All of the info in this thread I have actually been thinking about for a few months. And in the last few days, I finally decided it was time to show Uber and everyone else. Beginning You know how each Galactic War starts with the Awakening of the Commander(s)? Well, that's how each War should start. It should start from the beginning. From the moment you select your Commander and Faction and press that GO TO WAR button, this is what I feel should happen: You are taken to the system where the Commander wakes up. The camera will show you 4 shots of the system: 5 seconds of the entire solar system, 5 seconds of one place on the planet, 5 seconds of another place on the planet, then several seconds of your Commander waking up. A battle has just begun and the computer narrator talks to you. She says what she would normally in the animated video ("Greetings Commander, much has been lost...") with an additional "You are not alone in this system, Commander, you need to eliminate all threats here before leaving" to inform the player a battle has actually started and they need to start base-building. Note: keep in mind you weren't taken to the galactic map and you have to fight this battle with only the loadout you selected, no tech. As such, the system should, usually, be a 1-planet system. And yes, you don't get to select your spawn point for this first battle. Now you are taken to the Galactic map. I suppose there should be a few "freebie" systems for you to collect tech like normal. I made a video to demonstrate! I have very little video editing experience and not the best computer in the world, so this video isn't perfect by any stretch. It seems choppy at some places and has some low resolutions. Analyze this video qualitatively, not quantitatively. Just look at the ideas I presented: Techs Tech collecting and whatnot could use some changes as well. Throwing out tech is lame... these are robots we're talking about. They don't forget things. My suggested changes: You can collect as many techs as you can find, except duplicates. Data banks serve a different role. Each data bank allows you to equip one tech for a battle. 3 data banks means you can bring 3 techs to a battle. In between battles, you can change which techs are equipped. For example, if I was going to a system that had lots of planets, I would choose to bring orbital tech, an advanced bots tech, and defense structures. On the image below, this is shown by the silver boxes with the E. Subcommanders are always equipped, you do not need a data bank for them. If they are physically traveling with your Commander, why would you need a data bank? This wouldn't be OP because subcommanders are pretty rare now. Techs are still randomly selected, but you can see them on the galactic map, on systems you have access to. If you conquer that system, you get that tech. This will help players select which system they should go for next. Other Random changes we can discuss. Galactic War has a Hardcore check box. Hardcore means if you die, it's game over for the entire war, which is how it currently is. Non-hardcore means if you die, you can try the battle again. Commander rewards for finishing Hardcore Galactic Wars, which all players can get. Uber seems to have no problem pumping out Commanders each update. Specifically: A commander for conquering a Hardcore Uber-sized system on Absurd difficulty. A commander for conquering a Hardcore Uber-sized system on Relentless difficulty. A commander for conquering a Hardcore Uber-sized system on Hard difficulty. Each player gets the same reward and these Commanders cannot be bought. The galactic map now indicates if a system has multiple enemy Commanders. After beating a system, there is a 5-10% chance that an older system you beat will be conquered by an enemy Commander, and you will have to fight back for it! If you don't take it out, it may spread to your other systems! This will make it seem like it's actually a war. The computer narrator will make a desperate-sounding announcement: "Commander, one of our systems has been taken by an enemy, we need to take it back!" Sometimes you'll find systems that don't have an enemy Commander. Instead, they start with a few fabricators, a factory, and a few economy structures. You need to destroy all of their units, except for things like walls and mines. The motto of this game is "Don't just win, annihilate!", which you usually can't do. Sniping an enemy Commander doesn't cut it. I want to destroy every last dox. Thanks for reading my Great Wall of Text, you can now initiate a discussion. Uber, I hope you can consider some of these suggestions.
I approve of this, all of it. That being said, I still got hopes that uber will go back and add/change stuff to the current galactic war. I had lost faith after 1.0 but with the uber canon finally showing up, along with all the new features of the system editor and ranking system, the galactic war might just get a revamp too! That being said, if it doesn't these ideas would be a great base for a Galactic war 2.0 Mod.
there all good suggestions but this suggestion in the tech section: Data banks serve a different role. Each data bank allows you to equip one tech for a battle. 3 data banks means you can bring 3 techs to a battle. In between battles, you can change which techs are equipped. For example, if I was going to a system that had lots of planets, I would choose to bring orbital tech, an advanced bots tech, and defense structures. On the image below, this is shown by the silver boxes with the E. should be a check box option in the menu before you start the game of galactic war
While id prefer that my opponents attack me in the same way I do them, (With a commander that has techs and sub commanders) and that defending a system would revolve around expending sub commanders to go forth and defend. This is an awesome idea.
Excellent synthesis. Supporting videographic evidence is of great schematic quality -- definitely gets your idea across, and well. I love that you took the time to sketch up your proposals. The intro idea is brilliant. Definitely encourages the narrative to take on a more personal tone. Something that got me tinglin' a bit, when I saw your galactic map screen (though this was misinterpreted) was the idea of multiplayer in GW (which, if I recall, was part of the earliest vision for GW). If there is a mechanic by which AI can take your systems, then surely this mechanic can be expanded upon. </hijack> The idea of limitless tech knowledge is logical, and I fancy the notion of Deck Building in a sense...but your counter-implementation breaks that logic. If I can have all the techs, well... where are they when I'm fighting on the ground? In some pan-galactic Google Drive?
It doesn't make much sense and I didn't think much about it. Perhaps we replace "data banks" with a synonym of "RAM for your Commander". He knows its there but... he can't run any more processes (tech) without blowing up.
Multi-Player galactic war is still supposed to be a thing, in fact that might be the next big thing because we have most everything else. (Except asteroids I guess?)
I love the idea about unlocking Comms. for completing the various levels. That would get me back into GW for sure!
Hope uber is taking notes on this.. Nice suggestions man.. It would be awesome if they implimented it
I especially like the idea about keeping all technologies found and the new purpose of the data bank. oh and also the chance of a system being taken back by an enemy faction although maybe the chance should be a bit higher than 5-10% but idk lol. and would be awesome if the same applied with the different factions so its like everyone fighting
After we had some updates to ranked play and balance it would be really cool to have some work on the singleplayer next, too. Great to spend some ideas on it. I enjoyed your intro quite a lot and I think it's clear what you want to show with it. It's already so much better than the regular blank video start. I also would enjoy similar sequences for winning against a faction leader and for sure an outro finishing the whole war. Somehow GW needs some more spice to show that it's more than just a series of linear skirmish play. I'm not so sure if I can agree with your suggestions for keeping all the tech you can find during the war. I guess it would make things just too easy if you can rearrange your layout suited for every upcoming system. On the other hand I can agree that the current system needs some change to make it more enjoyable. I was thinking of a kind of reputation system to earn new tech slots instead of finding them randomly, (tech finds remain random). Also random placed shops on a space station planet where you could buy stuff like in FTL or Isaac could be an interesting option. Also seeing all the tech on the map would be probably a bit too much. Somehow the randomness should be in the mix. For me it would be great if they add more different tech stuff to the game giving also the regular units special abilities or new buffs. Like better weapons, faster speed or so. Somehow GW is still not engaging enough to play it over and over again to reveal all the possible finds. Having the enemy conquer back systems quite makes a lot sense, but should be thought out really well to make it not too annoying and repetitive for the player. Winning new coms on the other hands sounds great again. After I won my first GW I really felt like missing something. The end is not rewarding at all.
I like everything except maybe the 5%-10% chance bit and the annihilate mode without a commander. I think that the enemy factions should actually have movable pieces, currently this is problematic, as if the faction leaders were moving in the same way your commander does, we couldn't really have boss systems and you could win the game by killing a faction leader on the defense. What i would like to see is the faction leader commanders be buffed like crazy, with sub commanders having regular stats, and instead of sub commanders giving you an extra commander in battles, they give you an extra movable piece on the board, maybe the sub com can take part in a battle if he's in an adjacent system to a battle with one of your other commanders, or maybe you can get your movable pieces to join up, i dunno. (also, make it so that sub coms can move 2 spaces a turn, while faction leader can only move 1 or something.) This would mean that the other factions could have a few sub commanders each going around as their movable pieces invading your systems, we can the choose to either have the faction leader just sit in his boss system, or maybe he can move out and attack in some circumstances (like he's lost all his sub coms). if you're attacking a system that doesnt have a commander, or if your defending a system that doesn't have a comander, you should probably have some sorta imovable control node that can build fabbers, in lieu of an actual commander, this retains the ability to win via snipe, which is necessary in many circumstances, whilst also being a weaker option, because of course having an actual commander there is preferable. The random but known tech is a great idea, it might be a good idea to have a commander lose certain tech if they lose a system, but that might gimp bosses too much if they've lost all tech by the time you hit their last stronghold. There should be some detriment to losing your systems though.
Why not something akin to how StarWars battle front handles it? Or even better, how Offworld Trading Company handles it (since thats also an RTS) for which the NDA is now thankfully retracted. I think a mishmash between the two makes the most sense, since, as you said it doesn't make much sense for a command to forget an ability which is how off world trading company handles it, but as OwTC doesn't actually have any units, you need to steal the ships system from SWBF2, so they are analogous to your commander/sub commanders.
