Acknowledged Suggestions

From SOTS

These Ideas have been discussed many times in the Kerberos Forums. While we are all glad to see new faces and Ideas in the Kerberos Forums, these Ideas are not yet part of the SotS universe for various reasons. If your thinking about suggesting a change to SotS, or perhaps a new feature, Please check here first.

From Castewar: I just wanted to make it clear that we're not off-handedly dismissing anything. While the path between statement and response is short upon first appearances, there is a lot of thinking behind the scenes. Some stuff fits (hence the patch), some stuff doesn't, some stuff may prove to need changing, but just can't be done in the short term, as resources are allocated to everything we need to get done.

Regardless of rumours to the contrary, we're hear to listen to you all (points at One Year Anniversary of board thread), talk to you all, and what doesn't float today may float later on - we are committed to still being around for the later on part. But in the meantime when we close the book, it's closed for the time being and we're not trying to be mean, we're trying to interact with you all and still get the work we do have to do, done.

From Mecron: We love reading the suggestions area...sometimes there is gold...most often there is "I want X cause it will make it easier/cooler for me to win"...and a few times its "I want X cause I want SotS to be a different game."

I try to weigh in less often than in other areas cause you don't really need me stifling your flow of creativity. I tend to stick to pointing out technical realities, or to point out that something hasn't been done because we are stupid but because there is a real reason not to. And of course when I think something is a good idea, I will tell you. Not because I am kissing your ass to present a good PR face but because its actually a good bloody idea. And we rarely leave you hanging...iif you sift through all of these topics you will see that almost every idea that gets any traction in the community gets some sort of thumbs up or down or a "someday".

And thats really the way it works.

Contents 1 Ships 1.1 Fighters and Carriers 1.2 Hitpoint Indicators 1.3 Combat Experience 1.4 Command & Control 2 Technology, Weapons and Research 2.1 Random Tech 2.2 Emitters 2.3 Researching New Drives from Salvage 2.4 Over Budget Research 2.5 Refitting Old Ships 3 UI 3.1 Time Compression 3.2 Real-Time Clock 3.3 Per Player Game Settings 3.4 Weapon Damage Numbers 3.5 2D Movement During Combat 3.6 Capturing Ships or Satellites 3.7 Waypoints 4 Other Things 4.1 Achievements 4.2 Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres 4.3 Skirmish Mode

Ships

Suggestions offered:

1: smaller 10 meter ship-fighter/frigate class
2: mid range-between cruiser and dread-speed and guns
3: extra large-3 times dread size.

Based on the destroyer being 30 meters, and cruisers 3 times as big at 90, dreads at 3 times as big as cruisers at 270, the small being 10 meters is about the size of one section of a destroyer, the midrange would be 180m so twice the ability/strength of a cruiser, 2/3 that of a dread, and the extra large would be 810 meters.

Just as a reference a modern aircraft carrier in the US navy is about 300 meters, a mid-sized fighter plane is about 15 meters.

Current response: maybe someday/expansion/sequel

Fighters and Carriers

In SotS, the Destroyer class vessels are about 30 meters long. The smallest a fighter could be is about half that. Furthermore, fighters wouldn't be able to support themselves in long treks or mount a FTL drive. Essentially you'd need a destroyer sized frame to bring a single fighter to the battle, and the fighter would fall quickly to point defense weaponry.

Think World War One naval combat. Fighters might act as spotters for the ships, but didn't play any major naval role.

In other words, the time of fighters has not yet come in the SotS universe. They may appear in the future, as part of a sequel, but for now is not in the SotS universe.

"...the bad news is that's because there are no fighters in SOTS. We are setting up a game that starts at the beginning of the space empire era. Destroyer class ships are a mere 30 meters or so long. Any starfighter type design would be a sizable percentage of that size." -Mecron

Hitpoint Indicators

The intention is for SotS to provide you the feeling of being fleet admiral. Damage is indicated visually during combat by the sparks, small and large plasma fires, and in the extreme cases destroyed sections of the ship. During the strategic turn and in the sensors screen damage is summarized by the health icon: green for no damage, yellow for some damage, red for critical damage and/or section destroyed. You can mouse over the health icon for a tooltip giving the status of special abilities of the ship such as fuel capacity for tankers.

Besides there'd need to be hitpoints for overall, then individual sections, etc. If you see lots of jets of fire, and want to keep the ship, run. Otherwise, damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Combat Experience

This wont be implemented any time soon. The developers feel that increasing the power of ships as they go through combat unfairly favors the side that is winning already. But the idea of adding a Marker/Badge/Star to Fleets (not individual ships) for some number of combat victories is being considered for the future.

Command & Control

Suggestion: Fleets without CnC vessels should automatically have non-combat vessels appear at the end of fleet lists, so they only enter combat when all combat vessels have been destroyed.

The abstraction of command & control in SOTS is represented by CnC vessels. As a consequence, fleets without CnC vessels are unable to determine which ships enter combat first, to represent the disorganisation caused by the lack of CnC. This form of abstraction is a design decision, and is unlikely to change.

Technology, Weapons and Research

Basically, all technology suggestions offered seem to be under consideration for an expansion or sequel, but I wouldn't look for it in a patch.

1) Kinetic round tracking ability
2) Nanite bombs
3) Gravity weapons
(ones I remember off-hand, please add others here)

Keep in mind there are a lot of modders working on weapons, so if you want a new one now, go check them out.

Random Tech

Random technology forces the player to explore the tech tree and learn some new tactics and strategies. Unlike other games it is doubtful SotS will devolve into one tech line that is used above all others. This was a design decision, and it is very unlikely that it will be altered.

Emitters

The special conditions of the demo showed emitters to be a powerful weapon. Small, low tech ships grouped together is an ideal situation for emitters. Although they may seem overpowered in the demo, the advancement of technology and ship sizes in the full game balances emitters with other technologies. Not to mention the friendly fire effect of them.

Researching New Drives from Salvage

Drive sections are specific to each race, otherwise this important racial difference would be diluted in the late game. In game, one could assume that each drive tech is too complex to back engineer with even minor damage. Or that the technical manuals are all written in code in the other races language that you can barely translate as it is.

Over Budget Research

This was included to add uncertainty to your research efforts. A given research can end between 50% and 150% of its budget. The probability of the research increases as the percentage score increases, but only hits 100% at 150% budget. This was a design decision, and it is very unlikely that it will be altered.

Refitting Old Ships

There is no refitting of old ships in SotS. The Devs decided that it added an unnecessary level of complexity to the interface, and subtracted from the fun level of the game. If you really want to refit a ship, scuttle that ship near one of your shipyard-planets, and use the production bonus that gives you to build a newer ship. The cost is pretty much the same.

"once a class is designed and a ship built from it, it is set into stone. So either throw it into battle, pull it back to a secondary guard fleet or send it to the Smithsonian (scrapping it so it doesn't keep costing you upkeep)." -Mecron

UI

User interface suggestions

Time Compression

This feature has been implemented since the 1.1.1 patch.

Real-Time Clock

Put a real-time clock on the UI and let the player set an alarm. This was a good idea suggested a long time ago and we totally forgot about it. Look for it in the future.

Per Player Game Settings

Kerberos has been kicking around the idea of separate controls for AI starting money/planets/tech as compared with player starting money/planets/tech. It is unknown whether it will be as individual setting per player or as group setting for human players vs AI players. Though for now, this idea took a back burner to getting more galaxy characteristic options in, this is something that may make it into an update someday.

Weapon Damage Numbers

SotS simulates combat tracking the weapon "bullet" from when it leaves the gun barrel to striking a target. The base stats of damage, range, accuracy, and rate of fire are compounded by further considerations. Firing arcs mean that not all weapons can be brought to bear. The size of the turret that a weapon is mounted in affects tracking speed. Some weapons, such as torpedoes gain damage potential as they travel, but lose damage potential when they themselves take hits. Beam weapons deal damage for as long as they are trained on a target, but their slow tracking means that often they are not on target for their whole firing cycle.

These are only a fraction of the factors that make it essentially impossible to give accurate summaries of weapon capabilities. The best way to figure it out is to use the weapons and become familiar with them.

2D Movement During Combat

This is a design decision. As such it is unlikely to change any time soon. Combat is limited to two dimensions to make maneuvering simpler. If combat were in a 3D space, it would be much more difficult to make contact with your opponent, and defense satellites would have to cover a much larger field.

Capturing Ships or Satellites

Boarding Pods were implemented in the Born of Blood expansion pack. Boarding pods are only capable of boaring manned ships larger than a destroyer. Once captured, the enemy ship will act as an automated freindly for the remainder of the combat time. It is not currently possible to suborn unmanned ships such as sattelites or monitors. Boarding pods themselves are subject to enemy fire and point defense.

Waypoints

Waypoints for Tactical Combat movement were added in the First Expansion.

There have been multiple improvements included in the patches to the Human strategic pathing system, where you choose to move a fleet through more than one node point.

It has been suggested there be a manual pathing for ships using a "ctrl-click" style, but it has been uncommented upon.

Other Things

Random stuff that wont fit with the other categories.

Achievements

Achievements of various kinds and unlockables of various kinds will be in sots2. -- Mecron

Ringworlds and Dyson Spheres

There are no Ringworlds or Dyson Spheres. They may exist in a sequel, but don’t expect them any time soon.

" As for stellar manipulation...my god man! If you could build a ringworld, (never mind a dyson sphere), why the heck would you need to go explore anything? 63 million earths worth of surface area not quite enough room for ya? Laughing" - Mecron

Skirmish Mode

Creating tactical only battles with none of the strategic elements. Often seen in RTS type games.

" A combat sim for design testing is an idea we have been kicking around and may see the light of day in a future expansion or sequel." - Mecron

"I would like to see that but in a one iteration removed kind of thing. As in I do NOT want everything new to be exposed in a skirmish mode...on the other hand if a skirmish mode in an expansion JUST contained everything from before the expansion...that would be ok." - Mecron