Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread

[Steve Walmsley]

Something small for a change. Could jump engines get a heading in the list of ship components at Class design screen so that they are clearly divided from normal engines? I have together over 20 active designs of them and this would help navigating that long list.

Already done for C# Aurora.

[Steve Walmsley]

Could closing pop-ups via X in the corner mean "NO" instead of "YES"?
Multiple times I misclicked and ordered refitting of my tanker (because his name is from A) to some other class. I am then asked if really want it with 400%+ refit price. I close the window via X, meaning "don't do it" but game takes it as "do it".

"X" treated as a default answer and default answer being "do nothing" would make more sense to me. See behaviour of "are you sure you want ot delete this file?".

Good point. I have just been through the C# code and replaced all instances of "If Dialog Result = No, then Abort" to "If Dialog Result != Yes, then Abort".

I've also written my own text entry popup, so that will not change the text unless press OK. Cancel or X will abort.

[Steve Walmsley]

Could _horizontal_ scrollbars be added to few areas with lists of components? The screen is divided there into several smaller panes and the important information is often in the end of row (differentiating code, hits left, repair value):

• Population and production->Industry->Ship component stockpile
• Individual unit details->Damage control->Damage allocation chart
• Individual unit details->Damage control->Damaged systems

Repair value can be found as twice the cost in Class design but in overall this issue currently wrecks use of name of manufacturer before the name and code of ship component a bit. Yes, I am using 1280x800 laptop with Reduced Height Windows but the issue of just a bit too long names for these component lists is surely on other displays too. And trying to use short names of components just so they can fit in these places sounds like a less interesting option.

The screens are all being redesigned for C# Aurora and there is more space available, so these issues should no longer exist.

[TheBawkHawk]

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but a default order for cargo fleets to complete civilian shipping contracts would be nice.  I find myself using civilian shipping more than state shipping even though it's less efficient, just because it takes less management on my part.

Or perhaps adding a separate shipping contracts screen to use for state controlled cargo ships, so you could have your own cargo ships automatically transferring installations you list there.

I have no idea if any of this would be possible, but it would definitely help me at least.

[Detros]

A screen with list of found ruins and list of civilization those ruins belonged.
AFAIK there currently is only a list of not yet exploited ones and once you clear all those there is no way to find about those old civs.



 All columns should be sortable. For that may be good idea to merge System and Body or also divide Status into Status and Number of installations so that statuses can go: "not explored"-"exploration in progress"-"X/X installations"-"Y/X installations" (0 <Y < X)-"0/X installations".

[Tuna-Fish]

How about for box launchers, separate the launchers in the assign window by whether they have already fired or not, and always sort the spent launchers to the bottom?

The typical way box launchers are used is either in a single volley, or then select a few launchers, fire them at the enemy, then select a few different launchers, fire them at a different enemy, etc etc.  For ships with ~20 launchers this is very comfortable, but when you build a big ship with 200 launchers, you have to scroll the list quite a lot.

Another request for box launchers would be to allow size-0 missile stages on the condition that they have a submunition stage and an endurance of 0.  This would allow multi-packing missiles to launchers, and make ships with, say, size 8 launchers a little more versatile as you could quad-pack size-4 missiles with sensors for anti-fighter work.  But that's more of a game design choice.

[Nice Save]

It would be pretty fantastic if we had a way to group together alien ships so that they didn't clutter the screen so many when in large groups.  Additionally (or alternatively), it'd be nice to be able to simply collapse large groups of alien ships that are in the same position without having to set up groups for the aliens, again to remove some clutter from the screen.  So if, for example, you had something like this:

It could collapse that group of civilian Fuel Harvesters to something simply like, "FH x9", and that group of spaceliners to "SS x15" (or however many there are), or, if both were in the same position, "FH x9, SS x15".

I'd like to see something like this, but actually condensing the task groups themselves into bigger ones.

At the moment I have over 100 civvie harvesters in Sol, split between Neptune and Saturn (I'm playing a conventional sun-warming start and subsidised them so heavily I had to use an auto-click macro).

My single 40kT tanker can keep up with their production since it holds 26 million fuel to their 0. 9 million, but setting up the orders takes forever.  It would be better if they were condensed once they get to the sorium source, since it seems like they never move after that point.

[TMaekler]

Don't know if you have already done the civilian shipping - I was thinking about this system a bit and maybe you like this ideas I have.

In general the civilian shipping is a nice idea because if gives you an easy way not to have to arrange for those transports all by yourself - which would clog you up in way to much detail work. But it comes at the price of lack of control. When and how the civilians do these transports sometimes feels very random (and buggy).

So my idea would be the following: next to the tasks you hand out there would be a list of available civilian transports (sorted by vicinity to the source of the tasks) from which you can choose ships who then would perform the transport. By this you can prioritize certain tasks. And if you don't choose specific transports for the tasks then the auto-assign routine would at some point pick them up.

Additionally to this a second list could be there which lists all your available transports, from which you also could choose. That would then auto-create a transport job for them and not the civilians.

[Silvarelion]

It would be great if the Flight Crew Berths were an input (much like deployment time) rather than something you have to play around with to refine.  This would make designing carriers much simpler and quicker.

[smoelf]

A ship module that can generate a temporary jump point to another system independent of existing connections. This can easily become "overpowered" in the sense of removing the need for logistics as well as jump drives and jump gates, but I think it can be balanced properly and provide interesting game play.

The module itself would need to be expensive and bulky and classed as a military component, so it would be impossible to employ those connections indefinitely due to high maintenance. It could also require a lot of fuel to activate. There could be a need for having two ships with that module in order to establish a connection, so an assault would require moving a ship to the enemy system undetected. Maybe it requires an activation time with a high EM emission resulting in the possibility that the enemy shoots it down before you jump through. It could get its own tech line increasing the efficiency regarding the size of ships that can jump through and how many at a time and perhaps how far away from each other the ships can be.

The idea is that you would be able to transport a number of ships over a large distance in a short amount of time in a way that drains a lot of resources and requires preparation.

[Bremen]

I just posted my ideas for beam/missile balance in the C# forum; this isn't really part of the actual balance part but rather a cool idea I had, so I figured it fit better here.

New weapon: Ion cannon. Works similarly to a laser, except does double the base damage with the same energy need. Does normal (which is to say, double) damage to shields, skips armor, and only rolls to hit weapons and reactors in the same way microwaves only roll to hit electronics.
If it hits a weapon, it reduces charge in that weapon on a one for one basis (1 ion cannon damage to 1 weapon charge), up to the max charge of the weapon (so if a laser has 3 out of 3 power stored, it becomes 0; if it already fired that increment and has 0 out of 3, it becomes -3 out of 3). Doesn't actually damage the weapon. If the ion cannon still has remaining damage, it rolls to hit another part.
If it hits a reactor, it makes the standard roll to damage, and (assuming a normal weapon would destroy the component) then rolls the reactor explosion chance. If it rolls an explosion, the reactor blows up, taking out the component and doing internal damage as normal. If it rolls that the reactor wouldn't explode, the component is undamaged. If the ion cannon still has remaining damage, it keeps rolling to hit other parts.

This would produce a weapon that was good against shields (a role that's kind of lacking in Aurora) and had fun effects against beam warships as well. Could maybe work on engines like it works on reactors if only damaging beam warships ends up too weak. Though that might be pretty brokenly overpowered, when you combine Laser level performance and armor piercing.

Similarly, I think it would be cool if when designing a beam weapon you could devote tonnage to additional capacitor (so that, say, a laser or railgun that needed 8 power to fire could store 24 power, then fire three times in sequential 5 second increments instead of waiting to restore back to 8 power; actual recharge rate would remain the same). Both these suggestions wouldn't mean much in the current version of Aurora but would be more useful if changes make beam combat more common.

[TheRowan]

Declaring a emergency! Would be nice to enroll civilian shipping in an emergency, make them transport refuges, needed infrastructure, give fuel to stranded ships, etc.

I'd also like to see the reverse of this - the option to loan your civilian ships to shipping lines (possibly in exchange for a higher share of their trading profits) temporarily. This would allow you to build defensively armed merchants to sprinkle in among the traders, and also give a reason to use Passenger Accommodation on your designs (I often build "Hospital Ships" with good thrust and moderate cryo facilities, and add passenger facilities on the RP idea that in peacetime they'd be used as liners)

[Dreadder]

Sorry if that was already suggested but it would be really nice if we could ferry crew and troops to space stations.  Now tugging the entire station to colony is the only way to replace battle losses and load troops, which seems a bit silly from a RP point of view.

Another suggestion regarding crews - how do you feel about the option to replace entire ship crew, crew rotation of sorts I suppose, instead of having to wait for the crew to finish their shore leave?

[HighTemplar]

ok so I am on an old version so this may have been changed but please make missiles able to be < size 1

[DIT_grue]

ok so I am on an old version so this may have been changed but please make missiles able to be < size 1

It's never going to happen, unless you can suggest a superior mechanic for achieving the same goal. Because originally there was no such limit and abusive designs proliferated, leaving the AI entirely trivialised (among other undesired outcomes). A search can probably find old threads discussing it, if you're interested in the reasoning or the specific problems.