Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[bean]

My basic suggestion is to have equal levels fall in the middle of effectiveness.  Say, give jammers a +1 to effective level, so an even ECM vs ECCM shows 80% of normal performance.  It's an edge to ECM, but not an overwhelming one.  For decoys, instead of capping effectiveness if ECM has an edge, why not let it keep having a bigger edge?  Or if that's too much, change the benchmark for full performance from equal levels to a level or two of ECM overmatch.  So maybe if you're shooting 5 ECM decoys vs 5 ECCM, each decoy looks like size 3 instead of size 5.

I do generally agree that the ECM/ECCM calculations could use a bit more nuance. I also think how to achieve that nuance is trickier than it seems. One simple change could be to leverage research costs to generate a "pseudo-balance" in ECM vs ECCM at the strategic level.

Yeah, that would work fine.  If ECCM is actually about twice as expensive as ECM, then it's reasonable to assume that you'll generally have a 1-level advantage in ECM, and the problem goes away, at least for jammers.  I'd still like something else to be done with decoys, because 5 v 5 and 10 v 0 looking the same is kind of absurd.

[tastythighs]

I love miscellaneous components, but currently I find the minimum size far too large
5 tons is a lot when you're trying to minmax your designs against swarm 2 tech tiers ahead of you, and more than that it means fighters can't use misc components, which I'd very much like for them to be able to do.

[vorpal+5]

That's exactly what I thought! We need 1 ton and 0.1 ton misc components! I actually prefer using them to achieve a rounded weight instead of having a fuel capacity of 213,000 liters

New suggestion:
Do not clear current orders when adding a new Template order batch. This would allow for "modular building" of orders. Say Template 1 is to load 1000 of each mineral on Earth, while Template 2 is to unload all on Ceres, then Mars. Template 1 could then be used for different locations afterward.

And ideally, it would be nice if most orders could include an option to "perform task at current location". Instead of "Load minerals on Earth", it would be "Load minerals at current location", and voilà, Template orders would be significantly more versatile.

[Garfunkel]

That's exactly what I thought! We need 1 ton and 0.1 ton misc components! I actually prefer using them to achieve a rounded weight instead of having a fuel capacity of 213,000 liters

New suggestion:
Do not clear current orders when adding a new Template order batch. This would allow for "modular building" of orders. Say Template 1 is to load 1000 of each mineral on Earth, while Template 2 is to unload all on Ceres, then Mars. Template 1 could then be used for different locations afterward.

And ideally, it would be nice if most orders could include an option to "perform task at current location". Instead of "Load minerals on Earth", it would be "Load minerals at current location", and voilà, Template orders would be significantly more versatile.

Sorry dude but Steve has shot these sort of suggestions down multiple times in the past. Sure, they work wonders for the experienced user who is very careful but for everyone else, they are a major source of faulty bug reports and frustration because the player messed something up. And Steve does not want to have to code bajillion layers of security-code to prevent players from doing stupid smeg.

[nuclearslurpee]

In the Naval Organization window, Ship List tab, we currently have columns showing the percentage of fuel, ammo, and MSP embarked on each ship.

It would be neat to also have a column showing the percentage of ground forces capacity embarked. This would make the ship list a useful way to see which ships if any have understrength boarding companies, or if transports in an invasion fleet have room for one more regiment.

[paolot]

In the Economics window, Shipyard tab, Current Activity column, I think a message should appear when a shipyard is building a ship, like "Building ship(s)" or "Slipway(s) busy".
I feel the "No Activity" caption a bit misleading, in this case, because building a ship IS an activity of a shipyard, and the "0" (zero) in the Avail column is not always apparent.

[Kaiser]

I would like to see random abandoned ships, stations etc. (military or commercials) scattered in the universe with the possibility to bord them and take control.

They would be not wrecks, but actual abandoned ships (or even not abandoned but unable to move due to engine damage), belonging to other NPR, humans, precursors, invaders etc.

To take control of the ship, you would need to actually board them with a marine team (and maybe fight the occupants maybe not) and then tug it to your shipyard.

[AlStar]

In addition to the "Mineral Exhausted" warning that's currently given when a body runs out of something, it would be handy if there was also a "All Minerals Exhausted" warning when all minerals reach 0.

While I realize that it's something of a failure on my part, since I should be checking on my mines; sometimes far-flung automated asteroid mines get forgotten.

And/or if "Mineral Exhausted" also told you "deposits of x have been exhausted on y; z deposits remain."

[AlStar]

I'd love a "create path to system" command for stabilization ships that works the same way as autoroute by system - you pick a system from your full list of discovered systems, then your ship travels to it along a shortest-length path, stabilizing both sides of any JPs it comes across along the way.

(This came to mind when looking at my Survey Sites tab, noting that I couldn't reach some of the sites with my transports, then having to pull up the galactic map and figure out where the heck those systems were.)

[skoormit]

Suggestion: Make it possible to override the interrupt for "Orders Completed" on a per-fleet basis.
Bonus: give the option to override permanently for this fleet, or just for the fleet's current order list.

Vague design thoughts:

On the Movement Orders tab, three radio buttons directly beneath the order list pane:
Stop Automated Turns on Completion (default)
No Stop (one-time)
No Stop (persistent)

In code, at fleet order list completion event, get selected radio value.
For the No Stop options, treat the event type as a non-interrupt.
For the one-time option, also reset the button value to default.

Split fleets should not preserve the setting (I think).

Bonus wrinkle:
Add the button setting to the Order Template object.

[skoormit]

Suggestion: Improve Hangar Decks relative to Boat Bays to justify the 4k RP cost.

The research requires 4000 RP.
The Hangar Deck component has 4x the capacity of the Boat Bay, and has 4x the size, 4x the cost, 4x the crew, and 4x the HTK.
In other words, a Hangar Deck is almost entirely equivalent to 4 Boat Bays.

The only difference is using 4 components at 1 HTK each vs 1 component at 4 HTK.
I guess the latter could provide a terribly slight, terribly situational advantage.
But it hardly seems worth the effort to research.

Simple idea: reduce Hangar Deck crew requirement from 12 to 9.

[Pedroig]

Suggestion: Improve Hangar Decks relative to Boat Bays to justify the 4k RP cost.

The research requires 4000 RP.
The Hangar Deck component has 4x the capacity of the Boat Bay, and has 4x the size, 4x the cost, 4x the crew, and 4x the HTK.
In other words, a Hangar Deck is almost entirely equivalent to 4 Boat Bays.

The only difference is using 4 components at 1 HTK each vs 1 component at 4 HTK.
I guess the latter could provide a terribly slight, terribly situational advantage.
But it hardly seems worth the effort to research.

Simple idea: reduce Hangar Deck crew requirement from 12 to 9.

And/or have Boat Bays and Hanger Decks all in the same tech, like what is done for Troop Transport Tech (including Boarding and Drop Techs)

[Warer]

Reducing cryogenic transport modules capacity by a factor of ten (or some other number) would be an interesting option to slow down expansion, it always feels a little silly just how quickly you can move nearly arbitrary amounts of people to me.

[Andrew]

Reducing cryogenic transport would be really annoying. Instead you could just fit 1/10 the number of cryogenic modules and if you really want the bulk fit some custome components to fill your ship with useless space

[skoormit]

Reducing cryogenic transport modules capacity by a factor of ten (or some other number) would be an interesting option to slow down expansion, it always feels a little silly just how quickly you can move nearly arbitrary amounts of people to me.

Interesting.
Do you mean you can do this quickly from the game start, or do you mean that eventually you can move large amounts quickly?
It takes me decades of constant shipbuilding and shipyard expansion from the start to grow my colony ship fleet enough to merely keep up with the rate of pop growth on the HW.
Maybe after fifty years I have enough pop-moving capacity to really spread the population evenly among the HW and other major colonies.
Is that quickly? It seems a long time to me.