Hey

Newbie to the board here, i was looking to fire off a few suggestions on possible improvments of BOTF. I haven't tried the pre alpha status and don't really want to until the game is actually finished so forgive me if this has already been covered.

One problem i had with the origional was the tutorial, i found it fairly difficult to follow and not really very informative, it always felt a little lacking which made the game time consuming to learn and frustraiting to follow.

Another issue i remember was the amount of micro management which could be a little time consuming. Also i felt the Federation was a little uncharacteristic in making demands for protection money. Plus it could get a bit too difficult early on such as not being given enough time to build up or Borg invading when you're barely started.

These things may have already been covered so sorry if i'm going over old ground.

Hats off to the lads doing this update, i've been dying for a BOTF update for ages.

Hey Pal, welcome to the forums!

First things first; reading your message, I was a bit unsure whether you realise what Supremacy is. It is a spiritual successor to BOTF, and, whilst it currently borrows some of the images from the game, (Which will later be replaced by artwork we've made/acquired ourselves with permission) it is otherwise no relation to BOTF. Everything has been built from the ground up to avoid legal issues and escape some of the problems that BOTF suffered from. Supremacy is not an update or mod for BOTF, but a whole new game.

We haven't talked about making a game tutorial, but we're bound to come up with one eventually. The game is very similar to BOTF in certain respects, but different in others, so people will need to be taught the differences. This won't be done until the game is complete though.

I would urge you to try out the game now though; it might be incomplete and lack AI, victory conditions, or combat, but it is otherwise working. And it may be several years before the game is "complete". People will likely be making content for the game long after the programming work has finished though. We're always looking for feedback, and you'd be able to give us that if you played.

Supremacy is going to be much heavier on the micromanagement than BOTF. BUT, it will also be customiseable. You will be able to decide on the level of micromanagement that you want, and will be able to set a system governor that will take control of a system on your behalf, based on settings that you can set and adjust when you want. (Eg when new buildings become available to build) The system governor hasn't been implemented yet, but will be a priority once Mike has completed work on the AI.

The AI will be a major challenge when it comes to programming because we need it to be both flexible and rigid. We all know of the problems that BOTF had with the AI, and Mike will be working to avoid those problems. The main thing is that Supremacy will be playtested by the community - the AI can be tweaked until it is working correctly for all of the races. The reason why BOTF had AI problems is that it did NOT undergo such a playtesting stage before it was released; Microprose didn't have the time to test it in that way. They needed the money from the games' release - and as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough and Microprose collapsed.

The Borg are something that we're hotly discussing at the moment Here if you want to join in on the discussion. The Borg will still be a random event, but there will likely be a number of conditions that dictate when they will first appear - and who they attack. They won't just blindly and randomly attack the Galaxy anymore. They will be a threat to the most technologically advanced race that they believe they will be able to assimilate to improve the Collective. It will be up to players to ensure this never becomes the case - and that they can build their defenses quickly.

MoE, I think he's using the term "update" in a wider sense of meaning .

There's no harm in making sure. Besides, you know I love to uberpost.