Future changes and thoughts... For 1.0.8

[JetJaguar2000]

These are good changes.

By far the most interesting, in my opinion, is the attempt to put production and research on a mutually exclusive axis. I really like the idea of being able to focus on either a robust production platform, or a robust research platform, or something in between. I think your goal here should be to foster different play styles. Instead of having everyone blasting through the same research, and ramping up production simultaneously, create diversity by giving players the option to focus on research rather than production or combat, etc. The proposed changes sound good, but you should make sure that these options are well balanced; you may want to consider changing some of the research technologies, for example, to work better "on their own" as an alternative to production. I think this will take some time to sort out, because it's not totally clear yet what sorts of things a "researcher" could do better than a "producer," since the main mechanism of interaction and progress in the game is the production of ships.

I also like the idea of the Planetary Control Center, but I would take it a couple of steps further: PCCs should only grant you the ability to control planets within some radius of where it is built (say, 5 - 10 squares). Coupled with the expense of building them in the first place, I think this would add a HUGE strategic element to the game that doesn't exist now. If you actually had to make hard decisions about WHERE to create expansion opportunities, things would be a lot more interesting, especially when led to contention over particular areas of space.

Which brings me to another related suggestion. One aspect of the game I find a little obnoxious is how ships have unlimited range. What this means is that geographic location has very little meaning in the game. The most extreme example of this is how an opponent can send a fleet directly to your home world and blow it up, regardless of how big your empire is, or how far away it is from the enemy. This has always struck me as pretty artificial.

What I would LOVE to see is the concept of "contest fronts." Having a radius-based PCC could be one aspect of this. I would also propose that the range of your ships be limited in a similar way. Maybe they can only travel 2x the radius of your nearest PCC from it (modified by ship type). Alternatively (or in addition), create another orbital unit, the Refueling Station, that could further extend the range of your ships. What I'm looking for here is a way to establish geographic relevance. For someone to invade your territory, they should need to have built up a refueling "supply line" from their territory to yours. Ideally these refueling stations are defensible, but not ridiculously so. REALLY ideally would be for this mechanic to provide some balance between hardcore players and more casual ones. If a casual player is facing an invasion from a superior force, they may not be able to defend against the attack, but they should be able to muster the forces to destroy the invader's fueling stations, thus cutting them off and delaying invading ships while the refueling station is rebuilt. (A third super-interesting step in this direction would be to allow players to grant or deny access to one another's refueling stations -- maybe this casual guy can't even destroy a link in his invader's supply line, but maybe he can convince a third guy to deny the invader access to an open refueling station he is using!)

Obviously, these would be significant changes to the mechanics, but I think they would be good ones. I've been playing Starbase Orion again recently, and it struck me that the ship movement limitations are a big part of the strategy involved. Having to make decisions about where to build outposts in order to get your ships to where they need to get makes things interesting. Again, give meaning to specific regions of space. Right now it doesn't matter where you start, as moving ships around is just a matter of time (and avoiding black holes). Make expansion be grounded in the physical space of the galaxies.

That's all for now.