If at all possible I would like the ability to move minerals with civilian ships in the same manner that we can move installations I.e. set an amount for pickup/delivery.  Mass drivers are great for intra-system mineral transport but it becomes tedious to transport minerals between systems - you have to rely on your own vessels for that.  I think it is logical and consistent to give civilians the ability to transport minerals and it would alleviate some of the current micromanaging for larger empires.  I would still build freighters for initial colonization and for restricted systems where I don’t want the civilians to go.

I think the last time this came up, the issue raised was how to configure the civilian AI so that the freighters aren't constantly running off to random rocks to pick up 25 tons of vendarite when you'd prefer them to ship 12,000 tons of gallicite from some important colony instead. One suggestion I made at the time was to give civilians a dedicated class of mineral haulers which are just small shuttles (say 5,000 tons capacity) instead of big hulking freighters, however this conflicts with the general trend to use larger ship types to reduce pathfinding/detection slowdown.

With the new colonist transport code, maybe something similar could be added for mineral shipping to resolve this, e.g., the payout for a mineral shipment is scaled by the fraction of the ship's hold that is filled, so civilians will only prefer to pick up minerals if there's enough of them to make a real profit.

QOL Suggestion:

Naval Organization window, Fleet -> Movement Orders tab
Double clicking any order in the list of the fleet's current orders should remove all orders after that one (perhaps with a confirmation prompt).


Sometimes I need to trim a long list of orders back to a specific point.
Repeatedly clicking the Remove Last button is the only way to do it currently.
Sometimes that's a LOT of clicks, and sometimes a user overclicks and then has to re-create the unintentionally removed orders.

Seconded as I actually run into this issue often when I repeat a set of orders many times and find I miscounted or the conditions changed.

QOL Suggestion:

Naval Organization window, Fleet -> Movement Orders tab
Double clicking any order in the list of the fleet's current orders should remove all orders after that one (perhaps with a confirmation prompt).


Sometimes I need to trim a long list of orders back to a specific point.
Repeatedly clicking the Remove Last button is the only way to do it currently.
Sometimes that's a LOT of clicks, and sometimes a user overclicks and then has to re-create the unintentionally removed orders.

On the Movement Orders tab of the Naval Organization window, the "Delete Template" button and the "Delete" (fleet) button are right next to each other.
This positioning, despite the subsequent confirmation dialog, leads to me occasionally deleting a fleet when I intend to delete a template.

I think mistakes would be less likely if the second button were labeled "Delete Fleet."

That button is used to delete whatever you have selected - Fleet, Ship, Squadron, Naval Admin Command, Sub-fleet or Shipping Line. I probably should modify the button label though when you click on different things.

Also, some projects have names that are so long that you can't see the appended part in the list.
Example: "Max Tracking Time for Bonus vs Missiles: 30 Second..."

The same is true for the industry tab, it would be useful to be able to see the full text without it being appended - maybe a tooltip on hover over the text? I really struggle to work out which ship components I'm building sometimes!

On the Research tab, clicking the Assign New button will cause the project name to be appended with "(N)".

I suggest prepending it to the project name instead, to make it easier to find such projects when the list is long

Also, some projects have names that are so long that you can't see the appended part in the list.
Example: "Max Tracking Time for Bonus vs Missiles: 30 Second..."

For RP purposes, it would be great if a module for a ship could be designed to assign a Scientist and/or Administrator.

How about the ability of any misc component to "house" any type of commander?

Engine technology:
I know this topic has already been raised, but every time I play I wait for the engines to reach at least the level of the Nuclear Pulse Engine.
Maybe it would be worth raising the cost of researching the initial stages of the engines, that would extend the time they can be used, both by players and AI?

Counterpoint: I use NRE tech quite a bit in my conventional-start games. I also play with limited research admin + 50% research speed, so even developing NTE tech takes some time during which I can build quite a lot of NRE-level freighters and colony ships. So personally, I prefer things as they are since I would not want to drag out the conventional starts even longer than they already are.