MadMcAl
Posts: 41
Joined: 10/27/2011
Status: offline
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Well, the wishlist... let the war begin  .
But seriously, DW is a great game with an awesome potential, but like everything else, it has room for improvements.
There was a wish for options after conquest.
There I have a few:
1. The good old slow extermination (aka 'Work camps', 'Gulags', 'Concentration Camps' and so on...). Basically let them work them self to death for you. Obviously not the most friendly option, but still a little better than the food processor. Should give massive diplomatic flak.
2. The native reservations. Simply spoken, take over 80 - 90% of the usable surface (of course the choice bits) and force the surviving 'natives' into the rest. Let them fend for them self in there, just control for... nasty little surprises like uprisings. From the diplomatic point of view the best option. Hey, if they wanted to use 100% of their planet then they shouldn't have lost it. In the short view no problem from the diplomatic point of view. In the long run, a negative view adds up. Not the most stable thing.
3. Colonisation in the 19th century european context. More or less force your own morals, laws and social structures onto the natives, set up a few puppets on the local thrones, appoint the whole upper levels of the administration, give your own rich civilians the choice bits of industry, resources and what ever and let the 'natives' more or less in peace as long they bring you the riches of the planet and follow the laws you make.
4. Subjugation, force the 'natives' into a slave status. Use what ever means are necessary to do that (use of force, extortion or what ever). Not exactly something you should brag about in the neighborhood, and of course, watch out for Spartacus.
5. Long term 'breeding'. In the short term anything of the above, but in the long term (over the course of generations) you force the 'natives' to breed submissive tendencies, and what ever else you want in them. Obviously in DW only for reference, and just to demonstrate your evil ways.
6. Genetic engineering. Make the breeding instead over several generations happen in only one, maybe two generations. Not for the weak of the heart, and you should be able to withstand the disapproving glances of your fellow sophonts. But obviously the most effective way of dealing with this little problem...
I hope that these ideas are enough for the time being, as I can't think of any more (besides 'kill them all, let god find his own').
Now what I would want into the game is some sort of UNO for the galaxy (a bit similar to the galactic senate in MoO but not quite). This institution has no real authority or power (so being elected leader of it will not win the game for you, and has a more symbolic value) but it can be voted for resolutions, place sanctions onto an empire (for example economic sanctions that are, in effect a galaxy wide trade sanction, except of those empires that chose to ignore the resolution, with the risk of getting a sanction them self) and most important can vote for a mandate of war (simply said, if empire x is so evil that it pisses off enough of the rest than beginning of a war against said empire will not only not have any negative effect on the diplomatic side, but rather a positive, as you step up to enforce interstellar law) and, in extreme cases can vote an genocide resolution (meaning empire x is not only free to be fought against, but you can do everything against them, including using world destroyers with impunity, as everbody sees this empire as a blight that has to be exterminated with all means.
Such a institution would bring the diplomatic aspects of the game to a whole new level.
Another idea is to split the research we have now into theoretic science, applied science, engineering and design.
With the theoretic science your scientists lay the basics for everything. They predict that if you manage to bring an energy-field of type x with a strength of y you should break into hyper space. At this point the basics are there, but using it is still far away.
Applied science now searches for ways to generate said field x with a strength of y. Or in other words, they search for ways to break into hyper space.
Not every theoretical science breakthrough should be practical. And (to make this interesting) it should be randomly defined by creation of the galaxy witch of the 3 or 5 theoretical ways are usable.
Now this very first hyper space system is the size of a small space station, needs the energy that can only produced by reactors the size of another small space station and of course is highly unpredictable.
That is where engineering comes into the play. They take the 2 space stations and apply any trick they know to bring it into the size of a middle sized car, and device controls for it (to make it predictable) of the size of a small car. And have now an usable hyper drive.
With out a ship around it.
They can build a ship around it, but, well, it is expensive, not very practical, but it does what it hast to.
But every single ship build in this stage is a absolute unique ship.
Something like the whole prototype stages of the early jet planes.
That is where the design process comes into the play. The designers get the parts (like the hyper drive), they get specifications what the ship should do and how big is at best can be and so on... and a year later they give you the standard blueprints for your ship. With this blueprints every yard in your empire can build the ship.
Now how I see the 4 steps working ingame.
1. You fund the theoretical scientists, point them into the general direction you want (hyper drive, torpedo, beam weapon, ai and so on) and they deliver theories for you. Endlessly. Randomly.
2. Out of the theories you get you choose the one you set a number of your applied scientists on. They in turn try to find ways to use said theories and make them work somehow. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. Sometimes after you get a bit further in your tech, you get a message that with the new break through xyz the theory could indeed work, and you can decide to fund another stint in trying it. Until a theory is once and for all proofed wrong it vanishes from the list. When it it proofed right it is moved to another list. If so funded you can let your scientists work on a theory even after they made it work, to find another way to bring it to work. Another way that may be more effective. Or faster working. Or instead of unobtainium uses simply a platin-gold-alloy.
This will give you alternative lines for these weapons, like... well the hyper drive.
3. The engineers now come up with ideas how to combine these working theories into a working gadget. They take the hyper space distortion generator, the newly discovered super conductors, the quantum computer and a bit handwavium to present you with a working hyper drive.
They take the super conductors, the high gauss magnetic field projection, the ultralight radiation converter (developed to detoxify all these radioactive waste) and build you a fusion reactor.
They take the new remote controlled self mobile nano tool unit, the quantum computer, the artificial intelligence programming and you have a repair bot.
And most important, as long as you pay for them to work on it, they continuously work on it, make it more energy efficient, smaller, faster working, of give it a higher output, and generally making the toy better and better with time.
And while the theoretical scientists try to find new ideas (for example formulate the theory that if you pulse the hyper space distortion wave in a specific harmonic you should be able to reach higher 'hyper bands'), the applied scientists work on better and more efficient basic units, the engineers don't really develop new ideas, but combine ideas they get in new ways.
All in all this should bring the tech tree to an enormous and every time new level. You don't have a 'simple' and 'tried' way to develop, but you have always to start learning anew.
That brings me to the last part of the 4, the design.
The design is basically the ship/base designer.
The other 3 steps give you the parts, and with the design you can build your ships out of them.
If you want it really interesting then don't make the design process instantaneous and not without charge. 'Design' your ship in the designer (meaning forming the specifications) and then pay a team of designers to design the ship/base with these specs.
That should make for some interesting fluctuations, like, a ship is very good designed, you had luck with your design team. It is 2-3% cheaper in purchase and 5-10% cheaper in maintenance.
Or it is a bit smaller, and such a bit faster.
Or you can have a bit of bad luck, and the team was not able to make the specs. The ship is a bit more expensive, is a bit bigger, they couldn't bring all weapons into the design and so on.
Th next point on my personal wish list are military logistics.
Make every weapon except (area)pulse and beam weapons munition based.
Make the torpedo weapons quite a bit smaller, but give them a fixed size for every single shot. For example 50 shots have a size of 2 or 3, cost 50k and when they are shot they are shot. So you have to build ammo magazines into the design. 50 shots for a capital ship are not so much. You need for a bigger battle what, 1000? 5000? And of course you have to build them too. So you have to build munitions fabrication, munition supply depots and so on.
The supply ship becomes a whole new importance, as it carries the shots to the ships.
Maybe in the later tech levels make it possible for the supply ships to fabricate the munitions.
And in even later tech levels make it possible for the ships them self to fabricate the munitions. For that they could actually 'digest' the battle debris (not the repairable wrecks but the free floating debris) after the battle. Or require the needed raw materials from any station in the larger area.
'Press' civilian ships into short time service to bring the raw materials, or the finished munitions, to the fleet (obviously that is something said civilian won't really like). Enable empire controlled freighters that can be bought as fleet colliders. Make it possible for the supply ship to function as mining ship in a pinch.
That would totally shift the emphasis of the game to strategy, as you need the logistic pathways for your fleet to operate.
Make it necessary to have raw materials for repair bots to work.
That would mean you can't simply collect your cruisers and capital ships into 2 or 3 fleets and smash the enemy capital into submission, as you won't be able to sustain the battle without enabling the replenishment. So you have to work your way through the border systems. And you can't ignore the strong fleet base and go through the weak systems, as said fleet bases will be able to disrupt your logistics, and let your fleet run dry.
Of course this also will make the beam weapons much much stronger in the long run (while they only have 20% of the firepower for size-unit and/or credit they simply won't need anything else than energy. They don't need 60 to 300! size units for magazines. They don't need to have a freighter or 10 in the ships train to replenish the used shots).
But of course defensive units will emphasize the torpedo-weapons. So I need 5000 shots for my torpedo's? Well duh, dude, do you see this gigantic supply depot just outside of the enemies range? Or the dozen torpedo fabs? Do you really, really think I will run out or torpedo's? Better think again, and this time a bit harder.
That of course makes an attack much more... interesting, as your ships have to be able to run through the hyper deny zone, through the range of the enemies torps before you can make your first shot. And of course the enemy makes 5 times the damage per shot.
Can you spell big ouchie?
And if you now ad air, water and food... well, a major campaign will have to be much much better planned than ever before.
Well, that's for now. My other ideas need still a bit of detail work.
I hope the post was not to long.
_____________________________
Si vis pacem, para bellum
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