I've just skimmed this so far, haven't had the time to sit down and read, but...For those commenting on not wanting a paid expansion so soon, but more free stuff, have they said that the expansion is going to be paid? This could just be a huge bonus of free content.



Anyway, I'm looking forward to a new faction and privateer. I still disagree about the inclusion of carriers/fighters/bombers, but, I just won't use them in my fleets.

FinalStrigon wrote:
I've just skimmed this so far, haven't had the time to sit down and read, but...For those commenting on not wanting a paid expansion so soon, but more free stuff, have they said that the expansion is going to be paid? This could just be a huge bonus of free content.



Anyway, I'm looking forward to a new faction and privateer. I still disagree about the inclusion of carriers/fighters/bombers, but, I just won't use them in my fleets.

Hey I would be more than prepared to eat my whole monitor if this expansion pack comes out as completely free content. In fact I will personally donate a few more free Endless Space Emperor upgrades to players on this website if it does! And I mean that.



I dont mind buying stuff that has hard work involved nor do I mind supporting good devs in other ways. I just think its a bit quick to be discussing it when we have seen hardly any promising additions made to the base game yet. Once I have started to see the base game evolving into a more complete game I will be more than happy to discuss optional expansion packs.



Anyway I have already said everything I want to see in the game and I think it is simply a matter of the devs using their common sense in choosing the stuff that would make good expansion packs.



Hardly anything on this thread would make a good expansion pack IMO as most of it needs adding into the game well before next year for me to remain playing the game much more. This game cannot afford to wait that long for things like fleshed out diplomacy or espionage or better decisions/ events / game atmosphere. Otherwise there ain't going to be anyone playing it by the time the expansion pack comes out. For me this game has maybe a month or two play time left at the most - couple more games trying new races etc. That's about it in its current state.

The battle system really needs an overhaul. It's fun as is but it lack any kind of depth at the moment.



As for other things you might want to look at:



- Flesh out heroes. It bothers me that a Craver hero is leading my fleets wiping out the Craver empire. We need specific race heroes. Also heroes are an I win button, specially with custom traits. I would give the player 3 he ores at start and then the player would chose how to develop them, remove the annoying class mechanic and give them their own race specific tree.



- Instead of adding more factions, Flesh out the existing races. As is all of them play the same and they are little more than a different skin.



- Race specific technology tree. That's all.



- More styles of play. When you are late enough in the game then it's just a matter of choosing which of the victory conditions you want. How you get there is mostly the same.



- Faster, bigger battles. I like how battles just happen without player input but this quickly gets boring. Instead of playing 15 combats that go the same each one by one, pit all ships against each other in the same epic battle.



I love your game and it was a great investment for the fun I already had but I think ES has the potential to much more.

Basically, what Nat said.



I would be more then happy to purchase an expansion to ES in a year or so, especially if it added new and separate content, like ground combat, other dimensions, the bloody hand of the endless returning for their dust, or a campaign full of neat stories.



If you offer me an expansion to fix the parts of the game that you have already sold to all of us that are currently "unfinished" (especially if you just wait for the mod community to find and fix content issues and then roll those changes into the expansion) that is another thing entirely.



My list of current issues includes stable multiplayer, enabling modding, the AI in general, diplomacy, warfare, and the UI.... .



I get that you guys need to keep getting paid and I sympathize. Your time always has to be viewed as an investment. While it is never to early to generate ideas, continuing to improve your game, meeting your "implied promises" in the whole G2G approach, generating a growing community of evangelists, and creating buzz that convinces all the people who have not bought the existing game to buy it all sounds like an investment to me.



If you would like a suggestion to how you could accomplish all of the above better (and maybe even at the same time) I would suggest that you co-op the best of the active players who are involved in modding (and I don't mean me - I basically poke at numbers for fun - but some of these guys put real effort into your code and would be able to accomplish more with a small investment of your time).



Sincerely, thanks for the game. Please interpret my walls of text as flattery because your game is good enough to be worth the effort.

Another thing I'd like to mention, is that they are calling this an expansion pack! I can't remember the last time I bought one! How many of you guys are sick of this DLC crap you see these days? It's usually (not always) just enough content to piss you off. A tease. Over priced teases! I'm not down with the atypical paying 10 bucks for a skin and 20 minutes of content. Ridiculous. The 5 dollar upgrade for Endless Space is at least advertised for what it is! A sort of "help us out bro!" and that's completely fine!



Now. Amplitude is calling this an expansion pack, not DLC, like the good old retail days. For an expansion, that adds meaty substance filled content reminiscent of mid-late 90s early 2000s retail expansion packs I'd gladly pay 30$ or more!



Amplitude keeps proving they have a better way of doing things ^_^



As others have stressed though, we do need ongoing additions and tweaks to the current format of the game to keep us interested!

Rudest wrote:
Another thing I'd like to mention, is that they are calling this an expansion pack! I can't remember the last time I bought one! How many of you guys are sick of this DLC crap you see these days? It's usually (not always) just enough content to piss you off. A tease. Over priced teases! I'm not down with the atypical paying 10 bucks for a skin and 20 minutes of content. Ridiculous.



Now. Amplitude is calling this an expansion pack, not DLC, like the good old retail days. For an expansion, that adds meaty substance filled content reminiscent of mid-late 90s early 2000s retail expansion packs I'd gladly pay 30$ or more!

Yes most of the DLC I haven't bought because its just a rip off. I did buy a few for Shogun 2 but I will probably never even see them, I wont be buying thema gain. I noticed that Sleeping Dogs was released along with loads of DLC to buy - what a cheek!



But yeah if the Endless Space expansion pack features great additions to the battles I would buy that in a few months time if the game continues to develop in other ways. Certainly I would love to see the battles feature proper capital ship beam weapons like Babylon 5, better damage depiction (people flying off, fire spreading etc), better cameras, specialist ship/area targeting, longer slower bigger battles to give you time to appreciate them and perhaps continuing damage depiction from battle to battle with ships getting aged over time retaining damage if not repaired etc - that is stuff I would pay for.

I've bought DLC for Red Dead Redemption, Infamous 2, Kingdoms of Amalurand I think that's it. Those were good DLC packages. I'd also buy DLC for Warlock:MotA because it is inexpensive.

How does carrier warfare fit into a game that forces close range? I think the forced 3 stage combat system should be totally scrapped and replaced with the turn based system like you got in Birth of the federation with various actual tactical commands you can choose.If I focus of carreir tech I should try to keep it at long range.

Well it would present the ability to hit a opponent with short range weapons more accurately and quicker then normal broadside operations but meant as a supplement to it rather then to replace it entirely.

I haven't played for awhile so may have already been added?



Reason I stopped was no PBEM, don't have a practical schedule that allows for live multiplayer where you have to devote a large chunk of time at pre-scheduled times to play with people you know. I don't know anyone the could either.



Would make cross platform play a breeze for when you release the iPad version as well

First of all, I must say I'm quite surprised that an expansion is already announced this early after the release. But that is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you keep your resources directed towards updating the original game for quite some time.



Then an expansion, please keep the price reasonable, so not more than 20 euro's. You don't want to make the mistake that Matrix games made with Distant Worlds.



Then the features of the new expansion pack:



I enjoy watching battles, but I don't like tactical combat in a strategy 4x game. That's too much micromanagement and should not decide which race wins the game. So please don't make it too complicated. The current system with three types of weapons and some battle cards strikes the perfect balance for me. I like some nice visuals of fighters though!



I would pay for the following new features:



- planetary/orbital defenses, starbases!

- more races (some minor races would be cool too)

- enhanced diplomacy, please have a look at the paradox games, things like casus belli etc could add much more startegic depth to the game, without increasing the micromanagement.

- more random events

- domestic politics

- Whatever you add to the game, make sure the AI gets it and ensure that the AI gets much better in the expansion



Thank you for considering my suggestions!

I'm still surprised so many people consider an expansion "too early" to ponder on.

The game is out since july 4th. In most industries related to computers, like e.g. cpus, the next cpu generation has already been developed for years when the newest generation hits the stores.

For computer games, plans to make the next income title are almost instantly made, once the last game hits the stores. Why? Since games are mady by companies, companies have running costs and need money. They get the money from publishers, banks, investors... and those certainly won't continue investing in anything that doesn't have the prospect of making money in the future.



The only real difference I see here with ES is, that contrary to normal procedure, the addon is not announced after it is already in alpha status, maybe shortly before it is released, but before the development has even begun. I see that as an opportunity, not a nuisance, right up the alley of the g2g-approach of letting the users say and decide what they want/need in an expansion, before anything is set in stone.



Just my two cents.

Nosferatiel wrote:
I'm still surprised so many people consider an expansion "too early" to ponder on.

The game is out since july 4th. In most industries related to computers, like e.g. cpus, the next cpu generation has already been developed for years when the newest generation hits the stores.

Yes I must admit that I jumped the gun a bit and was a bit surprised to hear about plans for an expansion pack when the game has hardly even begun to develop properly yet. But I realise that this is only the start of a long road towards the expansion pack and that there will be plenty of time for some extras to be added before then.



But it is confusing a lot of people I think when the devs are not releasing any of their plans for free stuff. If they said, 'ok we will try to get this, this and this into the game over the next few months, so forget about those things for an expansion pack', it would certainly help everyone get more of a bearing on what is likely to be free and what is likely to need to be paid for content.



Or maybe that is what the devs should be asking us - what should be in an expansion pack and what should be free content and is required in the more immediate term!! Of course everyone's answer to that question would be very different.

nats wrote:
Or maybe that is what the devs should be asking us - what should be in an expansion pack and what should be free content and is required in the more immediate term!! Of course everyone's answer to that question would be very different.

I like that idea so much more than the rantings at the beginning of the day.

Well, shall we declare peace or at least cold war, mull over it a bit and then start working on this constructively? I realize that for the people at the event on friday, most bombs were defused by the devs being there to instantly answer their questions (many of those which came up in this thread, today) and that it is suboptimal to not simply have restated those questions and answers, again, at the very beginning.

By now almost all is present in the forum, but more or less as piecemeal...

That is an excellent point Nos >.>

good things in the OP, in the interest of dramatically reducing time to play 1 game, could there be rally points implemented. All it has to do is is say, any ship built at this system will immediately make itself a fleet and start moving to this other system.

ENTRY 1:

About Expansionpack: No Problem with that, but I would hate to see 5 expansionpacks, each focusing on just one aspect of the game and you need all five to enjoy the game. From an economic point of view it is very clever. From a ethical point of view it's just a rip-off. I will pay for an expansion, as long it is big and improving enough and not just one of many improvements you HAVE to buy - a bit like with Shogun 2. Love the game, but am pissed of, of the dlcs. Like buying pieces of a game. That's just annoying.



Improvementideas: Besides the many improvement-ideas we already suggested I would add this specifically for battles, since this is the main concern of many players:



- Additional improvement could be implamated with the "star-stats". Stars having anomalies or having an impact on battle by modifying stats of ships. Thus, you couldn' use any fleet tactic in any system.

(Example: Your fleet is armed with havy beam-weaponry. In some of the Star-Systems, beamweapons produce less damage because of a high magnetic feeld. Or kinetic weapons are less accurate in systems with high-gravity suns.)



- Like in some tradding-card-games (since the fighsystems seems to work the same), you can modify your chances by playing "Terrain"-Cards. In ES, the defender (or attacker?) could deside to play one of this cards before the battle to choose the field of battle. Asteroidfield (damaging large ships, making small ships more usefull and provide a bit more defense), Close (Planet-)Orbit (damaged ships tend to crash down, when the Engine fails => possible new sabotage technique?), Close (Sun-)Orbit (Upholding shields costs more energy so weapons deal less damage. kinetics tend to be less accurate, missiles tend to explode before they hit the enemy), Nebula (Colisions could happen, no targeting in long range possible)...

These could be reasearched in the military-tech-tree and/or already be known by heros. Also the possibility to have a fight near a friendly Spacestation would be nice! -> Making Orbital Defense (Stations, Minefields...) another interesting aspect of the game.



- Since Range is a problem for many players (with the right weapons, I never ever reach close combat!) there should be options or cards to jump a phase if needed. "Accelerate" or "First-Strike", could be cards which help fleets, fitted for kinetic-weapons, or making small ships more attractive, since they engage in close combat and manage to evade enemy long-range-weapons. Countertactics could be "Defensive Strategies" or "Guerilla-Tactics", to avoid/counter close combat.



- The 5 Turns of the battle are really a interesting and new way to fight, but i wonder what happens, when the fleets end up in close combat and still have ships? Do they both flee the battle, so there is a draw? Expecially during invasion, this is no option and some fleets will fight to the death, making more turns obligatory! This way (and combined with the ideas above), battles could tend do be longer and much more exciting. Yes, I know that this would mean that the combat music is too short, but you asked for improvement-ideas.



Ground-Combat: is a very nice idea, but could be tricky. I try to give some suggestions according to the engine of your game (Sry, I'm no computer-crack!).



- The colorfull bar which you see everytime you invade a systems stands (for me) for ground and airbattles as well. One improvement could be to show little spaceships (of your fleet) in the orbit, shooting down on the planetground, or little explosions where citys are razed or ships destroyed.



- Even though a groundbattle visualisation would be awesome, you could try it this way: Like in a trading card game, you choose a deck of specialized soldiers for a fleet. When invading the system and destroing ALL enemy fleets in this system (by loosing your own ships you would loose some soldiers as well!) you can choose to engage in ground-battle with your set of cards, by choosing a tactic, opposing the enemies defensive card-deck. Per ground battle you choose 1-3 additional striketactics (similar to the ones in space-battle) and the defender will have his own 1-3 choises. If you win, you get one Planet imidiately, and can engage in another ground battle next turn.



- Diplomacy is a powerfull weapon. Choosing to use espionage and black-ops, you could force rebellions and weaken structures, thus improving invasion and making ground combats even easier.





That's all for now - it's getting late. Starfighter, Bomber and all the other ideas are still very interessting and if you manage to do it: I'm in!



ENTRY 2:



Additional Battle Improvements:

- "Formation-Cards" could be choosen before the battle starts. The Fleet will than appear in this choosen Formation and will have boni/mali. Right now the ships seem to fly in a very loose formation. The "Wedge-Formation" could be used as an attacker, since the attacker is the one closing in. (I.e.: + X on Weapon Damage; -Y on Defense). A "Line-Formation" could improve accuracy or a "Loose Formation" would reduce the Fire-round by one, before fleeing the battle. A supperior "Back-door-strike" could position the attacking fleet right behind the enemy, so they can fire on the engines and thus minimizing the threat of counterattack. Basic Formations should be available with the first military-techs, superrior Formations for Heros or late-researche only.



- Giant Ships like the Executor or Eclipse from Star Wars are surely exciting, but should be available in late-game only or at least somehow usefull. They should differ in purpose from faction to faction. I.e. while the Super-Ship of the Hisso is nothing more than an Executor-Class Desrtoyer, manufactured for Space-battle only, the Cravers could have a ship that harvests Planets from the Orbit, while in a System (yes, even in the enemy-system!!!). Sophons Super-Ships could be big-ass flying reasearch-academies (while still able to defend itself!) boosting the reasearch in any system the go.



- Boarding Parties: Same as Nosfariel said! Great Idea!!!

I don't want real time battles or any overhauling done in an expansion pack. They could do this in a whole 'nother game.



What I'd like in an expansion pack, is new game mechanics. Tons of those.

Boarding a craver ship, fixing it so it flies and shoots a little, flying it into Hissho space and making them declare war on the cravers by blowing up a colony ship of theirs with a kamikaze attack of the craver ship, that's more my style and my liking.

- by Nosfariel

- More different weapons types, more hybrids and new types.

: Absolutely! How about AI controlled Mine-launchers, Plasma cutters (straight lines, destroying shipmodules untill repared?) or explosive kinetic rounds? How about "Stunning-Weapons" like Ioncanons or EMP-missiles? How about some atomic warheads? And at last some acitve defense like beamweapons against kinetic rounds?

Also some modules for launching Fighters and Bombers as additional "weapons", instead of own fightersquadrons and totaly new ships (even though it would be very nice either!).

More visuals (like blue flak-fire against missiles) would be really tempting but are not absolutely necessary.

- Destroying entire star systems (will disappear after being destroyed)

: Ok, a bit drastic but who knows what factions are able to do, when they are loosing a war? The System should not disappear completely, but stay there as some kind of a "ruin"! So, after the destruction, you have just asteroidfields, magnetic storms and perhaps a black hole (instead of the sun). The only way to "repopulate" the system would be by spacestations or highly advanced Asteroid-habitats.



=> This is leading me to another point: Improved Reasearchtree and New Victory-Conditions!:

1) I want the universe to be about 5x as large. When I get the final tech trees I want the domination to just be starting, not completely won already. I want to wipe out four factions and think to myself... "My goodness, the universe is VAST and I am just starting to take it over". In fact I want the new universe size to be called "Vast". =)



2) I thought that a cool feature would be, that after you "win" you discover a new path to a new universe (or you would be thrown into a different universe). The new universe would be one where there was half as many factions as you battled before who were well entrenched and firmly in control of their territory.

- by NovaBlazer

When several Factions become like the Endless, what will happen? In my eyes, you could expand the techtree at least so far, that you could choose between several wonders (like Dyson-Spheres, Factionwide-Collective-Mind, Forming whole Star-Systems into weapons -> beeing able to direct sun-emissions against Planets or other Starsystems; Explore the tech for triggering super-novas and direct whole asteroidfields into enemy-locations).

Also the "Terraforming of Gas-Giants and Asteroidfields" as the ultimate discipline could be very interessting. Being able to form new Planets out of Sturdust or relocate whole Planetary Bodies into new Starsystems, not unlike the relocation of Populations is a really good idea for an expansion-pack. Playing God in a Universe.

And for a diplomatic Superiority: It could be fun to contoll the enemy diplomacy as you wish from your godlike state. YOU deside who is allowed to have war and everyone else is praying to you like your faction is God himself. Being able to contoll enemy diplomacy would be very tempting.

And forging new and own wormholes as you please or new gravity lines for Spacetravel? Delicious.

SpaceTroll wrote:


- Destroying entire star systems (will disappear after being destroyed)

I don't like that idea very much. Perhaps you toggle it on/off in the advanced options?

The List already looks promising.



I have also some nice ideas.



-Visible player colors in battles (looks quite strange with sophons vs sophons oO)

-Custom Faction logo (selfmade or to choose from presets)

-Visible logos on ships in battles (would look really cool seeing your own logo on it)

-Visible names or numbers on ships (just some small details, adding deph)

-More diversity for weapons (example kinetic weapons look all the same, some colors or effects could help here)

-Exclusive weapons for factions? (United Empire could get Railguns etc.)

-Formation Cards (they could be linked with cards, for example if you choose offensive cards they adapt their formation)

-Ability to crash asteroids into planets ^^ (was thinking on planetary annhilation

-Improved Ship editor (like if you upgrade engine, it gets larger, visible sensor if installed etc., maybe ability to paint the ships individual

-Create your own hero (maybe a bit overpowered ^^)

-Marathon game speed? (My games end still to fast at slow speed)

1) I want the universe to be about 5x as large. When I get the final tech trees I want the domination to just be starting, not completely won already. I want to wipe out four factions and think to myself... "My goodness, the universe is VAST and I am just starting to take it over". In fact I want the new universe size to be called "Vast". =)



2) I thought that a cool feature would be, that after you "win" you discover a new path to a new universe (or you would be thrown into a different universe). The new universe would be one where there was half as many factions as you battled before who were well entrenched and firmly in control of their territory.





As promised... just two wishes!