Semi-Official 6.x Suggestion Thread

[Bgreman]

Beams are easy to avoid at any appreciable range just by dodging. Even if you didn't know you were being fired at then random course adjustments would suffice.

This is why I think beams should have the 5 light-second range limit lifted.  Just claim that, like so many other near-magical aspects of Aurora, beams generated by TNE-based emitters can have superluminal propagation speeds.  The wavefront propagates through the fluid dimensions or whatever.  Perhaps guiding such a beam requires more hardware than one might expect, explaining the BFC sizes.

The adherence to the speed of light in a game where ships behave the way they do and magic heating/cooling gases exist seems rather arbitrary.

Extreme ranges on beams should still be somewhat difficult to achieve, or balanced in some other fashion (make reactor use consume fuel when recharging capacitors perhaps?).

[Steve Walmsley]

I really don't want to extend beam range range. Otherwise faster ship + long-range beam = game over. Aurora also owes a lot to Harpoon and the Honor Harrington novels, which have the same long-range missiles but devastating close-range weaponry.

I might consider modifying the size of beam fire controls though. I'll probably look at it over the weekend.

[Zincat]

I might consider modifying the size of beam fire controls though. I'll probably look at it over the weekend.

I really hope so It would help, especially, with hybrid ships, or putting some PD defense on more ship designs.

[Five]

I would suggest making it so that shields require reactors. As it is right now you only need reactors for beam weapons, so potentially you never need them. If it is needed to power the shields more ships will need them...plus, atleast to me, it seems like what would power them.

-Five

[Cripes Amighty]

I would suggest making it so that shields require reactors. As it is right now you only need reactors for beam weapons, so potentially you never need them. If it is needed to power the shields more ships will need them...plus, atleast to me, it seems like what would power them.

-Five

I have thought the same thing as well. I understand the idea is to make sure that shields cannot run indefinitely, and thus their consumption of fuel. However, linking them to power plants would increase the use of power plants which is somewhat of a drawback since this increases the chance of a secondary power explosion whenever they are hit.

[MarcAFK]

I've always thought shields should use power, and power plants should consume fuel, and sensors, life support etc should use power too,  that way ships couldn't stay fully fuelled in orbit of a planet indefinitely and would require some logistics in order to picket jump points, planets etc.

[alex_brunius]

Keep in mind that suggestion around more systems using energy adds alot of complexity to take into account.

For example what happens if you have energy to only run your shields or your energy weapons? Do both get 50% of the required energy each, or is the other automatically turned off if you try to active one system? Imagine what consequences that would have if it's also linked to life support?
How do you manage all this for an entire fleet in a simple way? Are we forced to design a model with energy required to constantly run all systems even if we never are going to use shields and tractor beams at the same time? How do you balance all energy needs in a realistic way? Does shields consume more energy when they are recharging? How much more?

[wilddog5]

one way for shields to work if they use power plants is for them to create temporary layers, like the armor layers and a missile pattern.

the number of layers created buy the shieled is a cube route of the shields strength

strength 25 missile 5 layers V strength 25 shield 3 layers (rounded) the first 3 layers are absorbed by the shields the rest the armor this simulates local shield penetration/ distortion acting in a similar fashion to shock damage

[Shipright]

Keep in mind that suggestion around more systems using energy adds alot of complexity to take into account.

For example what happens if you have energy to only run your shields or your energy weapons? Do both get 50% of the required energy each, or is the other automatically turned off if you try to active one system? Imagine what consequences that would have if it's also linked to life support?
How do you manage all this for an entire fleet in a simple way? Are we forced to design a model with energy required to constantly run all systems even if we never are going to use shields and tractor beams at the same time? How do you balance all energy needs in a realistic way? Does shields consume more energy when they are recharging? How much more?

You could have an empire wide or class specific priority ranking for power, with life support being automatic #1.

More simply you could limit power usage to systems more likely to use a lot of it like sensors and shields and weapons. These are also components you have to choose to use.

[Cripes Amighty]

Keep in mind that suggestion around more systems using energy adds alot of complexity to take into account.

For example what happens if you have energy to only run your shields or your energy weapons? Do both get 50% of the required energy each, or is the other automatically turned off if you try to active one system? Imagine what consequences that would have if it's also linked to life support?
How do you manage all this for an entire fleet in a simple way? Are we forced to design a model with energy required to constantly run all systems even if we never are going to use shields and tractor beams at the same time? How do you balance all energy needs in a realistic way? Does shields consume more energy when they are recharging? How much more?

I see your point. But how does the system currently work if a power plant is destroyed? Does it equally distribute power across all energy weapons, or is one randomly chosen to not receive power in that 5 second interval? Couldn't this just be employed for the shields as well?

As of right now, all I was agreeing with was that power plants be used to charge shields, much like they would be used to charge energy weapons. That shouldn't add that much more complexity to the equation.

[Sematary]

Right now as I understand it, powerplants provide y amount of power and all the beam weapons require x amount of power. If x is less than or equal to y than no problem, if x is greater than y all systems are effected equally.

[Paul M]

An economic suggestion.

One of the issues to a conventional start is that the intial few years (or decades more accurately) has you spending very little money.  Thus you accumulate a nest egg of fairly substantial proportions.

Governments unfortunatly (or not) don't work like this.  If you have money it is spent.  I'd suggest that the maximum yearly surplus be capped at 10% of your current yearly income.  Monthly surpluses to be capped at 10% of your income.

So a empire with a monthly income of 1000 could have a surplus no higher than +100, and could over a year accumulate a net positve balance of no more than 1200.  This just reflects the fact that governments will transfer money to another project, increase social funding or decrease tax rates to essentially balance their books.  Unless they are attempting to pay down a debt they aren't any more keen on a surplus than a deficiet.  And weath generated greater than 10% is just lost though the value remains for other purposes.  So an empire with a monthly income of 24 000 and expenses of 12 000 would gain no more than +240 but would still be considered to have an income per month of 24 000 or per year of 288 000.

This should apply only to players though to make programing the NPR easier.

[Jorgen_CAB]

An economic suggestion.

One of the issues to a conventional start is that the intial few years (or decades more accurately) has you spending very little money.  Thus you accumulate a nest egg of fairly substantial proportions.

Governments unfortunatly (or not) don't work like this.  If you have money it is spent.  I'd suggest that the maximum yearly surplus be capped at 10% of your current yearly income.  Monthly surpluses to be capped at 10% of your income.

So a empire with a monthly income of 1000 could have a surplus no higher than +100, and could over a year accumulate a net positve balance of no more than 1200.  This just reflects the fact that governments will transfer money to another project, increase social funding or decrease tax rates to essentially balance their books.  Unless they are attempting to pay down a debt they aren't any more keen on a surplus than a deficiet.  And weath generated greater than 10% is just lost though the value remains for other purposes.  So an empire with a monthly income of 24 000 and expenses of 12 000 would gain no more than +240 but would still be considered to have an income per month of 24 000 or per year of 288 000.

This should apply only to players though to make programing the NPR easier.

I like this idea... although the surplus could be automatically transferred into a small bonus on production/research for the following year instead of just loosing the wealth. The bonus should not be very large just as small benefit for having a good economy going.

[Jorgen_CAB]

One idea or thing that I thought about is the use of researchers and the number of laboratories they can use per administration level. Especially when you do conventional starts the administration level are pretty much never a problem. By the time you have enough laboratories to give them their maximum you have a vast overflow of scientists anyway so it never becomes a real problem.

Add a new research project called science administration or something like that. Each level will let you place one laboratory for each administration level of their researcher. In a conventional start you would only be able to give them one laboratory per level, this would encourage some slightly more spread out research and make your high administration scientists more important.

The "Science Administration" project should be pretty expensive, like first level free and second level would be 8000RP then double for every level up to level five...

Lv1 = 1 lab/admin level = Free
Lv2 = 2 labs/admin level = 8000RP
Lv3 = 3 labs/admin level = 16000RP
Lv4 = 4 labs/admin level = 32000RP
Lv5 = 5 labs/admin level = 64000RP

I have suggested some mitigating factor for research to curb the snowball effect of research versus a growing empire, especially on production/research and wealth increasing techs. I hope you take a look at that in the near future. This would give smaller (perhaps even NPRs) more of a realistic chance to stay competitive and would also be more realistic.

[chrislocke2000]

I'd agree with the earlier points on beam and missile fire controls.

Some smaller fire controls would be a good rebalance v missiles without a massive lurch away from current game balance which I really like.

Also am I right in thinking that fire control tracking tech is one below the equivalent turret tracking tech? If that is the case it would make sense to me to have those matched.

I'd also agree that large MFCs largely negate the benefits of ECM so another look at that would be good.