My goal is to speed up multiplayer, and increase its reliability.



Increasing reliability is simply a matter of bug fixing and desync fixing. Nothing to say about that other than chop chop.



To speed the games up, thus increasing the allure of multiplayer as well as overall tolerance of it, I pose 3 things (i may or may not have mentioned them at other times, or others may have)



We are all aware of the semi-auto battle G2G vote that happened. It was shot down for some nonsense like the alliance or trade summary redo thingy. Now, a trade summary is all nice, but it doesnt really add anything but a minor convenience, and has little effect in multiplayer where you are likely dead by the time you care to have a summary of trade, if you even managed to have peace with anyone at all, who is likely dead also. The alliance changes, clearly imo, is just fluffy crap that could have waited or been thrown in with the trade thing. It's gonna seem newish, but nothing really changed that makes a difference. You get an option to leave without going to war because someone declares or joins. Some alliance you joined there, that doesnt even discuss plans or backup each other in defense. Again, in multiplayer, you are all likely dead by the time alliances using the alliance tech are implemented, and its more likely that you all just chat and decide to be friendly and dont bother researching the silly tech that really doesnt offer any benefits other than fleet vision. I, for one, would be much happier seeing improvements and changes that actually have an affect on serious improvements and additions, rather than backburner fluff. At no point do I envision anyone saying "Well, I am not really playing ES coz yadda yadda yadda, but now that there is a trade summary and the alliance thing was tweaked, I am definitely gonna play again/more" To me, it's like if there was a gigantic pothole in the road, instead of fixing it you put up a sign that points out the giant pothole, or that the community, by way of G2G, would rather have a sign than just fix the glaring problem.



Team Game as a format. With all the players in lobby, allow them to be assigned or choose a team (1,2,3,4,etc) and locked into an alliance from the start with all the members of that team. Thus allowing for team games, and the formation of Endless Space "Clans/Corporations". Would allow for some fun possibilities and custom builds focused on team play. Your team might have 2 attackers, and 2 techies. Maybe go all out offense, or hole up and trade. Teammates would not be able to mix fleets, but if they all piled onto one system they could add invasion power perhaps, whoever got there first would take the system. Galaxies could then have team setups with all members on the same E/W or N/S part of the galaxy.



The game is in need of a simple "retreat" option when battles start, which would be a choice along with "manual" and "auto". It would simply assume you played retreat in round 1, your opponent can still play an action if they manual. The manualing of scouts to retreat takes up a fair amount of time per turn. It would also just be a general time saver throughout the entire game.



Rally points. As empires expand, I could have 20 systems buildings ships. Every turn I need to go to half of them, create a 1 or 2 ship fleet at each, and move them all. It would be vastly more efficient, convenient, and logical to implement rally points. So anytime a ship builds from X system, it automatically creates max size fleets as needed and sends them to system Z which I have marked earlier. This can shave entire minutes off turns, it also allows people to manual important fights instead of having to auto them because if they dont auto them they will not have sufficient time to micro all their fleets.



Infinite Queues. No better way to make use of rally points than having infinite queues. Again, every few turns i need to queue up another hyper-mouse-clickfest of ships, wasting time. So much more sensible to just put 1 ship in queue, and click some production button that would continue to infinitely create that ship. Another nice thing along these lines, would be preset build orders.



It is highly likely that most people build the same structures on their systems in the same order. Perhaps, in a similar way to ship design, I could create a building improvement macro that if I select it, will automatically queue up "food exploit > fusion reactor > tourism > science thing > bunker" Not so handy early game, but later it beats having to scroll through the options and individually select everything you want, per system. Might be harder to implement, but I thought it sounded neato.





---I do realize everything takes time and there are only so many people working on it and each has their specific fields to work in, but its kind of taking a long long time---

Team games - nice option but I would rather see the other suggestions first.

Retreat without having to manually control the battle - Yes. I think this one should be the first one implemented.

Rally points - These are very much needed on huge maps, but not very important on tiny and small maps.

Infinite Queues - This shouldn't be too difficult to implement for a single ship type since we already have infinite dust and science options. However, it would need a new UI element to toggle it on/off.

Automatic queue - Other games had this feature a decade ago, so there's no reason to not have it in a modern game. Colonize a new system, queue up several techs you always build then save that queue order for the next new system you colonize.

I also want to add that if the fancy new alliance system update thing doesnt have Alliance Chat... major fail. In game private messaging would seem like a no-brainer good thing to add to the game also.

Kyu wrote:
I also want to add that if the fancy new alliance system update thing doesnt have Alliance Chat... major fail. In game private messaging would seem like a no-brainer good thing to add to the game also.

Nice list - i think Alliance Chat should be optional, as it can be done via Skype-Call, etc

it should be in the game, as text chat. if you would rather use steam or skype or vent, etc. then go ahead and so. But the option should be available.

Kyu wrote:
it should be in the game, as text chat. if you would rather use steam or skype or vent, etc. then go ahead and so. But the option should be available.

Yeah! I'd like to see it too, but if it does not get implemented, i'd use skype!

Composite suggestion, moved to the archives.