Ok devs, I love your game. I've played it way too much at the expense of eating and hygiene. Here's my idea, free of charge: Create "great leaders" that randomly get generated and attached to capital ships after great battles.
After epic battles, come up with an algorithm where a great leader gets attached to a capital ship such that he adds cool little perks to the ship. Like "Darth Vader" (obviously you can't use him by name, but whatever) gets created for a Halycion Carrier, causing fighters and bombers to get a bonus in combat. Or Picard becomes captain of my Kol Battleship, granting "Their finest hour" benefits. Or it could even be a great engineer/etc that improves shields, like Scotty. Or Grand Moff Tarkin joins your Desolator and turns it into a real planet destroyer...
Other leader ideas (You can't obviously use them straight out of movies/tv, but could base heros on them):
Starbuck-Fighter Bonus against fighters/bombers/frigates
Luke-Fighter Bonus against everything
Wedge - Fighter Bonus against fighters and bombers
Adama-Adds protection to local ships.
Emperor Palpatine- Death Star-Planet Destroyer, with a weakness for fighter attacks
Kirk-Reliant Shield Code-knows a shield code (12345) that weakens enemy shields
Khan-Hell's Heart ability-lets him detonate genesis. Like a superweapon going off... in 30 seconds
President Roslin- Uber colonization ability, faster jump out of combat
Han Solo-Never Tell me the odds-Bonus near asteroids/versus pirates
Borg Queen- Assimilation/shields-possibilty of absorbing enemy killed frigates, increased shield mitigation
Admiral Ackbar- IT'S A TRAP- extra ship speed/handling in battle
R2D2-See What You Can Do-When shields go down, R2 repairs it to 10%. Chance to cancel Jump blocks
what do people think? Anyone have anymore? I think it would add a Civ IV great wonders/great leaders style tweak to the games that would make them more unique.
Maybe you could even get bad leaders:
Dark Helmet-Ludicrous Speed - ship jumps faster but overshoots to a random location in the well
Colonel Sanders-Even in the future nothing works- random loss of weapon for a short time
President Scrooge-Hail Scrooge- Loss of 10% trade/planet revenue when ship is present
Zap Brannigan-Brannigans Law- handling performance of the ship degraded. No jump from a Gravity well containing an enemy. Ships in the well suffer reduced performance.
Captain Ozzel-Hoth Jump- Fleet jumps to Gravity wells and pauses, giving enemies time to raise shields
