Thanks for the great responses everyone, keep 'em coming! I'll just comment on a few things but I have read everything.
I like the idea of having capped pop based on water ecc.
I do too. That kind of thing would definitely go in a separately downloadable mod though. I prefer to keep to the balance and rules of existing VB6 Aurora as close as possible, for better or worse. Its ruleset has undergone years of thought, discussion, and refinement and my goal is to stay as faithful as I can to VB6 rules.
(And to the UI layout too. It's nice knowing where everything is.)
A in regards to quality of life and diplomacy, but please dont make ground combat more complex.
Don't worry, I'm keeping VB6 ground mechanics, 100%.
I'd say E, A, C. The Precursors and Swarm are always a nice roadblock (which I thought were already in?), and C# does have some nice features, as long as you stay away from the ground units system and others. And then some automation'd be nice I suppose, what sort are you thinking of? Some ways to have my empire build X ships and then have them immediately start training, refuelling and resting as needed? Automated orders for tugs to carry new stations to destinations? I'm not sure things like construction or research need much considering we can already order up queues, unless you mean player-replacement entirely rather than player-aid.
More info here,
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10149.msg116517#msg116517, but in short, think Distant Worlds: Universe (
screenshot of a portion of its automation config). Every box checked = fully automated empire.
Agreed that some things are less important to have AI for than others, such as ship design and anything that can be queued. There will be checkboxes for that sort of thing just so the mod can double as an NPR AI, but it will be assumed the player will most likely want to leave them unchecked, unless they really, truly, do not want to manage designs and queues at all.
Since there are multiple ways to solve a problem (which beam type to focus on, for example), the config page will have plenty of dropdown menus to pick your strategy. Theoretically, you could formulate several different flavors of an AI from a single mod, just by choosing different options in the dropdown menus for each AI.
That said, the initial mod I write to showcase all this stuff will be technically complete but inadequate for a long drawn out game. No tugs, maintenance outposts, etc. I prefer to leave it up to other people to take the example mod I provide and run with it in their own direction.
I'll be doing one for civilians too.
I suppose I should leave a disclaimer that I have no idea when I'll be starting or finishing work in these areas.
On the C# side also stabilization of new lagrange points are not that bad and would add much to q4x without being too far from the original vb6 mechanics.
Just another question though. Where you working on porting 7.1 or the never released 7.2?
Many of the fixes/addition on the 7.2 version were highly regarded from the community.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8151.0
7.2 is a really interesting thought. It's tempting to add some of those at some point (disabled by default), the less intrusive / more QoL ones anyway. I guess the only minor concern would be those updates haven't all been tested in the field like the C# features have. At some point I really need to do some research to see what people have been saying about the 7.2 changes.
Thanks for the great feedback here and on discord!