According to the wiki, "Transponders do not currently play any role in Aurora."
However, other sources (mostly here in the forum, or over on Reddit) say that they do work, but there is conflicting info on exactly how much they do, and how you can affect them.
I found the various options for turning them on/off in the ship and TG windows, and the option to tell Civilians to turn them on in certain systems via the sidebar. Also, when I enter the system owned by my ally (yes, if you're wondering, it's the CoA
), I see their transponder contacts.
However, I also read that it's possible to set the transponder codes to those of any known class, including those of other empires. I feel like this would be fun, especially from a commerce raiding perspective, but I can't seem to find the place where you set the codes. I read that it was a dropdown in the misc tab of the ship window, "above where you turn them on/off," but the only thing I can see there is the options for manual fuel/maintenance transfers. I thought it might be the section marked "Transfer ship to alien empire," but this seems more like an option to give them control of a ship that I don't need.
Are transponders and transponder codes implemented in the latest version, or is everything I've read out of date or something?
Side note: While I was writing this post, I had an idea. Would it be possible to add the ability to buy ships from other empires? Like, you pay the build cost for the ship, plus extra to allow for the cost of minerals and the use of a slipway/shipyard, and in return, they build a ship of a given class for you? Presumably it would be one of the classes of the empire doing the building, rather than those of the buyer (since this is how it's worked historically).