4.7 (latest) SUGGESTIONS

[boggo2300]

Steve,

Something thats come up from my current exploration doctrine, could we have an order (on the tg orders screen) to launch parasites? and the ability to give an order to a ship thats gone through an unex wp, if you just give the other end of the wp as a location in the new system before entance, I could give deployment orders to my fleet.

Matt

[lastverb]

there should be MAX jump points setting on starting game. ive surveyed 10 systems in new game and 2 of them have 10+ jump points !!! 13 is the max i found and its freaking hard to place it good looking on map. i know that dormant jps would be a problem - just dont count them in (max is just checked when system is being created)

[Kurt]

Steve

Would it be possible to update an NPR race name once communications are established? It seem strange that you can talk to them but still know them on the intelligence screen as Ross 128 aliens for example.

Alan

Race name, and maybe some details, like government, and whether they like your race with rice or a la carte?

Kurt

[sloanjh]

Steve

Would it be possible to update an NPR race name once communications are established? It seem strange that you can talk to them but still know them on the intelligence screen as Ross 128 aliens for example.

Alan

Race name, and maybe some details, like government, and whether they like your race with rice or a la carte?

Kurt

Hmmmm - maybe one of the civilian trade goods should be toothpicks....

John

[Brian Neumann]

Steve, a number of weapons use power in increments that do not match the capaciter types available.  For instance the torpedo weapons tend to go up by one point and the capaciter is going up by 2 points (from 5 to 6 to 7 power)  Meanwhile Capaciters are fixed at size of 6 or 8.  This ends up requiring more power for a weapon.  While not a problem when there is only a couple of them on a ship, I recently made a battleship with twenty torpedo's  This ended up requiring 20 more power than it should have.  

Could you make the capaciter size for weapons in the design screen be any number between .1 to 1 (for reduced size lasers) and then 1-25, with the high end being capped by the currently available capaciter tech.  It has been an ongoing irritant for a while, I just never got around to posting it.

Brian

(P.S.)  I just noticed that the different names for the torpedo's are not being replicated on the name of the designed tech.  If you use the default setting, they are all particle torpedo(?)  with the number indicating the generation.  I liked the way it was before with the different names for the different size torpedo's.  

Thanks for all of your hard work.  Merry Christmass, and don't let the crash get you down,  you seem to put in lots of comments on your code, so it shouldn't be as hard as it could be.

Brian

[Kurt]

Steve, a number of weapons use power in increments that do not match the capaciter types available.  For instance the torpedo weapons tend to go up by one point and the capaciter is going up by 2 points (from 5 to 6 to 7 power)  Meanwhile Capaciters are fixed at size of 6 or 8.  This ends up requiring more power for a weapon.  While not a problem when there is only a couple of them on a ship, I recently made a battleship with twenty torpedo's  This ended up requiring 20 more power than it should have.  

Could you make the capaciter size for weapons in the design screen be any number between .1 to 1 (for reduced size lasers) and then 1-25, with the high end being capped by the currently available capaciter tech.  It has been an ongoing irritant for a while, I just never got around to posting it.

Brian

(P.S.)  I just noticed that the different names for the torpedo's are not being replicated on the name of the designed tech.  If you use the default setting, they are all particle torpedo(?)  with the number indicating the generation.  I liked the way it was before with the different names for the different size torpedo's.  

Thanks for all of your hard work.  Merry Christmass, and don't let the crash get you down,  you seem to put in lots of comments on your code, so it shouldn't be as hard as it could be.

Brian

Steve -  

This is on kind of a related note, hence the quote above.  I have noticed that quite often I can't get my generators to generate the amount of power I need because of the granularity in the system.  Often they end up with an odd generated amount compared to demand, and I end up having to install an extra generator that I only need one or two points from.  

This is a minor annoyance at worst, but in reading the above message I realized that this could be solved the same way you solved earlier missile design issues.  Instead of having the player input the generator size and have Aurora determine the amount of power to be generated from that, why don't you turn it around and have the player specify the amount of power he wants, and Aurora then determines the resulting size of the generator based on the technology being used.  

It sounds like an easy change to make to me, but then, a lot of the ones that end up requiring major changes to the programming did too, so you'll have to be the judge of that <G>.

Kurt

PS: I just saw the torpedo issue mentioned above myself.

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve, a number of weapons use power in increments that do not match the capaciter types available.  For instance the torpedo weapons tend to go up by one point and the capaciter is going up by 2 points (from 5 to 6 to 7 power)  Meanwhile Capaciters are fixed at size of 6 or 8.  This ends up requiring more power for a weapon.  While not a problem when there is only a couple of them on a ship, I recently made a battleship with twenty torpedo's  This ended up requiring 20 more power than it should have.  

Could you make the capaciter size for weapons in the design screen be any number between .1 to 1 (for reduced size lasers) and then 1-25, with the high end being capped by the currently available capaciter tech.  It has been an ongoing irritant for a while, I just never got around to posting it.

I am planning to completely revise the design window at some point so I will include this change. I am also wondering whether to build reactors directly into beam weapons so they generate power for that weapon and you don't have to build separate reactors. This would solve two problems. Firstly, reactors seem to present a problem for new players who have no way of knowing how much power they need. Secondly, if you have exactly the right numbers of reactors for your beam weapons then losing one can increase the arming time for all your weapons. While this might be realistic in one sense, in reality you would probably choose to arm one weapon more slowly rather than all of them and that is too much micromanagement for Aurora. I could also fix the capacitor issue above in the same beam weapon redesign.

(P.S.)  I just noticed that the different names for the torpedo's are not being replicated on the name of the designed tech.  If you use the default setting, they are all particle torpedo(?)  with the number indicating the generation.  I liked the way it was before with the different names for the different size torpedo's.  

I am planning to introduce a couple of new torpedo types in a future version so I am clearing the decks by renaming the existing torpedoes to Particle. The database is already updated for the Particle Torpedo names and I had forgotten the code would use the new name before v4.8

Thanks for all of your hard work.  Merry Christmass, and don't let the crash get you down,  you seem to put in lots of comments on your code, so it shouldn't be as hard as it could be.

It's remembering what I changed in the DB that is the issue. I keep encountering errors and then realise there is something else I forgot about . It should work itself out eventually though.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

This is on kind of a related note, hence the quote above.  I have noticed that quite often I can't get my generators to generate the amount of power I need because of the granularity in the system.  Often they end up with an odd generated amount compared to demand, and I end up having to install an extra generator that I only need one or two points from.  

This is a minor annoyance at worst, but in reading the above message I realized that this could be solved the same way you solved earlier missile design issues.  Instead of having the player input the generator size and have Aurora determine the amount of power to be generated from that, why don't you turn it around and have the player specify the amount of power he wants, and Aurora then determines the resulting size of the generator based on the technology being used.  

It sounds like an easy change to make to me, but then, a lot of the ones that end up requiring major changes to the programming did too, so you'll have to be the judge of that <G>.

I answered the previous post before reading this one

The change to beam weapon design I am considering would fix this issue completely as the program would build exactly the right size reactor directly into the beam weapon.

Steve

[Andrew]

A marker for wrecks would be really useful particularly because salvage ships if they are commercial designs do not carry active sensors and so cannot find wrecks for themselves. Also it turns out solar systems are so big it is really hard to find a wreck from a few years ago as all the planets move

[Brian Neumann]

A marker for wrecks would be really useful particularly because salvage ships if they are commercial designs do not carry active sensors and so cannot find wrecks for themselves. Also it turns out solar systems are so big it is really hard to find a wreck from a few years ago as all the planets move

Actually civilian designes can have active and passive sensors.  The limit is one hull space per installation.  For a salvage ship, you are probably not going to be sending them out for small ships, so using a large resolution will actually give you a fairly good search radius.  You are correct however as to the effect of orbital movement.  I seem to recall that this applies to wrecks as well as to the planets.  Having a marker for where the wrecks are that corrects for orbital drift would be excellent.

Brian

[Andrew]

A marker for wrecks would be really useful particularly because salvage ships if they are commercial designs do not carry active sensors and so cannot find wrecks for themselves. Also it turns out solar systems are so big it is really hard to find a wreck from a few years ago as all the planets move

Actually civilian designes can have active and passive sensors.  The limit is one hull space per installation.  For a salvage ship, you are probably not going to be sending them out for small ships, so using a large resolution will actually give you a fairly good search radius.  You are correct however as to the effect of orbital movement.  I seem to recall that this applies to wrecks as well as to the planets.  Having a marker for where the wrecks are that corrects for orbital drift would be excellent.

Brian

I knew about the passive sensors but as I have never bothered with 1hs actives I had not spotted commercial ships could carry them

[waresky (OP)]

I am planning to completely revise the design window at some point so I will include this change. I am also wondering whether to build reactors directly into beam weapons so they generate power for that weapon and you don't have to build separate reactors. This would solve two problems. Firstly, reactors seem to present a problem for new players who have no way of knowing how much power they need. Secondly, if you have exactly the right numbers of reactors for your beam weapons then losing one can increase the arming time for all your weapons. While this might be realistic in one sense, in reality you would probably choose to arm one weapon more slowly rather than all of them and that is too much micromanagement for Aurora. I could also fix the capacitor issue above in the same beam weapon redesign.

Greatest new.

Am hope,Steve,u planning some..NPR's Advance Time revises systems.

When NPR got combat,the slowly advance time..are..srry: very BORING.

i cant know how hard r ur designers work for this situation..but sincerely hope something can be changed.

See ya Steve.

[backstab]

Steve,

When are we going to see 4.8 ?

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve,

When are we going to see 4.8 ?

Not too long I hope. There aren't too many changes, mainly ordnance/fighter factories, drones and something new to fight

I have been concentrating on the tutorial during the last few days though so I haven't done any playtesting yet. I need to run a short campaign just to make sure there are no major issues.

Steve

[backstab]

Steve,

When are we going to see 4.8 ?

Not too long I hope. There aren't too many changes, mainly ordnance/fighter factories, drones and something new to fight

I have been concentrating on the tutorial during the last few days though so I haven't done any playtesting yet. I need to run a short campaign just to make sure there are no major issues.

Steve

No probs ... I can wait, this will give me time to work on my background for the next game (16 Pages of history so far) ....

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