this in their campaign game so many years ago, surely it
can be done now. This, combined with multiple planets per star
system and a spectrum of ground troops of varying efficiency and
cost to maintain should put a significant spin on the strategies of
the game.
Oh, yes, BTW-- Standing troops should cost to be maintained, as
well as developed, just like ships. More deadly troops should
cost more to maintain, and most assuredly should take longer to
develop and train.
--
John S. Novak, III Minions wanted
j...@cegt201.bradley.edu See .plan for details
Michael Wiik
> 3. Add more races, but not races that are like so and so
> but slightly more blank. ORIGINALLY different races.
> I know, harder than it sounds isn't it?
I think the key to having new and originally different races would be
to incorporate an empire's internal politics. For example, every planet
would have some group of dissidents who are continually trying to incite
planetary rebellion. Adding a "Quality of Life" bar similar to SimEarth's
"Arts/Media" would allow spending to increase population loyalty and
thus lower the chance of rebellion. Excessive internal security spending
might make you safe against other race's spies but might also increase
resentment of the populace and lower productivity. Adding such elements
would allow for more differentation among new races.
>
> 9. Don't fall prey to these people on the net who want
> EVERYTHING in this game. That would ruin it. I will
> settle for a significantly improved version of the
> original with a few completely new things. I would
> hate something that was called MOO Deluxe and didn't
> look a bit like the original
I agree totally!!!
> Chris
-Mike
>--
>___ _________________________________
>\ \/ __ _________________________/ ".. and the Fox 15 went down
> \ / / / Chris C. Jones in flames!"
> \__/ /__/ jo...@vision.mse.vt.edu
>
--
| o==== . : ... : : . |Mail Me Neat $tuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203
--@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : | mw...@netcom.com
| ... : : |-----------------------------------------------
mEssAGE fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs | Plot Globally Attack Locally
Michael Wiik
>Well, here's some of my suggestions:
>1) Not CD-ROM only (only logical, of course for a wider base of players)
>6) Some random luck discoveries (look at how many discoveries we've had
>thru serendipity! :) And, some fake discoveries (a la cold fusion du pons
>et fleischman) that set you back
This is neat - one could steal a page from _A Fire Upon the Deep_, having
artifact planets contain ages old databases which could be explored at
various risk levels. Really nasty stuff would be viruses that set you
back technologically, or kill your population, or somehow cause massive
damage to a planet.
>9) I like the idea of being able to intercept incoming enemies once tech
>is high enough. What about feints? Like if they have exclusively cloaked
>ships, they won't show up until they're close enough. Or it only looks
>like 1 scout...
Interception in space would likely be much more difficult. Presumably
a fleet earmarked to attack one of your planets would retreat
immediately. But some method needs to be found to better protect
planets in the late stages of the game.
-Mike
>My 2BC's worth :)
>Jason
>--
>I never saw a Purple Cow Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" --
>I never hope to see one; I'm sorry now, I Wrote it!
>I could tell you, anyhow, But I can Tell you, Anyhow,
>I'd rather see than be one! I'll kill you if you Quote it!
Will Dieterich
I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la death
>stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in the
>middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to move
>at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving planet'
>with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and guns.
>Maybe even a stargate :^)
Instead of moving around, I would like to have something like this that
cannot move, but is stationary around a planet.
Position it next to the planet, but facing the enemy. It would have its
own set of weapon, and basicly be a last defense before the planet. Some
of things you could add to it would be 3 or 4 space repluser rays so you
can keep ships away from your planet, and itself.
As for the battle station, this could be easiy added by adding a new frame.
And a special item, to carry troops and fighters.
--
William Dieterich Call Sign: KD4LZE Email: wdie...@rainbow.rmii.com
"The Clinton people really think they know technology, and that's why
they're so dangerous" -- George Gilder, author of _Telecosm_.
Ritvaliisa Snellman
take >100 turns to finish, all planets in a solar system would be dissasembled
as building material. It would cost >20000 money units, but would give a pop
& ind maximum of 32000. Avaivable somewhere near tech level 125.
-Poke snellman
Keith Meng-Wei Loh
>2) Ground combat could be made a lot more interesting. e.g. take
> into account the planets topology/type. Maybe have a hex based
> battle a little like Battle Isle or Empire (the Unix version).
> Maybe make it optional for those who don't want to fiddle with
> the finer details.
The key word has to be "optional". I personally would dislike more
tactical development in either space or on land, especially on land.
I wouldn't want it to become MOO plus DUNE2. Land battles could become
tedious. What could be an easier compromise is to be able to place
different types of units into the assault mix like tanks, elite
soldiers, etc. and see how they do instead of the simple my generic
troops are better than your generic troops.
>4) More variation and possibilities in diplomacy. e.g. slave races.
Definitely. The diplomacy never worked really well in MOO. If it
could be expanded beyond the "I attack you, you don't like me"
simplicity, it could become a more rewarding game. Another possibility
is to have an optional storyline where there could be deeper
intrigue that would be tough to carry out otherwise.
>6) Open ended galaxies with a potentially limitless number of stars.
> Winning could be by reaching a certain number rather than a percent-
> age.
Some MOO games I wish would never end.
And the NUMBER ONE suggestion I haven't seen yet, MULTIPLAYER!!! Email/
PBM / Modem! MOO seemed to be a game made for it.
Chris Gannon
>more interesting if there were other ways to "win" than either eradicating
>everyone else or winning a council vote. Perhaps a list of victory points
>could be devised, and these would be different for each race (thus making
This would change the game WAY to much. Its one thing to change the
detail of battles, degree of diplomacy; even adding new races, but changing
that would change the whole focus of the game. The whole strategy is
using differnet measures to attain the same goal. If you're playing the
"We win by diplomacy" race, and the other guy is playing "we win by
killing you" race, how can anyone win? Teh otehr guy will only use
peace treaties/alliances to build up strength to eventually kill you,
and you can't really fight back or relations will drop. If teh
game you play is tailored around what race the human player chooses,
then you don't have "five different computer AI's" playing against you,
you have five players who are waiting to be killed, conquered, allyed, etc.
The only idea along this line that I might see is one step above alliance,
when you actually take over an empire. Perhaps this would allow you to
use their ships, but most likely would just involve have a bunch of
new planets. Maybe when you form this with another race (IE: when they
take over you) You might switch teams to play them, as "advisor" to
the empire. This way you don't have to lose as quickly; but it would have
a different ending to show you didn't really win.
CG
Michael Mondy
Keith Meng-Wei Loh <l...@vertigo.helix.net> wrote:
>[ deleted ]
>And the NUMBER ONE suggestion I haven't seen yet, MULTIPLAYER!!! Email/
>PBM / Modem! MOO seemed to be a game made for it.
>
Many have suggested multi-player, but you're the first I have seen to
suggest PBeM (play by e-mail). Not a good idea. I have played PBM
and PBeM, but I don't think MoO fits. MoO can easily take several
hundred turns to play and that's too many IMHO. I think most PBeM
games run a turn per week or maybe a turn per day for fast games. At that
rate MoO might take a couple of years to play...
Then again, well connected people sometimes play blitz games with an
hour or less between moves. (Any quicker and it's probably online
and not pbm.) Also, some people play open-ended PBM games... Still, I
think a good PBM (or PBeM) game needs to be _designed_ as a PBM game.
BTW, if you want a multi-player MoO, you might look into vga-planets.
(Check out the alt.games.vga-planets (sp?) newsgroup.) I found some
problems (inbalances) which I felt were fatal flaws, but the game
has changed a lot since I last played it.
--
Mike Mondy
Michael Mondy
I <m...@sugar.NeoSoft.COM> wrote:
>
>
>BTW, if you want a multi-player MoO, you might look into vga-planets.
Forgot to state that vga planets is a PBeM.
Robert Dejournett
Captured ships! Just think about it, you go into combat, and use a special
capture device /tractor beam or even the warp degenerator thingie (the one
that slows the ship down 0-1 space per hit). Then you could interogate the
crew, steal techs (or mabye add reseach points to your general pool?), etc.
The possibilities are endless.
Wouldn't want to be captured by the Darloks, though, imagion what the
interogation must be like :)
-Rob
Jeffrey Adam Johnson
In article <32l56f$b...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
JROS...@UTXSVS.UT.EDU (Ortwin) writes:
> We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
> (month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
> you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
> as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
> ill see them.
>
Jim, your e-mail address doesn't work for me. Shouldn't it be
UTEXAS.EDU instead of UT.EDU ?
Anyway, here are some suggestions and bug reports that I've e-mailed
to Microprose in the past. It took me some time to compile them, and
I've had them filed away for awhile, so I'd appreciate an e-mail
acknowledgement that you've actually read this message.
Thanks,
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
From: jeff (Jeffrey Adam Johnson)
Subject: Minor MoO suggestion
To: 76004...@compuserve.com (MICROPROSE)
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 94 12:40:41 CST
I have a suggestion for a seemingly easy enhancement to Master of
Orion. On the "Races" screen, it would be very helpful, if instead of
seeing:
No Treaty
Trade: 15 BC/Yr
if you could also display the CURRENT trade amount, such as:
No Treaty
Trade: -4/15 BC/Yr
In the above, the "-4" is the current trade amount, and the 15
is the maximum trade amount.
This way, you could tell which trade routes you need to leave alone
to mature, and which ones have reached maturity and need to be
renogiated upward. Yes, there's always the "Trade" amount on the
"Planets" screen, but it's a sum total of all the trade, and you can't
tell the status of each trade route from it.
Thanks,
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
Date: 16 Mar 94 16:29:05 EST
From: MicroProse Software <76004...@CompuServe.COM>
To: <je...@frodo.b30.ingr.com>
Subject: Minor MoO suggestion
Jeff,
Thanks for the suggestion. I will pass it along.
-Brian/MicroProse
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: jeff (Jeffrey Adam Johnson)
Subject: more suggestions for MOO
To: 76004...@compuserve.com (MicroProse), jeff (Jeffrey Adam Johnson),
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 14:57:41 CST
Here are some more suggestions for Masters of Orion (MOO). I'm using
version 1.3. Perhaps these ( and the suggestions and fixes to the bug
reports I've previously sent ) could be incorporated into a 1.4 patch ?
- In the "Races"/"Technology Tribute" and "Races"/"Exchange Technology"
screens, it gives you a list of technologies to offer the other
player, and the list of technologies he's offering you. However,
when presented with these choices, you have no idea which technologies
would benefit you (or your opponents), and which would not, unless you've
got all of your and the computer players' technologies listed on a
piece of paper (ug!).
It would be really helpful if instead of displaying the tech names in black,
if they could be displayed in different colors, indicating whether
or not you or the computer player would benefit from that technology
or not. Say something like:
When giving tech to a computer player, your tech appears:
White - If this would surpass the computer's current abilities
in that area ( e.g. giving "Terraforming +20"
when the computer only has "Terraforming +10" ).
Grey - If this would give some minor benefit to the computer
player, but not be on the cutting edge in that area
( e.g., giving "Neutron Pellet Gun" when the computer
already has "Neutron Blaster" ).
Black - If this would not benefit the computer player at all,
other than increasing that area's tech level by 1
( e.g., giving "Range 5" to a computer player that
already had "Range 6" ).
in that area.
Thus, you'd only want to give away or trade items colored "black" first,
then "grey" items, but only give way "white" colored items as a last
resort.
Symmetrically, when the computer was offering you items to choose from,
it would display items in the above colors based on how they would
benefit you.
- The above color scheme could be applied to the "Races"/"Report" screen.
Right now, the ones you don't have are displayed in white, and the
technologies you've also got are in brown. Perhaps the ones displayed
currently in white could be changed to the white/grey/black system above,
and the ones you've both got would still be brown.
- The "Races"/"Report" screen needs to have vertical scroll bars on the
computer player's tech advance areas. Right now, if the computer player
has many items, you can't see all of them.
ps. Let me know if you need beta-testers for MOO 1.4 ( or anything else ).
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
From: de...@cs.cmu.edu (David Pugh)
Subject: More 1.4 wishlists
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 17:12:13 GMT
In article <1994Mar28....@apgea.army.mil>,
William R. Sauerwald <wrsauerw> <wrsauerw> wrote:
>.... This had happened quite often upto this
>point, and the ships would flee after they relaized I had X planetary shields
>(STILL). But they wanted that one ship. I kept teleporting from one corner
>to the opposite (when I could clear tears of laughter from my eyes) while
>my missile bases took handfulls of ships out at a time. The CP kinda reminded
>me of a cat mesmerized by cat-nip on a string.
To be honest, this and a few changes to the interface are the things I'd
really like to see in 1.4. Multi-player/etc. would be nice but I have no
hope that uProse will actually make a change that complex. Things I'd like
to see:
Update computer A/I to retreat from unwinable situations
(e.g. the "kill the scout cause I can't nuke the planet"
and "I can't get past the repulsor rays but I'll keep trying").
Change the U/I to let you type numbers (for adjusting fleet size
of specifying # of weapons) instead of using the up/down arrows.
Fix the research "=" to not modify locked areas.
Fix ship building so that when you delete a ship type, all
planets building that type default to building the most
modern type.
Fix the -32K bug (I'm tempted to sneak into uProse at night and
do a global search and replace of "int" with "unsigned int" or
"long" :-)).
--
.. He was determined to discover the David Pugh
underlying logic behind the universe. ...!seismo!cmucs!dep
Which was going to be hard, because
there wasn't one. _Mort_, Terry Pratchett
================================================================
Date: 06 Apr 94 13:30:02 EDT
From: MicroProse Software <76004...@CompuServe.COM>
To: <je...@frodo.b30.ingr.com>
Subject: more MOO 1.4 suggestions (forwarded)
Hi David,
Thanks for your comments and suggestions regarding Master of Orion.
There are tentative plans to released a version 1.4 of Master of Orion in
the near future. I will pass your message along...
Best,
Brian/MicroProse
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From: ljo...@delphi.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: v1.4 suggestions
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 94 23:08:25 -0500
Can you tell me more about the "no events" setting? I don't think I have
it set (I still have computer viruses, axis tilts, ore depletions, etc...)
but I haven't seen any space monsters in the last couple of games.
I have a suggestion for the 1.4 fix:
Let the c key work when you are on the races screen (since that is the screen
you would change your security or spying settings on anyway).
Also, a real time saver would be a way to either change all of the
planets that are producing one kind of ship to another (every time I develop
a new ship I have to go to all of my colonies and change what they are
building). One way to make this easier would be to let you click on the
entry on the planets list for what is in the spacedock and have it cycle
through the ship types.
Oh, yea, one more:
When you develop something that reduces pollution and you say yes to
reduce all worlds environmental spending to the minimum, how about if the
computer doesn't touch worlds that have non-max terraforming or population?
That way when you are cloning replacement citizens after transporting them
elsewhere, developing new technology doesn't screw it up.
LIB
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From: jajo...@ingr.com (Jeffrey Adam Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: MOO v1.3 bugs
Date: 24 Feb 1994 18:01:51 GMT
Keywords: MOO, bug report
I've found three bugs while playing Masters of Orion, using the
1.3 patch. I'm posting them here, in addition to e-mailing them
to Microprose's Compu$erve address ( 76004,22...@compuserve.com ).
Kudos to them for being reachable through e-mail.
1. When you develop or exchange either the Improved or Advanced
Deep Space Scanner, it doesn't show you the details on any worlds
that are within your existing colonies' range. As soon as you
establish or take over another colony, then the scanner activates
and shows you all unexplored worlds within that new colony's
range only.
2. I spied on the Darlok's and noticed that they had a Planetology
technology called "Death Environ". What is that ? I developed
"Controlled Dead Environment", and it says "Controlled Dead Env."
on my TECH screen ( and on other race's spy screens ).
3. On the planet resource distribution gauge "widgets", when you
diminish any of the values, the gauge's value "bar line" displays
a few pixels too far to the left, so that it eats into the area
where the "<" symbol is.
It's still a *GREAT* game.
Thanks,
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
From: jajo...@ingr.com (Jeffrey Adam Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: MOO v1.3 bugs (CORRECTION TO Microprose e-mail addr)
Date: 24 Feb 1994 18:16:38 GMT
Keywords: MOO, bug report
In article <2kiq2f$b...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>,
jajo...@ingr.com (Jeffrey Adam Johnson) writes:
> I've found three bugs while playing Masters of Orion, using the
> 1.3 patch. I'm posting them here, in addition to e-mailing them
> to Microprose's Compu$erve address ( 76004,22...@compuserve.com ).
^^^
Of course, the comma should really be a period: 76004...@compuserve.com
This mistake must have been Darlok sabotage of my previous posting;
they shall pay dearly for their insolence !
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
Date: 28 Feb 94 08:40:52 EST
From: MicroProse Software <76004...@CompuServe.COM>
To: <jajo...@ingr.com>
Subject: Masters of Orion (v1.3) bugs
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for the compliments and report. I will pass your message along to QA.
Best,
Brian/MicroProse
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: MOO v1.3 bugs
From: yu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Aw Yang Uei)
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 18:32:19 GMT
Keywords: MOO, bug report
In article <2kiq2f$b...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>,
Jeffrey Adam Johnson <jajo...@ingr.com> wrote:
>
> I've found three bugs while playing Masters of Orion, using the
>1.3 patch. I'm posting them here, in addition to e-mailing them
>to Microprose's Compu$erve address ( 76004,22...@compuserve.com ).
>Kudos to them for being reachable through e-mail.
>
>1. When you develop or exchange either the Improved or Advanced
> Deep Space Scanner, it doesn't show you the details on any worlds
> that are within your existing colonies' range. As soon as you
> establish or take over another colony, then the scanner activates
> and shows you all unexplored worlds within that new colony's
> range only.
>
>2. I spied on the Darlok's and noticed that they had a Planetology
> technology called "Death Environ". What is that ? I developed
> "Controlled Dead Environment", and it says "Controlled Dead Env."
> on my TECH screen ( and on other race's spy screens ).
>
>3. On the planet resource distribution gauge "widgets", when you
> diminish any of the values, the gauge's value "bar line" displays
> a few pixels too far to the left, so that it eats into the area
> where the "<" symbol is.
One more,
4. I had one time that Plison offer me to give me some good reward
if I attack his enemy(can't remember who), and I did, and
he did give me the NFS but when I tried to design new ship and
wanted to put the NFS in, the tech is not there. So I end up
using exchange Tech. with Plison to get the NFS.
---
Aw Yang Uei | To carry on is a victory in itself.
email : yu...@descartes.waterloo.edu|
University of Waterloo, Canada. | -- Winston Churchill
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: MOO v1.3 bugs
From: du...@glue.umd.edu (Tung-Duong Tran-Luu)
Date: 1 Mar 1994 22:33:14 GMT
Aw Yang Uei (yu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
: In article <2kiq2f$b...@b30news.b30.ingr.com>,
: Jeffrey Adam Johnson <jajo...@ingr.com> wrote:
: >
: > I've found three bugs while playing Masters of Orion, using the
: >1.3 patch. I'm posting them here, in addition to e-mailing them
: >to Microprose's Compu$erve address ( 76004,22...@compuserve.com ).
: >Kudos to them for being reachable through e-mail.
: >
: >1. When you develop or exchange either the Improved or Advanced
: > Deep Space Scanner, it doesn't show you the details on any worlds
: > that are within your existing colonies' range. As soon as you
: > establish or take over another colony, then the scanner activates
: > and shows you all unexplored worlds within that new colony's
: > range only.
: >
: >2. I spied on the Darlok's and noticed that they had a Planetology
: > technology called "Death Environ". What is that ? I developed
: > "Controlled Dead Environment", and it says "Controlled Dead Env."
: > on my TECH screen ( and on other race's spy screens ).
: >
: >3. On the planet resource distribution gauge "widgets", when you
: > diminish any of the values, the gauge's value "bar line" displays
: > a few pixels too far to the left, so that it eats into the area
: > where the "<" symbol is.
: One more,
: 4. I had one time that Plison offer me to give me some good reward
: if I attack his enemy(can't remember who), and I did, and
: he did give me the NFS but when I tried to design new ship and
: wanted to put the NFS in, the tech is not there. So I end up
: using exchange Tech. with Plison to get the NFS.
5. If your trade income exceeds 32000, it becomes negative! In my
case, it became like -31233 roughly, deducting most of my production BC.
6. Your ship cost maintenance can go negative too! I did not keep
track of the evolution, but my guess is that it exceeds the 32k
'limit'. Once this happens, in the planet screen, you can see the
percent load as '0.-490%'.
7. Minor bug: on a complete terraformed Orion (capacity 300), if the
population size reaches 300m, there is no message displayed for that.
I think it is displayed for all other planets with capacity less than
300.
8. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a feature, but if you play is
Silicoids, you cannot atmosphere terraform, nor fertilize (or
gaia-ize) your planets.
========================================================================
From: jajo...@ingr.com
Subject: More "Master of Orion" minor bugs
To: 76004...@compuserve.com (MICROPROSE)
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 94 11:20:46 CST
Reply-To: jajo...@ingr.com
A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail message containing a list of
some minor bugs I've found in Master of Orion, version 1.3.
Here are some more:
1. If a computer player is allied or at war with more than three
other players, then when you do a spy "Report" on that computer
player, only the first three allies or warring factions are listed.
I noticed this when I was playing a LARGE/5/HARD game as the
Psilons, and the Silicoids managed to get themselves in a war with
the Alkaris, Mershans, Bulrathis, and Meklars. Lucky me.
2. In the aforementioned game, the 4 computer enemies of the Silicoids
voted me into Emperorship. However, the date said,
"In the year 2399, ..."
I thought elections took place on years with 00,25,50,75. Note that
this was the second election; the first was 2379.
3. [ from USENET ] People on "comp.sys.imb.pc.games.strategic" have
been mentioning quite a bit about the computer having overflow
errors, where the computer will get 32,000 or large negative
numbers of ships, bases, or even trade BC's. They don't mention
if they're running version 1.3 or not.
[ from Aw Yang Uei (yu...@descartes.waterloo.edu), who sent this
to me via e-mail ]
4. I had one time that Plison offer me to give me some good reward
if I attack his enemy(can't remember who), and I did, and
he did give me the NFS but when I tried to design new ship and
wanted to put the NFS in, the tech is not there. So I end up
using exchange Tech. with Plison to get the NFS.
[ From: du...@glue.umd.edu (Tung-Duong Tran-Luu) ]
You may add the following:
5. If your trade income exceeds 32000, it becomes negative! In my
case, it became like -31233 roughly, deducting most of my production BC.
6. Your ship cost maintenance can go negative too! I did not keep
track of the evolution, but my guess is that it exceeds the 32k
'limit'. Once this happens, in the planet screen, you can see the
percent load as '0.-490%'.
7. Minor bug: on a complete terraformed Orion (capacity 300), if the
population size reaches 300m, there is no message displayed for that.
I think it is displayed for all other planets with capacity less than
300.
8. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a feature, but if you play is
Silicoids, you cannot atmosphere terraform, nor fertilize (or
gaia-ize) your planets.
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Here are a few suggestions ( some of them have been echoed on the
USENET newsgroup "comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic" ):
1. On the "map" screen, it would be really great if there was some
type of distinction between planets that:
Were currently within range of your ships
Were currently within range of your ships with reserve fuel tanks
Were out of range
2. The way computer players vote might want to be re-examined. In
the game mentioned above, in the year 2399 council vote, there
were 39 votes total. The vote was between the Silicoid (15 votes)
and me (Psilons, 13 votes). As I said, the other 4 computer players
(11 votes among them) were at war with the Silicoid, and so they
all voted for me, which installed me as emperor.
How about a new algorithm, where computer players, if they're at
war with another player, will only vote against their antagonist
to the point that the antagonist will be made unable to gain the
emperorship. In the above example, then none of the computer
players would have voted for me, since the Silicoid alone didn'
have 2/3 of the votes ( assuming I as the Psilons wouldn't vote
for them ).
3. Anytime there's a peace, alliance, or war declared between the
computer players, then it would be nice if the GNN newsbot would
inform the human player.
Thanks, and keep up the great work !
======================================================================
Jeffrey Adam Johnson Internet: jajo...@ingr.com
("I speak only for myself.")
======================================================================
Date: 14 Mar 94 17:42:53 EST
From: MicroProse Software <76004...@CompuServe.COM>
To: <jajo...@ingr.com>
Subject: MoO bug
Bill,
Thanks for the report, I will pass it along.
Best,
Brian/MicroProse
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From: Sullivan <sull...@jmbpo2.bah.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: ATerrible MOO v1.3 bug
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 12:44:26 PDT
In article <dliao.762032768@teal>, <dl...@teal.csn.org> writes:
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
> From: dl...@teal.csn.org (Daniel Liao)
> Subject: Re: ATerrible MOO v1.3 bug
> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 19:46:08 GMT
>
> rl...@ecst.csuchico.edu ((^_-) (^_^) (-_^)) writes:
>
> > I was playing a Hard/4/Large as Humans last night. It was a nice
> >game all the way long. Just after I destroyed the space crystal, I noticed
> >the main body of the Klackon fleet of 2 groups of 2000 smalls, plus 500
> >mediums and 4 colony ships were heading towards a Bulrathi planet.
> >The Bulrathi fleet includes 16 huges, around 100 mediums and 19 missile bases.
>
> > I was happy to see the cp trying to destroy one another with their
> >main fleets. After the Klackons destroyed the Bulrathi fleet together with
> >its colony, I clicked to check what remained. The smalls and mediums have
> >become negative numbers. The other turn when it was going back to its base,
> >I check it again, and, to my surprise, I found...
>
> > 2 groups of 32000 smalls, one group of 32000 mediums, and 4 colony
> >ships! The Klackons must know how to play with magic!!
>
> > This makes me mad, because several turns afterwards, the Klackons
> >sent their "newly-formed" 32000 mediums and destroyed two of my planets
>
> > Anyone of you MOO players have seen this before?
> > Ricky.
>
> I share same experience. I never understand how Burathi can create
> 32000 HUGE ship in 2 term!? That make me become totally defenless
:-
The 32000 bug is not just confined to v1.3. I have had it happen in
both of the previous versions.
Think about this. The 32000 fleets stay formed as the game goes on.
How can any empire pay the ship cost for this many huge ships?
I controlled 3/4 of the galaxy in one game and was only able to
maintain a few hundred huge class ships. (With improved robotic
controls V on every planet. And most of the planets at max development)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Doug Walker
allow 6 current designs just like now plus 6 obsolescent designs which
can no longer be built but which don't need to be scrapped.
I also like the idea of separating troops from the general population
and having various troop types with a more interesting ABSTRACT ground
combat system.
Michael Wiik
>In article <1994Aug16....@siemens.co.at>
>wi...@zerberus.gud.siemens.co.at (Helmut F. Wirth) writes:
>> Ideas for MOO DeLuxe:
>> +Allow "space fortresses", i.e. huge ships without interstellar drives
>> serving as pure defense stations. The saved space/weight should be allowed
>> to go to shields/weapons. One example for this could be the Guardian.
>>
>[snip]
>DITTO to this !
I used to like this idea but wouldn't want to use up a ship slot for
such a device and think that planetary missile bases already abstractly
cover other defenses that might be colorful but redundant.
One idea to make planets less vulnerable in the late game would be to
add some new techs: Plantary Fortifications could be a planetology tech
that gives extra defensive benefits to ground troops. Underground
factories (a construction tech) would allow moving factories underground
and reduce colateral damage to factories and population. Maybe a
Weather Control tech might further reduce damage by biological weapons.
-Mike
>-Stan-
James Gassaway
to another star, allow fleets to chase and intercept enemy fleets in
deep space. You would click on the enemy fleet the way you do on another
star. If you have Improved Scanner your fleet will follow a proper
"minimum time/distance" interception course, if not your ships just head
for the enemy fleet's current location each turn. Or maybe you can only
intercept if you have have Improved Space Scanner tech. There are too
many times when I want to hit that enemy fleet BEFORE it reaches my
worlds.
Dimensional Traveler
Multiversal Mercenaries. You name it, we kill it, any time, any reality.
Dana R. Aberle
: No, not a CD game again, please. I'm getting a bit pissed off that many of my
: around with no CD-ROM.
Why should they choose to limit the game options to what will fit on
disks. Let micropose decide the media, after all, They will know what
they need to use. If they choose cd, I guess you'll have to join the
nineties.
: --
: Kenneth.
Dana
Keith Meng-Wei Loh
than simply genociding it. By subjugating it, you could control that race
with all its abilities (until they revolt or IF they revolt) and its
resources.
James Gassaway
>No, not a CD game again, please. I'm getting a bit pissed off that many of my
>favourite games are now in CD format only. There's still a lot of people
>around with no CD-ROM.
>--
>Kenneth.
Agreed! I don't have and am not likely to soon (possibly ever) get a CD
drive. I am also getting upset over how companies seem to only put new
games out on CD now.
Gregory Bond
- Better AI! In particular, the AI seems loathe to expend ships when
it could (e.g.) flatten a planet at the cost of 10% of the fleet;
it usually runs away instead. Ruthlessness/determination could be
one of the race attributes. Perhaps you could give the computer
players perfect knowledge of the human player/s, which might make
them competitive with less of an overkill in production. The
production bonuses on the highest levels are obscene (i.e. they've
colonised 8 stars before I can build 1 colony ship, even devoting
100% to ship production!) and really detract from the enjoyment.
- In the ship design, have the ability to load up the plans of an
existing class for editing. (Extension: have a "plan library"
where you can keep several "options" before they are committed to
production.) I often find myself tinkering with dozens of
different designs as the tech balance changes...
- Better planetary governers: Being able to build bases before
shields. Don't spend money on ENV when the pop is MAX and polution
is 0. Being able to say things like "build another 10 missile
bases then ask for instructions", "always take the amount required
from planetary reserves to maximise production", "Ask me after
finishing the current ship". At the moment, a fair bit of
micro-managing is required (basically, check each planet each
turn), which gets tedious in the end game.
- Changing the ship being built half way through should be the
equivalent of scapping, not magically turning the half-built hulk
into something completely new.
- More ship designs will probably make the AI weaker. I _like_ the
limit of six active designs.
- Don't much care for bigger galaxies, more planets, more races, more
weapons. There's enough variety already.
- I personally don't much care for voice, animations etc in a
strategy game; but higher res on the map screens would be nice.
Unfortunately, the easiest way to "delux-ize" something is to add
all the fancy animations, voice, etc that take up heaps of disk,
look cute once, then get turned off. I'd much rather spend money
on an improved _game_, not an improved slide show.
Greg.
--
Gregory Bond <g...@bby.com.au> Burdett Buckeridge & Young Ltd Melbourne Australia
Atilla The Hun's Maxim: If you're going to rape, pillage and burn, be sure to
do things in that order. -- P. J. Plauger, Programming On Purpose, p147
C.M. Yearsley
: We, at SimTex, will be starting MOO Deluxe as soon as we get MOM done
: (month+), and we would like to hear some ideas from you as to what
: you'd like to see put in this time. It WILL be multiplayer, so dont
: as for it, its already in. Post your ideas here or email, either way
: ill see them.
: oh, i already read Wiiks and Dietricks posts. you guys dont need to
: repeat those...
This may be a wasted plea, bit I'd like a version of MOO v1 that I
can play. Take a saved game that's 1/2 way through the game. Load it,
and play. In 10-20 mins response degenerates to the point where
several seconds elapse after every mouse click before anything
happens (486DX33/4MB). Quit/continue helps - for a few minutes.
Once or twice quit/continue hung the game, so now every 15 mins, ie
each time it slows down to the point I can't really move the map anymore,
I quit completely and restart. I'm getting _really_ fed up with restarting
and doing the copy-protect again 4 times/hour; basically, I don't play
it any more for that reason.
Given the buggy condition of Moo, even in its latest patch, I can't afford
MoM or Moo2 until I've found someone else who has it, and I've really
played it myself and proved it to work.
I'm not too bothered about games that have bugs on release. We all know
it's unavoidable. What worries me is the tendency to not bother fixing
them properly....
Chris (who owns a shelf-full of boxes that say 'Microprose', welcomes
your work under that label, but is learning cynicism quickly!)
--
Chris Yearsley
c...@cs.keele.ac.uk
Jim L. Brown
instead of requiring a whole class to be scrapped.
an agent in and out of love
LAST in the council meetings. This gives the human (well I mean "human" not
- ah - "Human") player a tremendous advantage regarding diplomatic relations.
I usually vote for my most dangerous rivals (as long as my vote doesn't push
them over the 2/3 limit) and am often able to keep splendid relations with
them. On the other hand the computer players always have to show their true
feelings towards the candidates. This could be remedied by randomly choosing
a order for voting (or conducting the vote secretly or changing the order
in a planned way for each meeting).
This would dramaticly change the diplomatic game (at least for me) so I'd like
to hear some comments on that. Actually I'm not sure I want to loose this nice
advantage - especially on "impossible" :-)
David Perrin
What needs to be improved
1) Multi Human Player...a must, it won't even be worth releasing MOOD
without it.
2) Icon Editor for Ships etc
3) Macro Management of Planets to stop "too many base syndrome"
4) More than one planet per system
5) Slight improvement of ship combat, say, more squares and being able to
seperate stacks. I reckon about a 50 by 50 grid should do.
6) More ship classes, Carriers and being able to refit old classes (perhaps a
limitation as to how many "Classes" of each ship there can be). If anyone
out there played the old boardgame Starfire/Empires I thought that the
upgrading rules worked fine.
7) Seperate Population from Soldiers, Soldiers should be of varying types say
Light/Heavy Infantry, Jump Troops (can land from normal ships), Armour,
Special Forces. Should be rated for ability (Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite).
8) Why not have limited tactics on the surface of the planet. Have the planet
cover a small area (a grid 3x3 for small up to 20x20 for huge) and fight the
ground war the same way you do the space war ie techs for movement, weapons
shields, armour etc.
9) Spies work OK as is but the above should guve more scope for extending the
sabotage side.
10) Lets have the humans beaten by REAL AI rather than cheating. The AI could
be written along the same lines as the "Carriers at War" battle card system.
Should be easy to code, three types of card, Race, Planet and Fleet each
having multiple derivatives. The AI for MOOD should not be anything like
as complex as CAW.
11) I would REALLY like to see interplanetary missiles and planet buster weapons
12) Mines would be good.
13) More disasters/benefits.
14) More races (not 100's but maybe three times the number. With all the changes
you should be able to make their abilities different enough).
15) Some way of developing "Stealth" ships which can't be seen by normal
scanners.
16) Please let us change the names of planets/ship classes after created. The
"Sunfire" (Good name, good name) might need to have its name changed to
something like "ObsoleteCrap" after a few more tech levels.
17) The cash side needs to change a bit. If we're going to have soldiers, build
stuff and research we should perhaps have to allocate money, manpower and
natural resources. For instance, soldiers would be a manpower cost, their
weapons would be money and resources. Spies would be money only. Reasearch
would be manpower and money.
18) How about a tech for fitting engines to planets. Wouldn't it be fun to
fly a moon?
19) If multi-human player you must have inter person communication but why
not put limits on it (for help in 3+ player games) you should have tech
levels for communications (quicker devivery and response time of messages)
and accuracy? randomly swapping a few letters round to confuse messages at
very low tech levels would be fun. Why not get it confused and send it to
the wrong person or get it jammed, or intercepted. Great, just like real
life and very easy to do.
20) At least 640x480 res
Other stuff that I don't feel strongly about...
a) Natural Stargates
b) Different names for planets by different races in multi player
c) Being able to co-exist peacefully in orbit without attacking at the option
of both players without a formal treaty
d) Beam Weapons for Bases
e) Orbital Bases (essentially ships with movement/manuaver of zero)
f) Being able to tow e) to different planets
g) Recovering crippled ships
h) Ships losing abilities as they take hits
i) Generally, fewer ships with more detail would be preferable to lots of
ships with little detail.
Hope this helps.....
Great game, good luck...
--
Kermit
......................................................................
: Any opinions expressed are those of my internet personality and not:
: those of any other personality for which I am undergoing treatment :
......................................................................
Nigel Tzeng
Geez...so get one. For the price of 2-3 games you can get an el-cheapo
CD-ROM drive...if nothing else it opens up the possibilities of getting
interesting non-game software like the interactive encyclopedias and stuff.
Nigel
SPA...@physics.umr.edu
- From the desk of "jlb...@hsv23.pcmail.ingr.com" (Jim L. Brown):
>Another minor improvement would be to allow scrapping individual ships
>instead of requiring a whole class to be scrapped.
You can scrap individual ships now... Go to the fleet screen. Click on
the scrap button. It should then ask you to point to the victim.
_____________________________________________________________________
Richard Sparrow
SPA...@physics.umr.edu
PGP Public key available anonymously at olson01.physics.umr.edu
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Robert C. Merritt <rcmerrit>
>>
>> Lastly, I think it would be nice if you could establish covert
>> military bases in asteroid fields of nebulae or something. Basically,
>> a hidden jumping off point for ships.
>>
>> Michael Tiller
>> University of Illinois
>> (til...@solace.me.uiuc.edu)
>
>** Idea #1 :
>
>I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la death
>stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in the
>middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to move
>at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving planet'
>with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and guns.
>Maybe even a stargate :^)
>
>
This would be cool ONLY if you have it! Otherwise.......
Robert Merritt
-* Disclaimer: Opinions posted here are mine and not of my employer
-*"There is always death and taxes. However death doesn't get worse every year"
Chris Gannon
>* A 3D galaxy--in other words, the strategic map would be a rotatable
>cluster of stars. I think that 3D tactical is a little too much for MoO,
>but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
Even though it woudld be in three-D, the way MOO currently operates in
cship combat, it would be basically the same thing. Get Close, Fire, Back
Away. The only way three combat would be cool is if ships had vullnerable
sides than other ones. Then the combat would have more intellect, like
"Oh damn, that huge enemmy ship has a black hole generatorr mounted on
the left, better move my 30000 ship swarm away, and have my fleet
surround hum from the other sides and kill him first.
>* Nova generators--which would have REALLY negative diplomatic
>consequences. Seem awfully powerful, though. May be too unbalancing.
Not really, as long as the nova generator could be stopped by research.
OIt would be more of a stategic than a "KILL THEM" weapon, Say you want
a planet to stop building those pesky missle bases;; sabotage their sun
and make them shift to research to stop the nova.
Ahh, I have an original idea!
Have spies be able to sabotage or give false information. IE: The news
robot comes up, announeces a nova at the planet. You set your research
on high, and about halfway though, the news droid says "It was all a hoax,
the reserch points are lost." Spies could give false information, IE:
the player sees a huge fleet of warships approaching, that turns out to
be just a scout :)
CG
Chris Gannon
>>No, not a CD game again, please. I'm getting a bit pissed off that many of my
>>favourite games are now in CD format only. There's still a lot of people
>>around with no CD-ROM.
>
>>--
>>Kenneth.
>
>Agreed! I don't have and am not likely to soon (possibly ever) get a CD
>drive. I am also getting upset over how companies seem to only put new
>games out on CD now.
I agree with you about the "only" part. The only thing that would be
interesting on CD would be more graphics scenes and have the races actually
talk to you. (NOT a damn live movie thing, just teh way they have it now
with a voiceover). That type of stuff can be taken out for a disk
version that doesn't include the glitz.
And for the record; 99% of the new games that come out of CD-only now,
pretty much suck. :)
CG
Stan Ragan
> In article <1994Aug15.1...@cis.uab.edu> sra...@hsf.uab.edu (Stan
Ragan) writes:
[snip]
> >** Idea #1 :
> >
> >I think it would be neat to be able to have MASSIVE battle stations (a la
death
> >stars) that you could float out in space and use as a jumping off point in
the
> >middle of enemy territory. They might cost 20,000 BC, and only be able to
move
> >at one parsec per turn, but it would be cool to have your own 'moving
planet'
> >with fighter bays & shock troops, bristling with long range missles and
guns.
> >Maybe even a stargate :^)
> >
> >THIS WOULD BE COOL !
> >
>
>
> This would be cool ONLY if you have it! Otherwise.......
> Robert Merritt
But imagine the panic you go through when an enemy race/player floats one of
these MONSTERS toward your home world! It slowly creeps closer, chock full of
phasers & bombs, ringed about with dreadnoughts (where's Luke when you need
him), and your scraping up every BC in the galaxy to build enough ships to stop
it!
Of course :^) ... imagine the look on the other guys face. =8^O
-Stan-
Stan Ragan
University of Alabama Health Services Foundation
INTERNET : sra...@hsf.uab.edu
------------------------------------------------
Kevin Vigor
: : No, not a CD game again, please. I'm getting a bit pissed off that many of my
Well, it's certainly Microprose's (or Simtex) choice. However, they
should consider that there are ~100 million PCs in the world. Something
like 15 million CD-ROM players have been sold (and I have seen estimates
that as much as 50% of these are sitting on shelves due to the
difficulty of installing them; that lovely AT bus and SCSI are just not
friends). Therefore, by releasing a CD only game, they would be throwing
away 85% of their market. Hardly wise.
While CD is a valid media, I really think it's being over-used at
the moment, for two reasons: first, the current wave of "multi-media"
hype; and second, it's cheaper to distribute a product on CD than on
diskette. I really don't see what massive animations or sound would add
to MOO, and I'm prepared to pay a few bucks more for diskette since I
understand the costs.
Thus, I don't think MOOD is a product that should require the
special features of CD, nor do I think it would be a good marketing move
to release it solely on this media.
--
Kevin
Quoc T. Nguyen
unlimited range to travel in Impossible/5/Huge (1.3 Patch).
Here is maybe a bug. All my planets ceased to manufacture any more ship
But occasionally, there are ships built for the turn! It happened twice so far.
I checked the ship that was built and looked into the planet (mine) and it siad
zero resource in ship-manufacture. I want to know why!
-Mike Hwee-
Terry Egan
--
My .02BC...
Allow 'stations' to be built, especially in systems that have
no planets. They could use asteroids for building material, or import
material from one of your planets. These stations could armed as well or
better than missle bases. Make them capable of having unlimited numbers of specials, weapons, populations, etc. This is sort of like the old L5 idea.
Allow them to be built in star systems with useable planets too. You
could have several of them in a system, creating a 'system-wide defense
system'. Also, they could be built in systems that have planets that
you cannot ( at present ) use. Say you have one of these babies in a system
with a radiated planet, but you don't have radiated planetology tech yet.
You develop the required tech, and presto!, you can populate that planet
from your station.
I like the idea of multiple planets per star system too.
A new technology, based on stargate tech: you can 'beam' material
into or out of a nearby star. Decent for solving that pesky 'mineral-poor
planent' problem, as well as garbage disposal. Might be good for getting rid
of that darned spacegoing vermin problem, too!
Speaking of vermin, add some more ( a la 'Alien' ).
I would like to be able to demand surrender of the CP's.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Just say NO to the Government's 'Wiretap' chip !
...can't blame me, I vote Libertarian...
I will boycott any company advertising on usenet.
Michael Mondy
Better info on the planets screen:
It should be possible to toggle most of the fields in the planets
screen between display of a number and display of a percentage. For
instance, it would be nice to see which planets were 100% full of pops
or factories and which were at only 30%.
More info on the planets screen:
Remove one line of the planets screen and replace it with a condensed
snapshot of extra info for the currently selected planet.
Production ratios should be displayed. Number or tonnage of ships
in orbit. Presence of a newly constructed ships and/or presence of
ships without orders. (Might exclude ships that have gone a long time
with orders on the grounds that the player wants the ship to stay there.)
Instead of stealing a line, perhaps we could toggle the lower box
between global stats and the stats for the currently selected planet.
Alternatively, let us select which of several stats are displayed in
the 'ship construction' field.
More info on the planets screen:
It would be nice to see which planets had foreign ships in route. Perhaps
these planets names could be highlighted in red.
Spy Report
A summary of recent spying activity. I don't want to press the 'c'
key every turn. I'd rather see a min/max/avg report for the past
10 or 50 or whatever turns.
Perhaps if my spies are decent, I could be notified whenever
another race has 'developed' a new tech after a suspiciously low
amount of effort or when they have leap-frogged a couple of tech
levels. I might not know how the got it (derelict, orion, artifact
planet, stolen, trade), but I could double check my counter-espionage
levels and check to see who else had that tech.
Also, notification of signing of new treaties would be nice. Or
perhaps the races screen could display how long two races had been
at war or peace.
Auto Play
It might be neat to tell the computer to play my position for a dozen
turns. Just how much control the computer should be allowed is an
interesting question. Perhaps a screen of on/off buttons for such
things as:
allowed to design new ships
allowed to break treaties
allowed to sign treaties
allowed to use biologicals
allowed to choose research areas
allowed to make major alterations in production ratios
And some sliders or toggles for
personality
aggressivness
exploration
colonization
attitudes towards other races.
History
A replay feature ala Civ would be great. Seeing how the others did
initial expansion or what effect spying had would be very instructive.
Tournament Play
Allow an initial world to be saved, possibly before selection of
what race the player is to play. To make the different game's outcomes
as dependent as possible upon the player's actions, you would want to
examine the usage of random numbers in the program very carefully. A
seed would need to be stored in the scenario file and save files. You
would want to use different seeds for different situations. For
instance, using a seperate seed for each race's activities and seperate
seeds for battles would prevent such things as the decision on whether
the klackons colonize a new planet from being affected by changes in
the random number generator's state during one of the player's battles.
--
Mike Mondy m...@mondy.uucp