Suggestions for v5.1

[sloanjh]

However, how do non-missile, kinetic weapons (gauss cannons, railguns and mass drivers) work at all then, if they're only propelled when fired? With kinetic energy out of the picture, those projectiles would be utterly useless.

Gauss Cannon and Railguns are newtonian weapons - the projectiles don't have an engine on board.  Mass drivers ditto, although I was mostly being a wise-guy with that one  (but only mostly - the underlying idea holds).

John

PS - If you want to discuss this further, can we take it to another thread (like in The Academy)?  I hate to clutter up the official suggestions thread with a lot of (at this point) off-topic discussion - makes it harder for Steve to pull signal out of the noise....

[waresky]

Agree on Sloa.
Pls we must USE right Tread.

[Father Tim]

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.

Missiles don't impact Aurora ships, they blow up near them.  Thus, only the warhead does damage, regardless of the missile's speed.

[waresky]

IN TOPIC PLEASE FROM NOW TY.

SUBJECT: GROUND ARMY
OBJECT: MAKE ARMY WINDOWS SAME AS "NAVAL ORGANIZATIONS" WITH "+" AND "-" FOR EXPAND INFORMATION UNDER DIVISION ORGANIZATIONS.

AND A COSMETIC SUGGESTION: POSSIBLE HAVE A SITREP OF WHOLE ARMY? (NUMBER OF DIVISIONS,BRIGADES AND BATTALLIONS)

TY AND APOLOGIZE FOR CAPS.

 

[Sotak246]

If you could, make the race selections sticky in the galaxy view and system information screens.  I recent captured a race called "Crossbow".  The problem is that those windows default to the "C" race rather then my "Human" race every time I open the windows.

[mberkers]

How about the option for commanders to go on medical/anti-aging leave? that way they can deal with some of those pesky health conditions, and maybe reset their retirement age. I'm sure people would like to keep their most able admins/scientists/GFcommanders/admirals around!

[rubberduck]

I recently had a first contact with an alien species, running into a ship of theirs. The nature of the encounter led me to believe that the ship would stick around, and so I initiated contact. Then a few days later, the ship pulled away, and disappeared, most likely leaving the system.

Still, despite the lack of conversation partners, my researchers continued to communicate with the aliens for months, finally establishing contact, and having the other empire reveal its name. Without me having any contact at all with the other empire.

Now, I don't necessarily propose that the game should figure out when there can be communication efforts, and when there can't. All I'm interested in is a way to stop the Initiate Communication action, after it has been initialized.

[Father Tim]

Just because the other ship left doesn't mean your scientists stopped poring over their records of everything it did, showed, and radiated.  Hand a modern cryptoanalysis computer a book written in Latin, and it will happily hum away until it translates the whole thing, whether it receives any additional input or not.

[MoonDragon]

It would be very nice to see relevant commander bonuses somehow listed, highlighted, or expressed visually, in the F4 window, when assigning to a given ship that benefits from specific commander bonuses. Sort of like the individual ship display (F6) shows them at the top with the commander name.

[waresky]

It would be very nice to see relevant commander bonuses somehow listed, highlighted, or expressed visually, in the F4 window, when assigning to a given ship that benefits from specific commander bonuses. Sort of like the individual ship display (F6) shows them at the top with the commander name.

+1
Good suggestioning

[waresky]

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.

Damn good point Shadow... ive DriveTech speed reach 80000km/s..so a single missile are a Doomsday Machine for every UN-shielded Ships:D

[Shadow]

Another suggestion: a window/sub-window that details the current month's upcoming events. Predictable events, of course. This would make it easier to know how much time to skip without 'overshooting' important deadlines nor having to manually check lots of screens.

For instance:

UPCOMING EVENTS

- August 2nd: Meson Focusing Technology 5 (Bobby Jones - EW35%)
- August 7th: Automated Mine (Earth)
- August 19th: 33rd Marine Company (Mars)
- August 23rd: BB Valiant 001 (Alpha Centauri A-II)
- August 23rd: BB Valiant 002 (Alpha Centauri A-II)
- August 23rd: BB Valiant 003 (Alpha Centauri A-II)
- August 25th: GE Stakhanov 002 orders completed (Sol)

[Randy]

Just a couple things that came to mind:

1. Why do ground units lose 50% morale when assigned to a different HQ? I have a couple of officers with good training bonus (like 250) so I want them to train units in general, which then get moved off to a new division. Problem is, the unit that was trained to 116 morale goes to the new command and drops to 58 morale. Then after recovery time, it goes back to 100 and stops. All the extra training is gone. SO either don't lose the morale, or at least allow it to "recover" back to the pre-transfer value (eg in this case 116).

2. 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.

[Randy]

And one more -

  The option to turn off automatic retirement while using auto assignment of officers. I put so much effort into getting them created, and then to lose so many without getting to use them... argh!

[waresky]

And one more -

  The option to turn off automatic retirement while using auto assignment of officers. I put so much effort into getting them created, and then to lose so many without getting to use them... argh!

+10

Another good suggestions,hope Steve read this.Too many Good Commanders retired only for "End of Tour Of Duty".

Or get a "War Check" Buttons... :twisted: Nuk'em