Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread

[TMaekler]

Jump Points in the System View are shown with a distance in billion km. If you want to relink Jumppoints in SM Mode the distances are shown there in AU.
Same difference in the Galactic Map. If you show the distances from selected system it is shown in billion km. But if you switch to the warp point data there you again see only AU.

I suggest conforming them so that the distances shown are everywhere the same. I find these differences in distances confusing - especially because the game does not tell you about in what measurement the numbers are shown.

[bean]

One thing I would like to see would be a 'spacer' or 'reserved space' component.  This is a box that is basically free and exists to take up space.  I can think of several uses:
Building a ship to size, where you want to save some space for future improvements.
If all but one component of a ship is researched, and you want to get started, you fill out the space with these, then lay down the ships.  Partway through construction, the research finishes, and you retool the yard (if necessary).  Then, when the ships complete, you refit them to the new sensors.  There are ways to do this today, but they cost more.
When you wish to slide a ship past your overlord's approval process, because they restrict what you can build, but not what you can refit.  (This one is probably pretty specific to my current game.)

[Paul M]

I would suggest that the production of new shipping lines be forbidden when any of the existing lines has a share price below 2.

I would further suggest that in the advent an investment would be made that would start a new line instead that the money is randomly given to a shipping line in the form of new ships if the formation of a new line is blocked due to low share prices.

I would further suggest that when a new line forms it starts with its initial investment money already spent in terms of ships.  Otherwise I've seen them sit on their initial investment capital and even pay it out as dividends without building ships and then being stuck with having but a single ship. 

I would further suggest that a bit of programing is implemented to stop the mass effect in Aurora civillian shipping.  If I give a contract I've seen every single spare ship head off to the place where the pick up is...regardless of the fact that there are only 10 mines to move and that 10 faster ships are racing on ahead of the ship and that there are contracts now free (as everyone and their dog is heading off to the oort cloud to pick up 10 auto mines).  And similiar programing to preven the big dumps where there is 50K extra population available on a colony and 3 million colonists are landed on it.  Basically I would loop over the companies and assign a job to each company until no jobs remain to be assigned. 

I would further suggest that NPRs have to deal with fuel but it an abstract way.  The ships track fuel use and at 50% they return to their "home base" and refuel but that the NPR ships have no limitations on their movement if they run out of fuel on the way home.  Or you could say that they can do their thing until they do run out of fuel and then must return to their "home base" to refuel but again without any restriction on speed.  They can't "run out of fuel" (as it is now) but they at least have to automatically go back to their "home base" from time to time.  This will hopefully put a logicistics limit on NPRs without imposing a huge programing effort.

I would also suggest that the price paid for civillian fuel should be increased significantly.  I would leave the price the same and just charge that per 1000 l rather than per 10 000 l.  Civillian fuel is extremely valuable and very cheap which makes the harvesters less valuable to the company. 

[bean]

I would further suggest that when a new line forms it starts with its initial investment money already spent in terms of ships.  Otherwise I've seen them sit on their initial investment capital and even pay it out as dividends without building ships and then being stuck with having but a single ship. 

This is a good idea.

I would further suggest that a bit of programing is implemented to stop the mass effect in Aurora civillian shipping.  If I give a contract I've seen every single spare ship head off to the place where the pick up is...regardless of the fact that there are only 10 mines to move and that 10 faster ships are racing on ahead of the ship and that there are contracts now free (as everyone and their dog is heading off to the oort cloud to pick up 10 auto mines).  And similiar programing to preven the big dumps where there is 50K extra population available on a colony and 3 million colonists are landed on it.  Basically I would loop over the companies and assign a job to each company until no jobs remain to be assigned. 

I thought that that bug got fixed.  I'll have to check, but I believe that several years ago, Steve added code to check for all inbound colonists when calculating where to send new ones.

I would further suggest that NPRs have to deal with fuel but it an abstract way.  The ships track fuel use and at 50% they return to their "home base" and refuel but that the NPR ships have no limitations on their movement if they run out of fuel on the way home.  Or you could say that they can do their thing until they do run out of fuel and then must return to their "home base" to refuel but again without any restriction on speed.  They can't "run out of fuel" (as it is now) but they at least have to automatically go back to their "home base" from time to time.  This will hopefully put a logicistics limit on NPRs without imposing a huge programing effort.

It might be worthwhile to do this for shipping lines.  Look at the ship's range, and reject any trip that is beyond said range.  Computational load should be relatively low.

I would also suggest that the price paid for civillian fuel should be increased significantly.  I would leave the price the same and just charge that per 1000 l rather than per 10 000 l.  Civillian fuel is extremely valuable and very cheap which makes the harvesters less valuable to the company.

Definitely.  I always groan when they buy one of the stupid things because it's never going to pay itself back.  (At least if you use them for revenue.  I haven't used them much as a means of getting more fuel.  May have to try that.)

[Iranon]

Very minor thing, but imo active sensor cost should scale with Sensitivity rather than Strength:
More interesting research/design trade-offs, avoids a newbie trap.

Current situation:
Range gains are comparable for either line.
Sensitivity gives you additional range for free and allows better passives.
Grav Pulse Strength increases build/R&D cost and EM footprint, with no secondary application. Essentially it's just a weight-saving tech that won't do very much on most designs.

[db48x]

I don't think Xenology teams gain skill often enough, especially compared to Geology teams. Translating the text found in alien ruins seems like it would be the culmination of a life's work; surely they're going to learn more than 1% during that time

[formicae]

I'd like to be able to set a commander name theme per species in my empire, not just a single set for my empire as a whole.

From an RP perspective, I don't want to force the aliens who join my empire to abandon their own names in favor of human-style ones.

[83athom]

I'd like to be able to set a commander name theme per species in my empire, not just a single set for my empire as a whole.

From an RP perspective, I don't want to force the aliens who join my empire to abandon their own names in favor of human-style ones.

There is a part in the race window that you can select additional name themes to be drawn for your empire.

[formicae]

There is a part in the race window that you can select additional name themes to be drawn for your empire.

There is, and I've been using it, but it looks like it selects one of the 5 themes randomly without any correlation with the commander's homeworld/training location (which is the only indication I can find of the commander's species).

[firsal]

 A way to designate a world as off-limits to civilian colony ships. I'm trying to set up a severely limited colony on a Venusian world so that PDC morale doesn't go too far down, but civilians keep sending colonists in larger numbers than my orbital habitats can provide.

[83athom]

A way to designate a world as off-limits to civilian colony ships. I'm trying to set up a severely limited colony on a Venusian world so that PDC morale doesn't go too far down, but civilians keep sending colonists in larger numbers than my orbital habitats can provide.

Once it reaches 25m pop you can. Alternatively you can stop sending colonists from the source planets. Option 3 is to ban the body from the system view (F9).

[intolerantape]

Add an option to coordinate the completion dates of all current construction projects to the 'Industry' tab of the 'Population and Production' window. 

The player specifies the desired date of completion and clicks the button.  Then the game attempts to distribute the colony's construction capacity between the current projects in order to complete them all on the specified date. 

If the projects cannot be completed by the specified date, then 100% of the construction capacity will be allocated to finish all of the current projects at the same time as quickly as possible.

If the projects can be completed by the specified date, then only enough construction capacity will be allocated to finish all current projects by that date.  Any additional capacity is left unallocated.

It might be simpler to specify the time to complete (in days or seconds or whatever) instead of the date of completion.  This way the functionality could be presented with a single text box and a button.

[QuakeIV]

I dunno about defaulting to trying to complete everything at the same time.  I'd want it to just start spewing errors at that point so I can come and fix production.  If I am making something expensive that I want to happen over the course of a century or whatever (1000 factories lets say) then the last thing I want is production splitting to make sure everything gets done at the same time.  (and me not knowing that this had happened)

[83athom]

I just noticed, it seems noone has yet to suggest this helpful little thing. A toggleable visible grid for the Galactic Map. It would be based on the grid size set for your "Line up" size setting. Its just a small thing that would help us line systems up easier into actual grids/sectors.

[Iranon]

Talking about the galactic map... how about more information about jump connections?

Colours to reflect one-way jump gates. A few short lines outwards from the circle for unexplored gates (orange or green depending on the presence of a jump gate)