Hey Mstrobel

I have a Few questions

1. How big will the map be in Supremacy? 2x bigger than BOTF, 4x bigger than BOTF

2. Will the AI be more intelligent?

3. Will there be more features?
For example: Can Species 8472 be able to destroy worlds - Will you be able to go travel to a planet within a system (In BOTF a ship just occupied the system) - Will there be Admirals that can lead fleets, or diplomats to add more influence to a neighboring power?

4. Will the Diplomacy section be redone?
For Example: Can you propose special conditions for surrender... require planets / systems / ships / or technology in exhange for peace - Can you propose to another power to end their alliance, trade with another power? - Can you trade technology such as cloaking for dilithium?

5. Will the ship section be redone?
For Example: In BOTF once a player reached a certain technology all ships were upgraded. This is unrealistic. Will players be required in Supremacy to order their ships to be refit in order to keep up with technology (Ex. NCC 1701 to NCC 1701 Refit). Will players be allowed to adjust ship speed levels on starships traveling through systems? (Have the NCC 1701 which normal crusing speed be warp 6 - 1 sector move per turn, changed to max warp - 2 sector mover per turn at the expense of credits or dilithium)

What other changes will be accomplished in BOTF 2 Supremacy

And last but not least. Thank you for all your hard work & all your devotion... you are a true and honorable man.

What you see in the latest build hasn't changed since the first pre-release. It probably won't change before the final release either. I believe the smallest galaxy size (Tiny) is 25x25 sectors, and the largest (Huge) is 80x80 sectors. There are three intermediate sizes (Small, Medium, Large), and I'm pretty sure they're all larger than any of the maps in BotF.



That depends on my ability to develop a convincing AI. I won't really know until I've tried, but I'd like to think so, yes .



Species 8472 may appear as a random event, and there aren't a whole lot of limits as to what can be done with random events. At least that's the plan. As for moving to single planets, I doubt it. I spent a lot of time outlining the pros and cons of managing colonies at the planetary level vs. the system level. It boils down to the fact that you'd end up with way too much micromanagement at the planet level. I felt that keeping control at the system level would let me offer more granular control over the individual colonies, since there would be fewer colonies to manage (one per system rather than, say, 6 per system). The only alternatives I saw were over-simplification or a nightmare of tedius micromanagement . Since colonies are managed at the system level, I don't see any gameplay benefits to moving ships between individual planets. However, fleet management in the 3D tactical combat system may be different... it's still on the drawing board.

As for "Admirals" or similar "leader" roles... well, I can't say anything about that. Let me just say that not all of the planned features in Supremacy will be announced prior to their appearance in the game. I reserve the right to implement surprise features .



The diplomacy system will be far more significant and flexible than the system in BotF. Actually, the diplomacy system in the current release of Supremacy is being scrapped and rewritten, so even that might not be a very good indicator right now .


There will not be any automatic upgrades for human players. Actually, let me rephrase that: you will not be required to play with auto-upgrades, but I may provide this as a game configuration option.


Plenty. So many that I can never recount them all when asked. But the general theme is that you will be able to do a lot more, but will not be required to do a lot more. The theme here is macromanagement--you can micromanage all you want and dig deep into the new features as much as you want, but there will also be ways to automate some of the new complexity for players who don't like micromanagement as much as others.


Don't canonize me just yet. I could get hit by a truck tomorrow .

I've already written a rough list of potential random events and personalised race messages, Jean, which you can find Here. They're far from complete though, and it remains to be seen whether they are even programmable. Mike has said in the past that he only plans to include 12 random events, but he may change his mind. Scratch that, Matress will make sure he does!

The Species 8472 event is number 3 in the list. I hope you like it.



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I hope the option will be in too, because if it is, i'll set all the minors so they auto-upgrade. That will make them much more formidable in the game.

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If this happens I EXPECT you to haunt the internet until you find your successor, Mike. The project MUST survive.

Auto-upgrades will at least be implemented for minor races, and possibly for empires. I haven't worked out the details on that yet. Too many people object to auto-upgrades for human players, so it certainly won't be mandatory, but you will be able to turn the feature on. All the logic will already be there, so there would be very little additional cost to make it available to human players if they want it. May as well include it.

I'll be far too busy haunting Scarlett Johansson .