Official Suggestion Thread for 5.14 or later (inc Spoiler)

[UnLimiTeD]

I'd like to suggest an additional Ship System using current ingame tech levels:

Ranged Damage Controls.
The Idea is that to use a damage Control at range, helping to repair another ship, at lower speed.
With half strength, they would be 5 at normal, 10 at improved, and 15 at advanced status, and could be used at one ship at a time to repair it's systems.
Maybe even armor. Or, for a change, maybe only armor.
That would be interesting.

[Beersatron]

An option to 'Scrap PDC' in the industrial section would be a nice to have. I did a forum search but couldn't find mention of it.

[Brian Neumann]

It would be nice for conventional starts to be able to convert more than 1 unit to cadre at a time.  Just a pop up box asking how many of the selected unit to convert and a double check that you don't go over the number available.

Brian

[iamlenb]

I didn't find this suggestion in search for +civilian ship, +civilian behavior or +commercial shipping.  Maybe it's in game but I'm not seeing it...

Could we have civilian colony ship designs that include cargo space pick up infrastructure as well as colonists?  Right now they're transporting colonists to a 2.18 colony cost planet with no infrastructure.

[Beersatron]

I didn't find this suggestion in search for +civilian ship, +civilian behavior or +commercial shipping.  Maybe it's in game but I'm not seeing it...

Could we have civilian colony ship designs that include cargo space pick up infrastructure as well as colonists?  Right now they're transporting colonists to a 2.18 colony cost planet with no infrastructure.

The Civs use your designs and they 'buy/build' them based on their Wealth and how much the Freighter or Colony Ship costs in Build Points.

You should probably design a tramp Freighter with minimum of 5 cargo holds and try to keep the BPs below 1500 as I think that is their starting wealth.

If a Colony is overcrowded then the Civs will transport Infrastructure to it if there is a Shipping Line that has a Freighter that is. You do not need to build the infrastructure in this case.

After you have a cheap Freighter built, go to the Shipping Lines window and subsidize them as much as you can afford (each click takes 1000 wealth from your bank). This will help them get more ships.

Afaik, it is 'random' as to wether or not they build a Colony Ship or a Freighter - I have personally noticed a trend towards Freighters.

Does that help?

[iamlenb]

The Civs use your designs and they 'buy/build' them based on their Wealth and how much the Freighter or Colony Ship costs in Build Points.

You should probably design a tramp Freighter with minimum of 5 cargo holds and try to keep the BPs below 1500 as I think that is their starting wealth.

If a Colony is overcrowded then the Civs will transport Infrastructure to it if there is a Shipping Line that has a Freighter that is. You do not need to build the infrastructure in this case.

After you have a cheap Freighter built, go to the Shipping Lines window and subsidize them as much as you can afford (each click takes 1000 wealth from your bank). This will help them get more ships.

Afaik, it is 'random' as to wether or not they build a Colony Ship or a Freighter - I have personally noticed a trend towards Freighters.

Does that help?

Thanks for the insight, Beers.  Actually what I'm hoping to see in future updates is a civilian AI behavior that checks to see if the colonist destination planet has sufficient surplus infrastructure when a colony ship that also has a cargo hold initiates a colony run.  If the destination requires infrastructure, then collect some from the colony source planet if available.

Heck, even if they picked up just enough infrastructure to cover the colonists on a base 2.0 colony cost world I'd be delighted.

In my current game, I managed to initiate civilian colonization by dropping some Government infrastructure on 36 Ophiuchi A V, 4 jumps away from Sol.  Nothing else on the planet.  So civilian shipping lines have taken it upon themselves to start transporting colonists out there.  Unfortunately, it's a very high cost colony world and they've dumped more colonists than can be supported now, even if there was sufficient colony space when they initiated the colony run. .  The civilian freighter lines haven't yet picked up any infrastructure runs there.

It's sad that civilians are being transported out to an overcrowded hellish wasteland, only to die from lack of infrastructure support.  They're walking out the airlocks to die in droves.  And there's several more colony ships in transit already.

[Erik L]

I'd like to see 1 or 2 shield systems classified as civilian. Any more than that, and it goes military.

[iamlenb]

Xenomorphs!

***(Event notifications in italics, suggestion in normal text)***

System Surveyed - Survey Force Geo 004 has discovered Derelict Alien Freighter on 36 Ophiuchi-A V.

Lets have special Alien ruins, not just outposts or cities.  Crashed ships, or even functional ships that generate an empty alien colony with a single alien race ship in a task group in orbit.

Officer Update - Lieutenant John Kane of Captain Michael Dallas' Xenology Team has suffered a serious medical problem that will affect his long term health.

Cue facehugger.  Pull the affected officer from the Team, kick off a timer to the chestburster event.

Officer Update - Lieutenant John Kane has been killed in a medical emergency.

Start up another timer and run these two events at completion.

Intelligence Update - Alien Queen has been detected on 36 OPhiuchi-A V
Intelligence Update - Xenomorph colony has been detected on 36 Ophiuchi-A V
Unrest Increasing - Unrest levels are rising on 36 Ophiuchi-A V

Create Xenomorph colony on planet - make them immune to radiation and dust levels.  Start reducing the host colony growth rate, start killing off population, inversely add Xenomorph population, create Xenomorph ground units on planet.  Xenomorphs never surrender, are immune to radiation and dust, generate population from other colonies on planet, and freely create military ground units at will.  What can you do?  Send in the Colonial Marines of course.

Combat Report - 8th Colonial Marines has lost 58% readiness rating
Combat Report - 8th Colonial Marines has lost 92% readiness rating
Combat Report - 8th Colonial Marines has been destroyed.  Colonel William Gorman has perished along with his unit.
Combat Report - Lieutenant Ellen Ripley has managed to escape in a lifeboat.

Run combat as normal.  Make sure Ripley survives by generating a lifepod with no time limit in orbit of planet.  Is there a way to target your own lifepods?

*********************
Mark the population from the colony as "infected" and also tag any ship that interacts with the infected colony.  Civilian shipping should occasionally ignore planetary bans.  Uh oh.  Nuke your own civilian shipping or hope they don't land anywhere important?  Infected ships should make a beeline for the nearest trade center, either their own or a friendly NPR with trade relations so they can "do Business".  Troop Transports without Drop Modules should be marked as infected too.  Eventually start generating Xenomorph Ground Units on board and run boarding combat.

There shouldn't be a way to eradicate the Xenomorph colony as long as they have a host colony with positive population.  They continue to grow from nothing, spawning Ground Units until they finally generate one with Alien Queen, either as a Ground Unit or as a Xenomorph Officer.  Better hope that she dies with her troops.  Once the host population goes to zero, stop generating Xenomorph pop or GU.

How to end this horrible scourge in your game?  Click the Abandon Colony Button.  Hopefully no ships in orbit get marked as "infected".

And of course you still have:

Factory Restored - 4th Engineering Brigade has recovered 12 x Xenomorph Infection from Derelict Alien Freighter on 36 Ophiuchi-A V.
Combat Report - 4th Engineering Brigade has been destroyed.  Colonel Mason Wren has perished along with his unit.
Intelligence Update - 4th Xenomorph Battalion has been detected on 36 Ophiuchi-A V

Only way to resolve the crisis is to Nuke the entire site from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure.

[iamlenb]

I'd like to see 1 or 2 shield systems classified as civilian. Any more than that, and it goes military.

How about shield systems a certain level of tech behind cutting edge are marked as civilian when created using Design New Project?

[Erik L]

I'd like to see 1 or 2 shield systems classified as civilian. Any more than that, and it goes military.

How about shield systems a certain level of tech behind cutting edge are marked as civilian when created using Design New Project?

The problem there is you can pile on a huge amount of "civilian" shields that have the same strength as military systems, they just regenerate slower. I'd prefer to limit the strength of civilian shields compared to military shields.

Possibly a new option on the shields, "Civilian/Military". Military is as now, Civilian would follow the engine scheme (larger, less efficient).

[iamlenb]

I'd like to see 1 or 2 shield systems classified as civilian. Any more than that, and it goes military.

How about shield systems a certain level of tech behind cutting edge are marked as civilian when created using Design New Project?

The problem there is you can pile on a huge amount of "civilian" shields that have the same strength as military systems, they just regenerate slower. I'd prefer to limit the strength of civilian shields compared to military shields.

Great point.  Civilian shields limited to one install before becoming military, like sensors.  +1

Possibly a new option on the shields, "Civilian/Military". Military is as now, Civilian would follow the engine scheme (larger, less efficient).

I'd prefer less clutter on my racial tech system component screen.  Already I have pages of engines for different types of ship designs.  I'd prefer that civilian shields take a similar path to sensors and limit civilian designs to 1 space.

On that note, I'd like to see cloaking devices, power plants and engines scale similarly to shields.  One component, one rating.  Multiple components, aggregated rating with an inefficiency multiplier that can be lowered with extra research.

And finally, any thoughts on having shields require power as well as fuel?  Get some use from the power plants and force more tradeoffs - perhaps have engines provide a minimal power rating that can be tapped by civilian shields, but too low for weapons which benefit from surge power.

[Erik L]

Suggestion for Civilian lines.

When they are created, grant them one ship, either freighter or colony ship. After that, their ship purchases should be based on their income/wealth.

[Erik L]

How about some (not all) of the retired military officers go into the civilian administration. Say a small percentage, 5-10% of the non-health/death retirees.



*EDIT*
Instead of retirees, how about some of the RIFfed officers?

[backstab]

How about if you do not have enough military strength to contain unrest, the units you do hav in the region/planet begin to loose readyness/moral representing losses from counterinsurgency.

[Andrew]

When assigning ground units to Brigades and Divisions, include an option to not show full Brigades/Divisions. It would make things much less confusing to have only Brigades you can assign troops to visible.