[Mzyxptlk]

I partly agree with you, Cooling, and partly I don't. Because replying "I agree" to half of what you said is boring, here's the things I disagree with you on.

Originally Posted by Cooling

Population, I agree, is "crap" and "not properly implemented". But let's imagine some magical fairy land where it is implemented. What would it add? Something to do between ticks? Develop my planet? Well that's great, but this game isn't sim planet or farmville. It's a war game. Wars are conducted by co-operative alliances of players, who control fleets of ships. Adding a ridiculous planetary development / population system is bound up in this retarded desire to add more shit for no reason at all. Players are not crying out for such a pointless add on. Nor are new players leaving in droves because the population feature isn't properly implemented. Let's face it, it never was implemented, it doesn't need to be implemented; stop flogging a dead horse.

First of all, I don't agree population is "something to do between ticks" any more than any of the things players can do in Planetarion, be it launching fleets, producing ships, enqueueing a structure or posting on the galaxy forums. It's the wrong approach to take precisely because it makes population indistinguishable to all the features of PA.

Secondly, I think the idea of specializing to pursue a certain strategy (on a planet level) is something PA needs to hold onto, because it keeps the game interesting to people for more than a few rounds of doing the same thing. I may be slightly biased here, because I enjoy doing new things more than anything in PA, but variation is the spice of life. Reducing PA to a game of "everyone pursuing the same strategy because that's the best one" is a bad idea, regardless of how deep you make the alliance level metagame.

Especially in the early stages of the round (a limit imposed by the short tech tree, more on this later), population plays a significant role in making your planet do what you want it to do. While what you say about governments can be said of population as well (that no one's round is ever ruined by their population assignment), population gives people the chance to pursue unorthodox strategies. Thus, while population and governments cannot ruin someone's playing experience, they can improve on it.

Beyond setting more sane defaults on population (25/50/25/0/0), I see absolutely no reason why we would remove it.

Originally Posted by Cooling

Production Sliders Why on earth should they be kept? Why not just get rid of it and make the game easier to understand? What does it add at present? Random production speed, only rarely, if ever, useful when under attack. What a fantastic feature. The game would die on its arse if we didn't have that one.

I don't know what this is. What are "production sliders"? Is it just the subfeature of population that allows you to increase your production speed by up to 60 percentage points? Because if so, I don't see why it deserves a discussion of its own.

Originally Posted by Cooling

Scanning has been broken for a long time. I would suggest removing amps and distorters. Make the scan tech tree shorter or remove it altogether. Allow new players to play the game without having to wait 400+ ticks to get scans of their own. Stop penalising new players needlessly for not joining an alliance to get access to a scanner. They'll probably become disillusioned with losing their whole fleet landing blind on a planet long before ever doing so. I've never understood the purpose behind restricting such a fundamental component of the game.

Scanning is broken. No doubt about it. All of the useful, no, required scans are put at the end of the tree, making access to dedicated scanners an absolute requirement to not only playing PA well, but playing it in any meaningful sense of the word at all.

This is wrong.

I have no particular objection to allowing people to specialize within alliances, but PA should always be playable solo. Distorters and amplifiers play a critical role in making the former aspect happen and as such I am very much opposed to removing them: the problem does not lie with dists and amps, but with the research tree.

As per Light's design document and posts I've made on the subject, the scanning tech tree should focus on two things:
1) Allowing people to quickly and easily (two similar but distinct properties) gain access to the scans they need to attack effectively.
2) Preserving the level of cooperation in alliances by preserving the role of dedicated scanners.
3) Giving people the option to play a distorter planet.

Keeping these requirements in mind, the scanning tree could look something like this:

1. Cloak scan (20% imprecision, a unit scan that shows cloaked ships or at least the class of cloaked ships)
2. Improved Landing scan (like a JGP, except can only be done on a planet you are attacking, with an eta of 4 or below)
3. Planet scan (no change)
4. Development scan (no change)
5. News scan (no change)
6. Incoming scan (no change, could be put further back in the tree for the huge impact they have)
7. Jumpgate probe (no change, can be done on any planet)
8. Advanced unit scan (no change, perfect precision)

Requirement 1 is met because this tree should make it possible to research the first 2 scans while in protection. A case can be made for this to be included in the tutorial quest line (see Light's document). Requirement 2 is met because the ability of doing perfect scans on arbitrary coordinates with high amps is required for alliances to engage in fleetcatches (core feature of PA, as you will undoubtedly agree) and to counter distorter play. Requirement 3 is met because I do not remove dists.

Originally Posted by Cooling

Research needs a branching tech tree, perhaps with unique bonuses or differing shiptypes. You could, if you so choose, amalgamate the government system, races, and the tech tree into one concept. That would be a lot more interesting and fun than the current system of linear research options for completely unrelated gameplay mechanics (covops, scans, ships, asteroids).

I support changing the tech tree (or at least implementing a more easily modifiable tech tree, since it's currently hardcoded (and a million nerds cried out and were silenced)).

However, I've come to dislike the idea of a heavily branched and interlinked tech tree. Here, just like when I discussed population, the goal should be enabling choice. Forcing people to jump through hoops just to pursue the research path they desire because of the way you've set up the research tree is a bad thing. If I have to get a certain level of research in hulls before I can get hypergate, then I can no longer rush eta research.

Additionally, a branced and interlinked tree gets hopelessly complicated very quickly. One of the issues is that for a tree of sufficient size to last more than 400 ticks (unlike the one we currently have), it invariably ends up as too big to either fit on one reasonably sized display (made all the more pressing because of the emergence of smart phones) or into the short-term memory of any non-Einsteinian individual. Linear, unbranched and uninterlinked research trees are easy to understand (because easy to segment) and can be made just as deep as the other kind.

I, personally, am in favour of a Master of Orion type tech tree with 4 or 5 research lines without any interlinks whatsoever. The researches available to me are all researches below my technology level. My tech level in a certain line is determined by taking the tech level of my highest completed research in that line and adding the number of other researches I've done in that line. Completing a level 34 research in a line while I've done 9 other researches in that line gives me a tech level of 42. All researches in that line at tech level 42 or lower would be available to me.

This system preserves choice, because if a line contains both hull research and eta research (for example), I can choose to skip the hull research and increase my tech level solely through eta research. Simultaneously, it allows balancing, because it's easy to move a research up or down a few tech levels. And finally, it's easy to understand at a glance, because it's linear.

Originally Posted by Cooling

Races (...) Contrary to your assertion, there is no reason why they can't be coded out or removed entirely.

When was the last time a feature of PA was removed?