Greetings! Long time player/first time poster here. My current game has been going on since March 2024, and here's the list of things that I've been troubled by the most:
Waypoint-firing with sensor missiles.Currently, the only way (that I'm aware of after extensive testing) to strike a non-active contact target with sensor-equipped missiles is to calculate an intercept manually, place a waypoint there and fire the missiles at it, then use the currently broken
Move Waypoint command to reposition the waypoint after the missiles approach the target ship close enough for their on-board sensors to detect it, but before they reach the waypoint itself. Doing so makes the missiles lose the waypoint as a target and target their ship contacts instead. Any missiles targeting the waypoint but lacking sensor contacts or those that have already reached the waypoint will be stuck in place instead until their endurance expires.
Examples of this behavior:
https://imgur.com/a/xRqgYCnThis tactic is very rewarding (to strike otherwise unreachable targets you need to use suboptimal missiles and calculate intercepts manually as if you were playing Highfleet) but it can only be executed once per game restart due to the broken waypoint movement, and I'm unsure whether the coming 2.6.0 fix will allow it to be used continuously or break it entirely, but either way it feels like it's not working as intended.
Proposed solution: allow sensor-capable missiles to behave in true homing missile fashion by automatically targeting any contact their sensors come across, as long as they were fired at a waypoint (to let them function properly when fired at ships in a conventional fashion), with a possible exception for any system body or JP waypoint (to avoid messing with sensor probes, although an option in missile designer to prevent sensor-based retargeting could solve this more elegantly).
Maintenance facilities at unpopulated worlds.I'm sure this is a bug, but my survey ships would view worlds with ruins where maintenance facilities were unearthed as valid targets for
Refuel, Resupply and Overhaul at Colony conditional order, despite the population and therefore the maintenance capacity of the world being zero, leading to them getting stuck in an eternal overhaul. I assume it was because the order considered theoretical maintenance capacity of the world as if it was at full population.
Proposed solution: either make the order consider actual maintenance capacity of possible maintenance locations, or make
Act as Destination for Automated Refuel checkbox impact maintenance as well.
Moving ships between Admin Commands.A movement order specifying a change in Admin Command was promised in 2017 (
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103849#msg103849) but never added. Ship Construction into Admin Commands is a step in the right direction but it gets increasingly tedious to drag existing fleets between admins the more fleets and admins you have, which is a real problem with a large empire. Therefore I propose adding an order or a menu to quickly change the Admin Command of a fleet.
SJW: As below, you can shift-click to get a second Fleet window, then drag between two windows
Boarding and crew mechanics.A complicated one. Currently, freshly boarded ships don't seem to suffer any morale penalties despite suffering 100% crew losses (there seem to be exceptions, every spoiler ship I've boarded ended up with 100% morale but I've seen
some NPR ships end up with 60% and 75% morale) and are perfectly capable of performing damage control on themselves, as well as performing any combat duties once the overhaul factor wears off despite being unmanned. I understand that a prize crew shouldn't be necessary to get a captured ship to a colony for scrapping or restoration, but the ship in question shouldn't be capable of doing much else.
SJW: This one is not straightforward and would need to fit in with a wider implementation of under-manning, which can happen to ships without being boarded. Having actual prize crews is an option, but then I need to add mechanics and tracking, or detach existing crew, etc.. However, I am not sure it adds any meaningful decisions to the game and would require more micromanagement. The overhaul factor was a way to prevent ships immediately becoming useful mid-battle and to simulate that it would take time to get the ship properly underway, without adding any additional micromanagement.Proposed solution: Make boarded ships correctly calculate their morale (it would make sense for it to be 0). Make morale affect damage control rating. This would still allow unmanned commercial ships to perform normal damage control, and I'm unsure how to solve it (not sure if making crew losses affect damage control is feasible, and making unmanned ships have a strongly negative crew grade bonus would probably mess with military designs).
Additionally, having a
Transfer Crew fleet order (subject to the Maximum Items setting) would allow the use of prize crews to perform damage control on captured ships, as well as reinforcing crews on ships that have sustained losses in deep space (perhaps with an option to add surplus crew to a ship design?). A case could be made that on-board Boarding Combat capable infantry should reduce the crew losses meter by their unit count.
In a similar vein, a
Transfer Survivors order would solve the prolem of survivors being stuck on overcrowded ships, dooming their life supports if no nearby colony is available.
Lastly, adding an order to
Replace Crew at Colony (to bring ship's Grade to the current Training Level) would solve the issue of ships that were launched when no trained crew was available being stuck with negative grade modifiers.
Boarding Swarm ships.Nuff said.
Swarm is easily the most dangerous threat one can encounter and there's but one tactic that can trivialize them entirely while also making their high tech available to the player. I do have a few ideas how to solve this like making all units boarding
Swarm ships deal exclusively collateral damage while getting hit with a CAP/HCAP worth of "acid damage" each turn, but it would also be fine to make boarders die instantly, perhaps once they breach the armor.
SJW: I've removed the option to board swarm ships - this is something I have meant to do for a while, so this triggered me finally sorting it out. http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg171567#msg171567
Load Assigned Ground Templates.I'm not sure what's going on with this order, but I've had it fail constantly, sometimes even loading damaged formations of the target template that were set as "Use for Replacements" while ignoring the intact ones. I assume that the "load ground formations with the same
original template" part seen here
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg162545#msg162545 makes it look at the template the formation was built with and not the one it currently possesses, which means it is liable to ignore perfectly valid formations, especially once they're upgraded after a new racial weapon/armour strength tech is available.
Proposed solution: Change the order to include all formations with matching
current templates and sizes, as well as add a
Load Assigned Ground Templates from Fleet order that ignores size differences to reduce the dreadful micro of recovering boarders from captured ships.
Commander UI shortcuts.Double-clicking on a commander in Fleet UI to view him in the Commanders window is very useful, but some other areas could benefit from this functionality too:
- Double-clicking on a colony/sector governor/academy commandant in Colonies window should open the Commanders window with the administrator selected.
- Double-clicking on an officer in Commanders window should open the Fleet window with the commander's Fleet/Ship selected.
- Double-clicking on an administrator in Commanders window should open the Colonies window with the commander's colony selected (especially useful for managing CMC governors).
- Double-clicking on a ship in Ships in Class menu of the Class Design window should open the Fleet window with the chosen Fleet/Ship selected. SJW: Added this for v2.6
Use of salvaged components.Generic components that were salvaged, excavated or acquired from scrapping alien ships can be used in existing ship designs with no problem, but you can often salvage race-designed components that are equivalent to yours in all but name. Example: I'm currently sitting on a large stockpile of Size 2 Missile Launchers and 25cm V50/C5 Railguns that are functionally completely identical to my race-designed ones but can't be utilized without creating a new class to accommodate them with all the additional micro that this entails.
Proposed solution: add an option to refit components to functionally identical race-designed ones for a 10% cost in minerals, either through a button in GU/Stockpiles menu or through a new build menu in the Industry tab.
Sensor Buoys and NPRsThis might be difficult/controversial, but I find that sensor buyos are exceedingly overpowered as of now, providing a God-mode view of enemy movements. A hostile NPR ship will destroy a sensor buoy located on top of a JP it transits if the buoy is in its weapon range, but will ignore it if it has to alter its route to reach it, even if it's still able to detect it. Deploying the buoy 1.5mkm from a JP means it will never get destroyed and will continue feeding you useful intel forever. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to implement, but if an NPR could make note of detected buoys, mark them with a waypoint and incorporate said waypoints into their already existing routes (or dispatch specially assigned PD ships against buoys in high-value systems), it would greatly reduce the player's advantage in intel and incentivize the use of stealthier passive sensor buoys being deployed in a more strategic fashion. I would go as far as to propose that neutral NPRs should also target sensor buoys in their high-value systems, and incur a diplomatic penalty for the race that deployed them.
SJW: I could resolve this fairly easily by making NPRs become upset about buoys in the same way as ships. However, especially in large multi-race campaigns, it can be interesting for the player to see what is happening in different parts of the galaxy. Certainly for my own campaign, it adds a lot of flavour to the AAR be able to report on other races fighting (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=328.0). If players feel they are overpowered, then its easy enough to implement a house rule not to use them. I have added a point of interest for NPRs though when they detect a buoy.Additionally, to make deploying buoys at various ranges less micro-intensive (it currently requires using the ruler tool and waypoints) I propose that the
Launch Ready Ordnance order be given access to the
Minimum Distance setting. This can be as simple as executing a Launch Ready Ordnance order targeting the ship's current location at the chosen distance from the selected object.
I would be delighted to hear your response, Steve.
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SJW: I'll fill in some other responses when I get time.
