C# Suggestions

[Droll]

On the last part this isnt completely true as for every weapon activation (thats not for PD) theres a 1% chance of a beam weapon breaking same with a missile launcher, while this wont break the bank it can in certain circumstances such as orbital bombardment where three days of bombing can burn through tens of thousands of MSP

Orbital bombardment isn't really a good example to bring up because you'll only be doing that after the enemy has already lost their navy, at which point it's just a matter of time while you ferry supplies back and forth.

On the other hand with missiles when you run out of ammo that directly affects the outcome of the naval engagement, and in my experience you'll already have tons of MSP on board for your beam combat ships to have decent maintenance anyways so you'll never have trouble killing targets before running out of MSP.

There is also the fact that missile ships also suffer weapons failures on their launchers so they need to have logistics for missiles and MSP whereas beamers only have MSP to contend with.

[QuakeIV]

On the last part this isnt completely true as for every weapon activation (thats not for PD) theres a 1% chance of a beam weapon breaking same with a missile launcher, while this wont break the bank it can in certain circumstances such as orbital bombardment where three days of bombing can burn through tens of thousands of MSP

Orbital bombardment isn't really a good example to bring up because you'll only be doing that after the enemy has already lost their navy, at which point it's just a matter of time while you ferry supplies back and forth.

On the other hand with missiles when you run out of ammo that directly affects the outcome of the naval engagement, and in my experience you'll already have tons of MSP on board for your beam combat ships to have decent maintenance anyways so you'll never have trouble killing targets before running out of MSP.

There is also the fact that missile ships also suffer weapons failures on their launchers so they need to have logistics for missiles and MSP whereas beamers only have MSP to contend with.

Do note that here you are presuming that the enemy will only have one large colony worthy of bombing (that is to say, that they will be obliged to fight to annihilation with their entire navy to prevent it being bombed).  That isn't necessarily actually going to be the case.

[Droll]

On the last part this isnt completely true as for every weapon activation (thats not for PD) theres a 1% chance of a beam weapon breaking same with a missile launcher, while this wont break the bank it can in certain circumstances such as orbital bombardment where three days of bombing can burn through tens of thousands of MSP

Orbital bombardment isn't really a good example to bring up because you'll only be doing that after the enemy has already lost their navy, at which point it's just a matter of time while you ferry supplies back and forth.

On the other hand with missiles when you run out of ammo that directly affects the outcome of the naval engagement, and in my experience you'll already have tons of MSP on board for your beam combat ships to have decent maintenance anyways so you'll never have trouble killing targets before running out of MSP.

There is also the fact that missile ships also suffer weapons failures on their launchers so they need to have logistics for missiles and MSP whereas beamers only have MSP to contend with.

Do note that here you are presuming that the enemy will only have one large colony worthy of bombing (that is to say, that they will be obliged to fight to annihilation with their entire navy to prevent it being bombed).  That isn't necessarily actually going to be the case.

That still means you have won the engagement for that system as a whole and there aren't any reinforcements coming in - it also means that the system is safe for supply ships to enter and resupply as well.

Also at least for me if I'm bombing a planet for the sake of bombing it I'm using missiles. Beam bombardment only gets used when I've already launched an invasion as support. I think it's incredibly dumb on the players part not to do that otherwise.

Oh and I also use dedicated bombardment ships too so there's that. Orbital bombardment without missiles is incredibly weak in this game and if doing it affects your ability to fight then your doing it wrong.

[QuakeIV]

Do note that here you are presuming that the enemy will only have one large colony worthy of bombing (that is to say, that they will be obliged to fight to annihilation with their entire navy to prevent it being bombed).  That isn't necessarily actually going to be the case.

That still means you have won the engagement for that system as a whole and there aren't any reinforcements coming in - it also means that the system is safe for supply ships to enter and resupply as well.

Well no, I'm saying that reinforcements might actually be coming if this isn't their home system we are talking about.

It should be possible to do bombardment generally properly without crippling yourself, but its not necessarily reasonable to suppose that either you cannot at all, or that you could do so at your leisure and take your time with it.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think we can agree that if you use full sized launchers then missiles are perhaps a bit under powered, if you use either box launched or smallest reduced sized launchers then they are over powered instead. The main reason is that missiles do so much alpha damage when used in large numbers. This is despite their general cost and logistical hurdles.

My suggestion had nothing to do with missiles being over powered or not... it had to do with targeting using more common sense method so I don't have to use way-points to use passive/active targeting on the missiles themselves as this is a bit tedious to do.

When you play if you simply never abuse the box launcher or reduced sized launchers you will be just fine with game balance. I always make sure ships have a rough "realistic" amount of weapons on them based on their size. The bigger the ship is the less external weapons I put on my ships in relation to their size, this is somewhat realistic and also makes it all quite balanced as well.

[TMaekler]

When you play if you simply never abuse the box launcher or reduces sized launchers you will be just fine with game balance. I always make sure ships have a rough "realistic" amount of weapons on them based on their size. The bigger the ship is the less external weapons I put on my ships in relation to their size, this is somewhat realistic and also makes it all quite balanced as well.

This is basically true for anything in Aurora. It is not meant to be a game of its own, but rather a tool to tell stories (though we all crave for the game to be as round as it gets  )

[TMaekler]

Research: Switching research to a different one without losing already queued research one can put the urgent research only up to first place in the queue. Would be a nice QoL if you could switch it with the actual research and put that back into the queue - much like you can do with production.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Do note that here you are presuming that the enemy will only have one large colony worthy of bombing (that is to say, that they will be obliged to fight to annihilation with their entire navy to prevent it being bombed).  That isn't necessarily actually going to be the case.

That still means you have won the engagement for that system as a whole and there aren't any reinforcements coming in - it also means that the system is safe for supply ships to enter and resupply as well.

Well no, I'm saying that reinforcements might actually be coming if this isn't their home system we are talking about.

It should be possible to do bombardment generally properly without crippling yourself, but its not necessarily reasonable to suppose that either you cannot at all, or that you could do so at your leisure and take your time with it.

In terms of bombardment you also can build very efficient bombardment cruisers using very cheap slow firing weapons. These would not be terribly good in a beam fight but that is also not their role. You actually can get allot of cheap bombardment out of any such ground support ships. I would likely put such weapons on any serious assault carrier as well.

You also could essentially build them as bombardment platforms and use tugs to get them in place... this seem quite an interesting way to use them. It's basically just a large bombardment station. Might not be the best solution if you approach ground defences with lots of STO.

[TMaekler]

Message Tags: It would be a nice QoL if we could display certain values in the message system. Something like this for an automated fuel harvest cycle:

"We have transferred all fuel from HV Site Uranus. Our tanks are filled up to %shipfuelpercent%."

I would put such a message into the cycle directly after the harvesters have been emptied. That way I could see if I would have to adjust the speed of the cycle or if that sorium harvester site is beginning to go down. %shipfuelpercent% should be exchanged with the % of fuel the sending ship has ATM. And I could think of many more interesting values I would like to put into messages to make my life easier.

[xenoscepter]

Vertical Envelopment: (Working Title)

 - The premises itself is fairly simple and straightforward, have Fighters that are equipped with Troop Transport Bays be able to conduct a special Ground Support Mission that I'm going to refer to as "Vertical Envelopment" from this point on. I'm open to a better name. This Ground Support Mission allows any Fighter Sized craft with a Troop Transport Bay to give a random formation an extra breakthrough chance when supported by eligible fighters assigned to said mission. The formations to be supported are chosen at random, with each fighter assigned choosing one until all eligible fighters with this mission are assigned. Formations gain a breakthrough chance increase equivalent to the Troop Transport tonnage of all supporting fighters, divided by the largest unit in the formation then multiplied by the number of eligible fighters assigned. Formations with FFD can have fighters assigned to them to provide support for them as per the usual rules for FFD and Ground Support Fighters.

 - The breakthrough chance is applied in it's relative phase, but a fighter assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission still takes AA fire in the relevant stage. Light AA fire will be taken by the fighter from the formation that was engaged by the formation that the "Vertical Envelopment" support was provided to. Medium AA fire will be taken by the fighter from a formation that was directly supporting the formation that was engaged by the formation that the "Vertical Envelopment" support was provided to. Heavy AA fire will be taken by any fighters taking part in "Vertical Envelopment" Missions regardless of what formations are supported by them, assuming the Heavy AA is in a valid position to fire. A fighter with both a Troop Transport Bay AND at least one Fighter Pod Bay may also fire as if providing CAS during the relevant phase, but will not draw additional AA fire as a result of this.

 - If fighters assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission have a formation loaded into their Troop Transport Bays, instead of the usual bonus they will provide a breakthrough bonus equal to the tonnage of their largest unit multiplied by the number of units. For the purposes of this calculation, LOG and S-LOG do not count for unit tonnage when determining the largest unit tonnage and are not counted towards the number of units multiplier. Formations assigned to fighters that themselves are assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission are treated as part of the formation that they are supporting for the purposes of ground combat and can take casualties as such. These formations also use supply AND provide supply during that phase as if they were a part of the formation that the fighter they are assigned to is supporting.

 - Fighters destroyed during a "Vertical Envelopment" mission will also automatically result in the destruction of any formations that they were carrying. I would not be against some kind of derived percentage of survival with the surviving remnants treated as normal ground combatants from that point on, but I feel it might add too much complexity. Different types of Troop Transport Bays will NOT add any additional benefit over a Standard type, however the Drop Capable bays could allow for an "Orbital Envelopment" mission. The differences between the "Orbital Envelopment" and the "Vertical Envelopment" would be that Fighter Pod Bays would NOT allow a fighter on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission to conduct a CAS mission. Fighters on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission COULD provide Orbital Bombardment in the appropriate phase IF they had a suitable weapon. Fighters on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission would NOT incur AA fire, but WOULD incur fire from enemy STOs. Orbital Bombardment could be toggled by unassigning the B-FCS, or by having a separate set of orders for "Vertical Envelopment w/ CAS" and "Orbital Envelopment w/ Orbital Bombardment".

[Droll]

Vertical Envelopment: (Working Title)

 - The premises itself is fairly simple and straightforward, have Fighters that are equipped with Troop Transport Bays be able to conduct a special Ground Support Mission that I'm going to refer to as "Vertical Envelopment" from this point on. I'm open to a better name. This Ground Support Mission allows any Fighter Sized craft with a Troop Transport Bay to give a random formation an extra breakthrough chance when supported by eligible fighters assigned to said mission. The formations to be supported are chosen at random, with each fighter assigned choosing one until all eligible fighters with this mission are assigned. Formations gain a breakthrough chance increase equivalent to the Troop Transport tonnage of all supporting fighters, divided by the largest unit in the formation then multiplied by the number of eligible fighters assigned. Formations with FFD can have fighters assigned to them to provide support for them as per the usual rules for FFD and Ground Support Fighters.

 - The breakthrough chance is applied in it's relative phase, but a fighter assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission still takes AA fire in the relevant stage. Light AA fire will be taken by the fighter from the formation that was engaged by the formation that the "Vertical Envelopment" support was provided to. Medium AA fire will be taken by the fighter from a formation that was directly supporting the formation that was engaged by the formation that the "Vertical Envelopment" support was provided to. Heavy AA fire will be taken by any fighters taking part in "Vertical Envelopment" Missions regardless of what formations are supported by them, assuming the Heavy AA is in a valid position to fire. A fighter with both a Troop Transport Bay AND at least one Fighter Pod Bay may also fire as if providing CAS during the relevant phase, but will not draw additional AA fire as a result of this.

 - If fighters assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission have a formation loaded into their Troop Transport Bays, instead of the usual bonus they will provide a breakthrough bonus equal to the tonnage of their largest unit multiplied by the number of units. For the purposes of this calculation, LOG and S-LOG do not count for unit tonnage when determining the largest unit tonnage and are not counted towards the number of units multiplier. Formations assigned to fighters that themselves are assigned to a "Vertical Envelopment" Mission are treated as part of the formation that they are supporting for the purposes of ground combat and can take casualties as such. These formations also use supply AND provide supply during that phase as if they were a part of the formation that the fighter they are assigned to is supporting.

 - Fighters destroyed during a "Vertical Envelopment" mission will also automatically result in the destruction of any formations that they were carrying. I would not be against some kind of derived percentage of survival with the surviving remnants treated as normal ground combatants from that point on, but I feel it might add too much complexity. Different types of Troop Transport Bays will NOT add any additional benefit over a Standard type, however the Drop Capable bays could allow for an "Orbital Envelopment" mission. The differences between the "Orbital Envelopment" and the "Vertical Envelopment" would be that Fighter Pod Bays would NOT allow a fighter on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission to conduct a CAS mission. Fighters on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission COULD provide Orbital Bombardment in the appropriate phase IF they had a suitable weapon. Fighters on an "Orbital Envelopment" mission would NOT incur AA fire, but WOULD incur fire from enemy STOs. Orbital Bombardment could be toggled by unassigning the B-FCS, or by having a separate set of orders for "Vertical Envelopment w/ CAS" and "Orbital Envelopment w/ Orbital Bombardment".

"Air assault" might be the name you are looking for here.

[TMaekler]

Race Tech Naming Patterns: I think most of us either just take the names of tech modules created as given or heavily edit them to whatever extent. In my case, I add certain information to the name so I can see the info without having to click on it to see the details. Sensors are one example where I add the weight to the name or some of the default techs so I instantly can see how large in t is a "small fuel tank".

It would though be nice if we could save these patterns in the game DB so they get auto-generated by the game when you create new tech. Another example is rockets: I add the string "S3 W4 25.5mkm" to a missile - so I instantly can see that it is a size 3, warhead 4, and has a travel range of 25.5mkm. If I could auto-generate that when creating the missile in the first place - marvelous :-)

[QuakeIV]

Semi-sorta related:

It would be nice if the 'company' field was also a dropdown that contained previously used company names (and the most recently used company name gets sorted to the top, so that unused names slowly filter to the bottom of the list).

[Desdinova]

Steve - can you make "Geo Survey Complete" for ground surveys a time-interrupting event?

[nuclearslurpee]

Steve - can you make "Geo Survey Complete" for ground surveys a time-interrupting event?

Piggyback: Please have an event that explicitly says a ground geosurvey came up empty. I spend way too much time scrutinizing the events list looking for the results from fruitless surveys.