4.7 (latest) SUGGESTIONS

[Beersatron]

Geological Survey message by my own GEs do not interrupt the increment, but Geological Survey messages from NPRs that share their GE reports do interrupt. Can you set it to not interrupt?

[sloanjh]

It would be nice to get feedback when automated turns have been interrupted - some of the messages don't cause interrupts, and it's sometimes hard to tell (without listening to my computer's fan ) whether the turns are still running....

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Here is a request from the old Starfire guy. How about a mobile shipyard for building pdc's owp's, and for forward ship repair.

Maybe a smaller shipyard, like the small jump gate builder

One of the things I wanted to get away from in Aurora was Starfire's amazing mobile shipyards. With no supporting population or industry they can somehow build capital ships in the middle of nowhere

However, you can do some things in Aurora that replicate some of the Starfire abilities. For example, although you can't have "mobile shipyards" in the sense they have their own engines, the shipyards are mobile in the sense that you can move them with a tug. If you create a small colony in a forward area to provide the workforce and you have sufficient minerals, you can tow a shipyard to that planet and use it as a forward base. Also, don't forget your ships can self-repair using damage control. If you provide them with enough maintenance supplies, they can repair just about anything except armour. Repairs require double the maint supplies of preventative maintenance so a ship would need supplies equal to 2x its most expensive system in order to be assured of repairing everything.. Ships in a hangar can use the mothership's maintenance supplies so you could create a ship with a huge hangar and loads of maintenance supplies and use it as a repair bay, bringing ships into the bay to let them repair their own systems. That method gets around the problems suffered by ships with limited maintenance capacities. In fact, I should probably allow ships in hangars to use the mothership's damage control rating so you really could build true repair ships.

EDIT: In v4.8, any ship in a hangar will use the Mothership's damage control rating if it is higher than its own. Ships can already use the Mothership's maintenance supplies in v4.77. As well as allowing carriers to repair their fighters/FACs, this allows the creation of dedicated "Repair Ships" with large hangars, high damage control ratings and lots of maintenance supplies.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Geological Survey message by my own GEs do not interrupt the increment, but Geological Survey messages from NPRs that share their GE reports do interrupt. Can you set it to not interrupt?

Fixed for v4.8

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Is it possible to 'persist' planetary contacts on the system map? i.e. if I detect a precursor listening post then have it marked against that system body - maybe give it a date that it was last updated by sensors?

I used to retain all sensor contacts but I started encountering performance problems as they built up. Now I just retain active ship contacts for the purposes of the intelligence window. A waypoint is a possibility but it would get left behind. Maybe I could allow players to set labels for planets in the same way as the galactic map. Or you could rename the system body "Here be Dragons" as a short-term measure

Steve

[waresky (OP)]

One of the things I wanted to get away from in Aurora was Starfire's amazing mobile shipyards. With no supporting population or industry they can somehow build capital ships in the middle of nowhere

True.
Aurora are a very near "Space Simulator" than Starfire are a "Arcade Mode On".
Am loving Aurora for that.
Complexity BUT r a player target,and build up a player customizations posture.
U can live simplicity in Aurora or become a Master on Nightmare management

[Brian Neumann]

An option on the industry screen to change the order of queued projects, and if possible to move a project that has already started into the que, while moving a project that has not started up to get it started imediately.  There are plenty of times that I have several things queued up and then an event occurs that makes me want to change the priority, or stop an already active project for a new project.  This would be a great assistance.

Brian

[IanD]

Is it possible to change the F2 screen colonies layout? At the moment you get a list of planets with the most populous at the top and everything else below. Could this be changed so that after inhabited worlds you get a system name which when clicked on then reveals all the mining colonies in that system?
For most systems outside Sol I have 6-8+ mining colonies for each inhabited planet, so the list gets crowded after a few years, plus all the commercial mining colonies. If I want to look at mining colonies in Alpha Centauri I don't necessarily want to look at the ones in Luytens 628. But at the moment to find all the mining colonies for Alpha Centauri I have to scroll through the entire list which is now quite long. Hope you get the gist of my meanderings

Regards

[Beersatron]

Here is a request from the old Starfire guy. How about a mobile shipyard for building pdc's owp's, and for forward ship repair.

Maybe a smaller shipyard, like the small jump gate builder

One of the things I wanted to get away from in Aurora was Starfire's amazing mobile shipyards. With no supporting population or industry they can somehow build capital ships in the middle of nowhere

However, you can do some things in Aurora that replicate some of the Starfire abilities. For example, although you can't have "mobile shipyards" in the sense they have their own engines, the shipyards are mobile in the sense that you can move them with a tug. If you create a small colony in a forward area to provide the workforce and you have sufficient minerals, you can tow a shipyard to that planet and use it as a forward base. Also, don't forget your ships can self-repair using damage control. If you provide them with enough maintenance supplies, they can repair just about anything except armour. Repairs require double the maint supplies of preventative maintenance so a ship would need supplies equal to 2x its most expensive system in order to be assured of repairing everything.. Ships in a hangar can use the mothership's maintenance supplies so you could create a ship with a huge hangar and loads of maintenance supplies and use it as a repair bay, bringing ships into the bay to let them repair their own systems. That method gets around the problems suffered by ships with limited maintenance capacities. In fact, I should probably allow ships in hangars to use the mothership's damage control rating so you really could build true repair ships.

EDIT: In v4.8, any ship in a hangar will use the Mothership's damage control rating if it is higher than its own. Ships can already use the Mothership's maintenance supplies in v4.77. As well as allowing carriers to repair their fighters/FACs, this allows the creation of dedicated "Repair Ships" with large hangars, high damage control ratings and lots of maintenance supplies.

Steve

Does this mean we could built a 10k Ton DD and then say have a 30k Ton Repair Ship that has a 10k Ton hangar (I can't remember the ratio of hangar capacity to hull size) and have the DD dock with the Repair Ship?

[Hawkeye]

An option on the industry screen to change the order of queued projects, and if possible to move a project that has already started into the que, while moving a project that has not started up to get it started imediately.  There are plenty of times that I have several things queued up and then an event occurs that makes me want to change the priority, or stop an already active project for a new project.  This would be a great assistance.

Brian

Hm, why not just adjust the allocated industrial capacity of the running projects towards 1% and start a new project for the one you need build NOW?

Another hm, is it possible to set a project to 0% industral capacity?


Just tested it, yes you can.

[sloanjh]

An option on the industry screen to change the order of queued projects, and if possible to move a project that has already started into the que, while moving a project that has not started up to get it started imediately.  There are plenty of times that I have several things queued up and then an event occurs that makes me want to change the priority, or stop an already active project for a new project.  This would be a great assistance.

Brian

Hm, why not just adjust the allocated industrial capacity of the running projects towards 1% and start a new project for the one you need build NOW?

Another hm, is it possible to set a project to 0% industral capacity?


Just tested it, yes you can.

This (0%) is the way I've been kludging around the issues Brian brings up.  The problem is that you have to get a 5-day break to put the priorities back up to 100%.  The other issue is that I've been doing a lot of deleting and re-adding to change orders of queue priorities.

John

[Brian Neumann]

This (0%) is the way I've been kludging around the issues Brian brings up.  The problem is that you have to get a 5-day break to put the priorities back up to 100%.  The other issue is that I've been doing a lot of deleting and re-adding to change orders of queue priorities.

John

Yes their are ways around the issue, it would just be simpler if we didn't have to go to the extent we currently do.  

Brian

[Beersatron]

Here is a request from the old Starfire guy. How about a mobile shipyard for building pdc's owp's, and for forward ship repair.

Maybe a smaller shipyard, like the small jump gate builder

One of the things I wanted to get away from in Aurora was Starfire's amazing mobile shipyards. With no supporting population or industry they can somehow build capital ships in the middle of nowhere

[Steve Walmsley]

An option on the industry screen to change the order of queued projects, and if possible to move a project that has already started into the que, while moving a project that has not started up to get it started imediately.  There are plenty of times that I have several things queued up and then an event occurs that makes me want to change the priority, or stop an already active project for a new project.  This would be a great assistance.

I have added separate queues for each of the different industrial sectors, as well as arrows so you can change the queue order. If you use the Up arrow to move the highest queued item into the active list, it will only work if the queued item has an assigned percentage equal to or less than the available space for that industrial sector (Construction, Ordnance or Fighter). If you move an active down into the queue using the down arrow, it will appear as the top queued item and everything else will move down the queue. Obviously if you are working at 100% you will need to move items from active to queued or reduce the percentages before you can move an item from queued to active. A screenshot is included below.

When space opens up after an item is completed, the program will find the first project in the queue that is small enough to fit and make it an active item.

[attachment=0:on33pddh]Industry2.JPG[/attachment:on33pddh]
Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Does this mean we could built a 10k Ton DD and then say have a 30k Ton Repair Ship that has a 10k Ton hangar (I can't remember the ratio of hangar capacity to hull size) and have the DD dock with the Repair Ship?

Yes, that is the type of thing I had in mind.

Steve