Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Is the ship jump-capable? if it isn't, at least one of the jump points in the system is it stabilised?
If your ship can't leave the system, you get that message.

Ship is jump capable.

Could you double check if survey next three bodies or locations standing order causes your ships to change system on their own if there is nothing to survey?
I need a move to a system requiring xxx secondary order to make that happen.

I'm attaching a screenshot of my setup.

Hi.
I've assigned the order "Survey Next Three Bodies or Locations" to all the survey ships. It works: ships move to unsurveied sites.
In particular, I had geo and grav ships stucked in a system: no jump-able, no jump gates.
When the first JG has build, they moved to systems around.
BUT, after the order, a couple of grav ships started to try to perform geo survey (images atteched), even if they don't have geo sensors onboard!!
I report this in the bugs thread.

That's not a bug - if you order grav survey ships to do geological surveys, they will try. Just use survey next three survey locations if they only have grav sensors.

[paolot]

Thank you, Steve, of the answer.
So, the order "Survey Next Three Bodies or Locations" has meaning just for ships mounting both the sensors.
As I prefer specialised ships, to avoid additional mass, I think I won't use it (for geo ships, it would be the same of "Survey NNNN Bodies", and for grav ships it has no use).

[skoormit]

I sometimes order a fleet to travel below its max speed, usually for combat reasons.

When I do, I tend to forget that I did, and so that fleet might remain slowed for a long time, even well after the corresponding situation has resolved, until I happen to notice it again.

Would it be possible to implement some way of calling out that a particular fleet has been slowed?

Perhaps some combination of the following:

Different color fleet name/info on the map.
Different color fleet name in the fleet list (left side of Naval Org window).
For either of the above, instead of or in addition to a different color, enclose the fleet name in triple square brackets or something else likely to stand out.
An additional item in the dropdown on the Logistics Report tab ("Slowed Fleets").

[nakorkren]

Would it be possible to add a fleet order to "Transfer survivors", "Transfer captives", "Transfer passengers", "Transfer colonists", or something to that effect? My main use case is moving captives I've rescued from life pods from my battle fleet to a prison ship, but I can also see this being useful for moving your own rescued sailors (essentially same use case) or cross-loading colonists (more of an edge use case).

[Jovus]

It'd be neat if, when not using Known Stars, the chosen system names from our system naming themes were random rather than straight down the list. That way we don't end up with a galaxy full of ABC and not see the later entries.

[skoormit]

Simple suggestion regarding tactics of a particular spoiler.
Please use spoiler tags when replying.

The Raider's scout/survey ship (~9.8kt, 90% cloaked, ~5400km/s) seems to always pursue the closest target.
This makes it possible to endlessly kite the scout with a faster ship.
Even with early tech, faster ships can be built very cheaply and deployed to all systems.
Then, when a Raider scout arrives, it can be kited endlessly until a fleet can be brought in with sufficient firepower to destroy the scout.
This greatly diminishes the threat the Raider scouts present.
Is it reasonable to modify the Raider scout's tactics so that it does not pursue any ship that can match or exceed its own speed?

[skoormit]

On the main map, fleets that contain a ship currently undergoing overhaul have "[OV]" appended to the fleet name.

Could we have "" appended for fleets containing a ship currently undergoing a shipyard task?

[Alsadius]

Simple suggestion regarding tactics of a particular spoiler.
Please use spoiler tags when replying.

The Raider's scout/survey ship (~9.8kt, 90% cloaked, ~5400km/s) seems to always pursue the closest target.
This makes it possible to endlessly kite the scout with a faster ship.
Even with early tech, faster ships can be built very cheaply and deployed to all systems.
Then, when a Raider scout arrives, it can be kited endlessly until a fleet can be brought in with sufficient firepower to destroy the scout.
This greatly diminishes the threat the Raider scouts present.
Is it reasonable to modify the Raider scout's tactics so that it does not pursue any ship that can match or exceed its own speed?

That feels like "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" to me. If you know this game well enough to abuse the AI, and decide to build a dedicated class of AI-abuser ships in advance, then you know that the game's not actually about the challenge of beating AI opponents in a fair fight. It's always going to have holes like that, because it's not like Steve has a team of full-time AI coders in his back pocket (and for that matter, even a lot of AAA games have holes like that, despite them actually literally having full-time AI coders).

If he can come up with a quick, simple, and effective fix, then sure, that's great. But I doubt it's anywhere near that easy.

[skoormit]

For event log messages regarding ships with low fuel, could we have the fleet name included in the message?
Perhaps in parentheses after the ship name?

"Ship X (fleet Y) has only P percent of its maximum fuel (N litres)."

[skoormit]

That feels like "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" to me. If you know this game well enough to abuse the AI, and decide to build a dedicated class of AI-abuser ships in advance, then you know that the game's not actually about the challenge of beating AI opponents in a fair fight. It's always going to have holes like that, because it's not like Steve has a team of full-time AI coders in his back pocket (and for that matter, even a lot of AAA games have holes like that, despite them actually literally having full-time AI coders).

If he can come up with a quick, simple, and effective fix, then sure, that's great. But I doubt it's anywhere near that easy.

I think Steve can determine if the juice is worth the squeeze, or even if this is the juice he's after, without you harshing on my mellow.

How about you play the game your way, I'll play it my way, and we won't take anyone to task in a suggestions thread for having badwrongfun?
That way we both enjoy the game how we like, toss ideas out to Steve as we have them, and no negative responses will discourage other players from submitting suggestions.
After all, the more players contributing their voices in this space, the better for the game, and the more fun we all get to have, regardless of differences in play style.

[Alsadius]

I think Steve can determine if the juice is worth the squeeze, or even if this is the juice he's after, without you harshing on my mellow.

How about you play the game your way, I'll play it my way, and we won't take anyone to task in a suggestions thread for having badwrongfun?
That way we both enjoy the game how we like, toss ideas out to Steve as we have them, and no negative responses will discourage other players from submitting suggestions.
After all, the more players contributing their voices in this space, the better for the game, and the more fun we all get to have, regardless of differences in play style.

Sorry if it came across as "taking you to task". The phrasing was probably harsher than it ought to have been (in particular, I'm on a couple forums where "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is basically a running joke, so it doesn't scan as very harsh to me, but tbh I need to keep in mind that most people will read it as a fairly harsh statement). I mostly just wanted to say that I disagreed with the idea, and offer an explanation of why.

I'll try to be a bit more careful with phrasing in future.

[SpaceMarine]

I think that Alsadius's original comment is valid, the games AI is abusable like any AI and in Aurora its a game that is as much a challenge as you make it really. In terms of being combative towards each other, guys no one is intending to say your playstyle is wrong (atleast from what I saw), It came off to me that Alsadius was implying that if you play in a certain way then you deal will such things (that the original question raised) and that you will likely continue to do so, now you can disagree with that but generally speaking people are good intentioned on the forum so we do not need to be defensive so immediately.

Also on people not wanting to submit advice because of "negativity", just like someone cannot tell you how to have fun, you cannot just claim that how someone responds to a single question will effect an entire group of people you do not know negatively, because your basically saying that its that persons fault for something that they are not in control of, because of the feelings of others.

[Jovus]

After a certain point tectonics should have an effect on colony cost.

A good example: I have a 2.00 colony cost Terrestrial planet with "Plastic" tectonics. Shouldn't it be a little harder than normal, requiring hardened (namely, more) infrastructure to keep people alive if the ground is so unsettled?

This particular case is interesting because it's around an F9-V star and is cold enough to have liquid water (it's actually base -60 surface temp), implying those tectonics are driven by cryovulcanism, gravitational easing, or something else other than heat.

[nuclearslurpee]

I always considered infraatructure to be life support equipment, not necessarily hardened buildings. Things like oxygen pumps, heating, etc.

Reinforced construction is something we already do with conventional materials, and there's plenty of places in the game where conventional materials are implied but not visible. A CC=0 planet doesn't require infrastructure, but the materials for all the houses and such down there must have come from somewhere...

[Alsadius]

Good idea from Discord - when ground units drop into combat, what if AA units could take a potshot at them? AA is pretty weak right now, since the AI doesn't use fighters for ground attack, and we already have the precedent of AA getting a second shot each round. Might be a nice buff, especially for player use.

For mechanics, I'm thinking something like a 100% chance to hit, normal HP/armour mechanics, with each AA getting one shot per 8-hour ground combat cycle (in addition to their ground combat shot and their anti-fighter shot). But that's just for illustration - obviously, see what the playtesting looks like.