Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Inertial Locks

An Inertial Lock is a planetary facility capable of instantly negating the Transnewtonian pseudovelocity imparted by small TN-era ship drives within a suborbital radius of a planet, most notably the drive of any practical missile design.  Larger drives, even those of fighters, are immune to the effect.

Any missile salvo that intercepts a population or ground force on a body protected by an Inertial Lock would have an additional flight time added to it, similar to ICBM flight time mechanics.  Speed would be the sole determinant of this flight time.  Even a moderately capable point defense array would thus be capable of destroying a far disproportionate # of incoming missiles. Although such missiles speed would have dropped to essentially that of a sitting duck, the inertial lock's interference would make missile ECM far more capable than normal.

Inertial locks would be permanent installations owing to the immense complexity of the fine tuning process adapting it to a local geomagnetic field.  The primary cost would be in Boronide for the massive power requirements.  They could be destroyed as normal as a side effect of ground combat, but the easiest way of defeating them would be attaining total ground superiority.  Alternatively, they could be PDC-mounted

It would be relatively easy to slot Inertial Locks into existing gameplay, but interaction with NPRs is a little more problematic.  Since NPRs do not build PDCs, they would not benefit much from Inertial Locks once any orbiting space stations are destroyed.  They would work well with any conflict between two player races, but to work for NPRs it requires either PDCs or some other means for ground forces to contest a beam-armed opponent in orbit.

[Black--Snow]

Programmable actions would be nice.  Just little scripts we can put in place of the pre-set "Default actions" and "Condition actions" (If I say, wanted the ship to refuel at a specific planet)

[swarm_sadist]

Inertial Locks

Off-Topic: show

An Inertial Lock is a planetary facility capable of instantly negating the Transnewtonian pseudovelocity imparted by small TN-era ship drives within a suborbital radius of a planet, most notably the drive of any practical missile design.  Larger drives, even those of fighters, are immune to the effect.

Any missile salvo that intercepts a population or ground force on a body protected by an Inertial Lock would have an additional flight time added to it, similar to ICBM flight time mechanics.  Speed would be the sole determinant of this flight time.  Even a moderately capable point defense array would thus be capable of destroying a far disproportionate # of incoming missiles. Although such missiles speed would have dropped to essentially that of a sitting duck, the inertial lock's interference would make missile ECM far more capable than normal.

Inertial locks would be permanent installations owing to the immense complexity of the fine tuning process adapting it to a local geomagnetic field.  The primary cost would be in Boronide for the massive power requirements.  They could be destroyed as normal as a side effect of ground combat, but the easiest way of defeating them would be attaining total ground superiority.  Alternatively, they could be PDC-mounted

It would be relatively easy to slot Inertial Locks into existing gameplay, but interaction with NPRs is a little more problematic.  Since NPRs do not build PDCs, they would not benefit much from Inertial Locks once any orbiting space stations are destroyed.  They would work well with any conflict between two player races, but to work for NPRs it requires either PDCs or some other means for ground forces to contest a beam-armed opponent in orbit.

Wouldn't that affect the missiles coming from the planet as well? That would just mean that meson PDCs are the way to go for both the player and the NPR (even though NPR don't build PDCs, which means that they would start having to). My 2 cents is that planetary shields would be a better use of resources because you would still be able to hit the enemy yourself.

[bean]

Wouldn't that affect the missiles coming from the planet as well? That would just mean that meson PDCs are the way to go for both the player and the NPR (even though NPR don't build PDCs, which means that they would start having to). My 2 cents is that planetary shields would be a better use of resources because you would still be able to hit the enemy yourself.

Throw in some technobabble about 'the outgoing missiles are synchronized with the inertial lock'.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Mesons already dominate thick-atmosphere orbital battles; there's no real way to change that without changing either mesons or the atmospheric penalty.  Hell, even without an atmosphere 10cm mesons are ridiculously good at slugging+ are good PD.  It's not like PDCs can pick their range.

Note that even if both sides have to play fair with the Inertial Lock, it doesn't stop defensive missile fire. PDCs could still fire up and out, but the flight delay would limit missile response times and range.  Basically, take five minutes off the flight time of a missile, applied right at the start - you'd still be plenty effective, if a bit vulnerable to baiting tactics.  The major fault for missile silos would be that any anti-missile asset within range of the atmosphere could gun down outgoing missiles with the same ease that defenses gun down incoming ones. Oh, and most AMM designs would likely flame out on the way up.  NBD if their targets also hit the field, but bad for covering orbital assets or hitting enemy ships. 

IMO, the trouble with a linear defense like a planetary shield is that it's just more hitpoints to be smashed flat by a superior attack fleet.

[Sematary]

Mesons already dominate thick-atmosphere orbital battles; there's no real way to change that without changing either mesons or the atmospheric penalty.  Hell, even without an atmosphere 10cm mesons are ridiculously good at slugging+ are good PD.  It's not like PDCs can pick their range.

Note that even if both sides have to play fair with the Inertial Lock, it doesn't stop defensive missile fire. PDCs could still fire up and out, but the flight delay would limit missile response times and range.  Basically, take five minutes off the flight time of a missile, applied right at the start - you'd still be plenty effective, if a bit vulnerable to baiting tactics.  The major fault for missile silos would be that any anti-missile asset within range of the atmosphere could gun down outgoing missiles with the same ease that defenses gun down incoming ones. Oh, and most AMM designs would likely flame out on the way up.  NBD if their targets also hit the field, but bad for covering orbital assets or hitting enemy ships. 

IMO, the trouble with a linear defense like a planetary shield is that it's just more hitpoints to be smashed flat by a superior attack fleet.

What I am hearing right now is "Masons are really effective in planetary defense, beam weapons are pretty well useless, and AMMs are the only things that offer a real option to Masons in planetary defense, so you know what would be cool? Nerf all missiles when it comes to planetary defense so Masons get to be even more effective and AMMs get nerfed to the point where they can't really compete with the old Mason strength, and beam weapons stay just as useless."

I don't see that as a great idea. I am all for Aurora being a mix of realism and great story telling but when we go off into fantasy land for great story telling I can't really justify giving fewer viable options instead of giving more. Its a cool idea and all but the effect I see coming from that is all PDCs would be mason based and nothing else. To me that just takes away story potential rather than adding it and its not a change being made to fit realism or anything so I can't really see a pro from either an RP side or a game play side.

[Thineboot]

It could even just assign as many as are available if the amount typed in is larger than the number of available labs, rather than showing an error dialog and then doing nothing.

Please add automatically assign new research lab to (1) top project as long as possible without stopping auto turns (simple, just code) or (2) add a checkbox to projects so we can designate a specific project. Still log the event but speed up the game.

[iceball3]

What I am hearing right now is "Masons are really effective in planetary defense, beam weapons are pretty well useless, and AMMs are the only things that offer a real option to Masons in planetary defense, so you know what would be cool? Nerf all missiles when it comes to planetary defense so Masons get to be even more effective and AMMs get nerfed to the point where they can't really compete with the old Mason strength, and beam weapons stay just as useless."

I don't see that as a great idea. I am all for Aurora being a mix of realism and great story telling but when we go off into fantasy land for great story telling I can't really justify giving fewer viable options instead of giving more. Its a cool idea and all but the effect I see coming from that is all PDCs would be mason based and nothing else. To me that just takes away story potential rather than adding it and its not a change being made to fit realism or anything so I can't really see a pro from either an RP side or a game play side.

You could still launch missiles from orbital space stations, at least.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

What I am hearing right now is "Masons are really effective in planetary defense, beam weapons are pretty well useless, and AMMs are the only things that offer a real option to Masons in planetary defense, so you know what would be cool? Nerf all missiles when it comes to planetary defense so Masons get to be even more effective and AMMs get nerfed to the point where they can't really compete with the old Mason strength, and beam weapons stay just as useless."

I don't see that as a great idea. I am all for Aurora being a mix of realism and great story telling but when we go off into fantasy land for great story telling I can't really justify giving fewer viable options instead of giving more. Its a cool idea and all but the effect I see coming from that is all PDCs would be mason based and nothing else. To me that just takes away story potential rather than adding it and its not a change being made to fit realism or anything so I can't really see a pro from either an RP side or a game play side.

If you're trying to use beam weapons in a heavy atmosphere, you have to use them from orbitals *anyway*. Everything apart from mesons is literally useless in PDC combat right now.  If I had a magic wand, or could mod things, I'd just remove mesons from the game entirely - or at least remove them from the standard research list and make them a secret tech. I never use mesons in my own games. They always have and always will be the 100x best weapon for orbital combat as is.   If you have a suggestion for fixing that I'd love to hear it.

The point of the inertial lock is to introduce some nonlinear gameplay, similar to jump points.  Ground targets become very well protected from missile bombardment with even a minimally useable point defense, and on a shared homeworld game you can't launch a missile ground strike without the other guys getting to respond.   PDC hangar bays with warships or fighters become very attractive, since they are well protected from missile fire and can launch dedicated beam warships if the enemy comes into close range.

And there's no reason an inertial lock would have to effect defenders.  That's purely up to how its implemented. Also no reason you can't use orbitals.

Note that the game changes radically if a point defense capable ground unit that can't be meson'd exists. "Inertial Lock" synergizes very well with any change of that nature to ground combat, and actually makes such units practical considering the ludicrous quantity or ludicrous OPness that would be needed to meaningfully contest a significant fleet.

[Bobondacob]

Why not independently scalable windows? That would enable us to have multiple windows on screen at once.  (As in a split or quad screen)  It would be a ***** to code, but hey; it's useful. 

[db48x]

Why not independently scalable windows? That would enable us to have multiple windows on screen at once.  (As in a split or quad screen)  It would be a ***** to code, but hey; it's useful.

It would be nice, indeed. VB6 just isn't up to the task though; not without ages and ages of boring, nay mind-numbing work.

[Mor]

Inertial Locks

An Inertial Lock is a planetary facility capable of instantly negating the Transnewtonian pseudovelocity imparted by small TN-era ship drives within a suborbital radius of a planet, most notably the drive of any practical missile design.  Larger drives, even those of fighters, are immune to the effect.

Any missile salvo that intercepts a population or ground force on a body protected by an Inertial Lock would have an additional flight time added to it, similar to ICBM flight time mechanics.  Speed would be the sole determinant of this flight time.  Even a moderately capable point defense array would thus be capable of destroying a far disproportionate # of incoming missiles. Although such missiles speed would have dropped to essentially that of a sitting duck, the inertial lock's interference would make missile ECM far more capable than normal.

Inertial locks would be permanent installations owing to the immense complexity of the fine tuning process adapting it to a local geomagnetic field.  The primary cost would be in Boronide for the massive power requirements.  They could be destroyed as normal as a side effect of ground combat, but the easiest way of defeating them would be attaining total ground superiority.  Alternatively, they could be PDC-mounted

It would be relatively easy to slot Inertial Locks into existing gameplay, but interaction with NPRs is a little more problematic.  Since NPRs do not build PDCs, they would not benefit much from Inertial Locks once any orbiting space stations are destroyed.  They would work well with any conflict between two player races, but to work for NPRs it requires either PDCs or some other means for ground forces to contest a beam-armed opponent in orbit.

This is an interesting idea, basically you want TN capabilities inhibitor, that slow down objects within its range (like blackholes). something like that can be of interest not only on planets.

[xeryon]

Something super simple and I cannot believe it hasn't been mentioned before:  Queue for GFTC. 

I want to load up producing 10 garrison battalions and forget about it.  Similar to the construction queue or research queue now.  I know it isn't exactly tedious to input a new build order once every 6 months or so but I usually forget what my build goal was by that point and I have to shuffle through mental and physical notes to remember.

[TMaekler]

An option table where you can choose which events will stop the auto turn would be nice.

Adding delay time (the implemented one does not seem to function) in cycle orders or set specific timepoints as to when orders are to be carried out.

When setting up a new game and want to start NonTN and without Research Labs you basically break the game. An optional NonTN-Research Lab (with e.g. 50 RP or something similar) would be nice.

[db48x]

I'd like to see a list of ship classes grouped by class type. If I've designed all of the classes myself I can generally remember their names, but in a new game with Aurora generating ships for me it's much more difficult.