From: poe@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets
Subject: Re: VGA Planets 3.0 suggestions
Date: 27 Jan 93 16:20:02 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Here's my 2 cents
In general, think about the programming requrements for your suggestions.
Remember it's one guy, and it's shareware. Cut him a break!

> Since we're already in the year of VP3, why don't we start a little
> discussion on how we, the players, would like the game to evolve.
> 
> 1: Redistribution of the score weights:
How about,
Planets count          = 10 points
Capital Ship           = Tech level of ship
Freighters & NFC       = Tech level/2 rounded up
Colonist population    = 1 point/100K
Native population      = 1 point/1Million (they usually start off that high)
The population part would be a pain to program compared to the way it is now.
Perhaps points are only gained per planet (1.3 at Planet A + 1.8 at B = 2)

> 2: The ability to control a FLEET of starships as a single unit,
> including the positioning of them in battle
Very important. My old freighters get destroyed because my TL10 Battleship
can't jump in front. Perhaps by assigning Fighting Priority, a fleet would
arrange itself, high numbers fight first, ships with the same priority go by
ship ID. Ships with prority 0 try to flee. Bag the multi-ship stuff
until v4.0 :)

> 3: More minerals on each planet. I once had a home planet, which ran
> out of fuel after just 3 turns!
C'est la vie!

> 4: Re-use of starships! Just imagine being able to de-compose a
> Robotic tech 10 ship and use the minerals to build 4 Bird Men tech 10
> ships! This ability would also include being able to refit a ship with
> new engines, weapons etc.
Maybe a percentage of the goods is recoverable. %50 percent or so should be
fair. Isn't this effect already present by "Colonize"?
Recovery of minerals for refitting starships only affects replaced parts.

> 5: An easier way of transfering between different races. This idea was
> born from re-fueling trouble between alliance partners.
If a red dot is at your planet with the friendly code, then you should
be able to transport to it, it should be in the list generated for the
"L" command, and doesn't look difficult. Allies can dump cargo from starships
to planets with "C".
A way to donate ships would be nice. perhaps if you could control
crew assignment, transfer crew to a friendly ship. With no crew,
a ship that's attacked is captured with no bloodshed.

> 6: All planets can build starships (or parts). 
I don't think so, the use of neutronium could require the anti-grav
conditions of a starbase. the large skelatal structure of ships
would collapse under gravity. As far as parts go. It would probably
be too much of a pain to program a way to transport parts. It seems to work 
fine for me as it is. Tech levels do seem a little inexpensive.

> 7: Planet's defense systems. If the above is implemented, it would be
> natural (as I see it) to change the concept of Planetside Defense to
> be that we should actually BUILD the beam weapons, fighter bays and
> torpedo tubes(!) to be added to the planet's defense systems. This
> would imply that we should also build fighter bays, if we want them to
> be on our ships (as we do with beams and torps).
Weapons can't fire effectively through atmosphere? Fighters can't launch from
gravity? (think space shuttle). The defense system seems ok to me.
 
> 8: Donations. If a player has to resign from a game, it would be nice
> if he/she was able to donate all his/her planets/starships etc to
> another player. Maybe some restrictions should be imposed to this to
> avoid abuse etc.
No Way! Even the best allies don't turn over their governments to their
buddies. The host should just run the turns until they are decimated.
In a game I played, hte host put them on standby until the first
person reached the homeworld, and then they got to control their race.
See above for donation of ships,

> 9: If a starship is captured in VP2.1, it automatically is assigned a
> crew of 10, which are then able to control the ship as good as the
> original crew (of up to 2910!). This should be changed (for obvious
> reasons, I hope).
Again, let's ease the programming load for Tim. It seems to work fine,
especially since the ship runs for a friendly planet.

My opinions,
Phil