I made a list of what's still missing and planned of the "grand" features in-game (can also be used as a starting point for community contributions):

• colored start menu
• galaxy creation parameter settings
• AI building troops and managing them for invasion and defence purposes (hence no AI-led invasions or invasion defence yet)
• 3D battles
• Random events and alien ships type "Cristalline entity" or "Gomtuu"
• in-game encyclopedia and tutorials
• some kind "Borg-like" race
• minor race fleet movement AI
• have some minors act like "medium" race, i.e. expanding to nearby habitable star systems and maybe even invade other systems (then mostly at the beginning when majors are weak(er) than those minors
• Windowed-mode for bote (right now it's just full-screen)
• formula for crew experience gain after a battle
• artwork (UI menu design) for our sixth race, the Omega-Alliance (thus greyed-out and not playable yet)

That's right. Next time I will do some bugfixing of the current alpha2. There are some bugs, because of you can't play a long game in multiplayer. After that and if Malle's UI skin was ready, I will release the next alpha version, so you can play with the Khaorons, too. Maybe there is a light AI in this version, but I don't know yet. After that I will code the intel and random events. If I have some extra time, I will work on the combat-system, so you can interact with your ships.

Can anything be done to support widescreen formats similar to 1080i60?

[Current support is 1280x1024 IIRC which could be framed by the 1920x1080 if nothing else .....]

It isn't possible at the moment...

As I struggle through the German, how about you summarise just one change of your Utopian Ideas that is independent of the rest? The best one perhaps

Edit [Malv]: look at bote general chat, split the topic! .

I might be able to work out some sort of advanced scripted AI. its been many years since ive done that but i used to just write a basic AI script and then just make it more complicated.

although whoever writes the script will be able to predict the AI's movements in detail but it would make a more challenging AI because you could set the AI to go for only plants with above certain population, get the AI to set up a line of 15 starbases around the parameter of there territory ect

When i last did it it was really just parameter editing in star trek armada 1 for anyone who modded that game.

this sounds good. actually you have to ask sir p. about when he opens the AI up for some scripting. this comes in very handy when creating some scenarios like the dominion war for example so this would be something for the beta or alpha6 version of the game I'd say.

anyway pm him and ask if it's possible at all to script the AI atm. I'm not sure if that's the case..

Atm and I guess in future too, you won't be able to script the AI. The AI concepts are to close to the rest of the game, so it is completly hard coded. Maybe you are able to set up some general guidelines for the behavior of the AI, but you won't be able to script a whole AI.

one guideline in the example with the 15 starbases he presented would be somethin like: Starbase build priority=STRONG or whatever

scripting a whole new AI would collide with the rest and would need highest in-game priority to overrule the normal AI bugs are pre-programmed in that case plus you need to know all in-game handlers which means in fact possession of the code and that's not gonna happen I think except when this game ever gets open-source after finishing .

Well i was more thinking of giving the AI grid references like

StarbaseConstruction = HomeworldRadius6

so all starbases are built within the 6x6 grid aroudn the home sector for fortification reasons. i know its not that simple but im in work so not much time.

You mention the random events Mal - are you going to use My Randoms or a different system?

I've got tons of stuff to do at the moment, and i've been working on the randoms for about 2 years now, but they're still far from complete - I haven't really touched them in several months though. *ahem*

If you're going to use them, I'll see if I can spare any time on finishing them off, but there's still quite a bit of work to be done.

I do have my own set of 25 ideas to be implemented first by sir p. so you can take your time .

Was that supposed to be a link to the Utopian Ideas in the first post?

Regarding the sound.

There is a new voice actor working on the Federation.

The Battle audio mix projects will be uploaded to a new combat sub folder for each major race.

As I come across usable sound effects, (not already uploaded by MOE,) these will be added.

Do you have any other specific requests for sound? (I do not do original music and try to steer clear of copy write stuff)

for now, I'm fine kenneth .

keep up the impressive work, if anyone wants some additional things in the voice acting scene, feel free to post your ideas!

@foxura, I split the topic, it's somewhere in bote general chat where I presented my utopian ideas (afraid you must scroll down a while to find it ).

I wonder if you could add the low rumble of warp engines or some music with the opening menu?

sure. likely in one of the next alpha version when the opening menu gets "themed" a bit.