---Consolidated list of improvements---

First up - AI bugs

1.  AI does not join players in single player.  <<<needs testing to confirm>>>

2.  AI does not react to envoy cruisers yet.   <<<CONFIRMED>>>

Next, preferance bugs

1. the preferances are not independent, thus not allowing saves, and other setting issues.  <<<CONFIRMED>>>

Lastly, improvements.

1.  envoy cruisers take a looooong time on their "sabotage" abillity.

And what we need from you.... MORE IMPROVEMENTS!  Give them here, and vote on them.

When giving the AI a kill # of ships mission, experienced a minidump

also a friendly AI of 100% happiness refused to attack an enemy target's ship or defend my planet

updated post... any suggestions for diplomacy improvements?

how about AI not offering missions to human players at all

I already posted some problems of suggestions in another thread  (you can read it here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/369931/get;2453922). Some of them are in your list already, but I'll repeat it briefly here:

SUGGESTIONS

• Ability to establish mission presets, be it by the player or having them already built-in.
• Keep the last mission parameters. This would be an easier solution for the same problem as above.
• Visual indication of probabilities of a mission  being accepted. Be it a text or percentage or changing button colors to green when reaching an offer the AI would accept.

And, finally, a general concern. With the amount of complexity of the new diplomatic system I fear that most of the diplomatic options won't be reached in most of the small and medium maps. I hope I'm wrong on this one.

SUGGESTIONS

• A Diplomacy counselor which hints at the odds a rivel faction will accept a mission while I am designing it. By looking at his advice i can tell if my offer is reasonable or not.
• Unreasonable missions (kill 100 ships for 100 credits) should give negative diplomatic modifiers.
• Ability to make 'demands'. ex.: Give me 1000 credits; reward: and I will not attack planet X/your empire.
• Ability to set up a continued demand tribute/exchange resources per minute e.x: 20 creds <-> 10 metal / minute.
• Number of rivals 'at war' with player should count as a negative modifier on military strength, as many military fronts will dillute military power.
• Ability to give ships, planets and neutral gravity wells as a reward;
• Possibility of unilaterally deciding a 'return fire only' stance, and even a 'cease fire stance against an empire. This should impact relations.
• 'Open Borders' pact. Without open borders, military ships travelling through a rival empire's gravwell is an act of war.
• Ability to unilaterally set a 'respect empire borders' for each empire on my diplomacy screen. With this on, the route calculations will ignore the jump lanes which route through the empire I am respecting the borders, but I can also 'give the finger' and route through enemy empires I am at war with. 

Here's my list of suggestions for Diplomacy, well actually they are more like requirements for longetivity after this expansion is released due to it being the last:

SUGGESTIONS:

AI

• AI Ability to spend all of their cash on, well anything finishing games against any AI when they have anything more than a few thousand credits shouldnt be possible they should be spending as much money as they possibly can on trying to survive.
• AI ability to work together with other AI / Players (working together with other AI is more important here). Sending their fleets in together against a stronger opponent to win the battle is really neccessary.
• Research all of their tech trees, even custom tech trees (like the one's we use in Distant Stars) so they can research everything and actually pose a real threat (in Distant Stars we have up to 8 levels of research on some tiers and if the AI researches 1 or 2 tiers they pose little threat). This ties in to the money one but why the hell would the AI NOT spend all their money on upgrades?
• Tougher Endgame AI (Max fleet cap used anyone?), more capital ships and fleet balancing please!
• Less siege ship runs please they're more annoying than worthwhile
• Ability to use superweapons, not only that but multiple superweapons

SUGGESTIONS

Add a 'GAME MECHANICS' to your suggestions categories

GAME MECHANICS

• Each faction of the same race which researches one tech should make it cheaper (an incremental bonus) for subsequent empires to research the same tech. It can be an unlockable bonus with several tiers in the diplomacy research tree, 'technology espionage' or something like that. Note that the bonus would only apply to the same race.

It would really be nice if the AI learned how to make use of superweapons by the end of the beta.  It really puts them at a handicap in long games.

Added that to my list too!

There needs to be a way for envoy cruisers to destabalize enemy culture, or call an immediate cease-fire to any fighting in a gravity well that an envoy cruiser occupies.

SUGGESTIONS

•  Embassy ability to establish "Peace talks" which both cease Military actions against one another and the mobilization  of attack ships in opponent controlled space.  This would be effective in both online and offline games, allowing the player to neutralize the military threat of a single opponent for an alotted time (time limit) and allows him/her to focus on attacking another enemy or fortifying their existing territories.  There should be certain conditions on this ability: It cannot be activated while in combat with said opponent and perhaps have it also have the amount of Military conflict negatives impact the time in which the peace talks last (The most wars you've fought with them, the less time you'd be able to negotiate for the ceasefire).
• Embassy ability to foster good relations between empires by spreading propoganda that creates sympathy with the general population. This would effect the income rate increasingly the more as the player acts against the wishes of his people (By attacking an empire that they are sympathetic towards).  The effects of this  can be reversed if the player complies with the will of the people or if the opposing faction (which is spreading the propoganda) attacks any of the panetary bodies of the player (So to prolong the effects the player doing the propaganda would need to fight a defensive war). May also hurt the alliegance of planets that boarder the other faction.  This could also be used to destabilize an allaince between to parties by creating negative feelings between two friendly empires, hurting the players economy (possibly making crystal and ore labour workers go on strike and stop mining)
  

Suggestion

A way to sabotage credit/refining income.  If for example, an opponent has multiple trade ports in gravity wells, then some sort of embezzle ability that can be used to turn an opponents own credit against them.  This could be useful against an AI or player that is using trade to generate massive amouts of income to fund their war machine. 

Not quite. It hadn't rejected *all* of my missions. It rejects most, but I've had a couple that it just ignored.

Actually the AI in the build you guys have is pretty broken. It wasn't me, I swear! 

I figured the AI was busted bad.  I'll update the post in the morning, and then add a voting method for the suggestions we may want to see in diplomacy... cheers!

Ok, I have a suggestion, specifically related to modding. Allow weapons to fire on only one kind of target. Like how assault cruisers can only fire on structures. Why not allow us to mod a weapon so it can only fire on strikecraft, or can only be used on other ships.

I think that another one that should be added to the bugs list is the AI's need to be more distinct. Defenders need to actually mine everything, put up starbases, turrets and keep a few first responders at each planet. And let the AI put starbases at the star. Aggressors should be focused on massive fleets to wreak havoc. Economists should have a lot of trade but also focus on influencing the market prices (actually use the market tools more than most).Those are some of my biggest beefs at the moment besides the ones already on the list.

Post has been updated, and voting is now in effect

for ease of use, you can post your responses like this....

Game Mechanics

1. Yah

2. Nah

ect...

Abilities

1. Nah

2. Yah

ect...

Lets keep the ideas a comin'!

I'm gonna place my vote on the improvements to the game mechanics that have been suggested...

IMPROVEMENTS

Here are the listed improvements that the community are coming up with.  Vote for them if you think they should be implemented.  They are divided up by categories...

Game mechanics

1. Have a % likelihood indicator on pacts and missions

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

2. Continual Tribute option (% of income, metal or crystal tribute per minute to a faction)

     Yah - SivCorp

     Nah - saracen16

3. AI working together on harder settings

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

4. More distinction between AI personalities

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

5. A method of Sabotage on metal, crystal income

     Yah -

     Nah - SivCorp, saracen16

6. A Peacetime bonus (increases credit income and culture spread with faction)

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

7. A Wartime bonus (increases metal, crystal income with faction)

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

Abilities

1. The ability to make demands from rival factions

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

2. Open boarders pact (traveling within a cease-fire well causes negative reaction if not under open boarders)

     Yah -

     Nah - SivCorp, saracen16

3. Embassy ability to spread propaganda (propaganda strengthens ties between 2 factions, causing greater

bonus/penalties)

     Yah - SivCorp, saracen16

     Nah -

4. The ability to secede a planet (transfer control from one faction to another)

     Yah -

     Nah - SivCorp, saracen16

[quote="SivCorp"]What other improvements would you all like to see in Diplomacy?[/quote]

I played my first game and I liked it, keeping in mind the issues still being developed. I feel the AI makes too many envoy cruisers sometimes that go about randomly and don't seem to use the undermine ability. Also, the other races don't seem to research counterespionage or counterattack topics with regards to enemy envoys.

There's another issue: for allied AI, I can't seem to order them to attack an enemy or defend a target/planet and I keep getting the message "You have been a poor ally thus far", etc., even though I have good relations with them, paid a helluva lot of tribute, and have good military strength. I hope that's one of the issues being fixed, as well as all the other ones being discussed. TY.

Game Mechanics

1. yeah

2. yeah

3. yeah

4. yeah

5. yeah

6. ? how would it work exactly? probably yeah

7. ? how would it work exactly? probably yeah

Abilities

1. yeah

2. yeah

3. yeah

4. yeah, with restrictions. penalties would apply if the player tries to give planet just to jump in and rob it back.

I think you should add the thoughts from these threads:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/370539

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/363851

AI makes ceasefires (yellow diplomatic bars) with factions they have 0-10% relationship with.

I'd like it if Embassies had a passive ability to slowly reduce negative relationship points due to military action.  When playing single player you can get those numbers pretty high after a few hours just from destroying roaming scout ships.  Fact it would make a really good upgrade option on the diplomacy tech tree.

just a note....

I will update the list every couple days with votes and new ideas.  Those who have already voted can simply cast their votes with the remaining #'s.

Keep em comin!

Game Mechanics

1. no

2. yes

3. no

4. yes

5. yes

6. yes

7. no

Abilities

1. yes

2. no

3. yes

4. OHHH YESSS YESSS YESSS