Wednesday, 27 November 1996 14:30 EST

The Official Empire Wish List

This is the official list of approved proposals to change the Empire server. All of them have been appoved by me (Ken Stevens). In order for a change to make it into the server, it must go through the following steps:
  • The proposal must be submitted to the New Wishes page. Whenever an item is added to that page, it is automatically emailed to me.
  • If I approve of the proposal, then I will move it to the Official Empire Wish List (this page).
  • After that, I will either make the change to the server, or if the item looks a bit questionable, I will first run the proposal past the people on the Server Discussion mailing list, and then if they approve of the change I'll code it.

    Sectors

    ( First part has been fixed - rad part has not ) Heres a bug: Take
    a warehouse, store a couple of k of oil in it and then des it as an
    oil mine. after the update it has 999 oil in it, and the ocontent has
    been warped up to something like 389. Similarly, a 100 rad sector with
    999 civs and 999 uws will only produce 250-300 rad rather than the
    750+ you should have got.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Change bridges (and towers) so that they only crumble when shelled
    below 15%. Allows attackers an extra chance for a bridge attack.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    feed <SECTS> <SECT>
    If a sector in <SECTS> needs more food, send it food from <SECT>.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    - WARNING - may be difficult to code
    forts should return fire even if shot missed
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Ships

    For ship/plane/unit specification, allow a/13/b/15/16/c type
    specification where fleets, wings, and armies may be included along
    with numbers.  (WARNING: This would require massive restructuring.)
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Reduce the amount of mob subs use to torp--right now they are at a
    severe disadvantage.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    once ships on sail have arrived at their destination, the "Your fleet
    lead by ship #x has reached x,y." in production report every time.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    You can load all the civs from a harbour onto a ship without being
    prompted if you want to abandon that sector.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    The gain in efficiency of planes on carriers or sufficiently crewed
    ships on sea should use construction materials etc. This is to make it
    consistent with land units gaining efficiency in a sector where the
    necessary materials are present.  Otherwise it leads to abuse: Say in
    the beginning of the game I build a ship but don't want to spend the
    hcms to build it completely - so I just crew it it will gain
    efficiency by itself. I think it could easily be implemented by giving
    every ship some capacity for lcms and hcm's.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    you shouldn't be able to torp around corners
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Planes

    chh [38:382]% scrap p 28,0 ?eff<50
    Really scrap all planes in 28,0 [n]? n
    The prompt is misleading.  (Same goes for scuttle).  Scuttle and scrap
    should probably be consolidated.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Land Units

    perhaps since land units in mountains are so hard to attack, we shuold
    just not let land units into mountains to begin with.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    perhaps land unit attack mob needs to be increased.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    I would like to be told more than: "11 Units loaded" after I issue a
    lload command. Why isn't the syntax of the result of the lload command
    like that of the load command?
            submitted by Andrew Gilmore <gilmorea@ucsub.colorado.edu> 16 Dec 95
    
    It is painful that 'march' won't accept an army designation if its units are dispersed.  Mine are dispersed when they lose a fight, and I just want to march them back to a fort.  
    It seems to me reasonable and realistic to order multiple units to march to the same place.  It should be easy to code.  Just loop through the list, marching each unit independently.
    This implementation would change the result when all units start together, and the one with the least mobility can't reach the destination.  If it is thought desirable to stop
    the whole list short to keep them together, then the two cases could be treated separately.
                                                  Norton Hall
            submitted by Norton Hall <nhall@azstarnet.com> 22 Jan 96
    

    Missions

    Allow people to specify relation level to trigger different missions
    (note there is already space for this in the nation struct).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Combat

    aborting an attack should cost you btus or possibly mobility
    (otherwise you get info for free).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Information

    Budget can generate a negative cost for building ships or planes.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    neweff [s <SHIPS>|p <PLANES>|l <UNITS>] to show the efficiency these
    things will have after the update. At present you can only get this
    info by doing some heavy calculations.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    gstarve <SECTS>
    lists sectors that need more food if they want to attain maximum civ
    growth.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    prod
    should list the commodities consumed in f h * ! sectors for building
    stuff. (This would help you calculate your production deltas.)
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    bmap <SECTS> sh
    to show enemy ships (that you would see with radar or coastwatch).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    bmap <SECTS> sa
    to show enemy satellites (that you would see on radar).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    dump
    should give you the oldown number, rather than just a *. (Does dump
    only give you a * if you're not the oldown? I don't know. You can find
    the oldown using ?oldown= so dump should give it to you).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    radar [<SHIPS> | <SECTS>] S
    shows enemy ships but not your own.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    cen * ?connect=<SECT>
    lists all sectors connected by land to <SECT>. Handy for setting up
    territories.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Budget Bug: when production priorities are set, harbors will produce
    work BEFORE ships are built, which means you can use avail produced
    AFTER the update, ie so you can repair objects in sectors you newly
    designate.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Allow | as well as & in selection syntax. e.g. res * ?des=o|des=g
    (WARNING: cannot use single bar as the or character because "|" is
    used as a pipe in the standard client and possibly in other clients.
    Another character should be used instead ( or maybe "||"?)
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Updates

    Planes should not be built by conquered populace. (The problem here is
    that building planes uses mil, and you can lose the sector because all
    your mil that was being used to hold the sector disappeared into the
    planes so you loose the sector at the update.)  ALREADY FIXED?
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Under the ALL_BLEED option, research bleed doesn't work the same way
    that tech bleed does. A nation may produce tech but no research on a
    given update, yet the 0 research gets included in the average.
    However, if a nation produces no tech, the 0 tech doesn't get included
    in the average. (This holds true even if that nation does produce
    research, although its probably pretty rare to produce research and
    not tech).
    Having two loops that resolve tech bleed and then research bleed,
    instead of one which tries to do both, would be a fix.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    A new command called tax.
    Syntax is tax +/-[digits.digits]
    tax modifies how much money you get per civilian in taxes each update. The default is
    the base rate set by the deity. If you need money badly enough, you can
    icrease taxes, (tax +2%) - this would result in you needing (n*2)x the amount
    of happiness. So +2% would need 4 times as much happiness as required at
    +0%. Similarly -2% would tax your people less, and therefore require less
    happiness generated.
    Probably needs to be bounded (range is +/-10% for instance)
    Also, the ratio (hap=base_hap * 2 * %tax) probably needs tinkering with after play testing.
            submitted by Julian Onions <j.onions@nexor.co.uk> 01 Dec 95
    
    Change to STOP command.  When a sector is STOPped, change the STOP
    command so that AVAIL accumulates (the workers are read to do something
    different than what they usually do).  Useful when a mine (or other
    sector which uses all AVAIL each updated) is next to the ocean, and
    you want to build a bridge there.
            submitted by Asoka Diggs <adiggs@teleport.com> 08 Dec 95
    
    I propose that any producing sector will draw the materials required for max
    production from it's distribution point (warehouse, harbour) automatically if
    the threshold value is set to 0. Any other value set by the player will be 
    used if thresh != 0. Also, all products from sectors will be automatically
    moved to the distribution point (Not leaving that wastefull 1 behind if 
    possible) again overridden by thresh != 0. Thirdly, populations will 
    automatically spread out into ADJACENT sectors which have less than optimum
    populations (If they are owned by you) trying to keep max pop growth. This 
    would cost NO mob. Alternatively, population would spread from any sector
    with too high pop to those below optimum if civ thresh == 0, costing normal
    mob. Setting thresh == 999 or any other required value would keep things as
    they are now. I think these proposals, or something along these lines, 
    would not detract from realism (How many real leaders tell their factories
    how much raw material to buy...), but would greatly increase playability,
    enjoyability and decrease micromanagement workloads, all combining to leave
    the player to enjoy the important aspect of the game - the fighting.
    [Make sure the automigrating civs don't starve -ed]
            submitted by Ed Down <sb314@city.ac.uk> 20 Feb 96
    

    Communication

    Separate BULLETIN's from Telegrams (so that when we're in the middle
    of a fight we will know if we were just attacked or we simply have
    just received a letter from a friend).
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    When you are writing a telegram or an announcement and an update hits,
    then your telegram or announcement gets lost. ( is it even POSSIBLE to
    fix this?)
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Documentation

    info takeover, avail, loyalty
    There should be man pages on these.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Deity

    More flexible hours control (e.g. to disable login on weekends) ( If i
    am not mistaken - you can disable logins on weekends - Bob and I did
    this using hours in one game - I think there are bugs in it though
    from what I remember - who knows... maybe it doesn't work anymore
    anyone tried it lately? - Ken H.)
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Add che (target and number) to deity dump format.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Add two new options: LOAN and TREATY.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    

    Miscellanious

    Often BTU's aren't updated immediately, and the prompt is out of sync
    with the actual amount of BTU's they have.
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    make xland compile under linux
            submitted by Ken Stevens <children@empire.net> 01 Dec 95
    
    Ships,forts,bombers,artillery...the effectiveness per unit of each
    of these relative to how many BTUs is way out of wack.  I can shell
    the snot out of a country with 4 hat1s for faaaaar less BTUs than it 
    would take with BB4s.  One raid with 2 BB4s hurts maybe 10 sectors and costs 500 BTUs
            submitted by Geoff Cashman <cashman@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> 21 Dec 95
    
    I'd like to propose a new login-sequence command, "available".
    In blitz games, in order to find a country to play you either have to check 
    the PEA or get in the login sequence and start checking countries (first 
    that the name still exists, then that the password is still the same, and 
    then that there isn't somebody playing it, not having changed either).  How 
    about shortening this process with a command that lists the countries whose 
    names and passwords haven't changed, which haven't broken yet, and which are 
    not in use by another user?
    So you get "2 Empire server ready"
    you type "avail"
    and get back "0 available countries: 1 4 9 10"
    now you know that any one of these will be good.  This would only be good in 
    blitz games obviously (actually, if one of the checks it does is that the 
    password matches the country name, then it won't need to be disabled for 
    non-blitz games cause they never have countries with the same passwords [at 
    least they shouldn't!]...except for the visitor country - ah! and that will 
    automatically tell you what guest countries are available - visitor, 
    Visitor, guest, Guest, etc.)  So you'll actually get:
    "0 available countries: 1 4 9 10 visitor"
    ***alternatively, instead of adding a new command we could just change the 
    country command (in the login sequence) so that if you type "coun ?" it will 
    give you the above (how about "coun *" which will give you a random country 
    that matches the qualifications? it would have to return the country it gave 
    you so that you can type in the password)
            submitted by Ashley A Thomas <ase@cyberspace.org> 18 Jan 96
    
    another login wish:
    how about modifying the 'play' command so we can skip the 'coun' and 'pass' 
    commands (still leave those commands in for negotiation when necessary):
    'play MyCountry MyPassword'
    and
    'kill MyCountry MyPassword'
            submitted by Ashley A Thomas <ase@cyberspace.org> 19 Jan 96
    


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