Some of the stuff I'd like to see worked on, in no particular order, and including stuff I can do myself easily, stuff I'd need help on, and stuff that's completely beyond me but would be cool :
- Check the stealth stat for inhabited worlds for consistency, using the same basic setup I applied to ship hulls, so that stealth is easier to explain and we no longer need "Inherent 0.10" stats. I might need some help with that as the various places species stealth stats are defined is boggling. Plus
- try to make stealth-as-a-strategy viable but not overpowering
- while keeping the current detection strength paradigm, introduce parts and effects that can vary it strategically in a balanced way
- Rethink the way Good and Bad population bonus is applied, and possibly rebalance the populatino growth tech tree in general
- It shouldn't be more optimal to colonise a Terran world with Scylior than Humans
- Egassem are terrible in part because of the way Bad Population works
- Self Sustaining has a few issues, and is applied at a different time to the Growth specials
- Balance the costs of various colonising/planetary manipulation effects
- Artificial Planet is generally not a good investment, perhaps introduce sub types involving automatically populated with Exobots or with the Gaia special
- Consider whether the Colony Upkeep modifier is at the right level, and specifically whether it should be applied in full to Outposts
- Possibly even redo the colonising mechanic, it's been discussed before that colonising within supply could be redone to negate the need to build ships &c
- Continue tweaking and improving the overall balance of the hulltypes, research costs and parts
- Armour parts, in particular, might be undercosted
- Shields are arguably both too powerful and too expensive, perhaps refine both the shield levels and costs a bit (and possibly have species effects on it expanded from the way Acirema currently work)
- More work on core parts to expand variety, we're up to three usable bits of kit now, more needed
- Rework Damage Control and ship repairs in general
- Field repairs should be less powerful, especially for heavily damaged ships (possibly 20% max of current structure not total structure per turn)
- Possibly full repair in one turn should only be viable at a shipyard containing the buildings necessary to build the ship
- Possibly introduce a damage control internal/core part to allow some, but not full, field repair
- If field repair is significantly nerfed, then the robotic line self repair/fleet repair bonuses will need rebalancing
- Introduce some sort of tutorial system, possibly linked to Sitreps timed to go off at key points, with links to a Pedia section
- Possibly introduce some scripted "goals" using the galaxy generation scripts
- Diplomacy—at the very least have more than one scripted offer peace option and have it tied to both AI aggressiveness and species type in some way
- Improve behaviour of AI empires at end of life
- possibly introduce a "surrender" or "alliance" mechanic so when a homeworld is lost remaining forces either surrender to an aggressor or ally with/are gifted to a nearby non-aggressive power?
- Have some system where AI empires all at war with the most powerful player start working together/form alliances etc
- Basically, make the end game a bit more of a challenge to maintain player interest
- Make the Victory Conditions part of galaxy generation and options
- Have whether the Experimentors exist and their power level be a separate choice
- If chosen, Experimentors should be placed roughly in the middle of the galaxy and before/with AI homeworld selection
- Make sure there is a Sitrep for conquest victory, decide what the parameters should be (all populated worlds?) and make all three sitreps work in multiplayer
Another observation: the gap between 0.4.4 and 0.4.3 has been the longest gap between stable releases since the release of 0.3.1, and we all know the improvements over the last year have been impressive, we knew this in January when it was discussed trying to wrap it up once the big projects were completed. I know that both universe generation and the work with Cami on the backend effects processing/threading has been a massive project, but I think given 0.4.3 is still getting 400+ downloads a week, it'd be good to try and aim for a much smaller gap this time. That is, of course, not my call at all but I thought it worth mentioning.
I know Dilvish, Vezzra and others have mentioned ideas, some of which coincide with stuff above (or are contained above, much of this comes from discussions here), what have others got in mind or in the works?