I just had this idea while looking over the list of random events created by Matress:

In the event of Ion Storms 1, if you have a station present which will be affected by the storm, you should be given the option of evacuating all personnel off the Station in a docked transport(s) which would only be usable for evacuation purposes, and then when the storm dissipates, the transport(s) return to the station.

There is, however, a catch. If the station is left completely derelict, then there is a so many % chance of greater damage or total destruction, whereas if 30% or more of the stations inhabitants are left on the station, its survivability rating goes up by so many %, with less chance of total destruction, but greater chance of loss of crew/inhabitants.

I think this would make for very interesting gameplay. Also, in addition, this could be used for combat situations as well.

Another point is Escape Pods. Those would be cool to see as well, such as if you have a containment breach on one of your vessels or sabotage, then you will have to manually pick the escape pods up within so many turns or you lose those crew, and the experience of that crew, which would been automatically transferred to the rescuing vessel. Once rescuing vessel has arrived in sector, a notification window alerts you, and the you can select from the orders to Beam Aboard: Lifeforms or something like that.

Just some wild ideas of mine that popped up. Would be nice to see these tho, IMHO

These are actually good, whenever I played Supremacy, I always had personnel shortage, so this should enable you to save as many as possible.

There's no personnel in the game anymore. It's been scrapped.

I've just finished removing all references to personnel in the database files - you should have known that, Vjeko. Unfortunately, the game no longer works with my files, and Mike is looking into what the problem is. It's not an xml problem because Vjeko and Notepad ++ assure me that it isn't.

Mike has also just informed us that he's removed all references to personnel in the programming as well, so it isn't just going, it's actually already gone.

Keep looking at the randoms though, and post any ideas you have mate, even for new randoms. Until Mike releases the random event editor, we don't know what the limitations will be, so we can come up with all sorts of ideas in the hopes that the editor will be accommodating.

There's not much I can do in terms of providing a random event "editor", as the events will generally be scripted (i.e. you will need to write code). I can include a code editor as part of the general editor, but writing random events is generally going to require some coding skill.

The upside to this architecture is that there will be fewer limitations as to what random events can do. I will probably include some "templated" events where most of the coding is provided for you, but you will still need to plug in some simple expressions (e.g. a query expression indicating which objects are affected, and a series of property/value expressions describing how the targets are affected).

Oh man that sucks that there is no more personnel... I was really looking forward to how that would have turned out in this game, it would have definitely added some flavor to the game

Hmmm...

As long as you show us *how* to do the programming Mike, we'll be able to learn how to do it. The templates will definitely be of use. Half the work i've done on the xml files involved copying and pasting anyway.

...

We've been planning on removing personnel from the game for a very long time, tethys. Mike actually disabled the Personnel in the last update (May 2009), so you wouldn't even have known about Personnel if you have the current version of the game.

We're getting a more "people-centric" personnel system. Instead of having personnel as a resource, you will be able to recruit individual agents that you can train in intelligence, command, or diplomacy, and give them specific orders.

Well, you'll need some intermediate C# programming knowledge. I can provide API documentation for the core Supremacy library and some examples, and people can ask me for help, but I'm not going to write a complete course on programming .

I have some (one year of highschool) C# programming knowledge and am willing to help where I can.

And yet it was what kept me from having huge fleets of galaxy class ships... I got that version, so howcome 'personnel' wasn't disabled? very odd.

It's in the current code, not in any of the public builds (yet).

I meant the personnel-giving facilities, Alex. On the screen where you can put population into energy, food, research, etc, there used to be an additional section where you could put your population into increasing personnel output. That was what was disabled. It no longer shows up, and so the structures don't either, although the structures were still in the database files. I have now removed those references.

Since there are no structures that increase the rate at which you produce personnel, producing ships will be a problem for everyone.

In the last 2 version sof the game (including the current one), personnel is created automatically by the game, so I don't really know what you're talking about... removing structures has absolutely no effect. ?!?!

Um, that was never in the game. It was in Dafedz's original design, but it was an extremely flawed concept, so we decided to treat personnel as a sort of resource instead of 'production category'. Every colony had a base recruitment rate that could be augmented by special structures. That resource no longer exists: it is not produced anywhere, referenced anywhere, or required for any sort of construction.

The structures were in the files Mike. I added them before the May 2009 update using the editor, because at the time we thought they *were* going to be in. Every Empire had them. It was only afterwards that we decided against them.



By removing these structures from the files, as well as by removing several objects that have been duplicated, I've reduced the size of the TechObjectDatabase.xml file by 60kb, and TextDatabase.xml by 106kb. The files I sent you on MSN are the fixed versions of these files, but for whatever reason they no longer work in the game.

I believe I played one of the very first versions of Supremacy, where ship building was difficult because of all the structures that needed to be built first. It got quite boring, but I did like the Personnel feature, which is why I commented on it. The latest version of Supremacy I have is from May of this year, 0.4.0.0 it says.

I am liking the effort put into this game tho, I am sure it will be as great as BotF or better

It sounds like Mike has an new and more interesting way to use personnel.

Even if you added them to the files, they never would have worked in the game because Personnel was not supported as a production category. I made that decision before the first pre-release build was ever available. Maybe you were just out of the loop. I've checked the code history as far back as 8 Sep 2007, and Personnel never showed up in the production/labor view.

I guess I imagined it then. My imagination is far too vivid.

...

On the new Personnel idea, we haven't released any specific details yet, which is why we're being vague. But it's an idea that is completely different to BOTF, and I think it's something players are going to both like, and be proud of once they've used it. It's a very cool idea. It's up to Mike to decide when we release the specifics.

Well, whichever way you decide to go, It would be very good if you would add to the game the ability to rescue the surviving members of a starship that had been:

> Destroyed/stolen by enemy intel (sabotage)
> Destroyed by random event (subspace rift, gravitational eddy)
> Destroyed by entering a sector with a neutron star/black hole
> Destroyed by malfunctioning warp core (random event)

And you have the option to pick them up in X amount of turns before they are lost, as well as the crew experience is lost. A successful rescue mission adds the crew experience from the destroyed ship to the rescuing ship, and if the rescuing ship already has a Legendary crew, it adds a special combat bonus that is only available to Legendary crews who have rescued surviving crew of a destroyed friendly (belonging to your empire) OR allied ship (minor or major race). On the other hand, you could apply this bonus to any starship with any level of crew, perhaps in the form of 1 extra sector speed per turn, extended range, coordinating the entire friendly engaging fleets damage control during tactical combat, or all 3

What do you think about this?

I recall that DS9 episode where personnel of a defeated Federation Fleet made their way home in escape pods. We could use a still image to show that a key person or persons survive in that way. It depends on what Mike decides we need.

which episode?

You'll have to wait until ship upkeep is implemented

Not sure those situations should allow crew to be rescued...
Also, in a game where there are a boatload of battles, it'd be a bonus fest It'd have to work for every empire, not just the player, too. Too many resources taken for little gain IMO.


BTW, evac in systems may be implemented in the game (ships have a stat for that already), but personally I think it won't be a relevant feature.

At least make it moddable tho, like how Star Trek: Excalibur is doing, that way anyone can add whatever they want to their version of the game

We may as well let the cat out of the bag with the new personnel system. It would help to get some feedback on it before it's too far along to change.



Pretty much everything in the game is modable. It's open source, so people could change the game however they like. You'll also be able to change quite a bit without touching the source code.

The cat's tail is already out of the bag:

That's not the full story mate.

Players will be able to train up individual Intelligence operatives in the three areas mentioned above; intelligence, command, and diplomacy. The operatives will be named people with their own "personalities" and "biographies". However, they will only be able to train in a finite number of skills. Once that limit is reached, if players want to train their operatives in another area, the operative will have to forget some previous training.

This will force players to make decisions about their individual operatives, improving their stats in key areas through training that best suits their role. These stats will affect the outcome of any actions they undertake in the field, so players that make wise choices will be rewarded through successful operations. Unsuccessful operations can potentially lead to major political crises or domestic unrest. Your operatives may even be captured and killed, although Mike hasn't confirmed those last two points yet.

Let the discussion commence.

That's not the full cat either...