C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[sloanjh (OP)]

So if I spend 10% of a colony's wealth (per month, for a year) my installations upgrade in a year, and if I spend 100% (for six months) they upgrade in six months?  I'm pretty sure I'm going to find some level of acceptable 'penalty' (maybe 25% for nine months) and "set it and forget it" on an empire-wide level.

In Rule the Waves, there are two knobs: what to emphasize (in terms of field of research - each gets low/medium/high) and what percentage of your economy to devote to research (8-12% IIRC).  For percent economy I always set it and forget it.  What to emphasize is more nuanced.  At different stages of the game different things are important.  Fire control I set on high and leave there the whole game.  Engine tech is high early on, until the transition to oil firing is discovered.  When aviation is introduced, you'll typically want to shift emphasis to that.  Also, every few years I rebalance - raising the priority of things that are low compared to where I want them and lowering the priority of things that are high.  So I actually think it has an appropriate level of making choices vs set and forget - you tend to make changes only every few years, because at the civilization level choices should be about multi-year strategic goals, not tactical research projects (which fits into the whole paradigm of Rule the Waves of abstracting away choices that are finer-grain level of detail than the strategic level).

A nice thing about the system is that there's a balance between "sure thing" progression (knowing exactly what will be discovered) and randomness - techs can appear out of order.  Also, there's no progress bar for techs, so from the point of view of the player they serendipitously appear.

John

[TMaekler]

Travel Time for Wormholes: wormhole travel is instant - and it is limited due to the fixed exit points and therefore a limiting factor in surprise or stealth attacks.

I was wondering if a change into a travel time mechanic could provide a deeper game experience. So any given wormhole gets some kind of base travel time factor - which could even be different depending from which side one enters. A Sol-Alpha Centauri jump could last 30 days. In the opposite direction maybe 21 days.
Jump Point Stabilization then could be used to shorten the travel time. A stabilized wormhole could half the travel time from the one side it was stabilized from. We maybe even could add a tech tree which shortens the travel time with each increase in techlevel.

What could be the benefit? A military engine receives the additional function of jump exit distance, similar to the already existing techline to increase to exit distance. But those come at a price. If you want to avoid an alien jump point assault decimating your fleet, you could choose a high exit distance (beginning at a million km up to one billion or more. However, increasing the distance will largely increase travel time. Let’s say you want to exit 1bkm away from the JP to ensure total secrecy. That would then mean 10 times the jump time. So 300 days.
For the ship/fleet itself the jump would be instant. So no increase in maintenance etc. But they would be off the grid for the selected time.

With this stealth and surprise warfare would become more likely, I think. You agree?

[Garfunkel]

I still want to design my components and systems as much as possible. So any change to research should not affect that.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I still want to design my components and systems as much as possible. So any change to research should not affect that.

I don't think anyone would like to change the way we create components for ships. Direct applied research should probably be handled slightly different than core research projects. These also don't need any change in how we incorporate them into new ships as they always have rather big overhead cost and are never automatically applicable in effect.

[stabliser]

It may have already been suggested (its is a long thread) but could we have an option to display our choice of tiled background image in the system map and the galactic map (nebula variant too) that zooms in and out with the rest of the information?    I have in mind a traveller rpg hex map for galactic map, hence the zooming being important.

Im still too much of a noob to suggest anything for game mechanics.

[Steve Walmsley]

It may have already been suggested (its is a long thread) but could we have an option to display our choice of tiled background image in the system map and the galactic map (nebula variant too) that zooms in and out with the rest of the information?    I have in mind a traveller rpg hex map for galactic map, hence the zooming being important.

Im still too much of a noob to suggest anything for game mechanics.

Reminded me of something I should mention. Galactic Map doesn't zoom at the moment. I never got around to adding it because it never became an issue. I'll address that after launch.

[Froggiest1982]

It may have already been suggested (its is a long thread) but could we have an option to display our choice of tiled background image in the system map and the galactic map (nebula variant too) that zooms in and out with the rest of the information?    I have in mind a traveller rpg hex map for galactic map, hence the zooming being important.

Im still too much of a noob to suggest anything for game mechanics.

Reminded me of something I should mention. Galactic Map doesn't zoom at the moment. I never got around to adding it because it never became an issue. I'll address that after launch.

Would that really be needed though? As said on the other post unless you can fix the scaling issue it's kind of pointless as it would take longer to fix it every time than just deal with the fixed zoom. I would rather you implement the background if you have the time (maybe easier?) as that would help with RP immersion.

Cheers.

[Garfunkel]

I use the zoom on the galactic map all the time. In the early game I zoom in close and then zoom outwards as I explore.

[Froggiest1982]

I use the zoom on the galactic map all the time. In the early game I zoom in close and then zoom outwards as I explore.

Probably for those playing on a laptop. I usually zoom out only when I have arrived 10 or 11 jumps away from Sol. I do agree it's a useful feature, just not worth the delay or pre-release though.

[Norm49]

It would be nice if could manage some governmental infrastructure like hospital.   I find that my officer have a lot of medical problem.   We could have bonus by lowering the frequencies of this happening with more hospital.   Having some recherche to implore life expectancy so hour officer retire at a older age could be nice too. 

[SultanPepper]

Moving the spinal mount discussion from the 'Update' thread, I think Spinals could be given a massive damage boost - and a massive power increase requirement.  You should need to design an entire ship around a spinal, not add one because you can/want.  A spinal weapon should WRECK the target, but require such a large amount of power your ship is only good for said weapon.  Making them like this would add another level of complexity to the battles we love.

[stabliser]

Possibly suggested before, but looking at screenshots I dont find the directional arrows layout particularly intuitive.
can I suggest a different layout like:

L. U. R
+. D. -

[Steve Walmsley]

Possibly suggested before, but looking at screenshots I dont find the directional arrows layout particularly intuitive.
can I suggest a different layout like:

L. U. R
+. D. -

I've not been using the arrows because you can move the map by click-drag, but I see your point. I've changed them as per your suggestion.

[alaysian]

It would be nice if could manage some governmental infrastructure like hospital.      I find that my officer have a lot of medical problem.      We could have bonus by lowering the frequencies of this happening with more hospital.      Having some recherche to implore life expectancy so hour officer retire at a older age could be nice too.     

Seconding the suggestion to add research and/or hospitals to improve lifespan.     Either would be awesome, but I think the research route that has you genetically engineer people makes more sense.   

Moving the spinal mount discussion from the 'Update' thread, I think Spinals could be given a massive damage boost - and a massive power increase requirement.     You should need to design an entire ship around a spinal, not add one because you can/want.     A spinal weapon should WRECK the target, but require such a large amount of power your ship is only good for said weapon.     Making them like this would add another level of complexity to the battles we love.   

I liked the suggestion earlier of having to design them like turrets, integrating a beam fire control and selecting minimum tonnage.     I would also love to see missile launchers larger then size 100.     The idea of firing a missile bigger then some FAC cracks me up.   

[alex_brunius]

I would also love to see missile launchers larger then size 100.     The idea of firing a missile bigger then some FAC cracks me up.

To be honest that would just be silly and immersion breaking unless there also are mechanics added to armor them appropriately and have them partially fail from damage ( single point of dmg from a gauss can kill a FAC sized object no thanks )