C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Bravo]

Amusingly something very similar is already possible.
I made new player nation which I just called "Mars Test Center", gave them a Flag that had the nation flag i the top corner, gave them 0 pop, no res or SY.  So a empty non functional player if you will.  Set the relationship to fixed sum whatever you like(dont think it matters) and make them Allied.
As ships are about to be Mothballed I give them over to this faction and they just hang around.
Usually I will load them with older AMM (sometimes some newer as well) and Training Missiles (Same size and powertrain as my best missiles but with WH to 0 and adjusted with extra fuel. )
AS for testing, Turn each other to hostile and commence exercise. 
You will now be able to test your own systems up against your own missiles, range, intercept %, if Test Center missiles reach through your defences they will indicate hit with 0 damage
safe way to find good AAM doctrines and wpns. 

As for non missile units, I either have them attack old cargo ships which are decommissioned,or I plan to make a armoured Ortbital which they can shot at.
Since its hostile they gain combat experience, I found this to be quite useful, In testing my units and stances, detection ranges and so on.

If you salvage enemy components, you can custom build a ship with they components and then test your ships up against their sensor and wpn systems to see if you will get detected.
And having a orbital in each fleet as target, you can even see approx how much damage would be dealt to each side in a gun fight.
Or you could have Livex 

[Seolferwulf]

A repost of my suggestion in the 7.x suggestion thread:

Suggestion: Inverse the effect of the "Show Surveyed Bodies" checkbox on the Minerals-tab.

Reason:
Whenever the checkbox is checked it adds a white ring to every body that has been surveyed, which makes the screen very noisy.
That's why I only check it whenever I want to know which bodies still need to be surveyed.
If the effect is inversed you could simply leave it ticked and have your survey ships remove the noise from your populated systems.

Pros:
+ one option less you have to fumble around with every now and then
+ as an added bonus you have less redundant information on the screen, since the checkbox "Show Mineral Concentrations" already implies what has been surveyed.

Cons:
- people will have to get used to the inversed effect

... feel free to add more to the pros and cons if something comes to mind.

[Triato]

Why not have borh? A button for checking surveyed and another dor unsurveyed.  That way you get les noise at the begining by seing only the surveyed ones and at the end by seing the unsurveyed bodies.

[Seolferwulf]

Why not have borh? A button for checking surveyed and another dor unsurveyed.  That way you get les noise at the begining by seing only the surveyed ones and at the end by seing the unsurveyed bodies.

Both buttons would essentially do the same.
There's no information gain in having an extra button.

[Triato]

They would not do the same. One would mark the surveyed bodies and the other would mark the unsurveyed ones.  Having both of would mark none.  At the begining of the survey you would mark the surveyed ones (minimum noise)  and after half are surveyed you wold mark the unsurveyed ones.

[Barkhorn]

But if you mark the surveyed bodies, you are also in effect marking the bodies that were not surveyed as well.  The point is that there is a distinction.  It doesn't matter which set gets circled, the same information is displayed.

[QuakeIV]

He seems to be saying that the whole idea is to make a less noisy display of the information, in which case it does matter which gets circled.

[Seolferwulf]

I guess it depends on the individual.
Personally I wouldn't need the option to mark surveyed bodies along with unsurveyed ones, since I survey everything in sight the moment I discover it.
And at the very beginning, when I still don't have any survey ships, I wouldn't mark anything, since it wouldn't matter yet.

[Coleslaw]

What if you could have medals you create be auto-awarded to commanders when certain conditions have been met? I. e.  If a Ground Commander has been in ten separate battles they get Medal A, if a ship commander's vessel destroys a designated number of enemy ships they get Medal B, if a leader's skill rating in a certain field reaches a certain percentage they get Medal C, etc.   

EDIT: And maybe have it as an event as well? That way you know when someone has been awarded one of your medals.     

[Seolferwulf]

What if you could have medals you create be auto-awarded to commanders when certain conditions have been met? I.  e.   If a Ground Commander has been in ten separate battles they get Medal A, if a ship commander's vessel destroys a designated number of enemy ships they get Medal B, if a leader's skill rating in a certain field reaches a certain percentage they get Medal C, etc.

EDIT: And maybe have it as an event as well? That way you know when someone has been awarded one of your medals.

I love that idea.

What I like to do is creating and awarding a medal "First Blood", which pilots reveive when they score a kill against an enemy the empire hasn't fought yet.
Essentially a medal for pilots that fight against the odds of not knowing the enemy.
An event which could automate this, too, would be nice.

[Coleslaw]

Would it be possible to give ships and ground units an image, similar to that of the alien race image in the Race Details screen?

[Steve Walmsley]

Would it be possible to give ships and ground units an image, similar to that of the alien race image in the Race Details screen?

I have considered this in the past. The problem would be finding the huge variety of images needed for each race to have a consistent but varied set of ships.

[Jovus]

One new condition, and two conditional orders:

"Morale < 100%" (or, if you prefer, a few steps, like 80% and 60% as well)

"Take shore leave at nearest colony" and "Overhaul at nearest applicable colony/maintenance ship"

[Hazard]

Shore leave orders are better if considered from percentage of deployment time.

[JustAnotherDude]

There was some talk about Jump Gates in the mechanics sections today, so I'll post an idea I've had for a while.

A blockade component that would allow a ship to stop traffic through a jump gate.  This would not stop ships with jump drivers.  Probably have to make it time limited somehow, perhaps it requires fuel to do it or something similar.