DarthCycle

I haven't heard of those classes of star destroyer either. After a quick search on theforce.net, there is however an aegis-class shuttle (but not a SD), which is an assault shuttle for ground troop. In terms of star destroyer ship, there is nothing that's even close to the aegis class he mentions. I also assume that "Indricator" is a typo for "Interdictor", which is a star destroyer class ship with gravity wells that prevent nearby ships from making the jump to light speed. He was referring to ship with special abilities...

Great idea. I suggest you split the FAQ by topics, like galactic map, units, combat, research, etc... I can see this list getting really big in no time

Never played MP, is it possible to save a game in order to complete it in multiple session? If that's the case, I'm up for a MP game. Settings would be: - Victory condition : headquarters - Size: small - Speed : slow (one bar in the speed meter) and we never change it. Pause allowed for toilet break - 2h max per game session, until game is completed. - We play vanilla version, no mods - Automatic combat for small battles (when one side has less than 3 capital ships). This will also help to accelerate the game. I live in Montreal (Quebec), so my time zone is EST. I'm available - Sunday after 7PM - Monday after 9PM - Tuesday after 8PM - Wednesday after 9PM the others nights, I'm at the bar ;p I propose we play at least 2 games, so we can both play both sides. Bragging rights are allowed by the player who wins with both sides PM or post here to setup a game

It's a trap! Basically, duplicate any available missions but this one is a trap. When the mission is offered to the player, there is no way to tell that the difference. If the fake mission involves characters, they are captured. If the fake mission involves units, they are destroyed. For characters, there is a small chance that they can avoid capture. For units, there is a small chance that some of them escapes. The idea of this mission is to create fear and uncertainty before committing characters and units to missions.

Captain and general would be cool!!! However, there are two ways to implement this At the unit level: one captain per ship. Probably way too much micro-management involved. Unlikely to see this. At the fleet level: one captain for a fleet of ships. Doable but implies that ships are organised into fleet. Based on what we know so far, there is no such thing as a fleet. Yes there are group of units that exist around a planet that you could call a fleet, but they are not organized into a cohesive task force with formation, screening units, engagement rules, etc... Check this topic for some idea I had on this topic http://swempireatwar.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=134

Good question, I think though that the game will not be like any of the above. It's probably closer to 'Rome - Total war' Strategic game features manage your empire with the galactic map: build new units, add new facilities on planets, move fleets, (maybe) conduct research, (maybe) conduct missions (like intelligence gathering and sabotage) Tactical game features Space battle: it's all about either destroying the enemy fleet and/or the orbital facilities of a planet Planet battle: it's all about destroying the enemy ground units and defensive structure in order to conquer the planet and/or destroy specific facilities (like planet-based shipyard or infantry barrack or vehicule plant) for strategic purpose (maybe you currently don't have enough ground units to conquer the planet, so crippling his production facilities will help you to win an attrition conflict on the planet, or at least make your opponent spend precious credits to rebuild these facilities)

First of all, my choice would be: 12,3,2,6,13,10,9 I am curious, where does this list of question comes from? It is my understanding that characters are a unit, so it is unlikely that a unit (character) would interectact with other units (vehicule). I can understand of course the reason to ask it: it would be cool! #4 can be deducted: all damage at the end of a combat round is removed. So repair facilities are not required. That's, in my opinion, an unfortunate design decision, but I can live with it. They probably choose to do so for simplicity's sake. #7 how would that affect gameplay? Maybe the question should be rephrased to 'When a ship is destroyed, what happens to the units and characters it was carrying?' #8 that would just affect combat performance (higher/better) from a gameplay perspective, maybe the question is more in regards to the combat animation, would we see countermeasure being used with the combat camera? #11 is ambiguous, it should be something closer to 'how does new research impact existing units?' In regards to research, we currently very little information, so I think a better question would be 'is there a research model in the game, and if so, describe the general design of it'. For example, do we research unit component (therefore, enhancing the statistics of units) or whole unit (like in rebellion)

Awesome game. Definitively try the demo for a taste, you won't be disappointed. What I love about this game 1) the overall experience. There is a lot of flavor with the music, the animations, what the unit say from time to time. Wait til you build an avatar, your jaw will drop to the floor. I don't know how many times I forgot I was playing a game and just stood there watching the units do their thing... 2) Ressource system. Very similar to Total annihilation. You control key location on the map and you generate x amount of ressource per seconds. Not need to micromanage your economy around with gatherer and the like. Love it.

There are a lot of topics going on for features that players would like to see. I would add this simple one: make the game as modable as possible. Any game parameters should not be hard-coded, but stored in a text file. Modders can then change these values as desired and thus can greatly affect the gameplay of the game without intervention from the developpers. Needless to say, this greatly enhance the longevity of a game. Just look at the amount of mods available for Civ3. Game elements that should be stored in text files 1) Unit statistics 2) Global fleet force composition: how many of each ship class should the AI aim for globally. You want an AI that builds lots of carriers, set the setting where carrier is set to 90% of all ship classes. 3) Fleet composition: give role to fleet and what each of them should be composed of in terms of ship classes Raiding fleet - used to conduct hit and run tactics on enemy planet Invasion fleet - used to conduct planet invasion Space superiority fleet - used to engage enemy fleet When the AI decides to conduct a specific operation, strategically speaking, it will then assemble a fleet for that purpose and then use it. 4) Global ground force composition: how many of each ground units should the AI aim for globally. 5) Army composition: give role to army and what each of them should be composed of in terms of units Defensive army - used to defend your planets Offensive army - used to invade enemy planets Home world army - what should your capital planet (if such a planet exist) be composed of. This planet should be a fortress. 6) Planet infrastructure composition: what should the AI build (build order)on each planet based on the planet strategic value. Possible strategic value for planet: home world, shipyard, economic center, etc...

I agree that naming ships will add a tremendous amount of attachement to your fleets and thus, enhance the flavor of the game as well as the fun factor. There is an easy way to do this: 1) Have all the names of ships stored in an text file. 2) The file is separated in sections, one section per ship class 3) Each section stores the name list of all the ships for that class. What's nice about this file is that 1) The player can change the name of unit he wants any time 2) You prepopulate the list with cool name you want to use. For example, your ISD section has the names Executor, Agitator, Tormentor, Dominator. When you build your first ISD, it automatically gets the name Executor, the second get Agitator, etc... 3) If a unit is created and there isn't a pregenerated name in the list, assign a generic name to it like 'ISD 1'. That name is then added to the list in the text file and the player can then change it at the time of his chosing. There should also be an interface in the game to change the name.

Having (space ship) fleet formation would be an awesome feature. Based on what we've seen in the videos, fleets do jump out of hyperspace in formation, but once the player select a group of units (with the typical area select with the mouse) and then gives orders, the group breaks apart, or so it seems. SIMPLE SYSTEM: When you assign a group number (the typical 1 to 0 on your keyboard) to a group of units, they will respect the following simple formation rules: 1) Big capital ship stay at the center of the formation: this is the inner ring 2) Smaller capital ship deploys around the bigger capital ships, at regular interval: this is the outer ring 3) All ships in the formation will move at the speed of the slowest unit in the group. This will ensure formation integrity 4) When a ship from the outer ring is destroyed/crippled, the rest of the ships in the outer ring redeploy accordingly in order to re-establish a regular interval between the ships in the outer ring. 5) When a group is given a target, the group moves closer to the target until the ships from the inner ring are at optimum range. All units from the group will then fire at the target, if they can. Units that cannot fire at the target, especially outer ring ships, will NOT break formation in order to be able to fire at the target. This should be very simple to implement. You don't have to change anything to the UI. It's just a hard-coded (hopefully mod-able from a text file) setting as to how group of units move together. ENHANCED SYSTEM: To enhance this system I would then add (it adds a little complexity to the UI and the combat system) 1) Outer ring formation: ships in the outer ring deploy in various formation: sphere, wall, half-circle, circle, etc... Obviously, these different formation could offer various tactical advantages during combat, based on circumstances and tactics used by the opponent. 2) Define the inner ring range setting, 3 different settings : maximum range, optimum range, closest range. This setting defines how close to the target will the group move, based on the range capability of the ships in the inner ring. 3) Outer ring engagement rules: ships in the outer ring can be given alternate combat orders. For instance, always engage any target that comes within close range, regardless of the primary target of the group. However, never break formation to do so. This would simulate escort versus escort and main capital ship against main capital ship space battles. I hope someone from the dev team will read this and inspire them

Actually, you ask an interesting question. Indirectly, the problem of the super fleet is dependent on the intelligence system. By intelligence I mean information gathering also known in its simpler form as fog of war. When you have little or no information about the whereabout of your enemy, most players tend to group their unit in super fleet. This increase the likelyhood of surviving whatever the fleet encouter. In almost every game, the only way to gather intelligence is to move unit around, so grouping them in massive numbers does make sense. Unfortunately, that's the biggest flaw in most strategy game, in my opinion. Almost all major battles in human history was won due to good intelligence: where is the enemy, when will he be there, what are his forces composition. And there are many ways to gather intelligence. In most games, unfortunately, there's only one... That's the reason why I hate the way the simple fog of war system is most strategy game: you can just send a scout unit, it gets killed but somehow and by some magic, the intelligence that unit gathered for you all makes it back to you (of course duh, you were controlling the scout and saw the forces that destroyed it). In real-life, if you're a general and you send a scout that never returns, you know exactly nothing. If there is some form of intelligence gathering system in SWEAW, that system can greatly reduce the effectiveness of massive fleet. Why? Example: your massive fleet is on the western side of the galaxy. Me, I'm going to split my forces into 3 attack groups and attack your planets on the eastern border. I'm going to cripple your shipyards, bombard your industry back to the stone age and probably capture a few of the really good planets. After doing that, the war is most probably won economically speaking, now it's just a game of attrition: I will be able to rebuild my units faster than you, so it's just a game of mopping up And let's not forget about supply. That's another reason why massive fleet are viable: most game don't support any supply system. Can you imagine what would happend to your massive fleet if somehow, one my smaller attack fleet made it to your supply line unchallenged and cut you from it. Your massive fleet would be out of commission in no time: no repairs, no casualty replacement, no rearmement, nada. In game term, your big fleet is kaputt Check your WW2 history and learn what happened to the germans in russia. If you guys want to read about great space ship battles where intelligence does count in order to win a battle, read David Weber books, awesome stuff. Especially the series with Steve White.

How do u make your game more enjoyable and harder in Rebellion (against the computer)? Of course, I always play at impossible level of difficulty but I find the game is still too easy. So I use a few house rule in addition 1) Any character with the ability to be general/admiral/commander can never be used in a mission, except for starting uprising or suppress uprising 2) I only sabotage planet base facilities (never ship or fighters) 3) Try not to take advantage of the weak (and poor) combat AI during space battles 4) I never build any of the special units for recon, sabotage, espionnage missions, I only use main character for all missions. Also, I retire all of those specail units I might start the game with. What do you guys do?