Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[Ush213]

The recent (amazing) changes to the conditional order page and the templates option makes me want to chance my arm again with this one.,
so reposting again (fingers crossed) haha


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


Creating a template would be done the same way as move order templates are done, only in the civ/flag window. You add in a number of actions and then create and name the template.

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 player made templates and then create colony.

Eg. with example templates
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)


The game would remember the last drop down selected in the system window 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.

[nuclearslurpee]

Suggestion: Change Flag Bridge components to function as radius-zero (i.e., system-only) Naval Admin Commands, here called Flag Bridge Commands.

I have briefly mentioned this suggestion a few times in various places, but I think it is high time that I formalized it and posted it in this thread where Steve may actually see it. 

Rationale: Flag Bridge components are currently of minimal use, at best. On one hand, the current bonus (+Reaction) is probably the weakest currently in the game and frankly scales rather poorly as it is effective for fleets with low training but useless for fleets with high training. On the other hand, the restriction to only a single fleet is arbitrary (i.e., this introduces a salient gameplay difference between two identical forces based on how they are organized into fleets with no additional or counterbalancing factors) and does not work well with numerous common play patterns such as carrier fleets, survey carriers, or even just regular fleet detachments.

Frankly, it is very silly that an admiral who detaches some fleet elements to execute a tactical maneuver immediately stops giving a bonus to those detachments.

Suggested Implementation: A Flag Bridge component should function as a radius-zero Naval Admin Command, with the following rules and restrictions:

• A Flag Bridge Command is incorporated into the existing Naval Admin Command hierarchy under an existing command.
• A Flag Bridge Command may not have subordinate Naval Admin Commands (a possible exception could be made for other Flag Bridge Commands, at Steve's discretion).
• A Flag Bridge Command has a fixed system radius of zero which cannot be extended by, e.g., stacking Flag Bridges in a single ship or fleet. This means that the effect of a Flag Bridge Command is local to the system its fleet is in only. Within that system, it gives bonuses as a normal Naval Admin Command (including the ability to select the bonus type in the Naval Admin Command interface as usual).
• Fleets may be placed under the Flag Bridge Command to receive its command bonuses as long as they remain in the same system as the Flag Bridge ship/fleet.
• The fleet containing the ship which hosts the Flag Bridge is always subordinate to the Flag Bridge Command.
• A ship or fleet containing multiple Flag Bridges will have only one Flag Bridge Command associated with it, at most.

It would be up to Steve whether a Flag Bridge Command is automatically created for a ship or fleet with a Flag Bridge component or manually created by the player. I suspect the latter will make for a better user experience.

Benefits: In addition to addressing the deficiencies listed above, the Flag bridge Command offers significant new gameplay and roleplay flexibility:

• The ability to choose the skills benefiting from the flag officer through selecting the admin command type allows new command types. For example, a survey carrier may include a Flag Bridge component to provide survey bonuses to its detached parasites.
• This allows unusual arrangements, such as deploying an escort or patrol force to a system with substantial logistics elements and assigning the Flag Bridge Command associated with that escort force as a Logistics command, modeling a naval officer overseeing naval logistics in that system from the safety of an armed flagship.
• This allows Flag Bridges to function as useful command elements without the substantial overhead of establishing a Naval Headquarters installation on some system body just to extend the command range. Frankly, having to shift 10 freighters around just to allow an admiral to command from near the front is silly.
• Functioning as an admin command allows the player to select the rank of the flag officer, allowing higher-ranked admirals to lead from the front if they so desire.

I note for completeness that, yes, most of what I ask for is at least technically possible already so long as the player is willing to shift 10 freighter-loads of Naval headquarters around with their fleet. However, this is (1) silly, (2) expensive, and (3) impractical particularly if one is trying to do this in several distant systems or regions at once. The other option, of course, is to just spam Naval HQs at Earth to expand the command range to something ludicrous, but this is lame for roleplay---if I cannot drive closer so my admirals may hit them with their swords then what is the purpose of playing Aurora, after all? 

[Ghostly]

Suggestion: Change Flag Bridge components to function as radius-zero (i.e., system-only) Naval Admin Commands, here called Flag Bridge Commands.

I have briefly mentioned this suggestion a few times in various places, but I think it is high time that I formalized it and posted it in this thread where Steve may actually see it. 

Rationale: Flag Bridge components are currently of minimal use, at best. On one hand, the current bonus (+Reaction) is probably the weakest currently in the game and frankly scales rather poorly as it is effective for fleets with low training but useless for fleets with high training. On the other hand, the restriction to only a single fleet is arbitrary (i.e., this introduces a salient gameplay difference between two identical forces based on how they are organized into fleets with no additional or counterbalancing factors) and does not work well with numerous common play patterns such as carrier fleets, survey carriers, or even just regular fleet detachments.

Frankly, it is very silly that an admiral who detaches some fleet elements to execute a tactical maneuver immediately stops giving a bonus to those detachments.

Suggested Implementation: A Flag Bridge component should function as a radius-zero Naval Admin Command, with the following rules and restrictions:

• A Flag Bridge Command is incorporated into the existing Naval Admin Command hierarchy under an existing command.
• A Flag Bridge Command may not have subordinate Naval Admin Commands (a possible exception could be made for other Flag Bridge Commands, at Steve's discretion).
• A Flag Bridge Command has a fixed system radius of zero which cannot be extended by, e.g., stacking Flag Bridges in a single ship or fleet. This means that the effect of a Flag Bridge Command is local to the system its fleet is in only. Within that system, it gives bonuses as a normal Naval Admin Command (including the ability to select the bonus type in the Naval Admin Command interface as usual).
• Fleets may be placed under the Flag Bridge Command to receive its command bonuses as long as they remain in the same system as the Flag Bridge ship/fleet.
• The fleet containing the ship which hosts the Flag Bridge is always subordinate to the Flag Bridge Command.
• A ship or fleet containing multiple Flag Bridges will have only one Flag Bridge Command associated with it, at most.

It would be up to Steve whether a Flag Bridge Command is automatically created for a ship or fleet with a Flag Bridge component or manually created by the player. I suspect the latter will make for a better user experience.

Benefits: In addition to addressing the deficiencies listed above, the Flag bridge Command offers significant new gameplay and roleplay flexibility:

• The ability to choose the skills benefiting from the flag officer through selecting the admin command type allows new command types. For example, a survey carrier may include a Flag Bridge component to provide survey bonuses to its detached parasites.
• This allows unusual arrangements, such as deploying an escort or patrol force to a system with substantial logistics elements and assigning the Flag Bridge Command associated with that escort force as a Logistics command, modeling a naval officer overseeing naval logistics in that system from the safety of an armed flagship.
• This allows Flag Bridges to function as useful command elements without the substantial overhead of establishing a Naval Headquarters installation on some system body just to extend the command range. Frankly, having to shift 10 freighters around just to allow an admiral to command from near the front is silly.
• Functioning as an admin command allows the player to select the rank of the flag officer, allowing higher-ranked admirals to lead from the front if they so desire.

I note for completeness that, yes, most of what I ask for is at least technically possible already so long as the player is willing to shift 10 freighter-loads of Naval headquarters around with their fleet. However, this is (1) silly, (2) expensive, and (3) impractical particularly if one is trying to do this in several distant systems or regions at once. The other option, of course, is to just spam Naval HQs at Earth to expand the command range to something ludicrous, but this is lame for roleplay---if I cannot drive closer so my admirals may hit them with their swords then what is the purpose of playing Aurora, after all? 

Flag Bridge NACs would be awesome! But I can't help but mention that there's a single class of ship that could benefit from Flag Bridges as currently implemented, and that's beam fighters. More on this here, but in short, they're the only case where Reaction bonus can make or break a fight, and also the only case where it's untenable to put an appropriate officer on every combat ship. So I truly hope they'll get something resembling small flag bridges for them while actual flag bridges get admin commands.

[nuclearslurpee]

Suggestion: Change Flag Bridge components to function as radius-zero (i.e., system-only) Naval Admin Commands, here called Flag Bridge Commands.

[...]

Flag Bridge NACs would be awesome! But I can't help but mention that there's a single class of ship that could benefit from Flag Bridges as currently implemented, and that's beam fighters. More on this here, but in short, they're the only case where Reaction bonus can make or break a fight, and also the only case where it's untenable to put an appropriate officer on every combat ship. So I truly hope they'll get something resembling small flag bridges for them while actual flag bridges get admin commands.

Flag Bridge Commands with either NAV or PTL admin command types would provide Reaction bonuses, so my suggestion also addresses this need without any added complexity. 

It is also not terribly difficult to stack Reaction bonuses with layered admin commands, which is one of several reasons I consider it the weakest bonus in the game. Of course, any bonus can be stacked with equal ease, but most other bonuses continue to pay off reasonably well when stacked, and Reaction is the only one which becomes drastically less useful the better your crew/fleet training levels get (well, and Crew Training, but that's a rather different case).

[Ghostly]

Flag Bridge Commands with either NAV or PTL admin command types would provide Reaction bonuses, so my suggestion also addresses this need without any added complexity. 

It is also not terribly difficult to stack Reaction bonuses with layered admin commands, which is one of several reasons I consider it the weakest bonus in the game. Of course, any bonus can be stacked with equal ease, but most other bonuses continue to pay off reasonably well when stacked, and Reaction is the only one which becomes drastically less useful the better your crew/fleet training levels get (well, and Crew Training, but that's a rather different case).

You have to remember that NAV and PTL confer a mere 25% of the commander's Reaction bonus. Which is to say, any NPR ship or fleet with an average commander Reaction bonus of 15% or above will still be impossible for Flag Bridge NAC-commanded fighters to catch up with no matter how good the Flag Bridge NAC commander's Reaction is, unless:

• The Flag Bridge Command itself is in range of colony-based NACs. Since it would itself have a range of 0, this is no different from the current situation, with fighters not being fully capable in offensive wars.
  
  
• Flag Bridge NACs can stack. I'm personally opposed to this because this provides too great an advantage to the player anywhere at any time, nullifying the concept of home terrain advantage.
  
  
• One overbuilds his Military Academies enough to provide each of his hundreds if not thousands of fighters with an adequately skilled officer. I'm not sure current Auto-Assignment rules even consider Reaction for fighters.
  
  
• A fighter-sized Flag Bridge or a separate option allowing the assignment of a Squadron Leader sharing his Reaction (and potentially Fighter Combat, which is another currently underused bonus) with the rest of his fighter wing, which is what I'm suggesting
  

Since NPRs are also getting fighters in the next version, the solution would have to work for them too, and I can't reasonably expect the AI to utilize any of the former three, while the latter could be handled through operational groups. I originally also suggested an alternative to dedicated modules, with the Reaction and Fighter Combat boni being added to the Primary Flight Control module of the Carrier and benefitting any squadron assigned to it, so that's something to consider if added complexity is to be avoided.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Suggestion: Change Flag Bridge components to function as radius-zero (i.e., system-only) Naval Admin Commands, here called Flag Bridge Commands.

I have briefly mentioned this suggestion a few times in various places, but I think it is high time that I formalized it and posted it in this thread where Steve may actually see it. 

Rationale: Flag Bridge components are currently of minimal use, at best. On one hand, the current bonus (+Reaction) is probably the weakest currently in the game and frankly scales rather poorly as it is effective for fleets with low training but useless for fleets with high training. On the other hand, the restriction to only a single fleet is arbitrary (i.e., this introduces a salient gameplay difference between two identical forces based on how they are organized into fleets with no additional or counterbalancing factors) and does not work well with numerous common play patterns such as carrier fleets, survey carriers, or even just regular fleet detachments.

Frankly, it is very silly that an admiral who detaches some fleet elements to execute a tactical maneuver immediately stops giving a bonus to those detachments.

Suggested Implementation: A Flag Bridge component should function as a radius-zero Naval Admin Command, with the following rules and restrictions:

• A Flag Bridge Command is incorporated into the existing Naval Admin Command hierarchy under an existing command.
• A Flag Bridge Command may not have subordinate Naval Admin Commands (a possible exception could be made for other Flag Bridge Commands, at Steve's discretion).
• A Flag Bridge Command has a fixed system radius of zero which cannot be extended by, e.g., stacking Flag Bridges in a single ship or fleet. This means that the effect of a Flag Bridge Command is local to the system its fleet is in only. Within that system, it gives bonuses as a normal Naval Admin Command (including the ability to select the bonus type in the Naval Admin Command interface as usual).
• Fleets may be placed under the Flag Bridge Command to receive its command bonuses as long as they remain in the same system as the Flag Bridge ship/fleet.
• The fleet containing the ship which hosts the Flag Bridge is always subordinate to the Flag Bridge Command.
• A ship or fleet containing multiple Flag Bridges will have only one Flag Bridge Command associated with it, at most.

It would be up to Steve whether a Flag Bridge Command is automatically created for a ship or fleet with a Flag Bridge component or manually created by the player. I suspect the latter will make for a better user experience.

Benefits: In addition to addressing the deficiencies listed above, the Flag bridge Command offers significant new gameplay and roleplay flexibility:

• The ability to choose the skills benefiting from the flag officer through selecting the admin command type allows new command types. For example, a survey carrier may include a Flag Bridge component to provide survey bonuses to its detached parasites.
• This allows unusual arrangements, such as deploying an escort or patrol force to a system with substantial logistics elements and assigning the Flag Bridge Command associated with that escort force as a Logistics command, modeling a naval officer overseeing naval logistics in that system from the safety of an armed flagship.
• This allows Flag Bridges to function as useful command elements without the substantial overhead of establishing a Naval Headquarters installation on some system body just to extend the command range. Frankly, having to shift 10 freighters around just to allow an admiral to command from near the front is silly.
• Functioning as an admin command allows the player to select the rank of the flag officer, allowing higher-ranked admirals to lead from the front if they so desire.

I note for completeness that, yes, most of what I ask for is at least technically possible already so long as the player is willing to shift 10 freighter-loads of Naval headquarters around with their fleet. However, this is (1) silly, (2) expensive, and (3) impractical particularly if one is trying to do this in several distant systems or regions at once. The other option, of course, is to just spam Naval HQs at Earth to expand the command range to something ludicrous, but this is lame for roleplay---if I cannot drive closer so my admirals may hit them with their swords then what is the purpose of playing Aurora, after all? 

I assume this is intended for deployments beyond the range of the normal admin command network, otherwise there is no benefit from putting the admin command on the flag bridge.

If I was to do this, I think I would go for a simpler implementation than having special 'Flag Bridge Commands', because of the complexities around ships being destroyed and changing fleets. I would make the following changes:

• A Naval Admin Command without subordinate commands can be assigned to a ship with a flag bridge, rather than a population
• While assigned to a ship, the NAC will have zero radius (i.e. same system only).
• While assigned to a ship, no subordinate commands can be added.
• The assigned commander of any admin commands assigned to a ship will be deemed to be present on the flag bridge and can therefore be killed in action, or placed in a lifepod.

Those changes means I can keep all of the existing code and functions and don't have to account for a new special type. I only need to modify a few areas of code, with minor UI updates.

• Allowing the assignment to a ship.
• Modifying the various checks for a Naval Admin Command location in code (so it checks ship as well as pop).
• Modifying the assignment of naval command benefits at the start of an increment
• Modifying the damage resolution code.

EDIT: I starting messing around with it and ending up adding it

A little more messy than I thought, mainly because there are a lot of references to the population object associated with a Naval Admin Command and until now that couldn't be null. I did my usual brute-force approach of changing the name of the object and then working through every affected location

The changes post is here:
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.msg173456#msg173456

[nuclearslurpee]

I assume this is intended for deployments beyond the range of the normal admin command network, otherwise there is no benefit from putting the admin command on the flag bridge.

If I'm honest, it is mainly for roleplay - even if putting the NAC on Earth is arguably a better decision, it's more fun when the admiral "commanding" my fleet can actually be present with the fleet, but the existing Flag Bridge component really was lame.

Either way, the change looks great and it is certainly useful for distant operations (I was motivated to finally make my post in large part by dreams of survey carriers using the new standing orders). 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I assume this is intended for deployments beyond the range of the normal admin command network, otherwise there is no benefit from putting the admin command on the flag bridge.

If I'm honest, it is mainly for roleplay - even if putting the NAC on Earth is arguably a better decision, it's more fun when the admiral "commanding" my fleet can actually be present with the fleet, but the existing Flag Bridge component really was lame.

Either way, the change looks great and it is certainly useful for distant operations (I was motivated to finally make my post in large part by dreams of survey carriers using the new standing orders). 

Yes, I think this is much better from a mechanics and role-play perspective. It fits in better with the overall command structure and removes the 'special case' for flag bridges. It also allows for more meaningful 'Fleet Commands'.

[Louella]

Does this mean that you could build e.g. a Terraforming Project Command Ship (or station), and put an admin command on it, to represent the overall chief of a terraforming project ? Cool.

[nuclearslurpee]

Does this mean that you could build e.g. a Terraforming Project Command Ship (or station), and put an admin command on it, to represent the overall chief of a terraforming project ? Cool.

Yes but I believe it would be a military ship so you would have to provide maintenance somehow.

[Droll]

Does this mean that you could build e.g. a Terraforming Project Command Ship (or station), and put an admin command on it, to represent the overall chief of a terraforming project ? Cool.

Yes but I believe it would be a military ship so you would have to provide maintenance somehow.

You could probably get around that by adding a commercial spec flag bridge.

You could also have it so that such a bridge only ever allows commercial skills to be conveyed, so stuff like reaction and tactical bonuses wouldn't go through (though Steve would have to add it for this second point).

[Geeptoon]

I would love templates for setting mineral reserves on colonies.  Or some way to set reserve levels for colonies fasters than the current method.

[alex_brunius]

I would love templates for setting mineral reserves on colonies.  Or some way to set reserve levels for colonies fasters than the current method.

Maybe a one click button to keep 5 or 10 years of "current" mineral consumption as reserve?
Although that would require the mineral consumption to show correct amounts per year first too I guess.

[skoormit]

A very small QoL suggestion:

When the "SM Part Refuel" button (on the Miscellaneous tab of Ship Overview) is clicked, pre-populate the input box with the ship's current fuel amount.

This would make adding/removing specific amounts of fuel much easier.

[paolot]

Player (and NPRs) should be able to shoot ordnance towards (or around) planets, moons, asteroids and comets, to survey points and to JPs, as all these ones are intrinsically waypoints, imho.
In my current game, I would like to have sensor probes in orbit around some planets, to monitor alien colonies. A waypoint, set near a planet, remains fixed in space: it doesn't move with the planet, so I cannot have the desired information.
The mechanics of a probe in orbit around a body could be similar to the one of a ship, so programming it should not be too complicated.
A JP is a point that not moves in space, so why should we set a waypoint near to it?