Random events, stock items and etc.

This I do not like. It adds a random element where none needs to exist, IMHO. 
 

I'm on board with this. An expansionistic race could have fledgling colonies all over the place, while a sedentary one would have a tight sphere of influence, but densely populated.

Moons are a sine qua non, IMHO.  If Jupiter can have 67 moons, I wouldn't like to see a whole universe without one. Especially since you can get away with a LOT, using moons

Yes, yes and yes.

Instead of incremental stat change loot that was suggested earlier, having a random events system would be fantabulous.

I'd prefer the random events to have a 2-3 options though. Negative, positive and neutral events are all fun and would liven up the universe greatly. One of Civ V mods has them and they are super fun.

Ex.:

Engineers discovered a new way to rout power to one of your ships subsystems. Which one is it? 1. Weaponry (-5% Energy consumption for energy based weapons), 2. Shields (-5% shield recovery time), 3. Engines (-5% fuel consumption).

Some ship tech came to work drunk and made a blunder while doing a routine check. 1. One of the docked Mukay ships cannon went off and hit the Vindicator's fuel line (lose 50% of fuel and 10 crew) 2. One of the docked Tywom ship engines went off and burned everyone in the docking bay (lose 30 crew) 3. Missile exploded in one of the docked ships and destroyed it and two other ones (along with the drunk bastard).

@Tovanion

Random elements make the experience feel more lifelike and adds dynamism to the progression. The great example is "Out There". You should check it out. It's super fun, although can be hard as balls.

I'd be fine with this as an option.

A lot of strategy games have random events but they are often optional and can be turned on or off based on preference.

When I was talking about random events... it was about some SMALL changes... like a 5% boost; in case of nerfs it can be higher as it adds more challenge . So it does not make you superpowerful and etc. but just adds some modest randomity + extra flavor. But having them on and off seems ok.

As for moons... we do not have to be 100% accurate, but it would be nice for planets to have moons. More ideas, options and etc.

I think we need to differentiate between random events vs random encounters, something that is pervasive to gameplay vs something that is in the moment.  

I don't think SC needs random events since an action/arcade like SC is all about events and things happening in the universe.  I don't think I'll change what I'm doing because my engineers were 5% more efficient this month (I'd be questioning why they weren't more efficient all the time!) But I'm all for random encounters, small one-offs that help or hurt you, or give you a 'wow, cool graphics' moment.

Another example, instead of a "Hell Freezes Over" random game event that causes all planets to be cooler with less fire hazards, I'd rather see a news flash where "the Foobar System was Bombarded by Frozen Meteors" causing only its worlds to be cooler for a time.

I'd rather see random events be... random events.  5% bonuses to things don't really fit with such a simple game.  For example a 5% bonus to weapon damage doesn't even work, weapons do damage based on how many crew units they kill per hit... 5% of 1, 2, 3, or 4, has no effect.  This isn't that kind of game.  But "random events" such as "a crystalline entity is attacking a colony, save the colony" could add "life" to the universe and provide little side missions as you are doing a quest.

^ 5% to weapon dmg was given just as an example. Besides, the random events are there to fill the time gaps of your interstellar travel. Eye-candy art, somewhat meaningful choice can help to make every play-through unique and memorable. They aren't meant to be as frequent as you think though. They are there to make it feel like even when you're flying through space, there's stuff going on on your ship and around your immediate vicinity. It's just a little immersion technique that shouldn't hurt your gameplay (or at least much of it XD).

When traveling to the other edge of the Galaxy, wouldn't you be excited to see a picture of a glowing Tywom crew members face holding a test tube telling you that now we only need x1.5 instead of x2 fuel to travel through Quasispace?... I would.

I like the idea of "crystalline entity". Helping other "lifeforms" or helping the entity can be your choice and can affect the immersion also. Like Gnarly said, it has to be a momentary event in an immediate vicinity. Not something that happened 625 parsecs away and you have to spend a week time to get there. Imagine flying through space to meet Mukay supreme leader and you get a distress signal from a nearby star...... Exciting!!

Random events is fine as long as it is believable (whatever that would mean in a game like SC).

In some strategy games (I think Master of Magic was one of them). You had events occurring depending on what year it was.

That is to say. For example it is the year of the rabid Rabbit. All Leporidae have a 5% chance to become "rabid" where strength and agility is increased by 50% but they consume twice as much more food......

It is random but at least you can expect it.

I would rather have system wear and tear. It's realistic to have systems become not as efficient and requiring service or repair based on constant use and abuse. I think you should be able to overdrive your systems at the expense of wear and tear and fuel. I know it's a bit like Starflight in the aspects of need minerals for repairs but I always wished for that to be implemented in SC. Mining for minerals just to fuel and upgrade kinda sucks.

I truly, madly, deeply, do not want to see ANYTHING in the game that affects ANYTHING by percentages. Urgk. No thank you. Life doesn't work like that anyway. I don't want to see weapons that shoot 5% faster. I don't want shields with 10% higher capacity. I don't want a bountiful harvest season that gives you 12% more crop yields. It becomes meaningless. And is one of the most boring tropes in gaming. The Civilization games have become one big number crunching pit of despair for me. But none perfected the boredom like Civ: Beyond Earth. Ugh. None of the discoveries ever MEANT anything. And I hate to say it, but GalCiv III fell into this as well. Every upgrade was just a few boring % points. When really, the AMAZING parts of Civilization were when your swordsman became a frickin musket man! And your cavalry became a tank! And airplanes were introduced! Not when your economy number chart was increased by 18%. Snooze. 

So that's the key. Meaningful upgrades. Meaningful changes. Meaningful random events, PLEASE. 

Introduce a minor race of nanobots that consume minerals on planets in a certain area, and leave behind either less or more valuable waste behind! 

An anomaly maybe, that automatically translates your conversation responses into awful and offensive vulgarity so that no matter what you try, the alien race in the area considers you hostile for a period of time! 

A quasispace portal that only opens for three days a mon-... Oh wait. Used that one already

But please oh please stay away from boring game tropes like "10% reduced pricing on ship upgrades for the month because of X". Gag me. 

^ Irrelevant to main story fluff doesn't need to be "meaningful". You don't want to burden devs with it. Maybe you do if it's EA?... noooo..... Bioware?..... no, no, no...... Blizzard?..... naaaaahhh..... Bethesda?.......... f*ck no.

Yes, Hunam, I'm talking about your beloved Fallout IV, with its legendary weapons that "boost limb damage by 10%" or "deals 15% more damage to super mutants"!!!!!! Are we allowed to swear on this forum?! Because the only thing I have to say about the choice to include those" legendary", idiotic and outright boring guns is filled with a litany of curses! What a gigantic, uncreative waste of time!!!!! 

^ So, you'd rather play the game with like 20 guns, but unique ones, 'cause to make 5000 different guns is a pretty massive feat to accomplish?..

I'm not in favor of % stat increase and long ass clunky naming, but in case of Fallout 4 weapons it works and is pretty solid. Reflects the weapon mod "game" nicely too.

Remember, you can rename your weapon, so it feels more personal to you. If you're role-player, of course...

According to your way of thinking Diablo item system is trash too?

The new SC doesn't need 5000 weapons for your flagship (the game isn't about loot or growing your stats), so the unique set of items can actually be developed. I'd take 20 different weapons and be satisfied. Sheesh, 10 will be enough. Sprinkle them across the galaxy sector and be happy exploring to find them. Random events are another story - they aren't essential. Some even suggested to have an option to turn them off. That's how unimportant they are. Therefore, stat increase bonuses as a reward/accomplishement for those events I consider acceptable. It's just fluff that makes the games a little more alive. Like Hearthstone Golden cards. They aren't needed, but it's more satisfying when you have and play them.

Quoting Hunam_, reply 13

^ So, you'd rather play the game with like 20 guns, but unique ones, 'cause to make 5000 different guns is a pretty massive feat to accomplish?..

I'm not in favor of % stat increase and long ass clunky naming, but in case of Fallout 4 weapons it works and is pretty solid. Reflects the weapon mod "game" nicely too.

Remember, you can rename your weapon, so it feels more personal to you. If you're role-player, of course...

According to your way of thinking Diablo item system is trash too?

 

The new SC doesn't need 5000 weapons for your flagship (the game isn't about loot or growing your stats), so the unique set of items can actually be developed. I'd take 20 different weapons and be satisfied. Sheesh, 10 will be enough. Sprinkle them across the galaxy sector and be happy exploring to find them. Random events are another story - they aren't essential. Some even suggested to have an option to turn them off. That's how unimportant they are. Therefore, stat increase bonuses as a reward/accomplishement for those events I consider acceptable. It's just fluff that makes the games a little more alive. Like Hearthstone Golden cards. They aren't needed, but it's more satisfying when you have and play them.

Well Star Control II had like 4 weapons, lol. But yes, Diablo II and especially III had shit-item system. Same with Borderlands. Ugh. Just random inconsequential, insubstantial, incremental bonuses that don't mean anything and bore me to death. 

You know who got it right, and made you feel like a champ in doing so? 

Baldur's Gate. 

There are several categories of weapons:

1) 2h Sword - just basic weapon 

2) 2h Sword +1/+2/+3 - basic weapon with a bonus

3) Flaming 2h Sword - weapon with cool effect making it extra special

4) Lilarcorl - Special, named weapon that talks to you, has a soul and engages in hilarious dialogue when rushing into battle - "You know once, long time ago, I was like a... like a Moonblade Hahaha!" Each named weapon was lovingly placed at one specific point, usually involving a quest, quest reward, or downing a boss. 

I'd love to see something like this in the new StarControl if people insist on putting a ton of weapons with Stat bonuses in the game. 

1) Fusion Blaster

2) Fusion Blaster MKII/MKIII/MKIV - slightly better

3) Gauss Photon Fusion Blaster - some special projectile that transfers mass energy from the projectile to the receiving ship

4) The Apocrypha of Skaros - found on a long dead tomb world of slumbering ancients who came awake when you came near. Defeating them, you found this among one of the wreckage. 

4 categories! Who has other ideas?? 

^ you literally just described Fallout 4 weapon system. Apart from the fact that most "legendary" weapons are just simple drops.

1) 10mm pistol

2) Powerful 10mm pistol/Silenced 10mm pistol/Advanced Powerful Silenced 10mm pistol

3) Railway rifle

4) Any legendary drop that's better than a regular weapon (ok, there are no quests for them specifically)

Who insists on putting tons of weapons in SC? I haven't seen alot.

Ugh, I know. As soon as a pressed Post Reply, I thought... Well that sounds like Fallout IV, the exact game I'm bashing! 

I think the difference lies in the fact that... When EVERYTHING weapon you come across is special/can be turned into something special, then NOTHING seems special anymore. 

I mean, you got friggin power armour in the first 40 minutes of the game. AND killed a Deathclaw! You're supposed to spend 70% of the game figuring out how to do both of those things. You didn't earn it yet, and that was the problem. They just give you a million special, weapons and armour with bonuses, so they cease to mean anything. 

Maybe I'm crazy, but... My favorite part of a Diablo like game is the beginning. Where you're in rags! And you've got a bent sword made out of tin. And after hours and hours, you've finally got a steel sword and some armor that's not made from garbage. And you earned it. 

I don't know what I'm saying. Or the point I'm trying to make is: thank God you don't want StarControl to have a million weapons! Phew! And we both agree against %Stat increases! 

Yeah, I didn't get this part either. I intentionally ignored the fact that there's power armor in the game. I like my Silver Shroud coat.

Agreed. Sense of accomplishment should come from your actions, not 'cause game threw stuff at your face.

Yeah, I too dislike the loot avalanche that is most commonly seen in ARPGs and MMORPGs. That flaming sword of fiery doom isn't so impressive when you have already had 5 slightly less powerful fire swords and know that you will probably find one that has slightly better percentages in the next level. It just becomes drudgery to wade through all the stuff and decide which you sell to the merchant and which you keep for a while. No sense of wonder or power at all.

In SC2 only the mothership ever received upgrades.  I could definitely see this new game working the same way in that regard.  There really isn't a reason to upgrade the "satellite ships" (what us SFB players call full size ships carried by another ship).  Each is unique and designed to work a certain way and have a certain balance too it in relation to the other satellite ships.  There is really no need to change them through upgrades, and in fact it would probably be a better game if the satellite ships remained the same throughout the game and only the mothership gets upgraded.  Personally, I think it is actually a better game that way.

That said, you could of course upgrade the satellite ships, and if they do I would want the upgrades to be significant and visually noticeable changes rather than bonuses to existing attributes.  For example a gun upgrades from single fire to multi-fire, a formerly just explosive mine gains an added effect such as EMP or gravity well, etc.

But I still think it would actually be a better game if the satellite ships stayed what they are and not morph into essentially being different ships through upgrades.

This!

This would allow for progression, built in - some alien ships could be extra tough in the beginning! But as you expand your technology horizons, you end up being able to destroy them! Cool!

Thinking about this more...

In SC2 the satellite ships were "upgraded" by means of giving you a access to a better ship.  You start with the nearly useless earth cruiser.  You soon get a Spathi, which is actually one of the better ships... which is why you then lose access too it early in the game.  This was to give the new player a powerful ship early on to learn, and to handle the probes and khor-ah the player would face early, then taken away so there could be a progression of better ships through the game.  I think doing "upgrades" to the satellite ships in this way is the best way for this game.  You upgrade the mothership, and recieve better and better satellite ships through the course of the game.  The "system defenses" I have mentioned in another thread would impact the game in many ways and this is a good example, system defenses would keep weaker early game ships relevant for their ability to "peel the onion" (for example the "minesweeper" is always useful no matter how outclassed it becomes as a combat ship).

SC isn't balanced in supermellee/multiplayer because the ships are equal.  The ships are not equal.  It is balanced by a "BPV" (Basic Point Value) system that is functionally identical to SFB's BPV system.  Multiplayer is balanced by the point system and the players ability to choose their lineup of ships, and which ship to use at which point in the scenario.  The individual abilities of the ships become almost irrelevant within this system.  The player sees the game and it's out come as fair and balanced because they chose their lineup of ships and when to use them.  They could have chosen their opponents lineup and usage strategy, and maybe they will next time around if they feel it was stronger than theirs.  This strategic side of the equation leave the player feeling as though a good balance exists and it is their strategic decisions that are responsible for their loses.

The focus of any debate of "ship balance" is actually shifted from the ships themselves to their value.  A player might think a ship is too cheap, or too expensive for its ability, and a change in point value becomes more likely than a change to an actual ship in future patches.  This system is tried and true and works very, very well on many levels.

Maybe if Cuorebrave removed his eyepatch it would increase his Charisma by 20%......

SC1 had these Precursor relics that upgraded your regular ships, giving them more energy capacity, crew capacity, energy regeneration, thrust or turning. I guess in SC2 they felt they didn't need it because there was the flagship to customise.

As for random events like the OP described, I they might work. I think they should generally happen in response of player stumbling across something instead of just happening, though. Also keep the incremental percentage increases and decreases off the weapons and ship capabilities in general. "Rich ore found, +15% to starbase RU generation for 3 months" is fine, "Space dust has clogged the hyper intakes, -10% to hyperspace speed" is less so.

As I mentioned in my previous post it should not be totally random events that makes you scratch your head and ask "why now?".

The player should almost always be aware of the inherent risks.

For example, you can utilize a new hyperspace dark matter jet engine that increases hyperspace speed by 15% but the downside is that there is a chance that the jet engine can clog up in interstellar dust so if you travel through a nebulae there is a 30% chance that the engine will clog up negating the jet engine effect and further decreasing speed by 10%.

Or it is the year comet Haley is passing by the galaxy and therefore there is a higher chance for something to happen.

A star in another galaxy has gone supernova and the energy waves reach the galaxy you are in in 20 years. When the shockwaves arrive all spaceships will have decreased shield strength and recharging due to the constant stream of energy for a period of 1 year until the energy wave passes.

It should be something believable with a cause and effect.

It shouldn't a stupid random thing that spoils the game like just before an important space battle you get a random event saying that your crew got infected with the space flu and you attack strength has been reduced by 10%..... those kind of events are the dumbest events I have ever seen.... Master of Orion had too much of those stupid random events (space flu just a made up example of a random event). Good thing that you could choose the game setting to either remove or lessen the frequency of those events.

Please, believable, expected, random events.

I kinda agree. Random events without player's input are off-putting. That's why I suggested to expand on them to the point where they are interactive; where you have at least 3 choices to influence their outcome.