Author Topic: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions  (Read 343207 times)

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Offline DEEPenergy

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1365 on: August 30, 2019, 04:08:29 PM »
How about a 'center on selected system' checkbox  :)
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1366 on: August 31, 2019, 07:09:06 AM »
I'd really love if Galactic map would center on the system you have selected on system map

I'm positive that there already is some combination of Ctrl or Shift clicking (maybe dragging) that does this.  I don't have Aurora handy to check, but isn't it:

Single click highlights the system
Double-click opens the system
Ctrl-click draws box to move systems

Maybe it's click-and-drag that moves the map?  Shift-click and drag?
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1367 on: August 31, 2019, 08:15:33 AM »
Some thoughts on how to handle tractor beams and tractoring several ships/stations/modules with a single tug?

Currently there is a bug/exploit in VB6 where you can tug many stations/module with a single tug as if you only tractor one station.

There certainly are some role-play value in using tugs to tractor cargo modules and connecting several of them and move them as you would a train, this seems reasonable in space when you have tractor technology available. Although perhaps there should be some limits to how much a tractor beam should be able to pull so you need more tractor beams for heavier mass to drag along. You could then also have a technology that can increase the tractor strength per tractor beam.
 

Offline Doren

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1368 on: August 31, 2019, 08:28:54 AM »
I'm positive that there already is some combination of Ctrl or Shift clicking (maybe dragging) that does this.  I don't have Aurora handy to check, but isn't it:

Single click highlights the system
Double-click opens the system
Ctrl-click draws box to move systems

Maybe it's click-and-drag that moves the map?  Shift-click and drag?
I think you are talking about moving and positioning the systems on the map? I'm talking about panning the map to a system when you open the map without touching the saved position of the systems.

The thing I want this for is that when I click task force event and jump to a system where the task force has finished up it's business I need to give new orders and often I need to send them to nearest colony for refuel. The problem is with ever increasing system names (especially if you play real stars) it can be rather hard to remember the exact name of the system and where it stands on the saved galactic map. Right now I open the galactic map and look at the edges of known galaxy for the correct system name or if that fails use the find system function. It would be faster if the galactic map had already panned to the system so I would be able to chart the course with a quick glance
 

Offline Scandinavian

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1369 on: August 31, 2019, 08:31:38 AM »
Perhaps make a check when attempting to connect a tractor beam: If the vessel attempting to engage the beam is already connected (either with its own beams or as the target) to more than its own tonnage, then it cannot connect.

This way, you could have a single large tractor towing a number of smaller pods (e.g. a satellite catcher towing back three probes to its mothership for refurbishment), or a large station such as an asteroid miner or fuel refinery being towed by multiple tugs. Or two battlecruisers towing a crippled dreadnought off the battlefield.

This would not allow the creation of serially coupled trains, but those anyway seem difficult to justify in space, since there is no shared rail system to provide guidance.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1370 on: August 31, 2019, 11:02:04 AM »
I think you are talking about moving and positioning the systems on the map? I'm talking about panning the map to a system when you open the map without touching the saved position of the systems.

No, I'm talking about changing where the map is centered.  I know it's possible because I have done it.

If you're talking about switching to & auto-centering the galactic map by double-clicking on a system name on a different window. . .  I think most of them do that already.  Maybe they only do that if they open the galactic window, not if it's already open.
 
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Offline Doren

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1371 on: August 31, 2019, 12:12:43 PM »
No, I'm talking about changing where the map is centered.  I know it's possible because I have done it.

If you're talking about switching to & auto-centering the galactic map by double-clicking on a system name on a different window. . .  I think most of them do that already.  Maybe they only do that if they open the galactic window, not if it's already open.
I started snooping around menus since all I ever saw was opening systems menu and such and there does seem to ever open but lo and behold there's a option to center the galactic map in the task force menu it doesn't seem to work unless galactic map is open already but I need it open to map the route anyway so this should do
 

Offline TMaekler

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1372 on: September 02, 2019, 08:47:32 AM »
Maybe an idea for version 1.1: a lot of international politics is based upon resources. The ones you need, the counties they have it, they become your friends.

Since it will be possible in C# to have multi nations on one planet, it would make it more interesting if the resources of that planet aren’t global, but dependent on where the nation is. Could be a simple system of: body has <random number of resource areas>, which have each x, y, z amount of TN resources, and that area number is linked to a nation (and one nation can of course control several of them). You can then eventually fight for those areas individually - or make them part of diplomatic agreements to exchange after a war.
 
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Offline Stryker

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Civilian infrastructure transport
« Reply #1373 on: September 03, 2019, 02:36:34 PM »
One of the things I regularly see is the civilian fleet moving infrastructure to the closest colony until it is marked stable.    However, I quite often end up with enough infrastructure for 15-20 million people on say Luna, which may only require 7-8 million people.    At the same time my colony on Europa, for example has minimal infrastructure with a manufacturing efficiency of 20-30%, yet I still can't mark Luna as stable (despite the fact that I have millions more population than I have jobs for them). 

Perhaps rather than checking to see if a colony is stable or not,  the civilian fleet should check the manufacturing efficiency of colonies first, then check to see if they are stable or not before determining where to drop infrastructure. 

This may also improve the AI's colonies efficiencies as I don't know if the AI will use contracts for civilian fleets.   This way the infrastructure is going not only where the player needs it, but where the AI needs it as well.

For example:
Luna: Pop.   15 million, manufacturing efficiency 100%, not yet stable. 
Europa: Pop.   2 million, manufacturing efficiency 27%, not yet stable. 
Decision: Deliver infrastructure to Europa. 

This would boost Europa's manufacturing efficiency, while not harming Luna's.    This would also make more sense from an RP standpoint as increasing Luna's population, without increasing it's number of jobs would actually increase unhappiness rather than decreasing it. 
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 02:38:51 PM by Stryker »
 
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Offline Stryker

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Civilian infrastructure transport part 2
« Reply #1374 on: September 03, 2019, 02:56:44 PM »
An alternate solution to moving the trade infrastructure where it needs to be would be to remove the 25 million population cap for marking a colony as stable.   

After all, if my colony has 7 million people, but has 100% efficiency, it is stable.   Introducing more infrastructure increases the population, which increases unemployment, which introduces instability and unhappiness.
 
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Offline Jovus

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1375 on: September 04, 2019, 10:40:47 AM »
Trying to move this discussion out of the AAR comments thread to the appropriate place for better visibility:

When you refit ships are the systems replaced put into storage or just lost? I tend to have front line fleets, kept up to date with the latest equipment and second line squadrons which I would want to upgrade with the items removed from the front line fleet. In VB6 it appears systems removed in refits are just lost. I would like the option to reuse systems removed in refits.

Yes, they are lost in C# too. Should be straightforward to add them to the stockpile instead.

I would like that too, we can scrap them for a few pennies worth of resources, or re-use it for 'colonial fleets units'.

If components you take out of ships for refit are retained, which I think is a cool idea (maybe with an 'auto-scrap' toggle) then the refit cost calculation should probably also be re-worked, since right now it assumes the cost of removing the components is balanced by the minerals/manpower saved by repurposing and recycling them.
 

Offline ropedog

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1376 on: September 04, 2019, 11:36:30 AM »
Quote from: TMaekler link=topic=9841. msg114280#msg114280 date=1557237855
For a more "random" experience in the research area, maybe going into a different direction might be interesting to think about - whilst keeping a "kind of deterministic" system as it is now.

I personally really, really like that individual control you have over your ship designs.  It's not like in most games: Destroyer Class I, Class II, etc.  But that concept doesn't transfer to the underlying technologies you have to research.  They are Tech I, Tech II, etc.

In todays military, if they for example want to have a new type of fighter, they compose a list of ideas, what that fighter should be able to do.  Then the underlying research begins (if that is possible and in what areas new technologies or materials would have to be researched).  I imagine a similar kind of system for Aurora without the actually given limits of certain weapons, ranges, etc. : You specify what kind of ship you want to have.  In a second step the game then shows you a list of needed technologies for that ship type and what research duration each part would need (the duration would of course highly depend upon what you are actually capable of and the bigger the difference to your actual state of technology is, the bigger the duration will be).
You then go back and forth between design wishes and research list until you are happy with the individual research durations (maybe you didn't like the long duration of the new armor research and toned your wishes down to a "reasonable" duration) and give permission to research the modules.

That system would enable you to
a) react to certain situations individually (like in a war you realize that your laser weapons are slighty (5000km range) to short to overwhelm a certain enemy ship type, so you give a quick research order to increase the laser range and refit your ships quickly with the new weapon type; whilst in the actual system you would have to research the next (full) step of technology - which of course would bring your range 50. 000km but would also need 18 month to research instead of 3)
b) give long term research jumps a go if your political situation allows for that in peace times
c) can control technology more precisely, be a bit more in control of your research time, etc.

Again, this would be quite an overhaul - don't know if it would be worth it.
I've also been thinking how a bit of randomness should be introduced to the research area.
I find it a little immersion-killing (and a little too much micro) that you know exactly when that new ultra high tech engine tech will be completed, so you end up waiting to build the new engine that's needed for your new destroyer.   Then the engine tech finally is done, but the next laser tech is right around the corner, and on and on. . .   Or, you move your labs around so several techs complete in the same month.   The only surprise comes when your prize scientist gets killed and your project gets pushed back.
I don't think we should know exactly when technology discoveries occur, maybe an estimation or target, but with lots of built-in variability.   That way you have to use what you have, or take the gamble and wait - which could be 3 more cycles or 30!  This would make min-maxing impossible for research.
I have ideas of how to accomplish this (including adding team mechanics to research), but won't get into the details unless there is interest in this idea.

As TMaekler stated, I think the current method is much more believable in the construction area, but I don't think that's how research/innovation works in the real world.

I wouldn't expect this in the first release of C#, but maybe, hopefully v2. 0 if there's support.   But, I think it would greatly increase the variability from game to game, and just make for a better story.

Thanks!
 
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Offline Drakale

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1377 on: September 04, 2019, 01:51:33 PM »
I really like your concept of uncertain research time. Rule the Waves does it in a similar manner and it's true that it forces you to use what you have rather than plan out precisely what will be researched and when, although you still control the general direction of your research. It's a pretty big change though, need to find a ratio between remaining RP and the how likely a breakthrough is and make the relation between technology level and invested RP less direct.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions
« Reply #1378 on: September 04, 2019, 03:41:18 PM »
I really like your concept of uncertain research time. Rule the Waves does it in a similar manner and it's true that it forces you to use what you have rather than plan out precisely what will be researched and when, although you still control the general direction of your research. It's a pretty big change though, need to find a ratio between remaining RP and the how likely a breakthrough is and make the relation between technology level and invested RP less direct.

I think a system similar to Rule the Waves would do well in Aurora for role-play purposes.

You basically would assigns researchers and labs for each category and then the game give you what it does give you when it is time for it. It certainly is more realistic and would serve very well for multi-nation campaigns.

Rule the Waves also has a diminishing return on investment into research which is also sort of realistic.

The system would abstract research and with research agreements with others you would then get specific points or benefits to research things that partner already have or if you research in the same thing you could both get a small bonus to that research.

You would then get some hints on research progress or if there is any setbacks.

There could then be some things you can steer research such as lowering the research on some weapon in order to prioritise something else. But you should never be able to completely cut research on some specific things, society have a tendency to be rather curious and want to know just for the sake of knowing. And often we the player use perfect foresight of the mechanic to just don't research something because we know that we don't need it, that is not usually how the people in that world actually see things.

I know that Steve don't like to add optional rules, but I really think that having something like this would be awesome so we don't end up with the same stuff every time at the same time, it just is not very realistic. But some players probably would object quite strongly so it could be an option in the same way that officer political influence can be an option for realistic purposes or maintenance on ships etc...

I always RP in my games that research labs (and even industry) can't just be moved between areas, that I have done for a long time. Even within the same area labs can't just switch focus in a major way. I want the factions of my games to make long term decisions and need to live with what they have for a long time. Expensive components is very difficult and time consuming to research etc..

I would definitely be in favour of this in some form and it works really well in Rule the Waves.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2019, 03:47:09 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 
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Offline Doren

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Re: Civilian infrastructure transport
« Reply #1379 on: September 05, 2019, 01:18:12 AM »
Perhaps rather than checking to see if a colony is stable or not,  the civilian fleet should check the manufacturing efficiency of colonies first, then check to see if they are stable or not before determining where to drop infrastructure. 
Maybe a new option of "Promote colonization" to spend money to increase civilian sector's willingness to interact with the colony could be added