Suggestions Thread for v2.0

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've read the 60% fuel range topic. I don't plan to add this. The coding is trivial, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life explaining why that condition isn't a typo.

What about Garfunkel's "fuel at x%" option? That would allow people to do the weird settings without you having to answer questions, and it also reduces the clutter in the standing orders window.

That's less trivial, due to the extra UI work, and also would seem odd as the only option with a text entry. However, that could be done as part of a more significant overhaul of standing/conditional orders.

[nuclearslurpee]

What about Garfunkel's "fuel at x%" option? That would allow people to do the weird settings without you having to answer questions, and it also reduces the clutter in the standing orders window.

That's less trivial, due to the extra UI work, and also would seem odd as the only option with a text entry. However, that could be done as part of a more significant overhaul of standing/conditional orders.

Also worth noting that, without other related changes, it would probably be less popular than anticipated if you have to enter a value every time you set the standing order. Clicking through the same orders for all survey ships, for example, is annoying enough as it is, never mind if we throw some typing on top of it.

Probably the best solution is to have standing order templates, which of course means significantly more work for Steve.

[Panopticon]

Those are all good points.

[db48x]

Probably the best solution is to have standing order templates, which of course means significantly more work for Steve.

If I were picking what was best, I would just have a text box where the user could type in a program for the ship to follow (plus the options to load from a file, save to a file, etc).

A program equivalent to using conditional orders to automatically survey any unsurveyed system might look like this:

Code: [Select]

(if (< current-fuel (* 0.3 max-fuel))
  (refuel-and-resupply-at (find-nearest-facility 'fuel-transfer))
  (if (< maintenance-clock 0.0)
    (refuel-resupply-and-overhaul-at (find-nearest-facility 'maintenance))
    (let ((targets (take 5 (find-nearest-bodies 'unsurveyed))))
      (if (empty? targets)
        (travel-to-system (find-nearest-system 'unsurveyed))
        (survey-bodies targets)))))

You can probably see all kinds of things you might change in that program to make it better match your personal play style, such as picking unsurveyed systems that are nearest to the fleet’s hq, prioritizing planets over asteroids, automatically exploring newly–discovered wormholes, refueling from tankers if they are closer, etc.

But I recognize that it is possible that I am biased. I certainly like writing programs more than clicking checkboxes.

[xenoscepter]

 --- As someone who cannot code, does not want to learn it, and hates doing it. I dislike this proposal intensely.

[nuclearslurpee]

--- As someone who cannot code, does not want to learn it, and hates doing it. I dislike this proposal intensely.

As someone who can code, does want to learn it, and likes doing it, I also dislike this proposal intensely. Mainly because the amount of bugs and not-a-bug-reported-as-bugs that Steve adding a scripting language to Aurora would lead to would possibly be the thing that finally kills the poor man's undying love for this passion project.

----

EDIT: Because double posting is bad mmkay kids

I thought of a way that the "Any% fuel" concept could be included without messing with the UI: have the condition be "Fuel below reserve level". We already have an entry in the ship design window to set the fuel reserve, which is usually only used for tankers and occasionally fuel harvesters. It shouldn't be any problem to add a condition which checks the current fuel against the reserve, we can leave the current X%-based conditions since they are easy to use, and I think it's a lot easier to justify the slot in the conditions list than adding more X% levels.

The only catch is that we need some UI element to let us modify the reserve level on a per-ship basis. Currently, the "Miscellaneous" tab in the "Ship Overview" tab in the Naval Organization window allows customizing the refuel and resupply priority for single ships (which are normally class-based settings), so I don't think it would be an issue to add a line here to expose the fuel reserve level on a per-ship basis.

Overall, it is still some work for Steve but I think this would be a comparatively elegant solution without adding a weird exception to the conditionals or adding completely new UI elements.

[Jorgen_CAB]

What about Garfunkel's "fuel at x%" option? That would allow people to do the weird settings without you having to answer questions, and it also reduces the clutter in the standing orders window.

That's less trivial, due to the extra UI work, and also would seem odd as the only option with a text entry. However, that could be done as part of a more significant overhaul of standing/conditional orders.

Also worth noting that, without other related changes, it would probably be less popular than anticipated if you have to enter a value every time you set the standing order. Clicking through the same orders for all survey ships, for example, is annoying enough as it is, never mind if we throw some typing on top of it.

Probably the best solution is to have standing order templates, which of course means significantly more work for Steve.

I don't think this would be a problem if the UI always remembered the last number you used for that specific condition.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I thought of a way that the "Any% fuel" concept could be included without messing with the UI: have the condition be "Fuel below reserve level". We already have an entry in the ship design window to set the fuel reserve, which is usually only used for tankers and occasionally fuel harvesters. It shouldn't be any problem to add a condition which checks the current fuel against the reserve, we can leave the current X%-based conditions since they are easy to use, and I think it's a lot easier to justify the slot in the conditions list than adding more X% levels.

The only catch is that we need some UI element to let us modify the reserve level on a per-ship basis. Currently, the "Miscellaneous" tab in the "Ship Overview" tab in the Naval Organization window allows customizing the refuel and resupply priority for single ships (which are normally class-based settings), so I don't think it would be an issue to add a line here to expose the fuel reserve level on a per-ship basis.

Overall, it is still some work for Steve but I think this would be a comparatively elegant solution without adding a weird exception to the conditionals or adding completely new UI elements.

Yes, this is definitely workable and could be applied to supplies as well. It's more coding, but much neater. As you mention, there are other situations where a ship parameter overrules a class parameter, so there is no odd exception involved.

I am in a motorhome on a campsite in Norfolk (East Anglia, not Virginia), using a laptop, so no programming until I get back home in mid-July. I've tried programming on the laptop before, but its a little tedious compared to a pair of ultra-widescreen 34" monitors

[serger]

Since v2.x Commanders screen lacks "unassigned" filter, is it possible to show smth like "--" instead of "unassigned" in the list?
It will be much more visible and so easy to spot in the list.

[Ush213]

Bonus to Terraforming for non populated bodies.

Idea behind this would be to simulate "destructive" terraforming. It has been suggested in RL a method to speed up the terraforming of Mars would be nuke it or hurl large asteroids at the planet in order to kick start the melting process. Obviously you cant do this if there was people living there so in Aurora if you added a bonus to non populated bodies it would make sense that the modules don't have to worry about the population and they can accelerate the process.

A way to implement this could be to add a button in the environment tab for destructive terraforming (or some other name) which would apply the bonus and could also be a interesting weapon to use it against enemy worlds.

[Ush213]

Templates for Civ orders

Discovering a new rich resource system begins the process of assigning mines and mass drivers to mining colonies or infrastructure and installations to future colonies.
I propose a way to create templates for Civ orders to allow a way to reduce a amount of manual input needed.

Templates are created in the Civ/flag window and can be applied from there but also can then appear in the system view window as a drop down bar which you select the desired template and then create colony.

Eg.
Drop down                                                    Create Colony
-None
-Pioneering Mining Base (10xam, 1xMD)
-Emerging Mining Base (50xam. 2xMD)
-Established Mining Base (500xam, 5xMD)
-Early Settlers (5000xinfra)
-Thriving Settlers (10000xinfra)
-Established Settlers (50000xinfra)

"Colony has been created with a demand of 10 automines and 1 mass driver"

The game would remember the last drop down selected so the player could quickly go down the list adding mining colonies or population center's or any template of their choosing.
The player would then just be left with ensuring there is enough installations built on the production world to supply the civilians to transport.
"None" is the default and just does what create colony does now.

[GrandNord]

Small suggestion : In the "All ship text" window of the "Race information" tab, could you add the total number of ships to the bigger military ship classes ? It's not super clear currently with only the ships' names displayed.

[bankshot]

Feature request: civilian colony ships should track pending load requests like they track pending delivery orders.  Currently civilian colony ships will set orders for unlimited numbers of loading ships against a colony, potentially many times the colony's actual population, resulting in cancellation spam. 

Automated Colony load orders should stop when they exceed the colony's population to prevent cancellation spam.

There should also be a population reserve level.  By default this could be implemented by comparing cumulative load requests against the "Available workers" which would automatically limit loading to unemployed colonists.  This would preserve a small buffer of population as only a percentage of workers are available.  Or it could be calculated based on the manufacturing% to allow all potentially unemployed workers to be loaded.  If automatic limiting is unchecked a static number could be entered by the player similar to how mineral reserves work.   

[superstrijder15]

Like how you can crtl+click to select multiple systems to move them all on the star map, allow the same to select multiple weapons on a ship, to then move them all to an FC in one go. If that is easy to implement, also allow shift+click to click on a starting and an ending weapon and select all inbetween.

My missile ships have a lot of tubes and often I want to fire a fraction of them. Maybe firing 10/40 now and for the other 30 wait to see if the enemy moves or if there are more somewhere. Maybe the enemy is weaker and only 5 shots are sufficient today. Or I need to divide my fire over exactly 2 targets but my weapons are currently divided over 3 FCs. Because of that I often move them around but this is currently cumbersome.

[nuclearslurpee]

Very, very minor request: Please bump the starting age for commanders up to 31.

The 2.0 change to have varied starting ages was great mechanically, but I'm still tired of seeing commanders, colonels, presidents and lead scientists in their early 20s. Especially the last one, not every setting has to be a Marvel movie after all.