Hey guys. We're looking at ramping into Rebellion development now that 1.2 is out, and I'm looking at core work we could do while simultaneously working on Rebellion specific features. These would be things we could look into patching into Diplomacy while we go forward with Rebellion, so this isn't a feature request thread. There are really 2 types of things I'm looking for.
1. Long standing complaints, bugs, and glitches: Anything that's existed in Diplomacy, or previous versions that we might be able to fix between major tasks. I know many of these have likely been posted or reported, but combing through all the threads seems rather daunting in addition to actually getting some programming done.
2. Realistic concerns and mechanic suggestions: I can't make the game multi-threaded or 64-bit, and I can't make the AI scriptable in Lua, python, XML, or legos, I want to get that out of the way first. What I can say is that if you think a certain part of the game is a real mire or CPU bottleneck (like say the empire tree) I can focus some attention on that and see if there are any optimizations the team might be able to make now that we have some memory to play around with. I can also see if there are design or balance concerns we might address, though these are harder to deal with as they require a certain amount of bureaucratic process to actually be implemented.
I won't guarantee we get most, many, or even any of your suggestions in, but in a perfect world I would love to give you guys as much as we can in terms of the products you want and deserve, and if I can pluck a few cherry suggestions from the community then I will certainly do so.
Is there anything you guys can do about the in-game lag on Ironclad Online? It also seems to lag a lot in the chat lobbies. Those of us who use ICO find this very annoying.
Could you guys come up with some sort of a way to allow player who minidump or get disconnected during a game to rejoin the game?
BUG: In some games, a player will quit but the game will not register his having left, forcing players on the winning team to either mop up or forgo recording a win to their player record. We know that the player has left because we can whisper to him and other people will confirm that he is in the ICO Lobby, but in-the-game's Network screen it looks like he is still playing.
I'd like to see a "Declare Victory" option for online multiplayer. In a game with 6 or more players (3v3, 4v4, 5v5), if only one player is left connected to a game (or, say, 2 for 5v5) and the other team owns 75% of the colonizable planets, allow the winning team to "Declare Victory". This would prevent sore losers from dragging out games where the outcome has long-since been decided. It would also counter the problem where a player quits but the game doesn't take notice of it.
When Rebellion comes out, please make sure that there aren't any mesh differences between whatever different versions there are so that people who come online don't suffer the dreaded Mesh Error.
This has happened post 1.2 update. Happens more when someone plug pulls. Noticed that their lag and cpu doesnt change. Perhaps this can be fixed by doing a check every minute or so to make sure that player is still connected.
Since my main focus is the star, planet, and asteroid files I'll ask for edits on them. Can you please make the planet rotational axis editable? As well as the speed it rotates at for both the planet and clouds independently? Putting it in the planet file as say "PlanetRotationSpeed", "PlanetAxisAngle", and "CloudRotationSpeed". This would make planets much more diverse without doing too much with them. And the planets currently rotate backwards as well... This would make it easy to edit. Positive value for the speed would be rotating right and negative would be rotating left. Possible location could be in the mesh template would be ideal but under the cloud texture info could also work. Could you move the glowColor, ringColor, and cloudLayerTextureName lines into the meshInfo section if you put the rotation info in the meshInfo section as well? Adding a ringTexture line so the texture for the rings can be change would be great. This would increase planet diversity without doing too much. (Edit: Actually I think the best bet with the clouds would be to put them in the .mesh file. Under NormalTexture maybe? And clouds on the night side would be cool as well. GS_Planet.fx would need changing but it's probably doable.)Also could you change the way the planetUpgradeDef paths work? Like path:0-9? instead of naming them this would free them up to be edited and added. Though I'm not sure how that would work with the game engine. Adding lines to them that they could recognize would be awesome. Even if all they recognize would be what's in the path stages already.Could you make the axis angle editable for Asteroids to? Not the colonizable 'planet' asteroids, but the eye candy. Though to be honest as I look at it in the way you designed it I'm not sure where you would put the info... Actually you could add a minAxisAngle and a maxAxisAngle in the cluster section right under maxAngularSpeed. That would be the best. (Though if you made them just like planets that would be cool to, but I'm not sure how you would do that under the current system. They are just too different code wise.)Stars also could use some flexibility. Adding in a starResourceSetupInfo section would be fun. It would make stars more important than they already are. It would only hold neutrals of course. Please add a dustCloudTemplate and a asteroidTemplate lines as well. This wouldn't make stars so bland.Ok, sorry for the long post but all these little line edits and adds would do wonders for the visual appeal for the game. It would also make it more moddable. And since I'm working on modding planets it's a tad close to my heart.
Please fix the map bug where a player does not have a normal start with random maps (i.e., the homeworld does not connect to a asteroid and an ice/volc or the HW only has one phase lane out). Also fix map bug with gravity wells overlapping eachother in the XY plane by being different heights on Z-axis.
See this thread from 2.5 YEARS ago about this issue. Blair Fraiser said he would take a look at it. San Tsu has some very good screen shots of the problem. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/320489/page/2/#replies
"Also fix map bug with gravity wells overlapping eachother in the XY plane by being different heights on Z-axis."
That's not a map bug. That's WAD. It happens when two planets are too close to one another in the map design. Once their wells overlap the game moves one on the z-axis. Talk to the map creator. If it a standard map then just up the star size or galaxy units. Or would you prefer the game to mini-dump?
Dude, it's a confirmed bug by the game creator. It happens all the time on the Random Map (e.g., Small Random, Medium Random, Large Random, Etc.) What you are thinking of is when people can actually modify phase lanes and such. The standard random maps do not allow these changes. They are part of the map package and the map generator is bugged.
See this thread, reply #3:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/327283
see: this insanely awesome screenshot:
Ah sorry, my mistake. Took a look and did some quick tests. Seems an easy fix for the would be if the random galaxy maps could handle galaxlyWidth and galaxyHeight values. These could be entered manually providing the random map generator with a 'base' in which to randomize planets and stars. Thus getting rid of the bug if my assumption is that the bug is cause by the generator coming up with a galaxy size smaller than the star's radius. Though I maybe completely wrong this fix may get rid of it and it would be easy on the coder's part. I hope.
This means I should probably keep building defenses to a minimum.
Diplomacy has always been flawed in this game. Just get a cease fire, then build a starbase at your dumb ally's home, send in some fleet, then break the cease fire for an easy kill. A major exploit.
Because: it is so easy to backstab... too easy. Its even more true in multiplayer (with real traitors). Thus unlocked online team games rarely ever exist.
An easy fix: There should be penalties and delays for breaking a cease fire, and even more substantial penalties and delays for breaking a peace treaty. (Not just only the measly 1 minute 40 second delay on "go to war" when breaking a peace treaty!). And/or maybe, have the delays apply only to the agressor breaking the peace, so the defender has time to retaliate.
And add incentives to becoming and remaining allies. Pact & envoy benefits should be shared (maybe equally?), not one-sided, and only lost by the side breaking the treaty.
Honestly, the original game seemed to do diplomacy better than the Diplomacy expansion. Although I must admit that I used to feel like the AI's errand boy, running around doing their missions.
This. #1 and #2 on my list to re-do are both Advent, since I'm a long time Advent fan (though I me some Vasari too).
Other stuff on my list:
-Manage fleet composition (frigates/cruisers etc) like the fighter/bomber system - at the fleet end of things. Micro-managing multiple factories to do parallel construction as losses add up is not fun for me (and I suspect others). Let me link factories to fleets (as with the current rally point system) or auto-recruit factories and set my fleet composition - reinforcements will be built automatically as losses accumulate.
-You know how shift-click lets you select your own ships by class? Being able to issue targeting orders that way (ie. shift-click on enemy LRF = target all LRFs) would go a long way towards mitigating the issue of the empire tree moving ships around in combat. Also, being able to set "focus fire" or "spread fire" for groups of ships would make this really useful and cut down on the number of clicks needed to give common orders.
-Give us some way of finding out about which Artifacts other empires control (my conquests are very Artifact driven ) or even sharing Artifact benefits through pacts.
-Make it easier to clear a gravity well of structures once a planet has been colonized, like using constructor ships to scuttle/deconstruct them. Something for minefields too... some planet-based defense should give you mine detection.
-Let me mark gravwells as "dangerous" so the navigation pathfinder will ignore them and ships will avoid them. This would really useful for stopping scouts on auto-explore from criss-crossing the pirate base and whatnot. Should be overridden if I click specifically on dangerous gravwell.
-Don't let ships I own get get hidden when zoomed out. Even if there's a huge friendly fleet at the planet where my single scout is, I still want to see a single bar with my colour on it next to the planet icon.
-Fleet icons need to show up in more places so I can click on them. If I'm zoomed out enough that I'm just seeing the planet icon I still want to be able to click fleet icons without scrolling waaaaay up the empire tree. Maybe just add them to the regular "at this planet" listings in the empire tree so they're always available!
Oh... And STOP the empire tree from jumping up and down so badly that it is near impossible to click on your selections.
This complaint has been voiced many times, and is a frustration that most of us have just learned to deal with. But some simple solutions would help the problem.
1. Allow us to unpin the top item (ships in transit). Or completely collapse it, but leave its required space in place permanently (since it appears & reappears constantly).2. Widen the empire tree, so that more ships are displayed in a row, before a new row is created.3. Or Allow us to change the empire tree's width, and arrangement (i.e. move categories up and down).4. Or Have the displayed tree ignor those actions above it, if they are not currently in the display.5. Possibly provide a 'cushion' between pinned items, so that the whole empire tree doesn't jump with each individual change... just the local areas jumping around.
Some more changes with the pirates would be nice. The current attack from one planet through the phase lanes to another is okay when you do the send out raids like pirates are mercenaries but the bounty random attacks would work better if they operated similar to the Insurgency ability.
I knew the empire tree thing would pop up.
May I suggust that when the mouse is over the empire tree, when the empire tree expands and contracts, it overshoots the top of the screen, or leaves blank spaces, such that the area where the mouse is doesnt "jump". does that make sence?
Several of my favorite bugaboos have already been mentioned by others, but here we go:
Please allow setting a rally point to a fleet. Unless I'm confused about this, it appears that right now setting a rally point to a fleet instead sets it to the lead ship of that fleet, with hilarious consequences if the lead ship is destroyed. That is, I don't think the rally point automatically changes to the newly promoted lead ship, as I believe it should.
I would love to be able to adjust the width of the empire tree, or at least have an option to make it much wider than it is now. On a 16x9 screen there's plenty of room over there.
Please please please make the random map generator not put planets on top of each other. Some kind of minimum distance between planets is needed to avoid random maps with planets that are very difficult to see and/or navigate. I like to play random maps. Very few of the included maps appeal to me (sorry), and I'm too lazy to make my own maps.
I too would like to be able to mark planets as dangerous so that auto-pathfinding ignores them. This would improve the usefulness of auto-scouting and also help keep me from sending dozens of freshly built ships to their doom due to me being distracted while they reinforce through a nasty planet.
When selecting orbital objects by clicking on the semicircle under the planet, preference should be given to upgradeable objects. For my part, whenever I click on that bar, I want the starbase (if any) to come up first. It appears to give preference to squadrons now, which is not very useful.
Please change the pathing (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/405761, others), or perhaps add a hook so that a mod can do it.
I second the suggesting to add the feature to link factories to fleets. The game Light of Altair did this feature well: you define what ships are in your fleet and your colonies will fill out what's missing. SupCom 2 took a simpler path to this goal: infinite build queues, where you define the ratios between the units and it will continually build them in that ratio.
Crash Bug Report: In online multipayer, when a game is about to start, if a player tries to whisper to someone else (or /r) and presses Enter right about the time the host starts the game, that player's game will crash. It's happened to me a couple times.
Suggestion: Can you create a feature on frigate and capital ship factories that will allow players to specify what attack range and join fleet settings new units produced have?
What I'm missing is the AI ability to offer missions each other with same rules applied by human players. This would force AI planning their relation changes.
Yes, please fix pathing and allow the empire tree to stop jumping around when your mouse is in the empire tree field. These are long standing issues.
Just a minor one, but it would be nice if scouts on auto-explore would stop going to already discovered pirate bases.
I second Howthe? and Ovangkol's suggestions.
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