Miscellaneous suggestions for version 1.93, based on a few games.
The fleet order interface for choosing a minimum or maximum amount or a delay is cumbersome. If you don't carefully set things back to zero, all future orders might load only 1 factory, or be delayed 30 days. I don't have any ideas on streamlining the interface, so I'll just ask that all special conditions be cleared after an order is given.
The left-hand side of the Naval Organization window does not conveniently show me some of the information I need to make decisions. It would be great, for example, if fleets (and ships, when a fleet is expanded) showed the system they were in, as well as a few key indicators - low fuel, low supplies, low morale, low ordinance, damage, need for overhaul, and active sensor status.
On the same window, the "Select on Map" checkbox is handy, but it doesn't seem to adjust the Galactic map, which is what I really need in most cases. As an example, I have not figured out how to run exploration ships efficiently. Every time they need orders from me, I need to know where on the galactic map they are.
Relatedly, I have not been able to get value from Fleet Standing Orders->Go to system requiring geosurvey/gravsurvey. What I want is for fleets to find a system requiring a survey, that is reasonably close to my home world and reasonably close to the fleet's current position, and that has no fleet with the appropriate sensor already tasked to go there. Instead, I see fleets bunching up in the same system.
some types of messages on the Message Window now, when clicked, jump directly to the right window to get information and potentially take action. This is much appreciated! Messages shown on the system window do not yet do this. If they did, and did consistently, this game would have a real start to a unified "command screen" in which information is displayed or linked to, and from which orders are given.
Using Mass drivers to lob ore around is slow, in part because the speed at which mineral packets move does not appear to depend on Railgun Launch Velocity.
Ground surveys lack punch. In four games I've played with 50 stars and more, the total gain from all ground surveys might perhaps be one effectively usable mine world (2 games). Or the gain from all surveys together might, effectively, be nothing (2 games). This is due to several interlocking factors, among them the low return from all but the most promising (and lucky) surveys, the high concentration of TN resources in a few worlds, the critical importance of a few TN resources (and the near-ignorability of more than half the TN resource types), and the way mines produce from all resources on a world simultaneously.
Consider a successful survey. The most probable result is to add some non-critical TN resource, or add insufficient accessibility to make a world effectively mine-able given the alternatives available. Now, consider a survey that absolutely strikes the jackpot and adds 10,000,000 accessibility 0.9 Duranium. That's mighty interesting, but it'll be a long time on most maps before I actually mine such a world if it lacks Gallicite, Corundum, or Mercassium. To sum up, multiple features of the current TN resource allocation and mining system conspire against getting coolness from ground surveys.
Aurora shows a lot of messages, but my bandwidth for reading messages is low. I just want the critical ones. So I turn off such messages as leader retirement. 99% of the time, I lose nothing thereby, but when a truly important person vanishes I'd still like to know. So, who qualifies? Well, my personal answer is, roughly:
"If a scientist, and currently employed, or
If a civil administrator in charge of a sector, or in charge of a planet with any population or mines, or
If a ground commander and in charge of at least 500 build points-worth of units, or
If a navy officer and assigned to a fleet admin with ships attached, or in command of an armed military TF.
I want to know when a government ship has been scrapped. I do not want to know when a civilian ship has.
At present, the game provides no warning when a mineral is low, only when it has entirely run out. I propose that the game, for each production world, check to see if current construction and ship-building will both exhaust any mineral in less than (say) 20 days and also not complete before the mineral is exhausted.
Commander auto-assignment is very cautious about actually assigning officers. I'd like it to work harder to match suitable naval commanders with expensive ships instead of requiring me to hand-tweak ship class importance. Same story for ground units; the most expensive commands, and then the most expensive formations, should get officers more regularly. Same story with planets: the most populous worlds, and the ones with the most value in infrastructure, should immediately get the best eligible administrators. I like the fact that auto-assign doesn't re-assign leaders I've hand-placed, but I'd love it if the interface highlighted (gently) leaders that are off-limits for this reason.
In the Commanders window, I am having difficulty distinguishing between ships, populations, etc. that are highlighted in corniflower blue as having a leader and those in white without leaders. May I recommend a highlight color other than some tint of blue? Perhaps yellow, pale pink, or green?
Sector commanders, as expected, increase things like mining and production. I'm not seeing them increase population growth (could have sworn they did so in previous versions).
Managing research is more tedious than it needs to be. An initial proposal is for:
- Research facilities that become available through new construction, haulage, or scientist retirements to be automatically allocated. They should perhaps first be allocated to the projects with the most facilities already assigned, excepting projects that will complete in less than five days. If facilities remain un-allocated and no project has more than 1 facility assigned, then assign to the project with the earliest completion date, but not once that date is < five days away.
- A message to be shown of the form "Research re-allocated to developing X.". If more than one project gains facilities, than insert "and to other projects.".
A rather more ambitious proposal is for:
- All science to be centralized, but without losing track of the physical location of research facilities. All research facilities contributing to a project are combined. If at least some of these facilities are on a world with research bonuses, then indicate this in the Bonus Mod display. If any research is performed in a field, then the first facilities assigned are always from the world with the highest bonus in that field. The number of facilities from a world with bonuses are indicated, divided between those researching in a compatable field and those that are not.
