Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[Garfunkel]

For RP purposes, it would be great if a module for a ship could be designed to assign a Scientist and/or Administrator.

How about the ability of any misc component to "house" any type of commander?

[gpt3]

Engine technology:
I know this topic has already been raised, but every time I play I wait for the engines to reach at least the level of the Nuclear Pulse Engine.
Maybe it would be worth raising the cost of researching the initial stages of the engines, that would extend the time they can be used, both by players and AI?

Counterpoint: I use NRE tech quite a bit in my conventional-start games. I also play with limited research admin + 50% research speed, so even developing NTE tech takes some time during which I can build quite a lot of NRE-level freighters and colony ships. So personally, I prefer things as they are since I would not want to drag out the conventional starts even longer than they already are.

I agree. As a workaround though: since research costs increase exponentially with tech level, the global and racial "research speed" settings are pretty good controls for which tech level you wish to play your game at. Unless You will always eventually settle into a multi-decade state where there's a "modern" tech, 1-2 levels of "legacy" tech, and an being-researched "prototype" tech.

For example, I personally have a soft spot for fission and slow games, so I've been pondering knocking research down to 5-10% so that majority of my game will be spent with nuclear pulse and gas-core engines, with fusion perpetually 30 years away. Humanity will most likely need to reverse-engineer alien tech in order to master these systems.

Alternatively, if you make research cheap, then you can battle spoilers using endgame tech like in Stormtrooper's COVID-19 campaign.

[skoormit]

On the Research tab, clicking the Assign New button will cause the project name to be appended with "(N)".

I suggest prepending it to the project name instead, to make it easier to find such projects when the list is long

Also, some projects have names that are so long that you can't see the appended part in the list.
Example: "Max Tracking Time for Bonus vs Missiles: 30 Second..."

[Kiero]

1) Some kind of Waypoint patterns would be great.
Exp. Evenly place X WPs at the radius of 7,7 m km starting at bearing 0⁰.

or

2) Some "LOGO turtle drawing" for the order template. Where I could specify "Bearing" and a "Distance".
Exp.
Go at Bearing 0⁰ for a Distance 7,7 m Km, then Launch Ready Ordnance.
Go at Bearing 180⁰ for a Distance 7,7 m Km.
Go at Bearing 120⁰ for a Distance 7,7 m Km, then Launch Ready Ordnance.
and so on...

So we could produce patterns like on bellow screen:

[welchbloke]

Also, some projects have names that are so long that you can't see the appended part in the list.
Example: "Max Tracking Time for Bonus vs Missiles: 30 Second..."

The same is true for the industry tab, it would be useful to be able to see the full text without it being appended - maybe a tooltip on hover over the text? I really struggle to work out which ship components I'm building sometimes!

[skoormit]

On the Movement Orders tab of the Naval Organization window, the "Delete Template" button and the "Delete" (fleet) button are right next to each other.
This positioning, despite the subsequent confirmation dialog, leads to me occasionally deleting a fleet when I intend to delete a template.

I think mistakes would be less likely if the second button were labeled "Delete Fleet."

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

On the Movement Orders tab of the Naval Organization window, the "Delete Template" button and the "Delete" (fleet) button are right next to each other.
This positioning, despite the subsequent confirmation dialog, leads to me occasionally deleting a fleet when I intend to delete a template.

I think mistakes would be less likely if the second button were labeled "Delete Fleet."

That button is used to delete whatever you have selected - Fleet, Ship, Squadron, Naval Admin Command, Sub-fleet or Shipping Line. I probably should modify the button label though when you click on different things.

[Kaiser]

I do not remember if it has been suggested, could it be possible to personalize the naval organization tab with different colours?

At some point, when there are many ships, fleets, sufleets and command, it became a little messy and my eyes fly around before I can individuate the ship/fleet I am looking for.

It would be great having the possibility to assign a given color to a specific fleet or ship.

[skoormit]

QOL Suggestion:

Naval Organization window, Fleet -> Movement Orders tab
Double clicking any order in the list of the fleet's current orders should remove all orders after that one (perhaps with a confirmation prompt).


Sometimes I need to trim a long list of orders back to a specific point.
Repeatedly clicking the Remove Last button is the only way to do it currently.
Sometimes that's a LOT of clicks, and sometimes a user overclicks and then has to re-create the unintentionally removed orders.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Request for a new fleet order: Begin Overhaul and Join Fleet

I often give ships orders to return to a planet and begin overhaul, and as soon as they arrive and I receive the interrupt event, I manually drag them to a holding fleet.
It would be great if I could do this with a single order and avoid all the extra interrupts and manual fiddling.

Added for v2.6.

[nuclearslurpee]

QOL Suggestion:

Naval Organization window, Fleet -> Movement Orders tab
Double clicking any order in the list of the fleet's current orders should remove all orders after that one (perhaps with a confirmation prompt).


Sometimes I need to trim a long list of orders back to a specific point.
Repeatedly clicking the Remove Last button is the only way to do it currently.
Sometimes that's a LOT of clicks, and sometimes a user overclicks and then has to re-create the unintentionally removed orders.

Seconded as I actually run into this issue often when I repeat a set of orders many times and find I miscounted or the conditions changed.

[Kristover]

If at all possible I would like the ability to move minerals with civilian ships in the same manner that we can move installations I.e. set an amount for pickup/delivery.  Mass drivers are great for intra-system mineral transport but it becomes tedious to transport minerals between systems - you have to rely on your own vessels for that.  I think it is logical and consistent to give civilians the ability to transport minerals and it would alleviate some of the current micromanaging for larger empires.  I would still build freighters for initial colonization and for restricted systems where I don’t want the civilians to go.

[nuclearslurpee]

If at all possible I would like the ability to move minerals with civilian ships in the same manner that we can move installations I.e. set an amount for pickup/delivery.  Mass drivers are great for intra-system mineral transport but it becomes tedious to transport minerals between systems - you have to rely on your own vessels for that.  I think it is logical and consistent to give civilians the ability to transport minerals and it would alleviate some of the current micromanaging for larger empires.  I would still build freighters for initial colonization and for restricted systems where I don’t want the civilians to go.

I think the last time this came up, the issue raised was how to configure the civilian AI so that the freighters aren't constantly running off to random rocks to pick up 25 tons of vendarite when you'd prefer them to ship 12,000 tons of gallicite from some important colony instead. One suggestion I made at the time was to give civilians a dedicated class of mineral haulers which are just small shuttles (say 5,000 tons capacity) instead of big hulking freighters, however this conflicts with the general trend to use larger ship types to reduce pathfinding/detection slowdown.

With the new colonist transport code, maybe something similar could be added for mineral shipping to resolve this, e.g., the payout for a mineral shipment is scaled by the fraction of the ship's hold that is filled, so civilians will only prefer to pick up minerals if there's enough of them to make a real profit.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Something that I really have wanted in the game for a very long time is the possibility to say double click on a system in the galactic map which then open the system map with that system.

I really want to use the Galaxy Map to orient myself around the world and not have to remember the name of all the systems and selecting them from the drop down list. This really would be a huge improvement in quality of life for me and likely for other people as well.

Currently double clicking on the system opens up the system view. Either make it so the System View open and the System map opens the system as well or add a button in the System view to focus the System Map on the selected system.

Likewise on the "Naval Organization" menu there is a "Select on Map" toggle switch... the issue I have with this is that it is not saved. Please make this toggle stick when I select it.

The best solution would likely be to add the same toggle to the "System View" menu as you have in the "Naval Organization" menu and make them stick when selected so it is automatically selected if you close the window if you selected it previously.

Both of these things would be a huge improvement for the navigation between windows for me.

[skoormit]

...Either make it so the System View open and the System map opens the system as well or add a button in the System view to focus the System Map on the selected system.

Or perhaps make it so that ctrl-click (or ctrl-doubleclick) focuses the System Map rather than opening the System view.