I would like not to be notified when secondary orders take place.
I would also like the ability to tell my fleets 'act like a civilian', aka when I'm not using my transport fleet it should move infrastructure and buildings around, and if it is a colony fleet it should move colonists around. This is so my fleets do useful non-micromanage things until I have something essential, such as a new colony that needs to be founded.
Patrol orders would also be nice. While possibly a waste of fuel, assigned sensor ships can attempt to move around the system's planets and jump points that is not already covered by say planetary sensors or other ships and look for contacts. Useful in core worlds and potentially a threat if done by an NPR you are trying to sneak up on.
One of this game's strengths to me is the civilians. It is an aspect that is almost completely unexplored in other games. For this reason I'd like to also suggest playable civilian shipping lanes and have these be interesting to play.
This will likely require an overhaul of civilians in its entirety, though I offer a few suggestions of what I'd like to see here(scroll down for TLDR version):
Shipyards: The ability to 'rent' shipyards (no more ships appearing from nowhere, but government does gain some wealth from it). A few ways of doing this I think... since this renting will affect the player. Either allow the civilians to build ships without needing to refit the shipyard, or require the player to create a shipyard for every civilian ship he wants built. An alternative is private civilian owned shipyards, either instead of rentable shipyards or in addition to them. I also don't find it unlikely that civilians can create ships without (space) shipyards. The cost is much greater, but possible. It is just not something a government that already has access to its own shipyards would often want to do, but is an option for those less well equipped. Would also provide continuity with current 'appearance' of ships.
Minerals: Civilian ships not appearing out of nowhere means the resources for the ships can't appear out of nowhere, which needs minerals are needed for civilians, while not affecting the current empire's game too much or creating a greater strain on minerals the game currently does. I'm thinking standard games would have for every 1 unit of mineral mined, an extra 0.2 is mined for free that isn't removed from planet's minable amounts and goes to civilians, with some government types like dictatorships getting 1.15 while civilians only 0.05, and free market governments possibly 0.8 to government and 0.4 to civilians. These can be bought or sold in case of excess amounts and civilian demands, but otherwise be 'free' yet untouchable. These ratios will have a DIRECT influence on the growth and ability of civilian ships. Civilian minerals would obviously also require civilian ships being able to move minerals around properly, for the government and themselves. I'm thinking a combination of reserve levels and designation of 'stockpile' colonies should do it. Non-stockpile colonies will keep minerals AT the reserve levels, while stockpile colonies will have minimum reserve levels, but otherwise try gather as much else they can. Civilian minerals ignore stockpiling and form their own rules on where and when they are needed.
Private Industry: As for employment and industry... when it says 6 million workers available, I highly doubt that means 6 million workers unemployed. Just simply not employed by government or for essential services. This means those 6 million people are in service industries, or manufacturing, such as making fridges and servicing them. I also notice that if you do a Pre-TN start, you have a bunch of Traditional Industry factories that are government owned. Now, while TN research completely changes space-travel, does it really change traditional industries? An assembly line is still an assembly line, just potentially with cost savings on accelerating engines and friction and drag. So why would these not continue to be used and pop up, only under civilian control.
I don't find it unreasonable that some of this manufacturing would even be made available to the government, perhaps explaining why 1 of these buildings only supply 1/10th of a mine, factory and ordanance factory I think it was... since much of the rest of its capacity is used in service and non-governmental uses. These can then also pop up and grow with available population. This means that big colonies will always have SOME civilian enabled mining and production capability, though it will never even approach that of a world with dedicated facilities instead of unfocused civilian factories. Having limited production capability on most worlds will open plenty of tactics and possibilities, as well as incentive to keep some amount of minerals on most worlds. Civilian factories can also be a source of most and consumer of many trade goods, meaning that these will no longer be made out of thin air and consumed invisibly. Population will still consume many stuff like luxury goods regardless of private employment, but goods like machinery will be consumed and generated at a far faster rate by a world with more of its population in private industry than not. Agriculture is another potential, with a manufacturing world possibly requiring food imports for its citizens all working in factories. A lack of private industry in your empire, such as if you make sure all of your population is employed in some way or another, could devastate supplies of many trade goods, resulting in a wealth crash. I don't see this as a negative thing and on par with the intentional evils and crashes of the current game.
An extention of this idea is that 'unemployed' civilians generate wealth, employed civilians cost wealth. It will be difficult to find a balance I think, but will also make debt management easier (shut down government factories for a while, save on the employees salaries and tax them when they find jobs for private industry.)
Research: Way I see it work currently is that the government doesn't actually do any of its own research. This is all done by private industry or contractors, but with grants, tenders and requests guiding and focussing where the RP ends up through money. Research labs are basically equipped universities or research lab contractors mostly owned(directly or indirectly) and controlled by the government. The Scientist leaders are employed 'administrators' rather than scientists in their own right, guiding and allocating priorities and spending, culling unproductive branches and encouraging positive avenues of research to obtain the best results, something which obviously does need knowledge of the domain. But while this is the best way to obtain results that doesn't mean it is the ONLY research going on. Private industry would come up with ideas, papers and innovations, all of which would grant RP, but spread randomly across all non-racial(aka design screen) techs. Potentially even civilian owned research labs can be built with lower RP output than government labs (They would focus on better fridges rather than space engines, but might still help deliver an innovation or two), but can be rented by the government for wealth.
The idea here is that while civilians and private industry are useful, they won't compare to the focus a player or NPR government can provide. The manufacturing bonus provided by civilians on a manufacturing world should be a small amount of the total.
Privateers: Most Sci-fi stories and games have Privateers of some sort or another. These are either explorers and prospectors, in the name of capitalism expanding the borders of the empire, finding new worlds and minerals for a finders fee, or they are militants who take up arms to defend the empire in times of war, or they are pirates or those who hunt them. In all of these cases it expands the role of civilians from just transporting stuff. On the most basic side, geo survey ships can be civilian controlled allowing exploration of new planets, potentially grav survey ships as well (Though I strongly recommend against allowing them to explore jump points, if this is implemented). A suggestion would be to make grav sensors civilian equipment, as well as thermal, em and active sensors below a certain size (say 1 or so). You should never be able to equip a size 50 sensor on a maintenance-free ship, but I see no reason for small ones suggesting just basic equipment, even it is usually only enough to see a missile coming just shortly before you blow up. If implemented, civilian explorers should be able to be switchable on and off on game settings. The lack of control and direction additionally means it might be more efficient to do it yourself.
Para-military: As for more military civilian ships such as at its most basic level transport ship escorts, I don't think many governments would 'rent' a naval shipyard. This might need a civilian naval shipyard(potentially with lax weapon laws under some government types?), or the ability for civilians to build small warships on the ground, or if it is possible to create a fighter with enough range, have civilians use fighters for escort duties. Alternatively civilian ships can be 'refitted' by civilians with non-standard equipment, such as a laser turret on a transport, or a special player created ship marked that civilians can use it as a base to add weapons to. Civilians already create a ground troop on civilian mining colonies, so similar private security forces should also be able to be formed on outlying worlds or where companies have great amount of assets. It might even be a bad thing if the amount of private forces outnumber government forces, allowing more corporate state policies and unhappy citizens. Such civilian military can be useful against hostile empires, possibly rallying when the race is under thread, but be no replacement for an actual navy. (THOUGHT: Anarchy government types, potentially meaning the AI will spawn A LOT more civilians, could they be viable in a military way? Won't have coordination but maybe with numbers?)
Pirates can potentially also form, essentially civilian shipping lanes who are hostile. This should be more likely with lower political stability, and higher inequality, less likely with wealth and a military presence. If things get TOO bad the colony itself might descend into anarchy and piracy. Pirate bases can form most anyplace outside sensor range in the same way mining colonies do. They have access to any tech you do, though with less manufacturing capability and greater stealth. If they create their own ship types it will often be 'modified' commonly available civilian ships. They'll attack civilians ships(warning shot, potentially either destroying or having the civilian surrender, taking it off your visible list of ships, potentially reappearing later as a pirate) while trying evade your troops and not lead you back to their base, which might even include a PDC. Eliminating pirates shouldn't be TOO difficult, just be largely a nuisance, causing political instability in its system and requiring you to have some ships spread across your empire and not just the frontiers. Eliminating a pirate base additionally should only be short-term solution if you don't address the reason why it formed in the first place. Player military ships or civilian military ships can also be given an escort order to follow around transports and keep an eye out for pirates.
Additionally, the behavior of civilians can be controlled by government type, since I assume this to be a reflection of a society's values as well as how the shots are called. Players who want more direct control can select something like a dictatorship, while players wanting more civilian activity and freedom might select anarchy or direct democracy. Additionally, more militant government types might see more military civilian ships, while others might not see any.
Player Civilian Corporations: Not quite shipping lanes anymore, but possibly interesting enough to play. A player civilian corporation will at least initially be linked strongly to an empire with assumed high security clearance and access to its full technologies. A player corporation has access to that 'untapped' production provided by civilian created traditional industries that is not given to the empire and can use this to construct more buildings, shipyards and ships. Its main resource is wealth, which it generates itself through unused factory capacity and over time, payments from the empire as well as trading(some of which is taxed). The 'share' of minerals it gets is dependant on its market share of the planet. Constructing more facilities and gaining wealth can increase this. If playing a corporation for a NPR, minerals can be bought and sold freely, else if it is a Player empire, offers can be made that the empire player has to accept. It can found its own mining or other unmanned automated colonies, potentially even corporate owned civilian worlds with actual populations, though I am not too certain how to work that.
A player civilian corporation can keep track of its own ship designs seperately from the empire. It has access to all the technologies it has security clearance for (either none, low for civilian rated only equipment or high for all technology). If it doesn't have access to a tech it can potentially BUY that tech from an empire(foreign empire's designs or high clearance items with a low clearance start). Though a corporation will initially start linked to an empire, there is no reason it has to remain that way. Through its actions it can raise its clearance with other empires or lose it. It can potentially even turn traitor.
A player corporation has a seperate much sparser research tree than an empire which usually focuses on manufacturing improvements (allowing ship components to be built for less points or minerals than an empire can build it, possibly by replacing many trans-newtonian parts with traditional materials) or marketing, increasing its market share, increasing supply of trade good or demand of trade goods. It can accept empire contracts for building movements, as well as contracts for building ship parts. Perhaps even its own special components that can be used in its own ships, or sold to empires, though that would require special ship designs to use it which is micromanagementy... It can rent manufacturing capability, research labs or even shipyards to an empire for extra wealth from buildings. Possibly it can even do training, granting the empire access to at least partially trained troops. Potentially it can even build ships or warships on the ground then launch, though at a greater cost (why would a government do it if it has access to naval yards? Also in reference to how I see it currently happening.)
If it has access to war technologies and a way to build warships, a player corporation can assist in a way of private military or as scouts and escorts, perhaps even just selling already completed ships to the player. It may even incite war by attacking alien civilians or enemies without knowledge or permission of its empire.
Additionally, another type of corporation might be a pirate or a crime syndicate, an organisation that works against an empire more directly. It would also have a 'market share' but this would reduce political stability and raise security concerns for the world. Secret, stolen or intimidated civilian manufacturing can create its products. Potentially it can even be both a legit corporation and a secret crime syndicate at the same time. Its power grows with less stability, something that can be encouraged with propaganda, possibly even taking over the world if it gets too low. It can form pirate bases, steal ships and generally increase its influence, but it is vulnerable on well-protected and defended worlds where local police can arrest members if it becomes too ambitious, reducing its influence.
While I would like to see all of this ingame, I would also hate to HAVE to have a player corporation alongside my player empire to get max benefit. All these advantages should be supplied by the AI corporations, just... less controllable and focussed than if a player did it. Playing as a Player Corporation for an NPR, or even as traders who sell and trade goods over a dozen NPRs should be possible. A Player Corporation should be powerful, though weak compared to an empire.
This should be controllable by the empire though, though either game or government settings since not everyone would appreciate a game like this, judging my some posts that complain about even the current level of civilian AI.
TLDR; I'd like to see civilians play a larger role in the game, but not become too powerful. I'd like to see player controlled shipping lines, but for this to be interesting plenty stuff has to be improved which will make game better even when not playing with player controlled shipping lines.
Ug, monster post...
