>>5656104
What I'm getting at is, people make a sci-fi game and then forget it's sci-fi. Don't be a wuss, give the player something awesome to do. I'm talking about CONCEPTS. Exterminatus is for small-minded pussies. I want Death stars running around destroying stars leaving stellar debris. Vacuuming up nebulae and regurgitating them elsewhere. Sucking up stars and making incredibly dense warheads out of them, then launching them at other stars. Reversing time flow after a battle went horribly wrong. Creating a device that transmits rays which slowly kill everyone in the galaxy except your own people. Engineering an Alien-style creature to fight for me, then laugh maniacally when they break containment and slaughter colonists. Create sentient robots to wage war instead of my troops, then go "oh" when they declare their own nation. When all else is lost, and the enemy is bombarding your capital, creating a huge black hole that will implode the entire galaxy and taking everyone else down with you just because you're a prick.

But on the less explodey side, there are other problems in 4x. You only ever get to research techs, build ships, colonize planets. That's nice, but lame. You should also get the chance to play a Chaos-like empire of space wizards from another dimension, able to build temples where your worshippers can hate your enemies to death remotely over parsecs of empty space. Or I don't know, playing a Nid-like locust fleet without having to conquer stars would also be nice.

Give me your most outrageous ideas, /tg/. I may not have a team of programmers on my side, but I have my trusty computer, my intimate knowledge of c++, no girlfriend, an endless supply of beer and Cheetos, and a month ahead without exams. Let's get this shit on.

Oh and I was serious about the throne of skulls. If there is one thing my game will have, it will be the fucking throne of skulls.

Masters of Orion 2 had nothing wrong with it.

You take that shit back . . . oh, and can you /rs/ it?

First off, let's own this intergalactic throne of skulls business. Old games used to be amoral--committing atrocities simply gave you diplomatic penalties, thus making one fairly unimportant minigame marginally more difficult. Newer games have tried to track your alignment, giving you supposed "free will" that basically consists of "kill the bad guy while being a dick" or "kill the bad guy while being nice and getting better lewt."

Fuck that. It's time for an antihero space conquest game, where everyone's a bastard trying to out-bastard the other one.

I want to be able to conquer other species and use them for more than non-02 breathers. I want to Borg and Zerg the entire damn galaxy.

One aspect to Intergalactic Throne of Skulls should be rebels. Rebels shouldn't be like normal alien races who can be wiped out, but rather a faction that can never be destroyed and will pop up in greater number and power the more you piss your people off.

assign
var Discontent

>>5656104
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I feel that those parts come together for a more cohesive whole.

You're just short-sighted.

Dyson spheres must be built

Lots of them

>>5656147
Truer words have never been spoken. Genocide needs to matter. "oh hai, I just glassed your seven colonies, but here, have this shiny tech and can we be bestest friends?" "Right on, Terran friend! we may not be so different after all" *hugs*

I had a "grudge" scale in mind - the more civilians of a species you kill, the more grudge they get. Then after a certain level of grudge it gets possible to do really dirty stuff like launch slow-decaying nuclear dust into orbit or infect things with horrible viruses without any negative repercussions. Grudge would also give huge combat bonuses to their ships and troops, so... yeah.

>>5656141
I never said anything wrong about Moo2. It's a fucking masterpiece. Just a liiitle bit on the micromanagement side, but it's a legendary game nevertheless. It has Death Spores and Robo-Workers. You know every game that has "Death Spores" in it just has to be awesome. It's a rule I just made up.

/rs/ up in 2 weeks, but I promise nothing as to its quality.

Combat needs to be awesome.

Fuck the rest of it, if your combat looks awesome the rest of the game can be shit and you can still get away with it.

If the game is decent and combat looks awesome - then you'll have Orion Total War.

The ability to design your own ships is also a must.

Is that Master of Orion 3?

I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL THIS THREAD.

As another opposing faction: a powerful, peaceful, enlightened race who thinks they can achieve diplomatic compromise. You can use diplomats and spies and such to slow their involvement, but there will come a point where they can no longer sit idly by and allow you to expand your borders unchecked.

Skilled players will attack a few turns before this happens.

When the pacifists get involved, it becomes a different game. They have better technology and better morale. Lucky for you, they also have better ethics.

While you sacrifice millions to stall the good guys, you dedicate other resources to the creation of some super-nasty tide-turner like bioweapons, death stars, drug-addicted supersoldiers, alien mercenaries, mind control, shapeshifters, or something to that effect.

The goal here is to have a second tier of the game as you get to that point where you're walking over the opposition. And while the good guys keep you busy, the surviving alien races can start to rebuild, joining in the struggle just as you've regained the ground you've lost. In this way, the late game mop-up becomes an Act II just as dynamic as the first.

Xeno Harem.

>>5656213
It's Master of Orion 2. Blasphemer.

>>5656187
You know what, you're probably right. That doesn't mean we shouldn't aim for more.

>>5656211
You will be the first to dislike my game. The prototype will most likely have indirect combat control. Sure, I wanted to make the next Homeworld, but considering the scale I'm working with (100s of ships, millions of troops) it will be tricky to come up with a decent control system.

Oh, by the way, the galactic map is in real-time (1 year = 5 minutes or something) and tactical "maps" (i.e. fights) also go down in real time. So it's possible to zoom out of a fight, send reinforcements from a nearby system to flank the fight, then zoom in again, set the fleet to "stall" and starfighters to "screen", and wait for reinforcements. That much I promise.

This sounds like an upgraded Space Empires with No Tactical Combat set on.

Make a game in the vein of King of Dragon Pass.
In space.
With the player as the Emperor of Mankind.

>>5656259
How does "the ability to make edicts affecting the number of wives" sound? Separate settings for you (the Emperor), for the Council, for Greater Lords and finally Planetary Lords / governors.

Ensure loyalty through sex! Promote class difference!

In the interest of making evil fun, give your player mementos from destroyed races. If possible, give them an "Evil Button" that leads to a sinister picture or animation. For example:

* A slain emperor's beloved daughter who has been techno-mind-raped into loving you unconditionally.
{Evil Button} Fuck her gently.

* The last surviving member of the plant people, who you are giving just enough oxygen to live a stunted, miserable life in a glass jar.
{Evil Button} Insert parasites.

>>5656343
Alright.
But still needs some Xeno Love.
Xeno Wives?

Sounds like what Spore was going to be.

All enemy races should be modelled after 4chan boards.

>>5656331

Except Spore didn't give you the ability to command fleets or play as a single adventurer raping and pillaging his way to power...

Fuck it, this is what I want Mount and Blade to be...dear god, go on the Taleworlds forums and search up harem...the idea has a bit of momentum behind it. :3

>>5656180
I'm thinking of a "Political Discontent" indicator - every system would spawn hidden number of dissidents per year based on this discontent. You could build a 1984-like state to maximize security. These dissidents would greatly increase the effectiveness of enemy spies in the system. So if you rule with an iron fist be prepared to hold a garrison of Imperial Troopers on every system. Which we all would.

>>5656189
How does this sound:
Dyson Sphere. Imperial level project. Requires: 5000 resources, Engineering skill level (insert obscenely high level here), Access to Uridium, 150 labor years, 10 genii assigned to project. Access to slave labor cuts down construction time by 1/2.

Result: this system can effectively hold unlimited number of colonists. They would live in "terran" conditions for purposes of determining morale, growth, and food output (meaning they'd be able to farm for food).

For clarification, building a star destroyer costs 3 Resources and 0.1 "labor years"). Your yearly income is 50-100 resources with a sizeable empire. "Genii" are born randomly and you SHOULD rarely have more than 5.

>>5656331
This + 4x strategy + Xeno Love = fuckwin.

I think a good way to shrink middle management would be to have all planetary minigames played abstractly by the warlords you assign to them.

A tyrannical warlord gets you ships but raises Grudge.

A silver-tongued noble lowers Grudge, buying you more time before the good guys attack.

A mad scientist turns the planet into a training ground for your drug-addicted supersoldiers.

>>5656384
Hey, what ever floats your boat. But bear in mind aliens are by and large not... humanoid. Most don't really have females. How would you get it on with a chitinous tentacled sphere with 2 giant claws that reproduces by spores?

... nevermind. I'll put the option in anyway. Along with some hilariously gruesome random events involving cybernetic replacements for the Emperor's penis.

I love you /tg/. Such good posts.

I would just like an option to ask another race to outright surrender. Not declare peace, but surrender my iron rule. Some games give it as a choice your opponents can make, but I want to be able to ask for it. Or at least code it in so they do it with some intelligence. Obviously if I am bombarding their last world into the ground they shouldn't still be holding on, at least not every race should.

>>5656502
Recruit warlords from rival noble factions within your empire. As years pass, families produce new warlords of varying ability. Each has a certain key skill that most of its warlords have.

Please make a post about this when you put it on /rs/. Hell, make several posts because this sounds awesome and I don't want to miss out on it.

>>5656522
This is /tg/ a board practically married to /d/.
Most here would stick it in a VUX and like it.

Different playstyles:
- Space Emperor style: being a good leader or an evil dictator in charge of a galaxy spanning empire
- Elder God style: avoid even mightier entities and dick around with younger races
- Galactus style: you're big, they are small
- Swarm style: no need to conquer, you will consume

>>5656562
Sounds like Dune. Cool.

>>5656367
It's anons like you that make me regret not making this thread earlier.

It would have literally zero gameplay effect, but it would be worth it just for the grin on the player's face, something the games of today rarely acknowledge. It might be... difficult to implement these without them being somewhat repetitive. But being a general dick to your prisoners is something that the game MUST have.

You can assign a high-hostility planet to be a prison colony. Then all the prisoners (troops, rowdy civilians, enemy leaders, your own lord that pissed you off) can be sent there. You will there have access to options of torture, mindfuck and execution.

Did I mention sending spies or attack force to a system with the prison colony should be able to spring the prisoners? This one's on the backburner though, until I'm done with the combat model and what passes for tech tree among my misbegotten code.

Warlord Vortegon approaches.

"My lord, the [Pacifists] have grown restless since the genocide on Benduli Prime, but I believe that a Rigged Election would soothe them for now. My house can arrange everything, but we would require what's left of the Benduli system in exchange."

>>5656663
Like random work events in the Sims?

What language are you writing this in?

Public relations. You're the Interplanetary Emperor, yeah? Citizens make everything you are. Managing your citizens is the big thing -- even before managing your enemies.

Utopian citizens -- unsuppressed, creative, efficient but moral -- are the best citizens you can have. They'll chew out awesome tech in moments. They'll consume a lot of resources, but usually can produce it themselves. They'll stop being useful when the perception of utopia they're in breaks for some reason.

Corporate citizens are still very effective, aren't too picky about morals or repression but require much more resources than they can themselves produce. This is the R&D of evil overlords. There are also Military and Government citizen subtypes.

Feudal citizens don't really invent anything useful in the galactic scale. They're powerless against repression and require little resources of their own. Given technology from outside feudal citizens can produce vast surpluses of manufactured goods.

These demographics of a body define what that body is capable. Demographics change on their own through events, based on policy and available resources. Suppressing information is important in doing shady things in plain sight -- the more knowledgeable the citizens, the harder (the more expensive) this is to do reliably.

>>5656104

Sword of the Stars is a 4x game, and I enjoyed it; it has one of the worst names in the history of games, however.

>Obviously if I am bombarding their last world into the ground they shouldn't still be holding on, at least not every race should.
Wait, I've got something. How about this:
Desperate Resistance
Triggers if you held more than 7 systems and are reduced to less than 4 within 10 years. Effects include a large bonus to ship and ground combat when defending. The less systems you control, the more dramatic the effect. While Desperate Resistance is in effect you can't surrender or negotiate for peace.

Expect militia to fight like Astartes when defending your last world.

>>5656562
Recruit Warlord: System Project.
Requires: Belligerent population trait in system. 40 resources as tithes and bribes. 1 diplomat assigned to project. Expend 2 authority. Chance of success: 50% (modified by your emperor's Badass attribute).
Effect: Get a "Warlord" leader. Warlord acts like an admiral, but provides better bonuses to ship combat and MUCH better bonuses to ground combat. Warlord can ignore orders to withdraw.

>>5656502
Abstract design is where the game is at. I was thinking of planetary lords with different attributes, but since I am trying to cut back on management different "classes" of governors might do the trick much better and with less hassle. Combined with the above idea of "Recruit Warlord"... Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, actually.

In case you guys were wondering, most of these things I list here are the result of your suggestions. I didn't have Dyson Spheres, Xeno Harems or Warlords in mind before this thread.

Emperor "traits"
Psychic Emperor
Government style (Feudalism? etc)
Also the ability to play as a benevolent emperor as well as the Evil one you seem to be aiming for.

Keeping with the theme of the prison colony, I want an imperial pleasure planet. A particularly useless warlord could be dropped off there to cheer up a pissed-off noble house, and going to the planet personally could allow you to push a couple of "grinning player" buttons for feasting, orgies, and other decadent indulgences that have no effect on the game except adding to your illusion of being an intergalactic emperor.

Also, if there were noble houses, I think there should be an imperial house that produces excellent warlords who must be kept very happy lest you be usurped. Alternatively, you can execute all your relatives, removing some handy resources in exchange for removing a threat to your rule.

But you won't be able to win the game until the tech house has developed a machine that can house your consciousness for eternity.

>>5656738
Each group of demographics is further divided into types of happiness among that group. Disillusioned utopian citizens are capable of much mischief, happy (through propaganda?) feudal citizens won't actually join forces with the enemy given the chance... In general stable systems are happy and vice versa. Unhappiness gives additional chances for revolutionary events.

Happiness can be manufactured through propaganda, which is naturally harder the more knowledgeable the citizens are. Intelligence gauges the happiness, which can be just a facade.

Broski, broski.

What programming language are you writing this in?

Op, friends:

Why not make the 4x empire management part a tertiary portion of the game, and focus on making REAL WORLD EVIL SPACE OVERLORD EDITION?

i.e. YOU ROLL YOUR SPACE OVERLORD AND SUDDENLY YOU JUST FUCKED THE BEE QUEEN FROM DOROSIA VII AND WHILE IT WAS THE GREATEST SEX OF YOUR REIGN YOU HAVE GAINED HORRIFIC BEE AIDS. FURIOUS, YOU GO INTO YOUR INTERDICTOR FLAGSHIP AND LEAD YOUR FLEET TO DESTROY HER WORLD.

BACK IN YOUR CAPITAL, YOUR ONLY SON AND HEIR SUDDENLY GETS ADDICTED TO CYBORGISATION AND TAKES THE OPPORTUNITY OF YOU NOT BEING THERE TO UNDERGO THE FINAL PROCEDURE: AN IMMENSELY POWERFUL PROTOTYPE ANDROID BODY.

HE IMMEDIATELY PLUGS HIMSELF INTO THE GALACTIC FUCKNET, AND OVERTAKES THE ENTIRE DATA SEXOSPHERE. WHEN YOU RETURN FROM YOUR CONQUEST, IF THE BEE EGGS HAVEN'T HATCHED FROM YOUR GROIN YET, YOUR SON WHO HAS BUILT A MECH THAT IS A GIANT ANTIGRAVITY MASS-DRIVER PENIS WILL BE TEARING YOUR EMPIRE APART.

WELCOME TO REAL SPACE.

>>5656803
>5656115
>my intimate knowledge of c++

>>5656754
I vote against this choice.

A) Games either let you be the good guy, or the good or bad guy. Very few focus on the bad guy.

B) This is a solo project, which means our dear programmer has finite man-hours to work with. Given the choice between another sloppy good-evil scale and piles of Evil Button-style easter eggs, I'd prefer the latter.

C) Winning these games with diplomacy is never as fun as mass slaughter.

>>5656813
Oho, missed that.

C++ is superior. Bro fist, my man, bro fist.
...........
...................__
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(

Combine the stripped-down resource allocation of MoO 1 (the four sliders) with the uber customized ship design system and technology tree of MoO 2.

Oh, and customizable races, obviously.

Sword of the Stars!

>>5656810
Does groin hatching = death?

>>5656858

In fact, if you make it customizable enough, you can ignore fluff and let people stat up fluff for different settings for you.

>>5656738
>>5656663

I did have in mind a "policies" screen, and the real question is how complex It should be. For the prototype it might have like several policies max, but you'd be able to make a wide array of societies with it.

For example:
State mandated marriage: Genome quality +0.5% / year (affects troop stats, tech output, genii birth rate). Population growth -10%. Empire wide morale -2. Oppressive: 2 (generates discontent unless high Control attribute. Generates double discontent in Free societies). Cost to implement: 3 Authority.

Empower Corporate Sector:
Reduces cost of terraforming and industrial infrastructure by 50%. Reduces yield of industry by 30%. Bonus to Freedom and Morale. Bonus to Standard of Living. Blah blah. Obviously I am not a sociology major so when we have the prototype, I'll expose myself to criticism.

You get the picture.
>>5656732
c++/DirectX 9. Prerendered sprites. Expect decent framerates on semi-ancient rigs as long as you tone down on particles and nebula effects.

Another idea I toyed with is Structures of Power like corporate sector, organized crime, secret police, eligions, imperial organizations (think Commisariat, the Inquisition etc.). Establishing these would give your empire boosts and enable techs, but as they grow in influence so you must avoid pissing them off and indulge their requests. Ideally if they get too cocky you should be able to send SWAT team crashing down their door and purge them. If you play it too late, the worlds with most influence will rebel and secede. Just don't expect this feature any time soon.

>>5656871

IF THE OP WILL BOTHER TO PUT CONDITIONS DEPENDING ON YOUR OVERLORD'S CONSTITUTION, GROIN HATCHING MIGHT NOT KILL YOU BUT INSTEAD GIVE YOU

1) TEMPORARY LOSS OF SEXUAL FUNCTION DUE TO LOSS OF GROIN

2) THE ABILITY TO IMPLANT NEW GROIN, PROPERTIES OF WHICH ARE DETERMINED BY YOUR EMPIRE'S TECH LEVELS

3) IF 2), THE ABILITY TO USE NEW GROIN AGAINST FIENDISH YET SEXY NEW ANTHROPOMORPHIC ALIEN RACES

YOU SEE, I AM ALL ABOUT THE EMERGENT GAMEPLAY HERE.

>>5656793
To abstract that all out while retaining reasonable control, planetary governments (of many types) handle all the details given orders, suggestions and binding contracts. A democratic planet can be part of the empire, its civilian government nominally independent, micromanaged through pacts and manipulated by undercover operations. Undercover operations are functionally planetary governments. Military presence is the third type of planetary government. Any empire can be expected to have both a official civilian or military government and an undercover operation in any given planet. Hostile empires may also have undercover operations. Imperial planets are generally military-governed planets.

Civilian government - Required for some types of citizen. Cheap to keep. Relatively unstable.
Military government - Very stable, very expensive, causes unhappiness. Follows orders.
Undercover government - Follows orders. Not as expensive as military government to keep but operations are more expensive than comparable ones of military government.

All governments gather intelligence.

>>5656115

been done bro, pic related

>>5656326

damn.

brb, gonna destroy some suns

>C++ is superior.
haha, no.
Well dammit not really.
Fuck it, it's awesome for games, ALRIGHT?!

Some random things I'd like to do in an evil overlord game:

* Assassinate civil rights leaders.
* Negotiate grossly one-sided surrenders.
* Throw bastard children out an airlock.
* Employ thought police who let me spy on my own colonies to obtain a closer look at their variables.
* Turn an entire planet into mutants.
* Fuck my sister.
* Control an entire race by capturing their god figure and threatening to kill it.
* Eventually killing said god figure to teach the fuckers a lesson.
* Visiting a temple planet dedicated to me.
* Choosing from several ways to live forever, including body-swapping, city-sized supercomputers that hold my thoughts, black magic, and hyper-advanced medicine.

OP here. Postan an old screenshot to give you the idea of the colorful graphics and the minimalist HUD. This was an older version of the engine. New one has pixel shaders and I'm currently working on gravity distortion around black holes, but is ugly to look at until I port all the graphics.

>uber customized ship design system
NO.
>People talking about Space Empires
EVEN MORE NO.

>What is it that you've always wanted to see in these games?

out of the top of my mind:
-great number of aestethically awesome races, no little fuzzy animals or funny looking reptiles shit, each with its own distinctive culture. Each race should be badass enough to make me say " fuck yeah I want to play that"
-the possibility of being competitive even peacefully. Trading/economic/cultural influence should be as fearsome as military conquest. The more debt a race has with you, the more they have to be your bitch.
-a really simple dating sim part for choosing your bride and continuing the dynasty. Hey, you asked.

>a really simple dating sim part for choosing your bride and continuing the dynasty. Hey, you asked.
You know this may make me pathetic but I think I'd enjoy this.

>>5656927
In fact, instead of talking about "governments" the concept here is "operation". Operations may provide the government.

So a given planet could have these major governmental entities:

Civilian operation: Official Planetary Council (Government)
Undercover operation: Imperial Intelligence Agency
Undercover operation: Local rebellion
Military operation: Imperial Police

>>5656944
OP here. I've never seen an uglier language. But goddamn it's fast. I suggest going to /prog/ and saying C++ is a good language, then sit back and enjoy 200+ replies questioning the sexuality of your mother.
>>5656967
At the risk of enraging some of the helpful people in this thread, currently there is no ship design. In fact, the CURRENT design is for each faction to have only several troop/ship types.These would obviously get upgraded automatically as your "tech" advances or you'd click on projects like "Issue improved cyberspider-shooting gatling rifles to infantry".
I might change the ship design in the future but honestly it would be a fuckton of work and with the strategic level of the game you may not even see the difference. "Strategic" means billions of people, millions of soldiers, and thousands of ships. Might be better to just lump all the destroyer-class ships into "Destroyer" unit and assume that out of 300 in that battle, there's 50 of any concievable type of Destroyer and their peculiarities balance out.

tl;dr I'm a lazy bastard.

>>5657011
Dating sim seconded.

Going to bed. Sadface. I'll check this in the morning.

I like the grudge idea, and think it should be expanded to a grudge/karma spectrum to model booth good will and ill will. In that setup, grudge manifests as a raw multiplier applied last to some things, whether those things are actually good or bad. For example, the enemy hates you and their morale is negative? They may tremble in fear. The enemy hates you and their morale is positive? They fight that much harder. Karma, OTOH, just tips those kinds of stats a bit in your favor.

You'd probably also want to model two kinds of affinities; system population affinity and racial population affinity. So that you can then base when a system has truly been added to your empire - the point at which they identify as being your citizens. The racial affinity makes it interesting when you're conquering another empire piecemeal, since atrocities on the front will have an effect on places you current hold by force...

>>5657039
>No ship design.
FUCK YES
YOU ARE AN AWESOME GAME DEVELOPER AND YOU SHOULD FEEL AWESOME.

>>5657039
Strategy means war, tactics mean battle.

In looking at the screenshot and some earlier posts, I want a Secret Police vessel/fleet as a kind of elite undercover government unit. This wouldn't be some generic scout ship with only one function--it would have amazing shields though below-average armor, high speed, and some subterfuge themed options like warlord execution, propaganda campaigns, and in-depth planet analysis.

>>5657067
You cry a lot.

>>5657071

are you saying that strategy, strategy never changes?

I yearn for a 4x LoGH game, which means abstracting away micromanagement is important. IMO, the way to deal with ship design and fleet micromanagement is to have total freedom during early dev cycles, but save settings as you go. That way you find out what works, and can wrap what works up into presets. Then you can bury the total freedom to design ships and manage fleets into a submenu for the hardcore while having the "top level" decisions in the forefront work by just clicking presets. The Emperor does not personally dictate which Ensign in his 200 kiloship fleet serves on which ship; the Emperor says "right flank advance!" The Emperor does not tell the shipyards that ship design 7b has one too many lasers at the expense of aft hull plating, he says "I'm low on destroyers, build more and send them to top off the formations that are missing some."

>>5657062
Well, if a stable empire is desired I don't think it's very clever to take *planets* by force. I'd use force to bring down the other empire's military might and then watch their planets get all unstable while offering them delicious economical pacts. And then control the planets with a combination of undercover agencies and pact clauses. Eventually with a puppet government.

>>5657151

is this what modded Moo3 is like

Another screenshot. Yes, I know the font is hideous. I will change it. Note the complete absence of ships at this version.

>>5656840
I agree that good and evil are outdated concepts. Do what ever the fuck you want, you are the emperor, and the population will judge you based on how they live.
>>5657022
>>5656927
>>5656738
Your concepts intrigue me and yet hurt my head. I will copypasta it to a .txt file and analyze it when I am saner. I must admit I like the idea of operations.

When suggesting stuff you might keep in mind everything will work via what the program interprets as "projects". These are like technologies except some are ongoing perpetually, some are localized to a system, some might be repeated many times, etc. "Policies" are nothing more than projects that have their own screen. "Techs" are projects that can be performed once, consume research to perform, and impart lasting bonuses to the empire once researched.

So your ideas of "operations" might be implemented through these projects.

>>5656946
Cool ideas. Especially lifespan. If you reach old age without rejuvenation, you die, game over - I always wanted that in a space game.
You will be happy to know that there will probably be a rare resource that grants immortality to most biological races in the galaxy.
Other options I am thinking of is creating spare backup clones for your Emperor or bioharvesting thousands of your own citizens for squeezing out rejuvenation factors out of them.
>>5656929
I respect Space Empires, I just want a less sterile and more dynamic game.

>>5657120
For the commanding crew, that is.

>>5657188
Forgot my screenshot. It's late here and I am tired. Shut up.

>>5656967
Hey you, yeah you. FUCK YOU! Space Empires is awesome.

>>5657039

Whilst on the one hand, no ship creation makes me a sad panda.

On the other, the fact that the game that you are describing appears to essentially be Dominions 3 IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE intirgues me deeply.

>>5657090
I wanted to settle that by assigning agents to your own systems instead of enemy ones. "Agents" are an abstraction of spies, counterspies, and assassins all in one. I never considered giving them their own ships, but, hey, might be worth looking into it.

>>5657040
>>5657020
>>5657011

Dating sim? In my space strategy?

>>5657284
Damn, Galaxy Angels.
GRIMDARK VN with RTT Homeworld elements.

>>5657188
I see. Operations would define the planet's balance of power, as far as a system-spanning empire is concerned. A planet with at least one operation is civilized, most will have several. Operations may cause events (coups, riots, terrorism, sabotage...) and trigger responses to them: to fight back, to assist (undercover operation can support a coup, but not do it themselves -- spawning a puppet operation is OK). Operations need information to be aware of events, collected through intelligence and affiliate communications. Unknown events cannot be responded to. Events succeed or fail depending on the powers undertaking it and opposing it, the effects taking place then.

Rebel operations are generally undercover+civilian operations. Their aim is to gain enough support in the populace and sabotage imperial operations undetected. Their ultimate goal is to assume Government status.

Intelligence checks (based on operation size and intelligence value) govern what any single operation sees. Affiliates generally share their knowledge. Small operations are easy to keep hidden. Brilliant intelligence is vital in keeping an iron grip over multiple systems.

I know this has been said before, if this is going to truly be an evil space emperor game, then it HAS to have a large portion of the game dedicated to the Emperor himself.

Like, when you start, you should have some kind of sprite image of your emperor himself-- customizable or not-- as well as an Imperial Palace. When you start, you'd be an average-looking guy in official looking clothes with a nice house. By the end of the game, you could be anything from a medal-covered military dictator to a mechanized cyborg monstrosity, and your Palace would be sprawling and decked in the spoils of war. Basically, show us dynamically the results of our efforts.

Also, plenty of personal issues to deal with. Sure, you have to deal with the rebellion on Alpha Centuri 6, but you also have to deal with the rebellion of your 6th bastard son Omnicron whose environmental protest campaign and rumored affinity for fucking Xenos are hurting your popularity in the outer colonies.

>>5657397

So, almost like Crusader Kings in space?

OP here, signing off for tonight pretty soon.

Thanks everyone for great suggestions. /tg/ is truly the most civil and fuckawesome board in existence. I will check if the thread is still there when I wake up, but I have saved all the suggestions so far. I can honestly say there is not one suggestion in here that can be dismissed out of hand (even though a few of them are a bit weird). I will try to put in as many things as possible as long as the game can handle/represent it. Hopefully in a month or so we might have something playable (if a bit unpolished) on our hands. Give me a few weeks and I'll have functioning fleets, projects, colonies and empires in game, then I'll upload it. You might need to wait a bit more before a Xeno harem, though.

>>5657454
The abiltiy to focus on a particular field of weapons tech, or not to. And make the beams and stuff look diffrent as you progress, not the same beam over and over again

>>5656480
in reality for example, Genii were concentrated around a major project and were work to collect.

>>5657397
So you want some sort of an "Emperor screen"? Done and done, my friend. Great minds think alike. I also think these personal events are needed and will implement such a thing. I had the same idea with the emperor's portrait reflecting your in-game choices. Unfortunately I don't do faces or drawn art, so implementing this above a pure textual level might have to wait for the unlikely and remote event I go commercial and commission an artist.

At the very least the emperor screen will follow your traits, progress, cybernetic implants, the number of enemies you killed in single combat, and stuff like that. Also in this screen you would manage your personal guard (probably as expensive as maintaining a fleet of battleships) , harem (regular and Xeno, I suppose), palace protocol (affecting imperial efficiency and security) and perform "personal projects" such as Emperor's Public Announcement, Deal Out Imperial Justice on Skull Throne, etc.
>>5657396
The game will probably track population on a per-planet basis but I am trying to abstract control to per-system scale. In short, I want to avoid having a system screen. It's not that I can't make a system screen, it's that I want to make a game where you don't need one. This might backfire horribly but at least it can be easily remedied at any time, so I want to at least try it on for size. That is why perhaps operations should not be so detailed. I am aiming for a "galaxy" where you can hold upwards of 50-100 systems and the more complex your options per planet the less fun holding these 100 systems becomes (even with automated governors). System-level operations are most likely to be included, even though perhaps they will be called "local policies" or something, I don't know.

>>5657579
You could do things on based on sectors or areas. Starting off with one and getting no more then 8.

How about if someone conquers one of your planets, and then you conquer it back you get a bonus to production if you have been a better (or for a LONG time) emperor than the guy who conquered it ("The population see your flag in the "city hall"/"words central building"/etc. as they wake up. Their happiness increases and so they start working harder (+2 to construction?)).

Or since it seems the game is going on a Evil path, make that happen only if you previously had a lot of Control/Mind Control on that planet ("Our holy emperor has come to saves us all from the X. All hail the great emperor $player." "Yes my minions, smile and shout praises to me. I did it all for you. All for you... It sure as hell wasn't because you're the only planet in a 30 star system radius that is sitting on a element/rock/product that I require to build the Star Teleporter..." *laughs*)

>>5657636
>"words central building"
I meant "world's central building"

All right,spicing things up with some fluff and then I'm really going to bed.

The entire space-travel in the galaxy relies on a human-derived technology. Humans were invaded in late 2XXX by some psionic aliens looking for cheap workforce. They sent humans to stone age. Few hundred years later, humans rebel, overthrow alien overlords, and discover these guys do spacetravel by bending time and space. So they naturally take invaders prisoner and mindrape them to do the spacetravel for them.
I got the idea from "braincase" thread on /tg/. Humanity, fuck yeah.

Basically you have humans degraded to feudal organizational level, armed with sharpened sticks as it were, devoid of all their enlightened 20+ century philosophy - and they suddenly get access to cheap space travel and high technology. What can go wrong? They spread the FTL stardrive among other "barbarians" in the galaxy and the "stardrive" is just one of the previous invading aliens, stuck in a vat, with electrodes prodding his ... brain, I guess... to make sure he stays on course. Serves them right for invading. The bastards.

Their empire spread, but collapsed due to communications lag and overstretched lines. Greedy lords start squabbling and now "Emperors" are a dime a dosen, every star cluster is guaranteed to have one. There are hundreds of sentient species in the galaxy, thousands of technologies - and noone has the full list because alien-mind-signals-replacing-radio still take 50 years to travel from one end of the human territory to the other and there's so much traffic and spam you don't know who to trust anymore. Also, while humans and other species were enslaved, a lot of humans were taken off-world to god knows where and subjected to god knows what. There's your science explanation for encountering weird humanoid civilizations right there.

Oh, and campaign setting? "You are the emperor of one said star cluster. Go nuts."

I always felt these games needed more troops riding into battle on giant insects, if OP could make that happen it would be FUCK YEAR.

And parasitic brain slugs, like those from futurama. I don't care if you use them on your own people or the enemies.

I demand that there be at least 250 different random events and that they happen with a greater regularity than in most of the 4X games.

the random events should hit either a random system on the map (conquered or otherwise) or be of the type that affects the galaxy as a whole.

This has the added gameplay effect of being lass of a hassle when your empire is small at the start (less chance that your empire will be git) and ensures that in the late game when your empire is vast boredom is averted by a larger number of random events to deal with.

>>5656249

So basically... you're space Hitler and eventually space Chamberlain gets replaced by space Churchill?

I'd play that.

It's silly but I'd like to see a collective intelligence nanite race/species/civilization and a race of sentient machines.

I wholeheartedly approve of the OP's endeavor.

Hey OP,

Whenever you wake up, could you copy the variables that measure your empire? i.e. grudge, production, etc.?