C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[TMaekler]

Any plans of adding resource silos for TN materials, which then can be attacked by the new ground forces... ? Rather then invading a planet for takeover one could then raid the planet to destroy its depots and cripple the enemy this way... .

Also would open a way for small infiltration units for sabotage or piracy...

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve, in your posting "Tactical map in background" you wrote: "C# does not have a starting menu bar in the same way as C#." I think the latter C# was meant to be VB6... .

Thanks - will fix.

[Garfunkel]

Unrest should increase when unemployment rate is too high. People do want jobs! - Or if unemployment rises over a certain percentage, the civilian sector will begin employing those people into service industries. Takes them away from you if you later need them for production. However, if it switches around and you begin to have need of workers, and service industries do have more people empoloyed than they per game rules should have, they will (slowly) release those people which then will fill up your empty industries.

This would mostly be for cosmetics - maybe there should be a reasonable punishment for your "service overemployments" applied. But I have no idea at the moment what could be reasonable. Maybe people get lazy and the overall productivity reduces.

This isn't a good thing because Aurora does not model commercial sector and non-TN industrial sector requiring work force. Logically, either there is a massive invisible population that produces trade goods, or those goods are actually produced by the unemployed population. This also doesn't mesh well with RP-scenarios where a nation only uses a portion of its real population for TN - for example I usually cut down 3rd world populations to simulate the general low education level as well as a balance measure.

Thus Steve would need to add a fourth sector to each colony - environment, service, commercial and TN-industry, and the relevant mechanism for populations to switch jobs. After all, not many nations can just command people to quit their day job at the mobile phone assembly line and instead start making missiles.

I think this is something that should be part of a larger population and economy overhaul, far down the line.

I don't know about others, but auto-turns are kinda painful for me to stop. Takes several tries everytime, and occasionally the system map window slips back behind every other window, it's not too bad if I set it to 2 minutes while NPRs are fighting and it ends up taking me 30 in-game minutes to finally manage to stop the autoturns, but with 1-day, I'd lose a lot of time.
Plus, IIRC, it's still slower for 5 1-day autoturns than a single 5 days turn.

Five 1-day turns might take a little longer than a single 5-day turn, but the auto-turns stop automatically when construction cycle runs, or something else that interrupts it, like a hostile contact, happens. So you won't lose out on production or research.

[Hazard]

The problem with this is that at least early on in the game it's impossible to keep up with population growth on your home world, never mind on your far more reproductively active colonies.

I mean, at game start a Construction Factory produces 10 BP per year, and it takes 120 BP to construct 1 Construction factory. This would imply that, roughly speaking you can double your construction capacity every 12 years, and a population growth of about 6% per year. But you aren't building just the construction factory.

You also need mines to fuel those factories, and those either cost 120 BP, or 240. Luckily the 120 BP ones require an equal amount of personnel, but they don't have equal production. You are very unlikely to get a planet with .5 Duranium, .25 Tritanium and .25 Vendarite after all. So you probably need an uncertain amount of more mines because that's just how Aurora rolls, and that's if you don't need to import materials from a place you can't mine except with an automated mine.

And automated mines? They triple the effective BP cost of running your ever expanding economy. And a 2 percent population growth is something even your homeworld is likely to exceed in the early game. Which I repeat, renders it impossible to keep up with your ever expanding economy.

You need to invest enough research in mining and construction speed boosting technologies to keep up. As this analysis doesn't even consider the costs of building all the other things you need to create an empire, just the things you need to keep building it.

[Steve Walmsley]

Any plans of adding resource silos for TN materials, which then can be attacked by the new ground forces... ? Rather then invading a planet for takeover one could then raid the planet to destroy its depots and cripple the enemy this way... .

Also would open a way for small infiltration units for sabotage or piracy...

I have considered this for both minerals and fuel, although it would have to be extended to missiles, ship components, etc. It would be a lot of extra work/management/UI. The question is whether that game play benefit would be worth it.

Another enhancement I have long considered is whether power to run everything should be required, from ground-based solar (distance from sun), geothermal (on high tectonic), TN reactors like those on ships, orbital solar collectors or even stations near the sun, etc. and whether power can be beamed and at what efficiency. That adds an extra layer of complexity and new infrastructure to be defended, but again it is a case of management vs game play benefit.

[Hazard]

This isn't a good thing because Aurora does not model commercial sector and non-TN industrial sector requiring work force. Logically, either there is a massive invisible population that produces trade goods, or those goods are actually produced by the unemployed population. This also doesn't mesh well with RP-scenarios where a nation only uses a portion of its real population for TN - for example I usually cut down 3rd world populations to simulate the general low education level as well as a balance measure.

Thus Steve would need to add a fourth sector to each colony - environment, service, commercial and TN-industry, and the relevant mechanism for populations to switch jobs. After all, not many nations can just command people to quit their day job at the mobile phone assembly line and instead start making missiles.

I think this is something that should be part of a larger population and economy overhaul, far down the line.

Actually, this can be considered part of the 'Services' sector. 25% is just what's available, theoretically speaking, is available for government provided jobs, while the remainder is dedicated to maintaining the basic needs (agriculture) and the whole consumer goods thing.

Any plans of adding resource silos for TN materials, which then can be attacked by the new ground forces... ? Rather then invading a planet for takeover one could then raid the planet to destroy its depots and cripple the enemy this way... .

Also would open a way for small infiltration units for sabotage or piracy...

I have considered this for both minerals and fuel, although it would have to be extended to missiles, ship components, etc. It would be a lot of extra work/management/UI. The question is whether that game play benefit would be worth it.

Another enhancement I have long considered is whether power to run everything should be required, from ground-based solar (distance from sun), geothermal (on high tectonic), TN reactors like those on ships, orbital solar collectors or even stations near the sun, etc. and whether power can be beamed and at what efficiency. That adds an extra layer of complexity and new infrastructure to be defended, but again it is a case of management vs game play benefit.

It'd involve an entirely new overhaul of the ground combat system too. It's better to wait for a new iteration of the game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Any plans of adding resource silos for TN materials, which then can be attacked by the new ground forces... ? Rather then invading a planet for takeover one could then raid the planet to destroy its depots and cripple the enemy this way... .

Also would open a way for small infiltration units for sabotage or piracy...

I have considered this for both minerals and fuel, although it would have to be extended to missiles, ship components, etc. It would be a lot of extra work/management/UI. The question is whether that game play benefit would be worth it.

Another enhancement I have long considered is whether power to run everything should be required, from ground-based solar (distance from sun), geothermal (on high tectonic), TN reactors like those on ships, orbital solar collectors or even stations near the sun, etc. and whether power can be beamed and at what efficiency. That adds an extra layer of complexity and new infrastructure to be defended, but again it is a case of management vs game play benefit.

I think it is worth a consideration AFTER C# is launched to us... 

It would also mean that you could use Sorium for other purposes than as fuel. Perhaps large power plants and solar reflection arrays give out abnormal amounts of heat so you might want to use Sorium based power in some military installations... perhaps you can block or disrupt power distribution with fleets in some way which also mean Solium based power generation can be important for military purposes.

I would also like for all ship components to require power as well as weapons. Ships should then have both reactors and generators and could use Sorium for power as well as the reactors... or reactors should perhaps use Sorium to run things on the ships entirely and the reactor is the amount of Sorium you can burn and generators the amount of energy you can store.

Anyway... there are allot more things that could be done with energy in general in the game. Fuel and Sorium is important but would make the game even more important to manage if it was to be expanded in that way.

[Brian Neumann]

Would it be possible to set a limit on the shipyards continuous capacity expansion.  For example I want to build the shipyard up to 80,000 ton capacity I can either set it to continuous expansion and monitor when this is reached, or I can use several commands over time to build up to the eventual size required.  If instead when I start the continuous expansion I set a limit of 80,000 and then have the shipyard stop expanding, It would be simpler and cause less micromanagement as well.

Brian

[Garfunkel]

I *think* Steve mentioned that at some point because it was asked for earlier. It would be a very useful Quality of Life improvement. "Continual Capacity Expansion" opens a new sub-menu where you can write in the size.

[MarcAFK]

Any plans of adding resource silos for TN materials, which then can be attacked by the new ground forces... ? Rather then invading a planet for takeover one could then raid the planet to destroy its depots and cripple the enemy this way... .

Also would open a way for small infiltration units for sabotage or piracy...

I have considered this for both minerals and fuel, although it would have to be extended to missiles, ship components, etc. It would be a lot of extra work/management/UI. The question is whether that game play benefit would be worth it.

Another enhancement I have long considered is whether power to run everything should be required, from ground-based solar (distance from sun), geothermal (on high tectonic), TN reactors like those on ships, orbital solar collectors or even stations near the sun, etc. and whether power can be beamed and at what efficiency. That adds an extra layer of complexity and new infrastructure to be defended, but again it is a case of management vs game play benefit.

I would be happy if reactor power was required to run ship components, weapons, etc. Though it can always be surmised that the weight of reactor is already calculated when you add components, just like life support is, and the actual location of that reactor and its potential to be damaged is just abstracted away since its minor compared to the energy requirements of energy weapons. Though shields should need reactor power :p
Oh, and reactors should burn through fuel.

[ardem]

Suggestion: Organisational Number - Ground Combat

Not sure is there have been a  suggestion on this, one thing I never liked about Ground Forces was the ability to continue to fight day after day, as long as they have supplies without rest. This mean combat instead of lasting months really on every last about a month total, no matter the size of the fights.

What I would love to see is something like an organisational number (very similar to HOI), which reduced each time the element is is combat. These numbers replenish over time, this stop the continual attack and allows combat to be a longer process then the current system. Or the very least swap out formations on the attack

The organisational number is an arbitrary number which describes a unit capabability over the length of time it fights, it is suppose to take into account combat fatigue, maintainence, continual combat degrades communications and organisational structure making commands slower.

[Steve Walmsley]

Suggestion: Organisational Number - Ground Combat

Not sure is there have been a  suggestion on this, one thing I never liked about Ground Forces was the ability to continue to fight day after day, as long as they have supplies without rest. This mean combat instead of lasting months really on every last about a month total, no matter the size of the fights.

What I would love to see is something like an organisational number (very similar to HOI), which reduced each time the element is is combat. These numbers replenish over time, this stop the continual attack and allows combat to be a longer process then the current system. Or the very least swap out formations on the attack

The organisational number is an arbitrary number which describes a unit capabability over the length of time it fights, it is suppose to take into account combat fatigue, maintainence, continual combat degrades communications and organisational structure making commands slower.

This will probably happen anyway due to the high supply requirements of ground combat. Eventually both sides will slow down to non-supplied combat rates until fresh supplies can be assembled.

[Bremen]

Suggestion: Organisational Number - Ground Combat

Not sure is there have been a  suggestion on this, one thing I never liked about Ground Forces was the ability to continue to fight day after day, as long as they have supplies without rest. This mean combat instead of lasting months really on every last about a month total, no matter the size of the fights.

What I would love to see is something like an organisational number (very similar to HOI), which reduced each time the element is is combat. These numbers replenish over time, this stop the continual attack and allows combat to be a longer process then the current system. Or the very least swap out formations on the attack

The organisational number is an arbitrary number which describes a unit capabability over the length of time it fights, it is suppose to take into account combat fatigue, maintainence, continual combat degrades communications and organisational structure making commands slower.

I'm opposed. It would do nothing but add makework with switching formations from front line to rear and back.

[JustAnotherDude]

Shipyards should be able to be detooled for either no or minimal cost, to stop you from having functionally useless shipyards that will never have a new class assigned to them due to retooling costs.

[Profugo Barbatus]

I *think* Steve mentioned that at some point because it was asked for earlier. It would be a very useful Quality of Life improvement. "Continual Capacity Expansion" opens a new sub-menu where you can write in the size.

This, it would be incredibly nice to not have to issue ten seperate "Add 10,000 Tons" capacity expansions to bring my civilian shipyards up to grade. Being able to simply say "Grow to X Tonnage" with X being specified would be incredibly convenient for when I spool out extra yards.