C# Suggestions

[xenoscepter]

This would railroad the start of the game in a way fundamentally the opposite of how Steve wants to use Aurora.
Aurora is more of a role-playing tool than a game and that means giving more options and flexibility.

If you want to RP situational limits to certain technologies that is 100% encouraged.

I usually headcanon in my TN start games that TN tech was discovered from observations after a massive nuclear event large enough to affect the gravitational field.

There's no need to railroad the game and limit how people RP things.

 - I typically headcannon it as a Tiberium-esq. event but instead of a meteor falling it's a universe-scale dimensional distortion.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Something that is sort of a pet peeve of mine albeit a small one is sub-fleet management. I usually build complex sub-fleet structures to my fleet and there is one order that I really miss and that is joining a specific fleet as a sub-fleet and insert it into a specific sub-flee in the tree of sub-fleets. Now I have to join the sub-fleet into the fleet at root level and then manually inject it into the proper place. It works great for parasites into motherships but not that well for other parts of a fleet structure.

I would suggest that the order "Join as sub-fleet" also give a list of Fleet (as in it works now, perhaps call it root) and also a list of all the sub-fleets in that fleet. Now I could join as a fleet and inject mu sub-fleet into any part of the organizational tree directly from my movement order so I don't have to deal with it separately later on.

I really like to use many sub-fleets and have a large and complex organizational structure to my navy.

[Droll]

Something that is sort of a pet peeve of mine albeit a small one is sub-fleet management. I usually build complex sub-fleet structures to my fleet and there is one order that I really miss and that is joining a specific fleet as a sub-fleet and insert it into a specific sub-flee in the tree of sub-fleets. Now I have to join the sub-fleet into the fleet at root level and then manually inject it into the proper place. It works great for parasites into motherships but not that well for other parts of a fleet structure.

I would suggest that the order "Join as sub-fleet" also give a list of Fleet (as in it works now, perhaps call it root) and also a list of all the sub-fleets in that fleet. Now I could join as a fleet and inject mu sub-fleet into any part of the organizational tree directly from my movement order so I don't have to deal with it separately later on.

I really like to use many sub-fleets and have a large and complex organizational structure to my navy.

To add to this aurora also does not handle multi-layer sub-fleet hierarchies very well right now

[Jorgen_CAB]

To add to this aurora also does not handle multi-layer sub-fleet hierarchies very well right now

In what manner do you mean it does not handle well?

[nuclearslurpee]

To add to this aurora also does not handle multi-layer sub-fleet hierarchies very well right now

In what manner do you mean it does not handle well?

Offhand, two things:

• Aurora doesn't have orders that handle layers of subfleets. Most orders or controls either affect the whole fleet or the lowest subfleet. An example is fire control (the player interface, not the components): if I have two subfleets each with two more subfleets (1-2-4 sub-units at each level), I can give target assignments for the whole fleet or for each lowest-level subfleet, but I cannot give targeting orders for the mid-level subfleets.
• Aurora doesn't handle creation of nested subfleets from the bottom up. Ideally we would be able to select a fleet subunit (ship or subfleet) and create a subfleet containing that subunit. Currently we must create empty subfleets and drag units into them individually which is a bit annoying.

Subfleets work fine, but they could definitely be better integrated mechanically. Personally I'd like to be able to drag a fleet into another fleet (at the same location) and have it join as a subfleet, maybe something like a Ctrl+drag would work. Currently the only way to combine fleets this way is the Join as Sub-Fleet order, which takes 5 seconds (okay in Earth orbit, risky during a combat maneuver) and requires issuing an order (click, scroll, click, scroll...) instead of just doing a neat little drag-and-drop.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To add to this aurora also does not handle multi-layer sub-fleet hierarchies very well right now

In what manner do you mean it does not handle well?

Offhand, two things:

• Aurora doesn't have orders that handle layers of subfleets. Most orders or controls either affect the whole fleet or the lowest subfleet. An example is fire control (the player interface, not the components): if I have two subfleets each with two more subfleets (1-2-4 sub-units at each level), I can give target assignments for the whole fleet or for each lowest-level subfleet, but I cannot give targeting orders for the mid-level subfleets.
• Aurora doesn't handle creation of nested subfleets from the bottom up. Ideally we would be able to select a fleet subunit (ship or subfleet) and create a subfleet containing that subunit. Currently we must create empty subfleets and drag units into them individually which is a bit annoying.

Subfleets work fine, but they could definitely be better integrated mechanically. Personally I'd like to be able to drag a fleet into another fleet (at the same location) and have it join as a subfleet, maybe something like a Ctrl+drag would work. Currently the only way to combine fleets this way is the Join as Sub-Fleet order, which takes 5 seconds (okay in Earth orbit, risky during a combat maneuver) and requires issuing an order (click, scroll, click, scroll...) instead of just doing a neat little drag-and-drop.

Yes... those are good points. I hope that Steve will take another pass at the sub-fleet mechanic at some point when he finds the time to do that. I think it in general works well but it could be better as I use it allot for building my fleet structure.

One example is parasites on ships. As I tend to use hangars on almost every capital warship I would like to attach sub-fleets to individual ships... now I have to put each ship in it's own sub fleet instead. If I could attach sub-fleets directly to ships I could have my parasites in their own sub fleets or attached that way instead. It would be easier if these "sub-fleets" where sorted so they end up beneath the ship they are assigned to in the list so I at a glance can see which scouts group belong to which ship in a small squadron of escorts for example. If I then individually detach the ship those sub-fleets are detached as well of course which are attached to the ship not the fleet.

In essence I think that sub-fleets should be able to be attached to either fleets (sub-fleets) or ships separately. In the hierarchy then sub-fleet for ships and fleets should be colored differently and sorted differently.
 
There are a few more of those little things I would like to see to make things easier to manage in the sub-fleet structure.

[Jitel]

Hello everyone. 
It would be great to have something like a spectator mode, so that you can just watch the computer play multiple races, being able to switch between them and check all the details.   Maybe it's not a very important option, but just to see what features the game provides, or what designs the computer will create and so on.

[kingflute]

Hello everyone.   
It would be great to have something like a spectator mode, so that you can just watch the computer play multiple races, being able to switch between them and check all the details.    Maybe it's not a very important option, but just to see what features the game provides, or what designs the computer will create and so on.

I dont think that watching the AI play would be of massive use, as I believe that an AI race has a few different rules and limitations as a player race

[Borealis4x]

The ability to have medals for ships, like battle-stars would be cool.

Also, the ability to mass-award officers in a task group or an administrative hierarchy would be nice to make campaign/war medals more feasible.

[Steve Walmsley]

Also, the ability to mass-award officers in a task group or an administrative hierarchy would be nice to make campaign/war medals more feasible.

You can already do that

[Theoatmeal2]

It would be nice if one could set a home port for a ship or a task group and then just press one button to go home.
Now I have to navigate manually and it takes some time.

[Steve Walmsley]

It would be nice if one could set a home port for a ship or a task group and then just press one button to go home.
Now I have to navigate manually and it takes some time.

Just select a system using auto-route and it will go home. It's two clicks but close enough.

[Kylemmie]

It would be nice if one could set a home port for a ship or a task group and then just press one button to go home.
Now I have to navigate manually and it takes some time.

Just select a system using auto-route and it will go home. It's two clicks but close enough.

Ahhh the fond memories.....That totally made me flashback to my "OMG" moment when I discovered Auto-route. Quill18 introduced me to the game and I was off and running learning as much as I could on my own.  Moving around became a pita, but the mirco was worth it cuz I was having so much fun learning all the cool battle and economic mechanics. I tended to avoid clicking on stuff I didn't know to avoid info overload.

Then I discovered how auto-route works and my life changed forever.

[nuclearslurpee]

Slight adjustment suggestion:

Presently the commander auto-assign, when it works correctly, assigns warship commanders based on Crew Training bonus, then assigns a bunch of other things including auxiliary command roles, and then fills remaining warship commands based on Reaction, Engineering, and Tactical bonuses.

I would suggest that instead Reaction should be the primary and first skill bonus for warship commanders, and Crew Training grouped in with Engineering and Tactical at the end. This is a very simple change but I think it works better with how C# handles commander roles compared to VB6.

The reason being that each of these skills only give 50% of their benefits from a ship commander, but 100% from the associated command module officers. Reaction however gives 100% of the commander's bonus as there is no module for it.

[Droll]

Nerf the missile neutralization tech line.
At max level I'm making magazines that have a 0.1% chance to explode (and that doesn't even account for chief engineer modifiers). This means that my ammunition storage full of nuclear warheads is somehow less likely to explode than my engine or reactor. There is absolutely no point to use the internal magazine armor for this reason.

I've also noticed that larger magazines have less of a chance to explode, maybe remove that too.

Maybe the best it gets is 60%-75%? It would nerf the short range assault potential of missiles since their parent ships would be powder kegs while also weakening AMM PD.

Regardless I believe that missile storage on combat ships is too safe.