Suggestions for v5.1

[Commodore_Areyar]

Steve -

I'm pretty sure I (and probably others <G>) have brought this issue up before, and I'm also pretty sure I know why you've declined to make any changes, but I've been thinking about this lately and thought I'd bring it up again, to see if anything has changed.  

I have been reading Ringo's "Live Free or Die" lately.  Excellent book, I can recommend it unreservedly.  IMO, of course.  At one point in the book the author goes into a little exposition about how difficult it is to get the "lay of the land" in a solar system, i.e., how hard it is to figure out where all of the planets and such are from a standing start.  Especially from a couple of billion kilometers away.  In aurora an exploration ship can tell exactly where everything is instantaneously after entering a system, which not only exceeds the bounds of credibility, but, as one attorney I know said (about something else), blows way past the bounds of even incredibility.  

It seems to me that upon entering a system the explorer would be able to determine the system primary immediately, but nothing else.  It might take months to find all of the planets, even with good survey instruments and scanners, and longer to determine the location of asteroids.  Now, I'm not suggesting we take it to extremes of taking years of constant effort to determine the location of every last comet and asteroid, however, instantaneous is problematic.  

I suspect that in the past you have avoided dealing with this issue because of the difficulty in establishing partial knowledge of a system, and that difficulty likely hasn't changed.  I am currently considering ways to "role-play" this issue, but it would be easier to do if Aurora supported this.  

Kurt

I guess it is an expansion of the gravsensor techno babble: range is inversely proportional to mass and it is instantaneous, so a tiny gravsensor designed to detect planets should be ultrasmall, asteroids are also leagues more heavy than the average ship.
Atmospheric composition and such would require more specialized sensors though. Still, once you know where to look, a sensor can be trained perfectly and focused tightly.

Requirement of geosensors (and/or being in orbit) to determine anything besides body mass and size would be more interesting though.

[Another]

A suggestion about renaming:

When upgrading ships changing design of MyCruiserWithTheseFeatures Mk4 to MyCruiserWithTheseFeatures Mk5 would be more convenient if after pressing Rename button we had an edit field with old name already there, not a blank one. Renaming system bodies could also benefit from such a feature.

Are colonies with geology team survey completed but no population still not showing the line about it in the status window like in 4.91?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A suggestion about renaming:

When upgrading ships changing design of MyCruiserWithTheseFeatures Mk4 to MyCruiserWithTheseFeatures Mk5 would be more convenient if after pressing Rename button we had an edit field with old name already there, not a blank one. Renaming system bodies could also benefit from such a feature.

Added for Systems, System Bodies, Ships, Fleets and Classes. I'll add it to other renames over time.

Are colonies with geology team survey completed but no population still not showing the line about it in the status window like in 4.91?

This should be fixed for v5.0. All colonies will show geo team status.

Steve

[Father Tim]

It seems to me that upon entering a system the explorer would be able to determine the system primary immediately, but nothing else.  It might take months to find all of the planets, even with good survey instruments and scanners, and longer to determine the location of asteroids.  Now, I'm not suggesting we take it to extremes of taking years of constant effort to determine the location of every last comet and asteroid, however, instantaneous is problematic.

While I'd like some sort of arcane formula based on body masses, sensor resolutions, regular/improved/advanced/super-powered survey sensors, etc., I'd settle for simply stellar type & mass immediately, super-jovians after one hour, other gas giants after three hours, terrestrial planets/moons after 24 hours, chunks after one week, and asteroids after one month.

[Journier]

CIVILIAN ECONOMY and SHIPPING FLEET.

Easier way to subsidize the shipping fleet please Steve?

currently you give 1000 wealth per click, could we have a "shift + click  = 10,000 or 100,000?"

hell maybe some other way to do something with the civilian fleet to make it easier to help the thing grow.

[Nabobalis]

It seems to me that upon entering a system the explorer would be able to determine the system primary immediately, but nothing else.  It might take months to find all of the planets, even with good survey instruments and scanners, and longer to determine the location of asteroids.  Now, I'm not suggesting we take it to extremes of taking years of constant effort to determine the location of every last comet and asteroid, however, instantaneous is problematic.

While I'd like some sort of arcane formula based on body masses, sensor resolutions, regular/improved/advanced/super-powered
survey sensors, etc., I'd settle for simply stellar type & mass immediately, super-jovians after one hour, other gas giants after three hours, terrestrial planets/moons after 24 hours, chunks after one week, and asteroids after one month.

I like that, it makes sense. I mean with current technology I'm sure someone could survey the sky quite easily with a powerful telescope to find all the planets within a month or two. So a space ship with advanced technology could do it much faster. I'm sure from a JP located somewhere in the inner system or even the outer system, you could find most planets rather quickly.

[Aldaris]

Another simplification on the body finding mechanism:
Any ship entering a previously unknown system would start looking around for planets, they would scan/photograph in a sphere all around them and save the data. Asuming either bored crewmen with nothing better to do while moving somewhere, or ftl comms and people without anything better to do back home, that data could be anylized without the ship being in the system, removing the need for that check. So upon generating a system, each body type would be given a date for thwn they would be revealed.

Another idea: Planets having a thermal emision based on albedo, distance to star, and star luminosity. That way bodies can be picked up by thermal sensors. And of course any body should be picked up by active sensors.

[Andrew]

It seems to me that upon entering a system the explorer would be able to determine the system primary immediately, but nothing else.  It might take months to find all of the planets, even with good survey instruments and scanners, and longer to determine the location of asteroids.  Now, I'm not suggesting we take it to extremes of taking years of constant effort to determine the location of every last comet and asteroid, however, instantaneous is problematic.

While I'd like some sort of arcane formula based on body masses, sensor resolutions, regular/improved/advanced/super-powered
survey sensors, etc., I'd settle for simply stellar type & mass immediately, super-jovians after one hour, other gas giants after three hours, terrestrial planets/moons after 24 hours, chunks after one week, and asteroids after one month.

If this gets added please make it optional, I spend far too much time managing survey ships as it is without messing around with planet searches.

[Sotak246]

If this gets added please make it optional, I spend far too much time managing survey ships as it is without messing around with planet searches.

I second this.

[Journier]

If this gets added please make it optional, I spend far too much time managing survey ships as it is without messing around with planet searches.

I second this.

I third this.

Grav survey and geo survey need some form of automation for scanning already scouted systems, and returning to the home system on their own.

Sooooo much micro with this portion of game.

[BlackWarder]

Terraforming

It might be that I don't get it but currently it's just unneccesery micromanagment, I think that we should have a button that say terraform to <race name> with some sliders for climate changes (hotter/colder)

[AtomikKrab]

Terraforming:

some sort of raise temperature option,not simply the add greenhouse gas, which only goes so far with raising temperature, it just irks me that with all of this technology at my disposal, I still have to build installations on pluto because I can only raise the temperature to just below racial tolerances  

although thats really a minor suggestion, I just generally don't colonize pluto because of it though

[mavikfelna]

There is an "Unassign All Officers" button on the officer's screen. It unassigns scientists from their research projects and administrators from their colonies as well as everybody else. Can we perhaps get an additional button that only unassigns the currently selected officer type? So if you're on the Navy Officer's screen it just unassigns all navy officers and leaves everyone else where they are?

The other alternative would be if you do an unassign all, can we get it to also cancel all the research projects? When you've got a dozen projects going and have to remove each one one at a time it's like 3 clicks each and it's annoying.

Thanks,
--Mav

[sloanjh]

Save the random number seed in the DB, if this is not done already.  This could be combined with a checkbox on the game screen which toggles whether to ignore it (in case one wants to try to work around a hang by dodging a random event).

I think (but am not sure) that if I restore a saved DB and play forward, that I can't recover the previous sequence of events (do to random hit probabilities or officer promotions, for example).  It would be nice to have reproducability.

John

[Father Tim]

There is an "Unassign All Officers" button on the officer's screen. It unassigns scientists from their research projects and administrators from their colonies as well as everybody else. Can we perhaps get an additional button that only unassigns the currently selected officer type? So if you're on the Navy Officer's screen it just unassigns all navy officers and leaves everyone else where they are?

The other alternative would be if you do an unassign all, can we get it to also cancel all the research projects? When you've got a dozen projects going and have to remove each one one at a time it's like 3 clicks each and it's annoying. :)

Thanks,
--Mav

Don't add a second button, just change it to "Unassign Selected Officer Type".   Anybody who truly wants to unassign all officers/civilian admistrators/scientists can spend the time for six extra clicks.