C# Suggestions

[ISN]

This is pretty minor, but it would be nice if the events when ground forces commanders are killed in combat included the names of those commanders, rather than just saying that the C.O. of the formation was killed. Similarly, when commanders escape to lifepods or fail to escape when their ship is destroyed, the events don't include their ranks for some reason. I like to keep track of my commanders, name things after those killed in the line of duty, etc.

[DEEPenergy]

I'd like the ability to automate assignments for admin commands and anything else where auto assignment is currently not implemented 

[Andrew]

In the Ship movement command it would be nice to have some way of filtering which contacts are displayed.  With multiple NPR's in one system there are a lot of contacts and when looking for the 3 remaining venusian warships to have them chased down they do tend to get lost in the long list of contacts in no particularly useful order . Being able to filter by race, or something similar would be helpful

[skoormit]

I would like it if fleets would dynamically optimize the use of Lagrange points.

I use order templates a lot. Any given template might be in use for tens or hundreds of years.
I also stabilize Lagrange points a lot.

As a result, I have lots of order templates through systems with multiple Lagrange points.
Since Lagrange points are not fixed in space, but rather move along the orbit of the parent body, the optimal Lagrange path through a system is not constant over time.
This means I have to re-create my order templates periodically to avoid sending my fleets on suboptimal routes.

A proposal:
1) Automatically include Lagrange point orders at the time of order creation, the way it is done now, if the Auto-include Lagrange Points checkbox is checked.
2) Make the Auto-include Lagrange Points checkbox sticky per fleet.
3) Every time a fleet completes an order, if that fleet is set to Auto-include Lagrange Points and the next order involves movement, reassess (and revise if necessary) the use of Lagrange points to travel to the next non-Lagrange point order target.
(If no subsequent orders involves movement to a location that is not a Lagrange point, then use the last destination in the order list.)

This approach, I think, would add minimal calculation cost during turn gen, would not require significant new code (since it is just reusing the existing code to calculate optimal path at current time), and would greatly improve our ability to use Lagrange points efficiently.

[simast]

New order - Refuel From Stationary Tankers Until Full

We have recently got the excellent "Load All Minerals Until Full" order for cargo ships - which does reduce the micro and allows us to setup mineral transfer in an efficient way with cargo ships. It would be appropriate to get a similar order for tankers - "Refuel From Stationary Tankers Until Full" so that the same automation could be used with fuel harvesters.

[Lord Solar]

Right now I playing around with fighters a lot and there is a problem that I keep noticing.
Fighters die, but before they die they create a new fleet. This results in dozens or hundreds of empty fleets than I have to clean up or quarantine to a special admin command for fighter combat.

I suggest a "Delete Empty Fleets"  button that deletes all fleets with no ships in them, are not in any active orders (EG at the time ships are ordered to join that empty), and are not assigned to have ships build into them.

[nuclearslurpee]

Right now I playing around with fighters a lot and there is a problem that I keep noticing.
Fighters die, but before they die they create a new fleet. This results in dozens or hundreds of empty fleets than I have to clean up or quarantine to a special admin command for fighter combat.

I suggest a "Delete Empty Fleets"  button that deletes all fleets with no ships in them, are not in any active orders (EG at the time ships are ordered to join that empty), and are not assigned to have ships build into them.

I support this, but we will need a toggle to protect specific fleets from this behavior so the Shipyard Fleet doesn't mysteriously disappear.

[Droll]

Right now I playing around with fighters a lot and there is a problem that I keep noticing.
Fighters die, but before they die they create a new fleet. This results in dozens or hundreds of empty fleets than I have to clean up or quarantine to a special admin command for fighter combat.

I suggest a "Delete Empty Fleets"  button that deletes all fleets with no ships in them, are not in any active orders (EG at the time ships are ordered to join that empty), and are not assigned to have ships build into them.

I support this, but we will need a toggle to protect specific fleets from this behavior so the Shipyard Fleet doesn't mysteriously disappear.

This is literally just the "delete empty pop" but for fleets, which is a good idea. Could also be potentially useful to help in NPR garbage collection in case they have tons of empty fleets that need to be deleted.

[Lord Solar]

Right now I playing around with fighters a lot and there is a problem that I keep noticing.
Fighters die, but before they die they create a new fleet. This results in dozens or hundreds of empty fleets than I have to clean up or quarantine to a special admin command for fighter combat.

I suggest a "Delete Empty Fleets"  button that deletes all fleets with no ships in them, are not in any active orders (EG at the time ships are ordered to join that empty), and are not assigned to have ships build into them.

I support this, but we will need a toggle to protect specific fleets from this behavior so the Shipyard Fleet doesn't mysteriously disappear.

This is what I tried to say in the last sentence, Shipyard Fleet (s) would be protected.

[Demetrious]

A tiny suggestion: add an infrequent check that SM-repairs-all civilian ships.

During a recent incursion into the Sol system that caught me with my main fleet elsewhere, I scrambled whatever I had on hand to defend - including a recently completed batch of ten railgun fighters intended for my new carrier, still on the ways. While they couldn't bring the fight to the enemy, they COULD inhibit their missile attacks, and did so - I used them to escort an unlucky civilian cargo ship and they handily shot down every salvo. Only one leaker got through, punching a hole in the freighter's armor and taking out the cargo bay.

As an experiment I let this ship alone, and sure enough, a few times later, I noticed an error message indicating that the freighter in question had failed to pick up a civilian contract load. So I tracked it down in the civilian ships list and SM repaired its cargo bay.

Civilian ships being damaged but not destroyed is of course rare, the remedy is at hand and it even throws an event message. So this isn't exactly high-priority. By the same token, there seems no good reason not to let damaged civilian ships (at sensibly infrequent intervals) automate pressing the "SM Repair All" button. If this could cause problems elsewhere, it's certainly not worth it, but if the occasional civvie ship with a nonfunctional cargo bay could throw an error in other parts of the civilian contract code, it might be an edge case worth plugging. I wouldn't know, I haven't seen the code. 

[QuakeIV]

A tiny suggestion: add an infrequent check that SM-repairs-all civilian ships.

During a recent incursion into the Sol system that caught me with my main fleet elsewhere, I scrambled whatever I had on hand to defend - including a recently completed batch of ten railgun fighters intended for my new carrier, still on the ways. While they couldn't bring the fight to the enemy, they COULD inhibit their missile attacks, and did so - I used them to escort an unlucky civilian cargo ship and they handily shot down every salvo. Only one leaker got through, punching a hole in the freighter's armor and taking out the cargo bay.

As an experiment I let this ship alone, and sure enough, a few times later, I noticed an error message indicating that the freighter in question had failed to pick up a civilian contract load. So I tracked it down in the civilian ships list and SM repaired its cargo bay.

Civilian ships being damaged but not destroyed is of course rare, the remedy is at hand and it even throws an event message. So this isn't exactly high-priority. By the same token, there seems no good reason not to let damaged civilian ships (at sensibly infrequent intervals) automate pressing the "SM Repair All" button. If this could cause problems elsewhere, it's certainly not worth it, but if the occasional civvie ship with a nonfunctional cargo bay could throw an error in other parts of the civilian contract code, it might be an edge case worth plugging. I wouldn't know, I haven't seen the code. 

I'd personally favor having the shipping line just scrap ships that have anything other than armor damage, but in any case I agree thats an issue.

[Droll]

New conditional -  "when cargo bays full"
New conditional order -  "unload all minerals, components and installations at colony"

Mostly for automating salvage ships.

[Droll]

When an alien ship is captured, populate the intel screen text field of the appropriate ship class with the design details (the largely unused space).

Also, in addition to having intel about a race's technology, also include a new field or all designable race-specific components like weapons, shields etc.

[Steve Walmsley]

When an alien ship is captured, populate the intel screen text field of the appropriate ship class with the design details (the largely unused space).

I thought that already happened. If not, that is a bug.

[nuclearslurpee]

When an alien ship is captured, populate the intel screen text field of the appropriate ship class with the design details (the largely unused space).

I thought that already happened. If not, that is a bug.

It does not seem to. In my game (still 1.12, though) if I capture a ship (well, in my case they surrendered to me as I don't have boarding marines yet) the design specs are added to my class designs, but not the intel screen. The intel screen only seems to hold designs that I've gained intelligence about from e.g. capturing prisoners.