C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Cavgunner]

Hi Steve, is there any possibility that in the future, colonies might possess unique environmental traits, particularly on those worlds that are potentially habitable (or have been terraformed)?  For example a warm ocean world might be home to native sea-dwelling Megafauna, enhancing Luxury Food output.  Meanwhile, a newly-terraformed Mars might suffer from severe storms due to rapid climate change, slowing production capacity by a certain percentage.  Other worlds might be the home of semi-sentient beasts, viral outbreaks, aggressively hostile alien ecosystems, frequent asteroid storms, etc.

Also, when using the empire map will we be able to overlay our own nation's flag onto systems that we wish to designate as under our control?

[Agoelia]

Hi Steve, is there any possibility that in the future, colonies might possess unique environmental traits, particularly on those worlds that are potentially habitable (or have been terraformed)?  For example a warm ocean world might be home to native sea-dwelling Megafauna, enhancing Luxury Food output.  Meanwhile, a newly-terraformed Mars might suffer from severe storms due to rapid climate change, slowing production capacity by a certain percentage.  Other worlds might be the home of semi-sentient beasts, viral outbreaks, aggressively hostile alien ecosystems, frequent asteroid storms, etc.

We already have "unique" stuff on planets that adds research bonuses, and ancient ruins to pillage. I like this idea, it would push players out of their comfort zone: colonize these planet even if it's terribly hot because it has very fertile terrain, or don't colonize that otherwise very inviting moon because it has extremely poisonus plants all over it.

[Father Tim]

We also already have differing prodcution rates for the various 'trade goods' -- which can adequately represent luxury foods, decorative woods/minerals, and/or rare life forms.  I wouldn't mind the ability to expand and/or rename the trade goods list, but at the same time I wouldn't miss it if we don't get it.

[littleWolf]

How about  "Orbital habitats" witch military purpose ?   This add to game huge battlestations with hangars, manteinance modules, sensors, defensive weapons and etc.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think it would be time for us to be able to build drones... basically any "fighter" should be able to be built as a drone so no crew and no deployment rate needed. . .

I think "no deployment rate" goes too far for game balance, but I do get a little sad inside every time my "fighter" ends up with a crew of 7.  I'd be happy if there was a way to set max crew for small craft, and then every 'required' crew member that wasn't present would cost some amount of wealth & minerals for 'automation'.

As for your 'unmanned' picket ships, may I suggest Conscript Crews and required officer rank of 12 (so that none are assigned) and some cybernetic technobable about how their brains were harvested to make the computer operating system?

Why would it be bad for game balance?!?

This would eventually be coupled with a control mechanism or some such... so you would still have then have a maximum range at which these drones can be controlled and you could never send them into a different star system because that would be impossible to control. Fighters also are quite limited in fuel.

The good thing with this is how you could build minefields using drones fighters instead of dumb missiles that just explode on anything in the vicinity and which can easily be fooled by exploiting the game mechanics.

The drone section itself would probably be larger than a 1 crew compartment anyway, so a 1 crew ship would probably be more space efficient and cheaper too. Just as drones in the real world are more expensive but don't have to risk human lives in dangerous situations. This would be more of a role playing thing than an efficiency thing in general.

[Steve Walmsley]

How about  "Orbital habitats" witch military purpose ?   This add to game huge battlestations with hangars, manteinance modules, sensors, defensive weapons and etc.

You can do that in VB6, although you will have to pay maintenance on it.

[Steve Walmsley]

Hi Steve, is there any possibility that in the future, colonies might possess unique environmental traits, particularly on those worlds that are potentially habitable (or have been terraformed)?  For example a warm ocean world might be home to native sea-dwelling Megafauna, enhancing Luxury Food output.  Meanwhile, a newly-terraformed Mars might suffer from severe storms due to rapid climate change, slowing production capacity by a certain percentage.  Other worlds might be the home of semi-sentient beasts, viral outbreaks, aggressively hostile alien ecosystems, frequent asteroid storms, etc.

Also, when using the empire map will we be able to overlay our own nation's flag onto systems that we wish to designate as under our control?

Probably not for the first release, but one of the good things about converting to C# is that it will be a lot easier to add things in the future.

Yes, you can still flag systems as yours or another race. I haven't coded diplomacy yet, but telling other races (including NPRs) which systems you claim will be part of that.

[littleWolf]

You can do that in VB6, although you will have to pay maintenance on it.

Really ?   "orbital habitat" and "military purpose" properties can exist same time ? And i can build this battlestation 100?++   mass as orbital  without naval shipyard, on Factory ?
Say please, how ?

[Rich.h]

You can do that in VB6, although you will have to pay maintenance on it.

Really ?   "orbital habitat" and "military purpose" properties can exist same time ? And i can build this battlestation 100?++   mass as orbital  without naval shipyard, on Factory ?
Say please, how ?

Yes perfectly possible and I have done so before. Simply design the ship you want as per normal then slap on an orbital hab component. Using the industry tab of the F2 page use the drop down menu to select "build PDC/ Orbital Habitat", then select from the list and it will be built fully using your construction factories. Normally I tend to use it for when I happen to design particularly large vessels such as giant terraformers etc that exceed my shipyard capacity by a factor of ten or more. In theory though you could apply it to any type of ship, if you don't need speed etc and have a spare 250k tons going.

[Hazard]

Keep in mind that with an active terraforming effort dealing with a hostile biosphere is... trivial. Just pump in enough chlorine and wait a couple of years. Or, if the biosphere depends on chlorine gas, pump it out. Either way you can collapse a biosphere.

The real challenge would be establishing a biosphere, diversifying its components or maintaining a biosphere in the face of an ongoing terraforming effort. But that would all require a rebuild of the entire terraforming mechanics anyway.

[littleWolf]

ahh ok, thanks.

Simple in "full design info" 
has both records

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

OR

only one
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
without any words about OH construction..

[hostergaard]

I was reading a bit on the changes to mechanics  post and read the civilian shipping post.

I think its really great that they can act in a smart manner and check each other, gonna be a huge improvement, but you noted that it may impact performance. So maybe an idea would be to add in

Trade routes

That is, to avoid every single civilian ship always checking each other making for a exponential growth in checks for every additional ship the game could check planets against each other and the profits between them and create trade routes accordingly. Then it could assign the needed tonnage of ships to the various trade routes for maximum profit occasionally updating them.

So most civ ships would run these routes without having to do checks against each other. A smaller number of civ ships could then do the free trading where they checks against each other that you have already created (while also respecting the trade reserved for the trade routes so they don't cause disruption for them. That is, it will only consider and use goods that exceed whats needed for the trade routes)

Just an idea. Might not work well, but it could help cut down calculations. And you could give the player ability to mess with them in various ways. Like creating their own costum trade routes that the civs will use. Or hell, subsidize specific trade routes between planets, routes that would normally not be profitable but, say, the player wants the economy and trade of  a backwater planet develop so he helps it by making the more profitable with bonuses.

If the majority of bulk trading went trough this system then you could also have the player set ships to patrol trading lanes, to protect them. Lots of fun things you could do. 

[Garfunkel]

ahh ok, thanks.

Simple in "full design info" 
has both records

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

OR

only one
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
without any words about OH construction..

It will be even easier in C# because you can make a "modular" starbase. The main part will be commercial and houses all the commercial elements, including maintenance modules, and then you can have much smaller military parts that are tugged to the same location and provide all the military modules.

Keep in mind that with an active terraforming effort dealing with a hostile biosphere is... trivial.

Yeah, this is my issue with "unique" things on planets. As long as we're capable of completely modifying/removing/creating an atmosphere in years or months, there is little point in adding planetary climate/weather/vegetation/animal elements. Because it'll be a minor modifier to colony cost or pop growth or industrial efficiency only until the player has stripped whatever atmosphere existed before and replaced it with something nicer:

"colonize these planet even if it's terribly hot because it has very fertile terrain" -add more anti-GH gas
"don't colonize that otherwise very inviting moon because it has extremely poisonus plants all over it" -remove atmosphere, introduce it again after all plants have died

Some ideas could work as either new Luxury Goods for civilians to trade (like the megafauna on ocean world Cavgunner mentioned) or as a temporary modifier before/during/after terraforming (like the Martian dust storms). Permanent things not so much, and they would have to interact with terraforming, and there should be a player decision involved somehow, like with the new ground combat model - player can decide not to bother with it and just nuke it from the orbit but then they give up the chance of getting loot.

[QuakeIV]

I do agree that the trade rout path caching is probably a worthwhile investment to help runtime for big maps.  You would potentially have ships taking the most travelled routs rather than the strictly shortest ones anyhow for sake of safety.

[canius]

Would it be possible to add Ringworld Systems? These would be planets which would have extremely high population caps, but likely would not be mineable.  Systems with ringworlds could be finacial bases, research hubs, shipyards, or any other  population intense industry. 

These would be super rare of course, and you could likely represent them on the system map by having several evenly spaced "planets" as the sections.  Maybe with more sections being present on rarer/larger ringworlds.

Systems with Ringworlds would lack all other system bodies, presumably as whoever built the system used all insystem materials in the construction process.

Wrecked Ringworlds could also be a thing, though all they do is provide a huge mineral dump to whoever has the time and ships to salvage the sections.