C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Steve Walmsley]

A suggestion of small balance if it has not been changed already...

I think that the 15cm laser at 4HS is too small, it's general DPS is way to effective very early, especially when you consider that 15cm lasers can have really long range too they are extremely effective in general in comparison with most other lasers. They often even can compete with high damage lasers in terms of cutting through enemy ship armour through cheer DPS, almost no other laser can do this as effective as the 15cm.

10cm is 3HS
12cm is 4HS
15cm is 4HS
20cm is 6HS
25cm is 8HS
30cm is 10HS

15cm lasers should have a size of 5HS.

I also think that weapons perhaps should be able to have fractions of HS as well to balance them a bit better.

In addition to this larger weapons also often get shafted due to not being able to produce enough capacity to synchronise with the 5sec  charge rate per turn. I think that capacity that is over from a previous turn should go into the weapon in the next turn (after it fired) so a weapons might fire in say 4 turns sometimes and 5 turns times. This should even out the benefit of different weapons and make it easier to select a weapon type that best fit the ship you are trying to design. Right now, certain weapons simple are not usable as they synch very badly with the capacitor tech. Take the 20cm laser that is really good at capacitor 5 but really inefficient at any other lever in comparison with a 15cm (even if the size was increased to 5HS) until capacitor 10 where it still is marginally better than a 15cm laser due to its larger size but higher damage and better capacitor tech finally make it better, but not by that much.

In the same spirit perhaps you should be able to fire weapons even more often if you can deliver enough power to do so, like a 10cm lares cold fire twice with a capacitor 6 for example.

You could then also redo how rail-guns work a bit so the capacitor sort of dictate how often they fire rather than they firing 4 shots every time they fire, which seems a bit odd when they fire four shot but only every 20sec instead of one shot every five seconds.

This obviously would effect balance between Gauss and Rail-guns so would have to be handled with great care. I think that Gauss in general are very under powered weapons in general when you compare them with rail-guns, both in therms of technology and cost as rail-guns can use the same fire-control as all other beam weapons while the Gauss require turrets and fast firing fire-controls.

Changing this would also "fix" rail-gun versus Gauss balance as early rail-guns would perhaps only fire ones or twice per turn and increase in speed later on, it would also make rail-guns semi useful for PD even later on.

I think that weapons could be shown with true fire speed rather than per 5 second turns... although the game would make a weapons sometimes fire one or two shots in a turn or more or less turns in between shots.

I don't want to change weapons very much as I am happy with the balance right now. For example, a laser firing once in a turret has a similar effect to a fixed railgun firing four times. Fixed railguns have the advantage that they function as both offensive and defensive weapons but fixed lasers have greater range. If you allow the laser to fire twice, that makes the railgun far less effective in comparison.

However, I agree about the laser size progression. I've changed the rounding on laser HS from Floor to Nearest Int, which moves the 15cm from 4 HS to 5HS. This also changes 30cm from 9 HS to 10 HS and 40cm from 12 HS to 13 HS. I considered round to a decimal place (which would make the progression 3.4, 4, 4.9, 6.3, 8, 9.8, etc.) but it just doesn't look right so I decided to leave it as whole HS for now.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't want to change weapons very much as I am happy with the balance right now. For example, a laser firing once in a turret has a similar effect to a fixed railgun firing four times. Fixed railguns have the advantage that they function as both offensive and defensive weapons but fixed lasers have greater range. If you allow the laser to fire twice, that makes the railgun far less effective in comparison.

However, I agree about the laser size progression. I've changed the rounding on laser HS from Floor to Nearest Int, which moves the 15cm from 4 HS to 5HS. This also changes 30cm from 9 HS to 10 HS and 40cm from 12 HS to 13 HS. I considered round to a decimal place (which would make the progression 3.4, 4, 4.9, 6.3, 8, 9.8, etc.) but it just doesn't look right so I decided to leave it as whole HS for now.

Yes... I agree about the balance would need to be looked over and it might be a bit much at this stage. Perhaps sometime in the future...

One thing you "might" look into though I think is the capacitor able to overflow to the next turn. It would reduce some weapons being more or less impractical as there are no capacity levels that make them viable over other choices.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Another suggestion for a quality of life type of thing...

Would it be possible to add an supply automatic order for different things to anything produced on a world add will get picked up by the civilian transports.

As far as I remember there was a problem with adding a supply of thing that might not be available. In addition to that it often is more trouble than it is worth to keep adding more and more of something you build allot and just want shipped out to your colonies. Most often this is mines and automatic mines, but it can be other stuff as well.

You don't have to create matching supply and demand orders. Supply won't get picked up though without matching demand.

In VB6 if you supplied something and there was nothing to load you keep getting an error message that it can't load and interrupts... it also would lower the supplied item with one even though it did not load anything.

Will this work differently in C#?

[Steve Walmsley]

Another suggestion for a quality of life type of thing...

Would it be possible to add an supply automatic order for different things to anything produced on a world add will get picked up by the civilian transports.

As far as I remember there was a problem with adding a supply of thing that might not be available. In addition to that it often is more trouble than it is worth to keep adding more and more of something you build allot and just want shipped out to your colonies. Most often this is mines and automatic mines, but it can be other stuff as well.

You don't have to create matching supply and demand orders. Supply won't get picked up though without matching demand.

In VB6 if you supplied something and there was nothing to load you keep getting an error message that it can't load and interrupts... it also would lower the supplied item with one even though it did not load anything.

Will this work differently in C#?

In C#, you will get an event but not an interrupt. If nothing is there, the pickup code doesn't execute.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Another suggestion for a quality of life type of thing...

Would it be possible to add an supply automatic order for different things to anything produced on a world add will get picked up by the civilian transports.

As far as I remember there was a problem with adding a supply of thing that might not be available. In addition to that it often is more trouble than it is worth to keep adding more and more of something you build allot and just want shipped out to your colonies. Most often this is mines and automatic mines, but it can be other stuff as well.

You don't have to create matching supply and demand orders. Supply won't get picked up though without matching demand.

In VB6 if you supplied something and there was nothing to load you keep getting an error message that it can't load and interrupts... it also would lower the supplied item with one even though it did not load anything.

Will this work differently in C#?

In C#, you will get an event but not an interrupt. If nothing is there, the pickup code doesn't execute.

Ok... that sounds good... I just wonder what happen if I say supply Automatic Mines on two planets but only one have any available. Will ships that are about to pick something up check if there actually is something there and go to the other planet?

I could have two planets, perhaps in the same system producing mines both with a supply order far above what it can supply so I don't have to deal with it as often. They both supply mines to colonies far from the system. So ships don't go to just one planet (the closest) and just wait until it delivers while there are plenty on another planet just a few hundred million km away, or simply that you waste alloy of transport ships on waiting to be supplied instead of doing something else.
 
I just hope it covers all the bases... would be awesome if I did not have to bother about things that you are mass producing for the colonies in the central systems. 

[Garfunkel]

I'm pretty sure that when Steve talked about the way he overhauled the code for civilians and their trading, it included a bit where they are aware of each other. It's not exactly the same as what you're asking, though, but it's close.

[Kristover]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.  Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

[StarshipCactus]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.   Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

Another cool feature of such a record would be posthumous medal awarding.  So you might have a medal for officers KIA.  You could also have service medals that you award based on number of years served.  That poor LT who stubbed his toe and had to retire after 1 year won't get anything, but your long serving 60+ year old admiral would get a long service medal after getting too old to work.

[Tikigod]

Another suggestion for a quality of life type of thing...

Would it be possible to add an supply automatic order for different things to anything produced on a world add will get picked up by the civilian transports.

As far as I remember there was a problem with adding a supply of thing that might not be available. In addition to that it often is more trouble than it is worth to keep adding more and more of something you build allot and just want shipped out to your colonies. Most often this is mines and automatic mines, but it can be other stuff as well.

You don't have to create matching supply and demand orders. Supply won't get picked up though without matching demand.

In VB6 if you supplied something and there was nothing to load you keep getting an error message that it can't load and interrupts... it also would lower the supplied item with one even though it did not load anything.

Will this work differently in C#?

In C#, you will get an event but not an interrupt. If nothing is there, the pickup code doesn't execute.

On this note, I don't remember seeing anything about event interrupts mentioned but is there any chance C# will include a option to customise how certain 'day to day' event interruptions are treated?

I got a current campaign where my empire started with a higher number of labs but the economy can't really support running all of them researching during certain larger construction periods like expanding my naval shipyards, or producing high volume of automated mines for early mining colony expansion in my home system, yet "Inactive research Labs" interruption makes progressing game time through these often 1-2 year construction periods a right headache.

Would be nice if there was the option in the event log settings to flag events I know will be occurring but am fine with to stop interrupting time progression, I know in VB there's the option to filter events visually but it was my understanding that it doesn't actually stop them from interrupting time progression?

[Father Tim]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.  Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

This has been in and out a couple times, and the problem is always how to differentiate between the few dozen Officers you care about and the hundreds you don't.  Do they get a tickbox while alive to mark them as special?  Do all dead/retired officers go to a 'pool' for a couple of years before deletion to give you time to note their details?  Do you manually confirm "save or delete" for each dead/retired officer?

[Garfunkel]

Naval officers who got promoted X times
Ground officers who participated in X battles (since their promotions are rarer)
Scientists who have been in charge of labs for X years
Administrators who have been leading a colony for X years

It could be similar to the automatic medal process, where the players has a relatively small number of variables to adjust and then the game automatically tracks it. The "In Memoriam" system could, in fact, build on top of the medal system.

[Kristover]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.  Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

This has been in and out a couple times, and the problem is always how to differentiate between the few dozen Officers you care about and the hundreds you don't.  Do they get a tickbox while alive to mark them as special?  Do all dead/retired officers go to a 'pool' for a couple of years before deletion to give you time to note their details?  Do you manually confirm "save or delete" for each dead/retired officer?

The officers wouldn't be in the same listing as the active Commanders.  The suggestion is they be moved to a separate tab for 'Past Officers'.  Certainly, the list would eventually after a 100 years or so be a couple hundred (or more) names long but given the amount of effort I put into them and their backstories, I wouldn't mind having that long list.  Besides, if they're inactive and separate from the active list - preferably on a different page/listing altogether - they aren't really taking any processing power or cluttering up the active screen

[Tikigod]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.  Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

This has been in and out a couple times, and the problem is always how to differentiate between the few dozen Officers you care about and the hundreds you don't.  Do they get a tickbox while alive to mark them as special?  Do all dead/retired officers go to a 'pool' for a couple of years before deletion to give you time to note their details?  Do you manually confirm "save or delete" for each dead/retired officer?

The officers wouldn't be in the same listing as the active Commanders.  The suggestion is they be moved to a separate tab for 'Past Officers'.  Certainly, the list would eventually after a 100 years or so be a couple hundred (or more) names long but given the amount of effort I put into them and their backstories, I wouldn't mind having that long list.  Besides, if they're inactive and separate from the active list - preferably on a different page/listing altogether - they aren't really taking any processing power or cluttering up the active screen

Using VB figures so C# specifics won't be exact given certain changes being made but:

Each Academy generate 5 Officers a year. So even just 5 Academies on your homeworld early on pushes out 25 Officers annually.
So in 10 years you'll be churning out 250 Officers, most of which will likely never have a position and be culled a short few years after being produced after the preset amount of time.
In 100 years you'll have produced yet another 2,500 Officers. Now your list contains probably approximately 2,200 past-officers at a minimum.

Imagine loading up that list of 2,200 names to take a stroll down memory lane.

And that's just from 5 academies.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Tinkering with VB6 last night and had an RP thought/suggestion:

I have never noticed but once Commanders die/retired/KIA, are they still viewable in an inactive file or are they gone forever?  If possible, I wonder if it would be possible for those Commanders to shift to a past Commander tab so their accomplishments and lives (records, medals, comments) are still viewable?  I tend toward paying a lot of attention to my Commanders to the point of entering in comments on their actions and lives essentially creating a fictional story/universe as  I go with these guys and when they eventually move on, I would like to go back and see who came before the present generation and what they did.  Maybe even name a new colony world or warship (ex: 'TFNS Steve Walmsley') off a past Commander of renown and this function would make the record keeping for such a lot easier.

This has been in and out a couple times, and the problem is always how to differentiate between the few dozen Officers you care about and the hundreds you don't.  Do they get a tickbox while alive to mark them as special?  Do all dead/retired officers go to a 'pool' for a couple of years before deletion to give you time to note their details?  Do you manually confirm "save or delete" for each dead/retired officer?

The officers wouldn't be in the same listing as the active Commanders.  The suggestion is they be moved to a separate tab for 'Past Officers'.  Certainly, the list would eventually after a 100 years or so be a couple hundred (or more) names long but given the amount of effort I put into them and their backstories, I wouldn't mind having that long list.  Besides, if they're inactive and separate from the active list - preferably on a different page/listing altogether - they aren't really taking any processing power or cluttering up the active screen

Using VB figures so C# specifics won't be exact given certain changes being made but:

Each Academy generate 5 Officers a year. So even just 5 Academies on your homeworld early on pushes out 25 Officers annually.
So in 10 years you'll be churning out 250 Officers, most of which will likely never have a position and be culled a short few years after being produced after the preset amount of time.
In 100 years you'll have produced yet another 2,500 Officers. Now your list contains probably approximately 2,200 past-officers at a minimum.

Imagine loading up that list of 2,200 names to take a stroll down memory lane.

And that's just from 5 academies.

I think it would be neat with a checkbox beside any commander if you want to save them past their death or retirement or any commander that you have made manual notes on or when you award a medal to them it could be part of the medal if they get saved for posterity or not.

I agree there are no point in saving all commanders that have made little to no specific impact on your story.

[Kristover]

"Imagine loading up that list of 2,200 names to take a stroll down memory lane."

Well, I just might want too!  But seriously point taken it would be quite a list and perhaps a tag that only those who served more 10 years would be retained so you didn't get the minor officers who didn't make an impact or a check box for those you wished to retain in your 'Past Officer' file would be an adequate compromise to reduce bloat.  In fact, I think I might even like the check box more because lets say I wanted to be crazy and retain 2,000 plus names - I could just check mark all of them at the beginning.