C# Suggestions

[Jorgen_CAB]

Isn't there always this balance of what we want and what we need...

I generally try to keep my Naval yards to reasonable levels of capacity as I don't want to waste materials too rashly. You sometimes just thing that you have to expand your yards capacity none stop, either size or more yards just because you can.

In general I don't think that yards should build itself, I think industry on the planet should do that. It becomes weird when a yard can both build ships and expand at the same time.

[idefelipe]

Hey Steve.

How difficult would it be to implement a system that would allow a ship component to change ownership? I personally would like to encourage RP between nations (trade exchanges) or to create small nations to simulate companies (and build for other larger nations components) or for multiplayer games (like the one we are playing here).

Thanks!

[Steve Walmsley]

2. Please add a dynamic Waypoint connected to a fleet. That is a Waypoint you put on the map that moves in relation to a specific fleet. This would be very useful for having a patrolling escort around a fleet as it moves along. There could be two types. One that orient itself depending on what course the fleet have and another that just is in relation to the fleet as it is placed no matter what direction it moves at.

This ability is already provided by the escort functionality on the Naval Organization window.

[skoormit]

2. Please add a dynamic Waypoint connected to a fleet. That is a Waypoint you put on the map that moves in relation to a specific fleet. This would be very useful for having a patrolling escort around a fleet as it moves along. There could be two types. One that orient itself depending on what course the fleet have and another that just is in relation to the fleet as it is placed no matter what direction it moves at.

This ability is already provided by the escort functionality on the Naval Organization window.

Sort of. I think OP is asking for an option for having an escort position that moves relative to the anchor fleet, rather than is fixed in position relative to the anchor.

For example, a forward scout position that moves back and forth, at some distance from the anchor, between anchor heading +30 and anchor heading -30.

[Steve Walmsley]

1. Please make it possible to edit total empire Wealth using SM. Could place that button on the "Wealth/Trade" screen. When you play multi-faction gamed Wealth can be used as method of payment for many things.

I've added an SM-only Edit Wealth button to the Wealth/Trade tab of the economics window.

[Steve Walmsley]

2. Please add a dynamic Waypoint connected to a fleet. That is a Waypoint you put on the map that moves in relation to a specific fleet. This would be very useful for having a patrolling escort around a fleet as it moves along. There could be two types. One that orient itself depending on what course the fleet have and another that just is in relation to the fleet as it is placed no matter what direction it moves at.

This ability is already provided by the escort functionality on the Naval Organization window.

Sort of. I think OP is asking for an option for having an escort position that moves relative to the anchor fleet, rather than is fixed in position relative to the anchor.

Aren't they the same thing? With formation orders, if the Anchor fleet moves, the escort fleet moves either relative to the Anchor fleet or to maintain position between the Anchor fleet and a chosen target, depending on the orders.

[skoormit]

2. Please add a dynamic Waypoint connected to a fleet. That is a Waypoint you put on the map that moves in relation to a specific fleet. This would be very useful for having a patrolling escort around a fleet as it moves along. There could be two types. One that orient itself depending on what course the fleet have and another that just is in relation to the fleet as it is placed no matter what direction it moves at.

This ability is already provided by the escort functionality on the Naval Organization window.

Sort of. I think OP is asking for an option for having an escort position that moves relative to the anchor fleet, rather than is fixed in position relative to the anchor.

Aren't they the same thing? With formation orders, if the Anchor fleet moves, the escort fleet moves either relative to the Anchor fleet or to maintain position between the Anchor fleet and a chosen target, depending on the orders.

I edited my post above and added an example to clarify.

[Steve Walmsley]

I edited my post above and added an example to clarify.

Yes, I understand now after reading a subsequent post in the thread. Thanks.

[Steve Walmsley]

Some Sol System Updates:
1) Ultima Thule is now named 486958 Arrokoth.
2) Currently only Earth and Mars have any water present at game start. We know Enceladus & Europa are "ice Shell" worlds with "planet" spanning sub-surface oceans. Ganymede likewise has a subsurface ocean that is estimated to contain more water then Earth. Ceres is about 30% water by mass.
3) additionally, Pluto, while it's surface is 98% Nitrogen Ice, the crust is water ice and may have a liquid water ocean sub-surface. It also has a nitrogen atmosphere, although that is only .000001 atm.

I know there are many others that i did not cover, but it would be nice to see the larger Sol systems bodies that are colonization candidates have both hydrosphere and atmospheres that they posses in reality.

I agree this would add some extra dimension to exploring Sol. However, bodies such as Enceladus, Ceres and Pluto have too little gravity in Aurora terms (< 0.1G) to hold an atmosphere so the presence of water wouldn't help. I will add some water to Europa and Ganymede though.

Also, at the moment Aurora will not generate a hydrosphere without at least a trace atmosphere. I may add some chance of frozen water on cold bodies above 0.1G even if they have no atmosphere.

[Steve Walmsley]

It would be helpful if the fleet order queue had time estimates for each step in the queue. I assume this data is already being estimated, since there's a total time estimate at the top, and it would be great to know how long each step is going to take even if it's a rough estimate.

That would be nice, but I don't think that estimates are being calculated for each step.
The total estimate is just the total distance traveled divided by the speed of the fleet.
Time required for non-movement orders (refueling, loading/unloading, etc) is not included in the time estimate, nor is any time added to the estimate for orders that have time delays.

Yes, that's correct.

[Steve Walmsley]

Suggest removing the star system name for moons and planets in the second field of the mineral search.

Currently the first field in the row provides star system name which is then repeated for every planet and moon, squashing out the detail identifying the body so you cannot see the actual number of the moon or whether it already has a colony.

If the redundant repetition of the star system name was removed from default generated names there would be enough room to see the relevant detail, if not then there is enough spare width to make the field a bit bigger too.

I've removed the star system name for moons and planets in the second field of the mineral search as suggested.

[Jorgen_CAB]

2. Please add a dynamic Waypoint connected to a fleet. That is a Waypoint you put on the map that moves in relation to a specific fleet. This would be very useful for having a patrolling escort around a fleet as it moves along. There could be two types. One that orient itself depending on what course the fleet have and another that just is in relation to the fleet as it is placed no matter what direction it moves at.

This ability is already provided by the escort functionality on the Naval Organization window.

Sort of. I think OP is asking for an option for having an escort position that moves relative to the anchor fleet, rather than is fixed in position relative to the anchor.

Aren't they the same thing? With formation orders, if the Anchor fleet moves, the escort fleet moves either relative to the Anchor fleet or to maintain position between the Anchor fleet and a chosen target, depending on the orders.

Yes... the intention would be to have a scout or recon move between two or several points as a fleet moves along in a pattern. Instead of having them just move in relation to the fleet at one particular spot.

I play "Command: Modern Operations" and they have something similar that is very useful for operating recon aircraft or helicopters in relation to a task-group of ships. In that game you can select to have points that is either moving in relation with the fleet at a fixed offset of the fleet no matter the direction the fleet is heading or the point is always in a direction in relation to the direction the fleet is moving, both are useful for different reasons.

In "Command: Modern Operations" you can designate a zone where helicopters are searching for submarines for example. Or you designate a radar plane to conduct patrol between two points.

Another thing that might be good in the future would be if escorts (who are attached to a mothership) around fleets could automatically refuel and go back to its previous orders too, so you don't have to constantly babysit them. Or, that you can designate three scout craft to a mission but only have one of them on station at any one time, when one is either out of fuel or deployment time it returns and send out another one.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hey Steve.

How difficult would it be to implement a system that would allow a ship component to change ownership? I personally would like to encourage RP between nations (trade exchanges) or to create small nations to simulate companies (and build for other larger nations components) or for multiplayer games (like the one we are playing here).

Thanks!

You could do this in the old VB Aurora, I hope Steve will add something similar to C# eventually. I use this all the time in my game. One faction might build a certain component and the export that to other factions. You also should be able to transfer the component technology so other factions can license build those components.

You can still do it in C# Aurora but you have to use SM to get all the needed tech, design the component and then delete the tech the factions don't actually have. The other faction then produce the components and you use SM to destroy them and add them to the correct faction. It could be made allot simpler.

[Steve Walmsley]

Hey Steve.

How difficult would it be to implement a system that would allow a ship component to change ownership? I personally would like to encourage RP between nations (trade exchanges) or to create small nations to simulate companies (and build for other larger nations components) or for multiplayer games (like the one we are playing here).

Thanks!

You could do this in the old VB Aurora, I hope Steve will add something similar to C# eventually. I use this all the time in my game. One faction might build a certain component and the export that to other factions. You also should be able to transfer the component technology so other factions can license build those components.

I've added component and ordnance transfers for v2.0.

The component tech itself might be abusable, because you could build the component and then disassemble it.

[Steve Walmsley]

Top of my suggestion list would be edit for orders.

I know it would be harder than it sounds as the orders are contextual, one following on from the context of the preceding order, but I think it might be possible to edit at a pointer in the order stack to insert or remove an order based on the preceding order as context and then remember the rest of the stack and add them back one by one when the edit is done with a context check on each as it is added back using the existing context subroutines. If a context is detectably broken, then the order would go red and if a break occurs during gameplay then you get the same as is currently the case and a message saying ShipX cannot complete order.

Would also be nice (in C#) to be able to add / insert chunks of template based on the preceding order context rather than current context of the ship being ordered, which I recall was different in VB6 so I am sure you know what I mean. Must be practicalities I am not aware of but just thought I would mention it.

Its just giving orders is such a substantial part of the way Aurora plays it strikes me it would be worth adding order queue edit and imagine that Steve would enjoy the result for his own QoL, so just airing the thought since this is the suggestions thread.

This is massively more complex than it sounds and I would spend years encountering related bugs for situations I hadn't considered. I'm not going into all the complexities here, but suffice to say despite the regular requests, this is extremely unlikely to happen.