C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[DFNewb]

Autosaving with both real time and game time options.

[Kaiser]

Hi @Steve, I have just read last posts about diplo, I like how the new pattern looks like, after all, over the year Aurora has evolved in something more than a simple simulation (I know, I know how you see your creature), but for us players this is a GAME and diplomacy, wars, alliance and treaties all play a fundamental role in Aurora (without them would be like playing a paradox game without diplomacy, a boring endless game).
My suggestion is just to add as many features as you can (resources and tech exchange, POW exchange, buying and selling ships, planets exchange, slavery).

[JustAnotherDude]

I feel like a suggestion that just says "Add lots more stuff" is not particularly productive, especially so close to release. Let's not play backseat gamedev.

[Ektor]

Hello, people.     This is my first post on this forum.     

I joined because I've been playing Aurora nonstop for some time now, and I talked about some stuff I'd like to see to people in the Discord channel and while some disagreed, they said I could post it here if I wanted.     I understand if some of these suggestions are considered unbalanced or boring, but I'll share what I've been thinking.   

Suggestion 1: Ways to get more accessibility out of 0.    1 deposits

Most systems I find have millions of tons of resources, which are basically unreachable because accessibility is 0.    1.     I understand that the shortage of minerals and the steps you need to take to remedy them are part of the meat of the game, so I also think that simply being able to ignore accessibility wouldn't be very fun.     An increase from 0.    1 to 0.    2 is already a 200% jump in productivity, so I think that anything more than that would be excessive.   

But I'd like for there to be some way of making those deposits marginally useful.     I'm thinking of something that's kinda like this:

-Have a tech that allows the building of a special mine, which would cost 180 resources for its manned version and 360 for its auto version.     This is a mine with normal productivity except it counts a 0.    1 deposit as a 0.    2 deposit.     Now, there could be additional constraints to using these, for example, they could be impossible to ship with freighters, necessitating the movement of factories or construction brigades.     This tech could be called "deep core mining" or something like that.   

or

-Simply having a single tech, that costs a lot of research points, that takes every 0.    1 resource and turns it to 0.    2.     I think this would be simpler, but not as fun.   

Suggestion 2: Population happiness mechanics

Currently, stability modifiers are penalties only, that is, if you fail to provide infrastructure or PPV to a colony, its productivity goes down, and taking in account the new rebellion mechanics, can rebel.     My suggestion is to add a positive facet to productivity by adding a happiness modifier in addition to the stability one.     This would involve some things like:

-Adding installations that provide happiness.     Similar to infrastructure, there could be a "x% happiness at y installations per million pop", this would add an abstraction to deal with every day government stuff, but it would also let you roleplay an evil nation that doesn't provide to its population.     These could be multiple types of installation like says schools and hospitals, but I think it would fit better the kinda minimalist tone of Aurora if you had a single installation type called something like "social installations" or even "social infrastructure".     These would bring the population happiness to a x%, which could add like, a x/2% bonus to productivity, I'm picturing 50% happiness turning the production modifier to 125% or something like that.   

-The rest of the happiness would be tied to the trade good system.     More trade goods could be added, and the remaining 50% happiness could be proportional to "% of import need fulfilled", which would add a secondary reason for us to encourage civilian shipping in our systems.   

Suggestion 3: Some optional alterations to the civilian shipping model

There could be some additional options like:

-Allowing which specific types of civilian ship can appear.     You could have a different toggle for freighters, harvesters and colony ships, so if you want to control completely a sector in your empire you could do so, while leaving the rest for civilians.     I know there's already an option to disable harvesters, so that's not that hard.   

and

-Allowing player control of the civilian economy ships.     This is mainly so I can feel contemplated when I want to RP centralized, command economies.     Basically instead of spawning civilian lines, you could build freighters and use either default orders to automate or direct orders to allow it to ship trade goods from planet to planet.     This would tie in with the happiness modifiers I mentioned earlier, as you could earn reduced or even no wealth from this government controlled shipping, but the happiness bonus could remain.   

Anyway, this is probably way too much stuff to be talking about before the release of C#, so I think that even if these make sense, they shouldn't become like, a big priority, but those are things I'd like to see.   

[Father Tim]

Suggestion #3 is already in.  The government (you) can build any and all sorts of civilian ships, and have complete control over what they do.  There's also a setting to disable "civilians" (commercial companies), meaning they never build ships or CMCs.  It leaves the government (a.k.a. you) as the sole operator of vessels and the economy.

[Ektor]

Oh goddess, C# gets better every time I hear about it!

[Jorgen_CAB]

Suggestion 2: Population happiness mechanics

Currently, stability modifiers are penalties only, that is, if you fail to provide infrastructure or PPV to a colony, its productivity goes down, and taking in account the new rebellion mechanics, can rebel.     My suggestion is to add a positive facet to productivity by adding a happiness modifier in addition to the stability one.     This would involve some things like:

-Adding installations that provide happiness.     Similar to infrastructure, there could be a "x% happiness at y installations per million pop", this would add an abstraction to deal with every day government stuff, but it would also let you roleplay an evil nation that doesn't provide to its population.     These could be multiple types of installation like says schools and hospitals, but I think it would fit better the kinda minimalist tone of Aurora if you had a single installation type called something like "social installations" or even "social infrastructure".     These would bring the population happiness to a x%, which could add like, a x/2% bonus to productivity, I'm picturing 50% happiness turning the production modifier to 125% or something like that.   

-The rest of the happiness would be tied to the trade good system.     More trade goods could be added, and the remaining 50% happiness could be proportional to "% of import need fulfilled", which would add a secondary reason for us to encourage civilian shipping in our systems.   

If Steve were to add some form of positive/negative population morale and living quality to the game I think it should be tied into the current mechanic.

People probably would like to be decently self sufficient and get access to the trade items they lack and able to trade the ones they are in excess of.

So you could add some negative/positive effects on how many construction factories and financial buildings a colony have and also some effect based on the trade done at the colony. These bonuses should probably scale with population size... so a colony of 1 million people will not really be bothered very much by any of this as it is too small to consider itself a self sustaining entity while a colony with 1 billion population would like to have pretty much everything there as they see themselves as a very important centre of intellectuals, industry etc... if you don't provide for labs, shipyards in enough quantities they will start to complain at that level.

Now... it could be sort of an optional part of the game as I believe not everyone would like to have a more detailed social simulation in the game and prefer to role-play it. But I think it could be fun for a generally human campaign.

[Father Tim]

We also have the colony supply/demand values for various trade goods, so importing sufficient in a category could increase happiness and not getting enough decrease it.

Maybe 'Alien Artifacts' is only counted for increased happiness, or at least has drastically reduced unhappiness rates.

[Ektor]

We also have the colony supply/demand values for various trade goods, so importing sufficient in a category could increase happiness and not getting enough decrease it.

That would penalise the years the main planet spends not being able to trade with anyone, wouldn't it?

[Mini]

And also cause problems for empires with commercial companies disabled, since you can't transfer trade goods yourself.

[Father Tim]

And also cause problems for empires with commercial companies disabled, since you can't transfer trade goods yourself.

Then we should fix that rather than let it be a reason we can't do something else.

[Jorgen_CAB]

And also cause problems for empires with commercial companies disabled, since you can't transfer trade goods yourself.

Then we should fix that rather than let it be a reason we can't do something else.

Yes.. you could simply add an order to pick up and drop of trade goods that work the same as any other transport order an allow the player to set up trade routes if they choose to do that themselves.

Simple enough in my opinion.

I also think such a "simulation" system could be optional in the first place as not everyone would like to have it. But then again... the more optional system these is the more exceptions in the code there has to be and it become more complex to do.

[Akhillis]

I don't think the trade system is well suited for that task.

Even if you could transfer trade goods manually, the player has little control over the surpluses and deficits at an empire-wide level. AFAIK the only way you can influence production is by sending more colonists to a planet.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't think the trade system is well suited for that task.

Even if you could transfer trade goods manually, the player has little control over the surpluses and deficits at an empire-wide level. AFAIK the only way you can influence production is by sending more colonists to a planet.

You are probably right...

[xenoscepter]

Could Fighter-Sized Crew Quarters be made 0 Tons and made Fighter Only with a hard limit on the number of modules mounted? Or maybe Fighters having a certain amount of free crew space equivalent to a fighter sized crew quarters module, but only ships designated as Fighters would have them? The size of Fighter Sized Crew modules and Tiny engineering spaces piss me off...