FreeOrion

Get rid of the splash-screen and replace it with a mini-game of Asteroids. Or even better Invaders! :D (Technical note: I believe someone owns a patent on this Idea so you couldn't even if you wanted to (IP laws are junk)). Slightly more seriously: I'd go with the showing of the universe map during ...

The aim of the moral system is for the people to punish your for doing something that they don't agree with. And for you to punish other races for doing something you don't agree with (or them not liking what you are doing). WHile I agree with most of the posts in this thread about the nature of go...

I'm wondering if it's possible to have ships built not by tonnage/turn but rather by taking complexity into account along with tonnage. i.e. which of these would take longer to build: Dreadnaught: 600 tons - 50 Mark VI lasers, 1 shield, 1 engine, some armour Battleship: 500 tons -5 Mark V lasers, 10...

You can set it to "laywer" and when the first scouts take a look at your planets, sue it for being a stalker.

And that's why freeorion rocks, innovative game design at ever step of the way.

I prefer Warcraft III to just about any other RTS game because of the tiny unit cap and the significant impact of heroes. Those, for me, make combat much more manageable, tactical, and interesting I'm sure most of the folks here are aware of this, but just to make sure, WC3 is really a RTT. It's ab...

I think that the game would shoot itself in the foot by trying to model any kind of real physics that didn't directly improve the play experience. My point is that how do you know that this wouldn't be more fun if no-one has ever tried it (to my knowledge). I don't recalling relativistic effects or...

Unless, of course, you would be so devious as to actually build attack ships or defense stations.

That sounds like a lot of work? Can't I set it to "easy" or something?

Skaro:Difficulty settings would only really be needed on the last releases. Maybe even only for v1.0 itself.

You don't need a mainframe yourself. You just send each turn's orders by mail and get your results back a week later. I'm sorry but that would just suck from a UI front. No, what you'd have to do would be have a courier for each player to take the punch-cards to the MF. You've obviously never had U...

Problem with your description Geoff is that by the time you're inside the star-system you couldn't possibly miss the Dyson sphere courtesy of it's blocking the stars behind it (occultation). You'd have to be pretty blind not to see a big black round thing in the middle of several million bright whit...

After a quick search of the forums, I'm wondering how such a major point was missed now that FO is at the combat-engine stage. I'm guessing everyone automatically made assumptions based on all the other games around. I'm refering to combat range with direct relevence to light speed. Basically to sav...

3-5 mouse clicks would be impossible, but a small amount anyway. You're right. I plead guilty to exaggeration. I'd like to revise that estimate to "Under 12 clicks, certainly not more than one dialog box, and maybe not even a dedicated full-screen UI for the task". I think it would be ver...

Sure there is, the really helluva tough guys can program with a magnetic pin on a 5 1/4-inch floppydisk while wearing a blindfold.

And have to walk up hill too and from work with the disks on their back? Yea those were the days

I participate in the communitity for another OS game. OpenTTD (openttd.org). They make releases irregularly (last one 7 months ago, next one within a month I think). But they also have "nightlies", which are automatic builds from the SVN made each night. Thus it's possible for people who w...

They do have a good point here. The problem with many Open Source projects is that they are made for hard-core users, and are beyond useless for newbies to the field. The single best example is GIMP. Sure it might be on par with Photoshop, but the interface is about as friendly as a brick to the hea...

This was done to good effect with the Infinite Space games: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_worlds/1.htm It's not free, but I'm sure someone around here has played it. Anyway, It's possible to skip the "strategy" part and just play simulations. I think it might add a few mor...