Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[alex_brunius]

The entire retooling system of the Shipyards does not make much sense to me.  I always wonder where all my precious resources go in retooling those yards.
Given the you still build each ship individually I see each ship as a new project, not an assembly line that specializes in building a particular ship type.

There is still always an upfront cost for tools to be able to build ship specific parts.

Many of the bulkheads, fastenings and generic corridors will have to be tailored for a specific ship model and designing tools and assembly process for these is expensive.

There is also the cost of (small scale) prototypes and testing that's a one time cost before a design is validated and approved for construction.

[Whitecold]

There is still always an upfront cost for tools to be able to build ship specific parts. 

Many of the bulkheads, fastenings and generic corridors will have to be tailored for a specific ship model and designing tools and assembly process for these is expensive. 

There is also the cost of (small scale) prototypes and testing that's a one time cost before a design is validated and approved for construction. 

These are all prototyping costs, once the ship is designed, every yard should be able to use the knowledge gained.
One point I forgot to mention of what seems illogical to me is that shipyards are only able to build one type of ships (or more, if you manage to squeeze the refit cost low enough), a large yard should be multifunctional instead of building massive overcapacities for something like a single gate construction ship, because you'd need to retool a yard for it, and the retool it back, as you want more of the class it originally built. 

[Thundercraft]

[snip] ... 2.   Power.   We're running into a real life energy crisis currently, yet so far no 4x game has wasted any thoughts on power.   Make power a resource and you will have immediate benefits in terms of complexity all over the board: More installations that must be built, one more factor to balance, and more stuff to research.   Might even be coupled with special resources for advanced powerplants.

This is from like 3 years ago. (I haven't played older versions of Aurora.) Though, I think this is still a good suggestion.

That said, you were not entirely accurate in saying "so far no 4x game has wasted any thoughts on power." But you probably aren't aware of a really old indie 4x game by the name of "Xpace", especially since the company ended before it could finish a commercial version - releasing an alpha-stage version to the public with an unfinished AI for computer opponents. Xpace put a lot of thought into power management, both in terms of ships and stations and with planets and construction. On each new game the player is faced with choosing power-hungry jump engines with instant (1 turn) travel, or energy-efficient thrust engines that take a while to get there. Power is very important in Xpace. One can even substitute some of the rare Trans-Newtonian elements with energy by "synthesizing" them - albeit at massive energy costs.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Dear Steve,

Please create an AI smart enough to kill all armchair generals on this forum without cheating, numerical or technological superiority.

Thank you.

I'll get started on that right away

I know the AI isn't great and I do need to spend some more time on it. Its just finding the time at the moment

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Idea for political borders.

I would really like to see something like the culture system of sins of a solar empire, minus the taking over a system with culture only.

it could be a system where the rate of spread depends on the distance, and there is a constant inwards spread, so say that coming from your home system, outward spread is 10, while inward spread for the game is 2, it would spread out at a rate of 8, as it spreads further and further from populated systems, it gets weaker and weaker, untill outward spread is equal to inward spread and it just stops, this way you have unclaimed space, can push back the boarders of NPRs just by having ships nearby, but they can do the same, of course there would have to be a way to determine distance between systems, and each system would have to reach a certain amount of border strength before it starts spreading from there, like an overflowing bucket.

This allows for border disputes and that ships near your border will make you want to take action, as they will be pushing your border back and other cool things like that. I just dont know what kind of limitations going outside your border would have, maybe unable to colonize, or a constant increase in the unrest of populated planets the further away from your borders it is.

The rate of expansion could be controlled by empire wide protection level with the skill level of your officer assigned to whatever uses the diplomacy bonus, as well as a new research.

I would like to have something along the lines or borders, or perhaps exclusion zones within systems. The main problem is to come up with something that the AI can deal with sensibly.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

One thing that I have thought about about the balance of small versus large empires are how research is linear and don't scale well with the size of an empire. A huge empire can put as much wealth and labs into developing their industry, ship construction, mining rates as a small empire. This bonus is immediately available to all such facilities.

I think that it would be good if such technologies either scaled with the number of facilities or that you have to actually update each facility to the new level and spend some resources on it (in an automatic way), such as having a modernization option for each facility as an option for you industry. Either way is good but actually having to upgrade facilities are more realistic and would make smaller empires more competitive.

Upgrading each facility individually probably isn't workable, partly due to record keeping and partly due to micromanagement but mainly due to the difficulties of displaying the information if you potentially have several different versions of each type of industrial facility.

A difference in research cost might be an option, although it would probably lead to a gameplay style of researching nothing but construction tech for a while before building any new facilities.

A third option might be that instead of instantly updating all the factories to the new production level, it is more of a gradual process over time. So when you update construction rate from 12 to 14 for example, it would increase to 12.1 and then a few days later to 12.2, etc. until it reached 14. Taking this a step further, the rate at which the updating takes place could be related to some type of percentage-based empire-wide reduction in production capacity, so that larger Empires effectively have a larger absolute penalty for the same upgrade rate. If you are prepared to accept a higher penalty, the upgrade happens more quickly. This achieves what you are looking for, plus it adds a meaningful player decision to the upgrade process. In effect, Empires would have a theoretical max production rate and an actual production rate that could be upgraded via a temporary reduction in capacity as the factories upgraded themselves.

Steve

[Thundercraft]

Talking about how research is linear and the balance of small versus large empires, I was thinking along different lines. There is another way to slow the spread of research for larger empires.

In the (abandoned, never finished) Xpace game researched technologies are not automatically applied empire-wide - across entire star systems - instantly. Rather, it's only possible to transfer the ability to use them in the form of a physical "Technology Kit" that has to be built and transferred to certain facilities. Per the game's help file:

Technology Kits are the means by which the various technologies are built into new ships or facilities, and how technology is transferred throughout an empire. The following rules are all-important to understanding what technology kits do and what you should do with them:

1. In order for a design center to build a given technology into another ship, it must possess the appropriate technology kit. So, if a design center sets out to design a new warship configuration with level 5 lasers, it must possess a Level 5 Laser Tech-Kit.

2. The same rule applies to construction facilities and building other ships or facilities. They must possess the technology kits necessary to build a ship or design of a given configuration.

3. Every player starts the game with their key design centers and construction facility containing all the necessary technology kits. Through research, a player can add new technology kits or technology kits of increased tech-level.

The advancement and distribution of new technology throughout an empire could be a task in and of itself (fortunately the game provides ways of making this easy). Note that, if a given technology is lost altogether (the last kit of its kind is lost or destroyed), it can only be replaced through additional research.

It should be clear that the physical location of research facilities, design centers and construction facilities is one key strategic element of the game. Scattered too far apart, and transfer of technology can become difficult. Placed too close together, and you present your opponents with an opportunity to wipe out key, strategic parts of your empire.

For clarification, a technology kit is simply the abstract representation of knowledge, experience, equipment and anything else required to use a given technology. Thus, transferring technology kits is effectively the same as transferring personnel, equipment or related things required for that technology. Building technology kits is the same as training new personnel, manufacturing new equipment, etc.

Similarly, when you have a "design center" design a new ship or facility, you still need to copy and physically transfer the "configuration" or blueprints for the design to shipyards or other locations to actually build them. You shouldn't be able to instantly build a newly designed engine or defense base - empire-wide - after the design is finished.

These requirements can slow down the spread of new technology and new designs, especially in large empires. I think it's much more believable than a system where one can instantly utilize and build such. Even in a universe where communication is faster-than-light, the transfer should not be instant. Also, why broadcast such highly sensitive information throughout your empire using FTL communication? It's too risky that aliens or enemies would be able to intercept and decode it! Transferring physical documents and materials is much safer. And Technology Kits are a lot more than just the abstract knowledge. It's vital personnel and materials, too. One would probably need special tools and materials and knowledgeable experts to utilize a brand new technology or design.

Also, by requiring all designs and most (if not all) technologies to be physically transferred via "Blueprints" and "Tech Kits", this allows such to be inadvertently captured. It should be a rare event, but players could capture alien designs and technologies this way - and your enemies could do, likewise.

Yes, it would require more micromanagement. But there should be a way to make this somewhat automated - or at least organized in a way to keep track of it. And it would require major code changes. But isn't it doable?

[Jorgen_CAB]

A third option might be that instead of instantly updating all the factories to the new production level, it is more of a gradual process over time. So when you update construction rate from 12 to 14 for example, it would increase to 12.1 and then a few days later to 12.2, etc. until it reached 14. Taking this a step further, the rate at which the updating takes place could be related to some type of percentage-based empire-wide reduction in production capacity, so that larger Empires effectively have a larger absolute penalty for the same upgrade rate. If you are prepared to accept a higher penalty, the upgrade happens more quickly. This achieves what you are looking for, plus it adds a meaningful player decision to the upgrade process. In effect, Empires would have a theoretical max production rate and an actual production rate that could be upgraded via a temporary reduction in capacity as the factories upgraded themselves.

This sounds pretty good and simple enough in my opinion. It would simulate the cost of upgrading industry.

I hope that the same method could also be applied to labs, mines and shipyards. Shipyards could perhaps be upgraded whenever they retool to a new design, that could be interesting.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would like the Order Delay function to be added to any movement order you make so you can have TG wait at a particular point before it execute the next order in the queue.

It is currently impossible to set up patrol zones for scout ships or have your commercial ships rest their crew for a while at inhabited worlds (for role-play reasons) before they continue on with their missions.

I would really like to have this so I can use patrol zones for smaller patrol/scout vessels. I currently is more or less impossible to use ships to patrol trafficked routes without this control to have you ships rest and wait in certain points in their routes.

Why not have a patrol order which make ships patrol along civilian ship lanes automatically or randomly between selected way-points. They would also go to an inhabited planets to rest the crew when needed without player input

[Jorgen_CAB]

I would also like for ships flagged as commercial to impact your wealth as a means to reflect that they will need maintenance but not actually cost you any resources since it is your civilian population that take care of actual maintenance of these ships.
Let's say that you pay about half (or perhaps even less) than what you would pay for the resources you otherwise would have to pay for these ships. This would actually give you a small incentive to upgrade your commercial ships other than for role-play reasons.


I would also like if ships maintenance cost increased with time since the core of the ships construction will start to wear out over time. There should be an internal clock started when a ship is first constructed and then maintenance cost should slowly rise with time, more slowly in the beginning and then faster the older it gets, much like how regular maintenance work now but more permanent. This means that ships maintenance cycle would reduce over time. So, a ship might have a maintenance cycle of 5 years when constructed but after 50 years in service (after several upgrades) it has a maintenance cycle of 2.5 years (if it kept the same engineering module rating).

I also think that the larger a ship is the more efficient both crew and engineering spaces should be in general. The more crew a ship has the more efficient it is with cross training, redundancy etc..

[Erik L]

I would also like for ships flagged as commercial to impact your wealth as a means to reflect that they will need maintenance but not actually cost you any resources since it is your civilian population that take care of actual maintenance of these ships.
Let's say that you pay about half (or perhaps even less) than what you would pay for the resources you otherwise would have to pay for these ships. This would actually give you a small incentive to upgrade your commercial ships other than for role-play reasons.

Do you mean civilian rated ships you build or ships that the civilian companies build?

[MarcAFK]

I agree completely with the idea that maintenance time should increase with age, after all real warships have limited lifespans even with repeated maintenance and refits.
Perhaps whenever the ship goes in for maintenance the required msp to repair any component is increased by some percentage, say 100% rewind of clock increases the repair cost/failure rate of each component by 20%, this way a ship kept in service for a long time would get increasingly shorter maintenance time, but when the ship gets refit ideally the increased failure rate of each component is kept, but any new or changed components would have a smaller failure rate since they're brand new.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Do you mean civilian rated ships you build or ships that the civilian companies build?

I mean those that are rated as comercial and built by the player. Civilian companies will already replace ships.

There are a few incentives in the current model but I really think a simple mechanic such as a yearly cost for commersial ships on your wealth would give one more incentive toreplace them eventually.

[Hazard]

In a similar vein to Shipright's Biosphere post, Hydrospheres should be adjustable and have an impact on planetary habitability, with too low or high ratings imposing a surcharge on the planets habitability rating, symbolising the need to dedicate Infrastructure to either water reclamation facilities (when the hydrosphere is too small) or to underwater domes or flood prevention systems (if the hydrosphere is too large).

Adjusting the hydrosphere could be either a job for terraforming facilities or a dedicated facility in and off itself, although if it's a job of the terraformers it should probably take a lot more effort than the atmosphere, given that Earth's hydrosphere weighs in at about 300 times the mass of the atmosphere.

[Jorgen_CAB]

One thing that I don't really like with the current model of terraforming is that the size of a planet have no effect on either population capacity, growth or time to terraform.

I think that all worlds should perhaps require some infrastructure to be built on them when the population reach a certain point. Perhaps 1.0 should be the lowest number for any world and then higher the more the world differ from the sweet spot.

It might also be good if terraform facilities and ships would have a diminishing effect after a certain number is deployed, again depending on the size of the planet. So you should be able to terraform a big planet as fast as a smaller one, it just would take more terraform facilities to do so.

The same principle apply to mining facilities as well.

I feel that the only reason I ever diversify and colonize many different planets and mining colonies are for role-play purposes. It would be nice if the game actually gave realistic incentives to spread out more. The mechanics in many instances are a little too linear.
If you just game the game you concentrate in a few places at a time and mine them to death and move to the next planet with the highest availability of the minerals you need. It is also more profitable to move all excess population to earth and just leave perhaps 50-150 million on all other worlds, most of the time anyway.