Suggestions for v5.1

[ShadoCat]

Now for a more daring suggestion. The concept is simple: have missile speed add to its damage potential, presumably represented by the Warhead value in its entirety.

I'm no physicist, but I did some calculations taking some information from the game. A 50-ton magazine with a 100% efficiency feed system can store 20 MSP, meaning a size-6 missile would have a mass of 15 tons. That's the size of my current ASM design, which happens to travel at 20000 km/s, which is about 6.6% the speed of light. Since I have both its mass and velocity, I can calculate its kinetic energy. The result is an astounding 717 megatons! And that's just for a solid rod of metal, completely ignoring the warhead!

If we paid full attention to that, we'd have to change a lot of things, so let's not get too realistic. However, I do believe the influence of speed on kinetic energy can't be denied, and that could be used in some fashion. Perhaps a missile could get +1 WH for every 5000 km/s, independently from the MSP spent on the warhead itself? That's just speculation: the numbers themselves should be thoroughly tested and balanced, but there you go.

One problem: the to hit chances assume proximity hits.

It would be fun to see a direct hit version of missile.  A direct hit with a missile will probably makes it's warhead worthless since the firing mechanism would get munched as it hit the armor at speed.  Though you could replace warhead with payload mass.  That might be needed since missiles are probably designed to be as light as possible.

[Shadow]

New, hip icon for Aurora! It's even compatible with Vista/7! Reminded me of the system map.

[Randy]

It would be real nice to have descriptions of the various facilities (and other constructable items) displayed when you select them - similar to the way a description is shown for tech before you assign it to a research project.

  Might need to add another pop-over screen (like the stockpiles) to have room to show it - but as an added bonus this would allow a lot more text to be displayed.

  Things to list:
- General description of the item
- Pop requirement
- output level (have this sensitive tot eh current research level related - eg. fighter construction rate)
- size for transport purposes
- any peculiarities of the facility.

  This would let us have the notes that are scattered throughout this site in a handy location when playing the game - and not require an internet connection to look anything up...

[Shadow]

It would be real nice to have descriptions of the various facilities (and other constructable items) displayed when you select them - similar to the way a description is shown for tech before you assign it to a research project.

  Might need to add another pop-over screen (like the stockpiles) to have room to show it - but as an added bonus this would allow a lot more text to be displayed.

  Things to list:
- General description of the item
- Pop requirement
- output level (have this sensitive tot eh current research level related - eg. fighter construction rate)
- size for transport purposes
- any peculiarities of the facility.

  This would let us have the notes that are scattered throughout this site in a handy location when playing the game - and not require an internet connection to look anything up...

I second this suggestion.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I would enjoy a third option in the population source/destination.  I have found sometimes you just want a "neutral" stance to allow for natural growth (i.e. neither source nor destination).

Example:

remote system, has two populations, one well above 25 million (A) and one right at 25 million (B).  You want to start "seeding" another system one jump away.  In my circumstance I want the commercial sector to go gangbusters transferring from A to the new colony.  Right now I have to set B as either "source" or "destination".  

If set as "source" the commercial ships drain the pop., then B gets set to destination when it falls below 25 million.  In this case, the commercial movers go ape moving population from the previous system to B, or from A to B.  The growth of the new colony is then minimized.

If set as destination, then the outer colony will not be seeded, since traffic will either run A->B, or previous system -> B.

In some cases, even when a colony is well past the 25 million mark, I would just like to see holostic growth of the population there.

While this suggestion would make civ colonization much easier to manipulate, I want to maintain the idea that the civs colonize on their terms rather than doing exactly what the government tells them. If you could set source, dest and neither, you could decide exactly which colonies would have population added and from which colonies that population came. The civ ships would be no different than your own colony ships, except you wouldn't have to pay for them. In fact, with this amount of flexibility, there really wouldn't be any point building your own colony ships. At the moment, you have to use your own ships when you and the civs have different ideas about which colony is the most important.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Establish a new set of threads here that only Steve can post in. Then in these threads, he can post each fix/change made as he goes for the next version. eg. there should be a 5.1 change thread showing each thing implemented (when done), and it would provide an excellent reference to find when such a change was made, as well as highlight the progress made in general.

A very good idea. Erik, if you are reading, could there be a release notes forum (which is read-only except for this account and SteveAlt) in which I could create a thread for each release and post changes as I make them?

Steve

[Erik L]

Establish a new set of threads here that only Steve can post in. Then in these threads, he can post each fix/change made as he goes for the next version. eg. there should be a 5.1 change thread showing each thing implemented (when done), and it would provide an excellent reference to find when such a change was made, as well as highlight the progress made in general.

A very good idea. Erik, if you are reading, could there be a release notes forum (which is read-only except for this account and SteveAlt) in which I could create a thread for each release and post changes as I make them?

Steve

There is now a sub-forum under Installation called Release Notes. If I got it right, only Steve can post there (and myself).

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

There is now a sub-forum under Installation called Release Notes. If I got it right, only Steve can post there (and myself).

Thanks! Now I just need to remember to use it

Steve

[Sainthe]

Add option to LOCK a certain number of Mass Drivers occupying a planet, disallowing cargo ships from removing any amount of Mass Drivers which would reduce them below this amount.

I can't remember how many times I've accidentally removed too many Mass Drivers... just one errant click on Cycle Orders or anything else and its wammo-blammo instant death for the poor unsuspecting planet below.

[waresky]

Add option to LOCK a certain number of Mass Drivers occupying a planet, disallowing cargo ships from removing any amount of Mass Drivers which would reduce them below this amount.

I can't remember how many times I've accidentally removed too many Mass Drivers... just one errant click on Cycle Orders or anything else and its wammo-blammo instant death for the poor unsuspecting planet below.

Ive lost 200+ millions people on Earth one time.Packet from 5 different direction blast into surface..our Civie Administrators flee on Unknow space before was shooting at wall:D

[Vanigo]

I think the geological survey completion thing needs an overhaul. As it stands, a marginally competent geology team is likely to declare that they can't find any more minerals pretty quickly, which makes sense, but once they've done so, an expert geology team will never be able to find any more minerals either. Sending a good team to begin with will result in more total minerals found. This means that either the good team is magically summoning minerals out of nowhere, or the lousy team is hunting down and destroying mineral deposits. I think we can all agree that either of these is insane, even if, from a coding and game-mechanical perspective, magically summoning minerals comes pretty close to the truth. I think that, instead of a simple binary fully surveyed/not fully surveyed flag, system bodies should have a number indicating how thoroughly explored they are. As a geology team works, this number increases, and if the exploration thoroughness is equal to or greater than the geology team's skill, that team can't find any more minerals. However, if a more skilled team comes by later, they can search some more and perhaps find some minerals the first team missed.

[IanD]

Can I have an unload ordnance order on the F12 screen please. Makes it much easier for colliers to transfer missile stocks without undue attention and much easier to replace a ships missile load with an updated model. Or is there one and I just can't see it?

Regards

[Elvin]

This might just be me being lazy, but I'd really like a button that would add all current component designs back into the research list, with the most up to date techs possible. This saves hours of fiddling with every type of engine each time you get that extra 10% efficiency, or having to re-design every one of your missile launchers from scratch for the shortened reload times.

While it wouldn't be optimal in all cases ( energy weapons especially) it would most certainly be useful in 90% of cases.

But this is still an awesome game. Very well done  

[Shadow]

This might just be me being lazy, but I'd really like a button that would add all current component designs back into the research list, with the most up to date techs possible. This saves hours of fiddling with every type of engine each time you get that extra 10% efficiency, or having to re-design every one of your missile launchers from scratch for the shortened reload times.

While it wouldn't be optimal in all cases ( energy weapons especially) it would most certainly be useful in 90% of cases.

But this is still an awesome game. Very well done  :shock:

[sloanjh]

I think the geological survey completion thing needs an overhaul. As it stands, a marginally competent geology team is likely to declare that they can't find any more minerals pretty quickly, which makes sense, but once they've done so, an expert geology team will never be able to find any more minerals either. Sending a good team to begin with will result in more total minerals found. This means that either the good team is magically summoning minerals out of nowhere, or the lousy team is hunting down and destroying mineral deposits. I think we can all agree that either of these is insane, even if, from a coding and game-mechanical perspective, magically summoning minerals comes pretty close to the truth. I think that, instead of a simple binary fully surveyed/not fully surveyed flag, system bodies should have a number indicating how thoroughly explored they are. As a geology team works, this number increases, and if the exploration thoroughness is equal to or greater than the geology team's skill, that team can't find any more minerals. However, if a more skilled team comes by later, they can search some more and perhaps find some minerals the first team missed.

Seconded on the need for a tweak to the "completed" algorithm - this has been bugging me as well.  As it stands, I'm having geo-survey teams do weird things to get their training levels up (like training them on Luna instead of Earth, for fear that they'll exhaust the minerals on Earth).

Since there's a floor to the exhaustion probability, one possibility would be to have a secret roll for teams that aren't experienced enough to be at the floor that determines whether the event is "minerals are really exhausted" or "team isn't clever enough to find any more".  For example, if the floor is 10%, but the team is so poor that it's got a 30% probability of exhaustion, then there would be a 33% (10%/30%) chance of "really gone" and a 66% chance of "mostly gone" errr I mean "this team can't find any more" (sorry - I got mixed up there with the difference between "really dead" and "mostly dead").  In any event, rather than "survey completed" on the system summary tab, you'd see the skill level of the best team to get a "can't find any more" message.  Any team with an equal or lower skill level would be unable to find anything ever again.  The part I haven't worked out is how to penalize a team that's only 5 points (or even 1 point) better than the previous exhaustion level - maybe require at least a 20 point increase before there's a new chance of finding anything.

John