Suggestions for v5.1

[boggo2300]

because after size 100 hey become drones...

Matt

[Rathos]

I think this was suggested before, but I'd like to see it too:

Civilian Contracts for Minerals

It doesn't have to be fancy, but that would be great!

Also, any improvements along the civilian line would be great as well. I really think they have a lot of possibilities. Especially seeing civilian mining bases turn into something more, like a: Smuggler den, Shipping company HQ, Civilian Research labs, Mercenary companies(!? Maybe escort services for your civilians), Offshore (Heh or off-planet!) Gambling dens, Civilian Fuel Refineries/Maintenance facilities (where civilian ships refuel/repair but government ships have to pay wealth), Luxury resorts, Civilian Ship construction yards (Right now civilian ships are made from no where?), SETI radio antennas (which could turn into alien greeting hubs after you meet your first aliens), and maybe Civilian Asteroid Race courses?

There are a lot of things you could do with Civilians, and I think they add a whole new dynamic to play. Instead of destroying the civilian mining colony when it runs out of ore why not rename it to one of the above for now and let it produce a tiny amount of wealth? Later you can go back and add things to each one, maybe having each type of installation have a ship that is associated with it and performs a function? Have the Smuggler/Shipping HQ/Refinery/Construction facilities have a cargo ship that trades between the facility and your habitual worlds. Have a Luxury Liner go between the Gambling den/Race course/Lux resort between a planet and the facility. The Seti/Research lab could send a ship that travels between points in the system randomly.

Just some ideas (albeit I think they are good ones!)

[Hawkeye]

Sweet. Why not size 10000 launchers as well? That way we can fit a missile big enough to destroy a planet.  :roll:

Hm, designing a dreadnought that shoots a (small) destroyer at the enemy  :lol:    

[Rathos]

"What the hell is that ship doing!? Is it trying to ram us!?"

"Sir! It isn't a ship, its a missile!"

"WHAT!?"

Kaboom

[sloanjh]

Two suggestions spawned by a thread in the ATCA:

1)  Put an "average time spares will last" number on the Class summary.  The huge annual breakdown rate numbers on big ships are confusing to a lot of people (it seems), and the important number is how many years it will take for your spares to run out.  As it is, I just realized that I always do the worst-case calculation in my head - it would simplify my life to have Aurora do it for me, especially if it also told me the average (in addition to max) breakdown cost.

2)  "Conventional" fighter engines.  Now that we've go company-sized drop bays, I just design my first assault shuttle - it comes in at 350 tons.  Unfortunately, I can't make it a fighter because I haven't researched fighter-engine tech yet.  It would be nice to be able to research a fighter-type engine (that will flag a design as a fighter) without going to the fighter power-level, e.g. use GB power-level instead.

As another possibility, you could have a checkbox on the F5 design tab that specified a ship as a fighter (independent of engines), with a design error if it was over 500 tons.

As a gripping possibility, you could just specify any ship of 500 tons or less as a "small craft", which is built through construction factories rather than through SY.  This is actually probably the simplest (and best?) option.

The main impetus for this is that it doesn't seem consistent for whether or not something is classified as a small craft (built in factories) depends on the type of engines it has, with the more sophisticated (fighter) engines requiring factory (less specialized) rather than SY (more specialized) to consturct.

Another thought - put in a passenger compartment for e.g. 30-50 passengers that's the same size as a company-size drop bay.  This would allow us to build an "admiral's barge".  OTOH, it's getting dangerously close to removing the abstraction that cargo lighters are hidden in the mass cost of CHS and spaceports.

And another thought...I still think that CHS size should probably be bumped up, at least by 2x and possibly as much as 5x.  As it stands, it's negligible relative to the size of the cargo holds.

John

PS - See, still got that counting issue

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

1)  Put an "average time spares will last" number on the Class summary.  The huge annual breakdown rate numbers on big ships are confusing to a lot of people (it seems), and the important number is how many years it will take for your spares to run out.  As it is, I just realized that I always do the worst-case calculation in my head - it would simplify my life to have Aurora do it for me, especially if it also told me the average (in addition to max) breakdown cost.

It's not quite that simple. I can calculate the number of failures per year fairly easily (based on increasing failure chance over time) but the system that fails will significantly affect the lifetime of the maint supplies and the chance of each system failure is weighted by the DAC. I guess I could do it based on the most expensive system.

Steve

[sloanjh]

1)  Put an "average time spares will last" number on the Class summary.  The huge annual breakdown rate numbers on big ships are confusing to a lot of people (it seems), and the important number is how many years it will take for your spares to run out.  As it is, I just realized that I always do the worst-case calculation in my head - it would simplify my life to have Aurora do it for me, especially if it also told me the average (in addition to max) breakdown cost.

It's not quite that simple. I can calculate the number of failures per year fairly easily (based on increasing failure chance over time) but the system that fails will significantly affect the lifetime of the maint supplies and the chance of each system failure is weighted by the DAC. I guess I could do it based on the most expensive system.

Steve

I know it's not  I was suggesting calculating the average cost of a failure as sum((prob_system_from_DAC)*(cost_of_system)/100); after that the calculation should be the same as for the most expensive.  Most expensive works for me too - it's what I do in my head anyway.

John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

1)  Put an "average time spares will last" number on the Class summary.  The huge annual breakdown rate numbers on big ships are confusing to a lot of people (it seems), and the important number is how many years it will take for your spares to run out.  As it is, I just realized that I always do the worst-case calculation in my head - it would simplify my life to have Aurora do it for me, especially if it also told me the average (in addition to max) breakdown cost.

It's not quite that simple. I can calculate the number of failures per year fairly easily (based on increasing failure chance over time) but the system that fails will significantly affect the lifetime of the maint supplies and the chance of each system failure is weighted by the DAC. I guess I could do it based on the most expensive system.

I know it's not . I calculate the total cost of failures per year, using an increasing chance of failure each year, to derive a figure in years that is a conservative estimate of how long the maint supplies will last.

For example

Code: [Select]

Victory class Gravitational Survey Vessel    1450 tons     133 Crew     300.5 BP      TCS 29  TH 50  EM 0
1724 km/s     Armour 1-11     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 16%    IFR: 0.2%    Maint Capacity 130 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP    Est Time: 3.43 Years

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (2)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 62.1 billion km   (416 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor S20-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

Code: [Select]

Ark Royal class Cruiser    6200 tons     611 Crew     639 BP      TCS 124  TH 250  EM 0
2016 km/s     Armour 3-30     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/10/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 26
Annual Failure Rate: 102%    IFR: 1.4%    Maint Capacity 193 MSP    Max Repair 45 MSP    Est Time: 2.39 Years

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (10)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 29.0 billion km   (166 days at full power)

Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 90,000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 180,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Fire Control S04 96-3000 (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Fire Control S04 24-12000 (1)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pebble Bed Reactor (6)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor S10-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 100k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor S20-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m kmSteve

[sloanjh]

I have assumed the most expensive system as that is already explicitly stated on the summary (and its 5am and I am battling with flu at the moment and can't sleep and therefore being lazy ). I calculate the total cost of failures per year, using an increasing chance of failure each year, to derive a figure in years that is a conservative estimate of how long the maint supplies will last.

Looks great, Steve!!  (And I had forgotten about the increasing failure rate with time....)

Now go drink a bunch of orange juice and ...... get better (was going to say get some sleep, but it seems you've already tried that).

John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I have assumed the most expensive system as that is already explicitly stated on the summary (and its 5am and I am battling with flu at the moment and can't sleep and therefore being lazy . On a course of antibiotics as well on the moment as I always get a really bad chest infection when I get any cold or flu. Currently interspersing forum posts with bug fixes and coughing up great quantities of green gunge . Its just as well I can't sleep as I would only keep my wife awake with my constant coughing and she needs to work tomorrow. The frustrating thing is that the British Poker Tour is at the closest casino to home at the moment and I can't play - grrr!

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I have renamed this thread as I am going to have to put out a DB bug fix release, which will be v4.9, and there won't really be time to incorporate any significant suggestions before release. I didn't want to have to start a new suggestions thread for v5.0 so I will keep using this one and I will look back at v4.7 suggestions as well if I get chance.

Steve

[sloanjh]

coughing up great quantities of green gunge

Hmmmm - sounds like it could be a new weapons system, or maybe for monsters when you put them back in.  Microwaves already knock out sensors, so maybe this would be engine-disabling.  You could have two types of tech research: color and viscousity.  Color could cycle up the spectrum, e.g. IR, red, orange, yellow, etc. while viscousity would have a % rating.  Seems like viscousity should control the % power loss for the engines, while color might control the duration of power loss.  Oh yes, you'd also need to also research a green gunge launcher, with launcher size and reload rate ratings .....  AHA!!!  It's not a new system - it's a new warhead type for missiles (with the same two techs).

or was that too much detail?

Nope.  But my post probably was

Hope you feel better,
John

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

coughing up great quantities of green gunge

Hmmmm - sounds like it could be a new weapons system, or maybe for monsters when you put them back in.  Microwaves already knock out sensors, so maybe this would be engine-disabling.  You could have two types of tech research: color and viscousity.  Color could cycle up the spectrum, e.g. IR, red, orange, yellow, etc. while viscousity would have a % rating.  Seems like viscousity should control the % power loss for the engines, while color might control the duration of power loss.  Oh yes, you'd also need to also research a green gunge launcher, with launcher size and reload rate ratings .....  AHA!!!  It's not a new system - it's a new warhead type for missiles (with the same two techs).

ROFL! Be careful what you wish for

Steve

[sloanjh]

ROFL! Be careful what you wish for

I was hoping you'd say something like this so I could say "And the scary part is that I actually got you thinking about it"

John

[boggo2300]

wel you are both scaring me!

Matt