Semi-Official 6.x Suggestion Thread

[Rich.h]

Not sure if this is possible due to the spreadsheet nature of the game, however being able to select multiple ground units at once would be a great time saver. I have tried both shift/ctrl click and can only select one ground unit at a time. When you are trying to either disband/convert to cadre a large number of units this can become a tiresome task.

[Rastaman]

Please review the build costs for fuel tanks. For comparison, two designs. The freighter has 50% more engine space, and displaces almost four times the tonnage. Still, it costs less than half as much as the oiler. The oiler's fuel tank costs 1230 BP. I mean, Sorium is nasty stuff, but isn't this a little too much?

Code: [Select]

Rappahannock class Oiler    15 950 tons     58 Crew     1523.4 BP      TCS 319  TH 800  EM 0
2507 km/s     Armour 1-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 60    Max Repair 50 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0    

Roll Royce Trent 2500 200 EP Commercial MP (4)    Power 200    Fuel Use 7.96%    Signature 200    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10 250 000 Litres    Range 1452.7 billion km   (6706 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes


Code: [Select]

Red Cloud class Freighter    59 900 tons     92 Crew     703.2 BP      TCS 1198  TH 1200  EM 0
1001 km/s     Armour 1-136     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 7    Max Repair 50 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1    
Cargo 50000    

Roll Royce Trent 2500 200 EP Commercial MP (6)    Power 200    Fuel Use 7.96%    Signature 200    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres    Range 37.7 billion km   (436 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

[swarm_sadist]

Please review the build costs for fuel tanks. For comparison, two designs. The freighter has 50% more engine space, and displaces almost four times the tonnage. Still, it costs less than half as much as the oiler. The oiler's fuel tank costs 1230 BP. I mean, Sorium is nasty stuff, but isn't this a little too much?

Are you using the largest fuel tanks possible? Because they become more cost effective when you research the very large and ultra large fuel tanks instead of using a dozen regular ones.

[Haji]

Given the new, ridiculous number of brown dwarfs in the 6.42 Aurora, I'd love to see a space module that could ignite them into miniature suns. Can come in two flavors. The first one would be a rather expensive technology (200 000 RP or more) that would allow production of a massive module (200 000T or more) that would be very expensive. The other flavor would be already constructed bases guarded by a truly massive precursor fleets (20+ vessels) which you can obtain rather early, turning that one useless brown dwarf orbited by two dozen frozen objects into a miniature sun with several thriving colonies.

As a side note, as the number of real life objects gets updated in Aurora, we get more and more useless systems. As such it may be a good idea to rethink ships speeds, distances of jump points from the local star and distance over which shipping lines do business (which I believe is currently limited to only four systems from the capital).

[Jaque_Thay]

Not sure if it has been suggested already but it would be cool to see details for destroyed/decommissioned ships and retired/killed officers.  I've been documenting significant individuals as part of my gameplay and an officer who was never particularly prominent but whose name cropped up a few times has just died - now I realise I can't give him an obituary because I don't even know how old he was!

If that would add too much strain to the database, maybe add it for 90 days after the officer/ship goes out of active service just so the information can be retrieved?

[sloanjh]

Not sure if it has been suggested already but it would be cool to see details for destroyed/decommissioned ships and retired/killed officers.  I've been documenting significant individuals as part of my gameplay and an officer who was never particularly prominent but whose name cropped up a few times has just died - now I realise I can't give him an obituary because I don't even know how old he was!

If that would add too much strain to the database, maybe add it for 90 days after the officer/ship goes out of active service just so the information can be retrieved?

Dead/retired officers used to stay around.  The ended up generating a lot of clutter, which is why they don't anymore.

That being said, I think your 90 day idea is a great one (it could even be 30 days or so, since that would be plenty of time to grab stats) for filtering out the clutter.  +1

John

[Bgreman]

Going to suggest this again, as it's  been a while:

Make it so that when you move ships around between task groups, the task group speed isn't automatically set to the max for the task group.

I keep lots of task groups at speed 1 kps at colonies, for holding new ship construction or for overhaul or whatever.  I am generally trying to hide the performance of these vessels from other player races, but any time a new ship is added to a TG (or a ship removed from one for that matter), the speed of all TGs involved in the transfer is set to the maximum, rather than keeping it at what I have it set at.

So basically, it looks like this right now (Pseudocode):

Code: [Select]

TransferShips()
{
    for each (Ship ship in GetShipsToTransfer())
    {
        SourceTaskGroup.RemoveShip(ship);
        DestTaskGroup.AddShip(ship);
    }

    SourceTaskGroup.Speed = CalculateMaxSpeedForTaskGroup(SouceTaskGroup);
    DestTaskGroup.Speed = CalculateMaxSpeedForTaskGroup(DestTaskGroup);
}

Where it should look like this, ideally:

Code: [Select]

TransferShips()
{
    sourceOriginalSpeed = SourceTaskGroup.Speed;
    destOriginalSpeed = DestTaskGroup.Speed;

    for each (Ship ship in GetShipsToTransfer())
    {
        SourceTaskGroup.RemoveShip(ship);
        DestTaskGroup.AddShip(ship);
    }

    SourceTaskGroup.Speed = Math.Minimum(sourceOriginalSpeed, CalculateMaxSpeedForTaskGroup(SouceTaskGroup));
    DestTaskGroup.Speed = Math.Minimum(destOriginalSpeed, CalculateMaxSpeedForTaskGroup(DestTaskGroup);
}

[JacenHan]

Small suggestion: An expansion option in shipyards to expand to a specified size. This would be a good micromanagement saver in expanding very large shipyards, especially commercial ones.

[wilddog5]

i think that this might have been suggested before but i am bringing this up again as the new NPR home world starts allow for this to be a major improvement

allowing NPR to go from conventional to Trans newtonion tech

This would allow for a lot of very intresting starts, from you developing trans tech and the NPRs getting it through the cive tech transfer when you go 2 levels above the other players, to a NPR starting as trans tech and you + 2-3 other NPRs having to catch up in the tech race.

also this also allows for potentially better performance in multi NPR starts as the NPRs don't start with an armada each and slowly build up over time instead

[sloanjh]

Ability to define multiple missile loadouts for a class.  I made this one oh so many years ago, and it just came up again in The Academy.

John

[Brian Neumann]

I would like to suggest an increase in the usefulness of spinal weapons.  I like the basic thought and think that they should be available for any beam weapon.

In addition I think the spinal weapons should have an increased damage at longer ranges, and a somewhat better chances to hit at long range.  I am not advocating making them fire beyond normal beam weapons range, just increasing their accuracy at the longer ranges.

My first thought was to add to the range modifier.  While that would take care of extra damage at longer ranges it would not make a difference in the accuracy.  Does anybody have an idea that would be simple to apply.

My reasoning for the extra accuracy is that the entire ship is acting as the barrel, so more precision should be possible.

Brian

[Wolfius]

My reasoning for the extra accuracy is that the entire ship is acting as the barrel, so more precision should be possible.

No, pretty sure the realistic choice would be the opposite; accuracy is largely limited to the precision of the ship's thrusters in maneuvering, with accuracy within phenominally tiny fractions of a degree neccessary as the ship maneuvers in combat and pushes the entire mass of the ship around. You don't need anything close to that level of precision; not only can you make course corrections enroute, but TN ships travel while constantly under thrust, so there's no penalty for it. The only realistic option would be something like a 'precision maneuvering unit' component or engine value.

A turret's gearing has a much lower mass to deal with and is similarly a rather specialised bit of kit; quick and accurate laying of the guns on maneuvering point targets hundreds of thousands of kilometers away is the one and only thing they're designed to do. They have no reason to be less acurate; if anything it's turrets that should enjoy the accuracy boost VS target range.

Also, any accuracy bonus or penalty applied to spinal mounts for this reason would also be applied to all unturreted weapons; fixed mount is fixed mount.


If you want a range modifier, you'd have to some up with some special technology(easy enough) that it would make sense not to apply to normal unturreted weapons(not so much). Spinal weapons aren't actually that special, they're just somewhat larger versions of unturreted beam weapons - not even true spinals unless it's a fairly small ship.

[Charlie Beeler]

<snip> but TN ships travel while constantly under thrust <snip>

I'm deliberately quoting this out of context to make a specific point. 

Aurora does not use (ie deliberately ignores) Newtonian movement mechanics. So there is not thrust for movement, muchless thrusters for maneuvering.  The movement model is functionally inertialess.  This is why ships stop when they run out of fuel instead of drifting on the last vector and there is not tech to compensate for high levels of inertia.

If and when Newtonian Aurora is released this will change.

[Charlie Beeler]

I would like to suggest an increase in the usefulness of spinal weapons.  I like the basic thought and think that they should be available for any beam weapon.

In addition I think the spinal weapons should have an increased damage at longer ranges, and a somewhat better chances to hit at long range.  I am not advocating making them fire beyond normal beam weapons range, just increasing their accuracy at the longer ranges.

My first thought was to add to the range modifier.  While that would take care of extra damage at longer ranges it would not make a difference in the accuracy.  Does anybody have an idea that would be simple to apply.

My reasoning for the extra accuracy is that the entire ship is acting as the barrel, so more precision should be possible.

Brian

First I agree that spinal weapons should have a different, heavier damage model.  I'd be in agreement with a straight linear model.  It doesn't seem like much at first.  But once you go past a couple of range modifier brackets it is significant.

Currently beam fire controls are a straight linear reduction.  I'd be in favor of a mechanic for spinal mounts that provides a percentage bonus with the range modifier.  Perhaps tied to a lack of heading change that allow for the long range refinement of accuracy.  This would be difficult to justify for spinal mounts over standard mounts though.

[Bgreman]

I'm deliberately quoting this out of context to make a specific point. 

Aurora does not use (ie deliberately ignores) Newtonian movement mechanics. So there is not thrust for movement, muchless thrusters for maneuvering.  The movement model is functionally inertialess.  This is why ships stop when they run out of fuel instead of drifting on the last vector and there is not tech to compensate for high levels of inertia.

If and when Newtonian Aurora is released this will change.

I've always interpreted it as the ships ARE under thrust, but are interacting with the fluid-like Trans-Newtonian dimension(s), which provide(s) some kind of drag.  Pretty sure this was in Steve's fluff somewhere, maybe one of his earlier write-ups.

Found it:

History of the Commonwealth of Free States
 
[...]

Up until 2020, space exploration consisted of unmanned probes with little financial support for manned missions. China sent a manned mission to the moon in 2018 but abandoned further missions to concentrate on earthly expansion. After the carnage of the China Wars, the three superpowers turned to space to try to gain an edge over each other in future conflicts. The smaller powers followed suit, determined not to be left behind. In 2036, a commonwealth science team examining the possibilities of several outlandish propulsion systems made a startling discovery; the existence of another dimension, close to our own, but with radically different physical laws, the most significant difference being that space-time in the other dimension had the properties of a fluid rather than a vacuum
 
Although they could not find a way to move from our own reality into the nearby universe, the theoretical work of the scientists resulted in the discovered of previously unknown elements with strange compositions that seemed to be affected by the presence of this universe. Unfortunately, almost all of the elements were only found within the molten core of the planet and would require significant effort to access. Given the significance of the discovery, sufficient funds were quickly made available and core mining techniques developed. Once in the possession of sufficient quantities of the minerals, the scientists discovered the minerals somehow intruded into the space-time of the alternate dimension and that spacecraft built from these elements would be affected by some of the physical laws of that universe. They theorized that this would allow spacecraft to turn in space like ships in water but it would also quickly slow them to a stop if their engines ceased operating. A secondary effect was that the mass of such a ship would be dramatically reduced allowing much higher speeds from conventional power systems. Finally, it was discovered that sensors and communication systems constructed from some of the new elements could send energy signals through the other dimension at a speed much greater than light. Within a solar system, communication and sensors would effectively be real time.
 
This breakthrough meant that long range system exploration was finally a reality and the Commonwealth began diverting more and more funds to building a space-based capability. Such a discovery could not remain secret for long through and within a year, the other nations of the world learnt of the newly discovered dimension and the existence of the minerals, now known as Trans-Newtonian Elements, and began building their own shipyards and factories to support the exploration and exploitation of nearby space.
 
Two years later, the same team made two new discoveries, the first amazing and the second apocalyptic. Using new gravitational sensors developed from Trans-Newtonian Elements, the team discovered a number of gravitational fluctuations throughout our own space-time with no obvious cause. They theorized that these fluctuations might be caused by the existence of invisible wormholes forming between the gravitational wells of stars and that study of the gravitational fluctuations in a star system would provide the locations of these wormholes. Experimentation with the creation of tiny wormholes provided exactly the readings expected and the scientists informed the Commonwealth government that travel between star systems might be possible if the wormholes could be located and a way found to open them. Work began immediately on ship-based sensors to detect the wormholes and an engine capable of opening a wormhole and taking a ship through it.

Emphasis mine.