You people also watch way too much Star Trek!!!

Ok, did a little research and found that photon torpedoes (or any type of torpedo) are classified as Semi-Autonomous Projectiles. Stated from nextgen tech manual:

"Since photon torpedoes are classified as semi-autonomous weapons, initial firing direction is not a major concern. Most firings involve direct fore or aft vectors, within ten degrees of the vehicle centerline."

So torpedoes do have guidance, use their antimatter warhead as propulsion until detenation. They can be fired any direction, but I would assume within 10 degrees in when captains want to fire, as to use less of the warhead and to not give the enemy the ability to do evasive maneuvers.

The photon torpedo will accelerate to max cruising velocity of +0.75 x launch velocity / speed of light. The photon torpedo cannot go into warp.

"The multimode sustainer engine is not a true warp engine due to its small physical size... Rather, it is a miniature M/A fuel cell, which powers the sustainer coils to grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube, to continue at warp if launched during warp flight by the starship."

Phton torpedoes have a range of 15 to nearly 3,500,000 km's from the starship.

So I suppose it would be rather similar to a missle, or a guided bomb... although they usually classify it as a projectile (from what I've found), although that is pretty much the same thing.

Missle sounds too old skool for a futuristic space game, maybe they should use Energy Weapons, Mass Drivers, and Projectile weapons instead... sounds a bit more realistic than using missles, chaff, ecm, etc.

If they did that, they would probably need to add in such a thing as 'resisting civilians' which would hurt planetary production and research, as well as economics, and no influence would be generated until the 'resistance is stomped'. Civilian resistance would be based on how 'happy' the population was before you took it. If approval was at 50%, then only that 50% that was happy would resist.

Big topic.... didn't read it all. There's one issue I've been thinking about though, (NOTE I am not a veteran player and thus my suggestion may already be present in the game)

There's no reason (as far as I can see) to have fleets of mixed-sized ships.

Once I research the next size hull, everything I create is that size. Naturally if I see an attack coming and only have time to spit out a smaller ship I'll do so, but it's rare that I force myself to have mixed fleets of fighters, corvettes cruisers etc. My suggestion is as follows:

Give unique bonuses to each size of ship.

Lasers/beam weapons are more or less instantaneous. Guns on the other hand take time to reach their target. Since tiny hulls are smaller targets, they'd get a good % chance of not being hit by gun weapons. Small hulled ships would also receve this bonus but it would be reduced. Similarly, after a ship has a speed rating of "X" or highers it would also gain that % chance of avoiding a gun hit.

Large and huge ships may get a % chance of weathering beam weapon attacks better, small ships are more adept at fighting other small ships, gun weapons may be better for puncing through the hull of a capital ship etc. It would be much more rewarding while designing a ship to really think about tactical situations. Maybe design a bomber for capital ship engagement and deploy it alongside a space superiority fighter. Create a large capital ship bristling with lasers to defend your missile gunships.... missiles could even be granted the first strike due to longer range.

The reason is that large-size hulled ships are fundamentally better per-unit-cost. They pack more firepower per-unit-logistics, they have more Hp per-unit logisists, and they cost less than the equivalent Hp/firepower/logistics of smaller ships.

You don't need to add a % chance of missing (the game's combat has enough random factors, thank you). You just need to make the smaller ships more efficient in some way. For example, a fleet of medium hulled ships could have more firepower than large hulled ships given the same logistics. However, the medium ships would be more expensive overall. That way, a player who is limited in logistics but brimming over with production can focus on smaller ones. If that's too much, you can replace miniturization techs with hulls, so that there's a real competition. That'd require ditching that silly "sizemod" thing that makes miniturization far less useful than a new hull.

Alternative, have specialized modules that can only be installed on ships below a certain size. A "Tactical Maneuvering" drive would give the ship greater base defense. A "Tactical Assault" module would allow the ship to gain a bonus to attack. These modules would need to be small, since they're going on smaller ships, but so long as their buffs are sufficient to make smaller ships valuable, they would be worthwhile.

Personally though, I'd go with the first one: making smaller ships more logistics efficient. Large hulled ships can be more cost-efficient.

What random factors? Everything is predetermined based on attack, defense, and HP. If you do 1,000 battles using the same ships, they will always turn out exactly the same way.

Oh? I have to admit I don't know that much about the combat aspect of the game: I prefer culture-bombing.

The only thing is, most of the time, 'very close-pitched battles' don't happen too often. I have had a few (actual quite a few) in my current game, only because the Korath had their ships decked out pretty much the same as mine were. So it always came down to who had more ships in their fleets. Or who had more 'bigger ships' in the fleet.

But most of the time, the AI isn't smart enough to combine 2 fleets together and attack en-masse a turn later. Usually battles are rather lop-sided (and usually against the AI). Most common time where it is the other-way-around is if the AI attacks somewhere on an immense galaxy, and catches the player off guard because that player is not paying attention to a spot way back in the back.

This is the reason why Stardock NEEDS to make weapon and defense research something that all civ's need to do on more of the same time-scale. To keep all civ's somewhat competitive.

I know tyhe game has some random factors in battles, what I was talking about wasn't random. I'm talking about bonuses in certain areas so that these 'random rolls' have tangible benefits.

Isn't that kind of the point? It's a whole new game we're talking about, not another addon. Everyone's already screaming for tactical combat to be in the game so I can guess that fleet combat with either be player controlled or at least be revamped in some way.

What I'd really like to see is something along the lines of what Star Wars: Rebellion did for their combat: tactical fleet combat where maneuvering to get the best shot was key, IE bringing your guns to bear as quickly as you can (most guns were along the side) only with this game there's so many more options for weaponry. What I see in more detail is:

- Large area to maneuver, ships starting far enough away from each other that they need to get into position to fire.

- Groups can be created and deployed before the fight begins (a la total war)

- Ships can be selected, grouped and given a formation or selected on its own

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- Damage is based on where your guns are: if your weapons are lined along the sides, broadsiding while you maneuver through or around ships will give a bonus to damage, if your weapons are concentrated near the front more damage is to be had by keeping your ship in line with your target. This could be the big "tactical" aspect of the game, allowing a smart admiral to win a battle over an otherwise superior opponent.

- Certain 'terrain' like asteroids, nebulas etc could help in creating an advantage: parking your ship in a nebula would hide your ship until yours fires, and any ship firing into it would see a damage penalty from reduced accuracy.

- Ship speed helps not only in movement points but in manuevering, which is the crux of tactical combat.

- Depending on where the shields /hp boosters are placed, there are better ways to engage ships: if an opponent's ship has its guns and armor along its side, try to send whatever its targeted as bait then attack from the front.

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- Tiny craft get a +50% chance of evading gun weapons, +20% to evade missiles (due to fast speed)

- Small craft get a +20% chance of evading gun fire

- Large and huge craft get bonuses to negating laser damage and are on the whole the best logostics-to-wepons ratio, but are beasts to maintain.

- Ships in orbit require no maintenance (is this already in the game)

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- Missile weapons get the first strike due to longer range, but ships could have a command "hold position and defed" where they'd focus their weapons on destroying incoming missiles. The longer away, the beter chance they'd be knocked out (unless a fighter carries it and gets in close)

- Laser weapons are overall the most accurate and best for eliminating fighters, but are generally weaker.

- gun weapons pack the most punch but have a better chance of missing smaller/faster targets

So more like GC1's tech tree. 

GC2's tech tree does support multiple prerequisites, but it won't show you in the tree what the other prerequisites are (although it shows on each prerequisite that it "unlocks" the tech in question), because GC2's tree wasn't designed with that in mind.

This is an interesting idea, but I'm completely in opposition to it at present.  Who are you to dictate how fast we can research?  Or anyone else, for that matter.

Yes, that would make the above a somewhat better idea.  Turns were months in GC1, you know.  Months do seem like a good timeframe.

Okay, now that sounds like a good idea.

I still don't like the whole "you can't research hyperdrive until 2228" or whatever thing, though.

Like, a miniaturization resource, a speed boost resource, an asteroid mining resource, a terror star resource , a planet quality resource, a soldiering resource, a loyalty resource, and a production resource to name a few.

And some resources that allow to you have special modules that you can add to your ships, only if you control that resource though, and those special modules that may already be on your ships only work while you continue to control that resource. E.g. Super Sensor Resource, if you mine it, it unlocks a Super Sensor module that you can add to your ships (that gives, say +2 sensors). If an enemy destroys your Super Sensor Resource Mine, your ships will still have the module, but lose the +2 sensors ability (unless you recapture the mine).

Hell (I know it says I am very evil down below, but really i'm not), to take it a step further.... as what could be similar to earth roads, which allow faster travel... eventually you should be able to set up certain inter-planetary space routes, which allow ships to travel slightly faster from planet to planet.

A Constructor would set up certain modules and beacons along the way to assist ships travel speeds (similar to a worker building a road).

These types of things are a must... so that way ALL civ's can better defend there territories! If you start to invade one portion of their empire, and that empire has space routes constructed, they will be able to bring over reinforcements faster. These things would also create more of a 'FEEL' that it is your empire that you have constructed and worked hard to keep together.