Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[LoSboccacc]

suggestoin: from practice to theory

how about some research data coming from mass production? just a bit, because the main driver will always be research, just to favor specialization and commitment.

it should work only on improvable parts, like laser size or meson focusing or engine fuel consumption but not on different technology lines, so not for ion to magnetoplasma and not from visible light laser to the next laser frequency.

the bonus should be very little and proportional to the level actually used in the design. it should be awarded only for production, not design.

a formula that comes to mind would be (tech level -1) points.

some example:
ion engine, efficiency -10, fuel 0.7, no hyper-drive,  no thermal reduction, military engine.
for each engine produced at a shipyard or planet
to magneto plasma: no bonus, different tech line
to next negative efficiency: 1 point (level 2 -1)
to next fuel:  2 points (level 3 - 1)
to next hyper drive: 0 points (level 1 - 1)
to next thermal: 0 points (level 1-1)


it could use some balancing (ciws and turrets in general would give point to a lot of components that way, from turret gears to all gauss techs, multiplied for every weapon inside the turret)

[Thiosk]

Minor rethinking of Racial Tech

Researching EVERY component is sometimes tedious.  As it stands, major advances of technology, I research: new engines, new jumpdrive, cloaking devices, etcetera.  If i'm just redesiging a piece of tech for a specific role, however, I just SM it because theres too many things to do between deciding to construct a ship and actually completing the blueprint.   SMing it is fine for me, but its a little heartbreaking to do it.

I might suggest some sort of RP threshold that separates old tech from new tech.  Major line item changes require a new research project, downgrades or minor items do not (adding extra armor to an item, for instance, doesn't really justify a complete new project.)

To balance this, I propose the following:  when building a ship using new systems, theres a "learning curve."  The first five ships, the constituent components cost an effective 25% more BP as the engineers learn to install them.  The next ten have no cost impact, and the rest cost an effective 25% less as the engineers and industry are adept at their construction.  

[metalax]

An option to select "don't use stockpiled parts" when building or refiting a ship.

[Yonder]

Nano Armor Tech Line:

All armor types could have a corresponding "nano" version. Which is much more (5-10x?) expensive. This armor doesn't repair itself as such, but it does slowly redistribute itself. There would be a new tech line with the time interval of this redistribution, maybe starting at 10-20 minutes and maxing out at 5 seconds.

Every "Nano Armor Interval" of time an armor slot would be removed from one of the of the columns with the most armor, and put in one of the columns with the least armor. (Assuming that this column had at least 2 less armor than the original column).

So after a battle (and at higher tech levels, possibly even between salvos) your armor would still be weaker but you would no longer have gaping holes in your armor offering the chance of an unlucky hit. You'd now have a thinner, but more evenly distributed armor belt.

[Goron]

Include indication of tanker, collier etc.  in the design summary for ships.
In more words: when I click the tanker checkbox in my class design, add [tanker] to the design summary

[orfeusz]

An option to select "don't use stockpiled parts" when building or refiting a ship.

+1

Nano Armor Tech Line:

All armor types could have a corresponding "nano" version. Which is much more (5-10x?) expensive. This armor doesn't repair itself as such, but it does slowly redistribute itself...

I don't like that idea. It will make missile less powerful. It's also too like "organic armor concept" that I really, really don't like 
Even if that idea is on, i think that it would be enormously more expensive to produce. Now we have layers of more and more powerful alloys. Like simple steel plates, titanium, etc. You propose something as powerful as those "super dense and hot resistance" alloys to be able to move, quite fast in couple of seconds. Only thing I'm capable of thinking is that it would need to be nanites, and wow. They are costly! So maybe like 80x more expensive. It's only ma opinion. 

[Antagonist]

Hmm, nanotech armors could be useful for lighter and thinner but just as strong armors.  Like 10x the expense but every ton of armor is 2x - 3x as strong.  I'm thinking particularly useful for removing that SLIGHT bit of weight from fighters and FACs.  Maybe even missiles.  I'm not sure I like the flowing armor either though.

[Goron]

The flowing nano armor sounds like a shield that lacks recharge.

[Thiosk]

Auto-Tuggers

As strange as that word sounds, i'd like to have a group with a conditional order: fulfill Auto-tug requests.

Then, you can select a ship, order it to "wait for tug to: destination."

What this would let you do is put your tugs on autopilot, and then instruct task groups to move by tug.  I envision this occuring in such a way that the task group would sit there, and then tugs would come, merge with the task group, and split off to carry the ships to the destination.  I'm sure there is a simple solution to avoid spawning a hundred task groups if you request tugs for 100 ships.

[Mel Vixen]

I like this idea. Autotugs would take much of the micromanagment out of the asteroid mining.

[scvn2812]

I'm sure this has been suggested before but it may be worth repeating:

Why must maintenance storage bays make a ship automatically military? This would simplify logistics just a bit by allowing commercial built supply ships that don't break down.

[Jacob/Lee]

Commercial ships don't break down in the first place.

[metalax]

Commercial ships don't break down in the first place.

Yes, but he is talking of making commercial maintainance supply ships so as to take advantage of that, but it is not possible to use maintainance supply storage components as they automatically make the ship military, which is the part he was asking to be changed.

You can make commercial supply ships using large numbers of engineering sections however they will be carrying far less total maintainance supplys than their military counterpart.

[UnLimiTeD]

I'd like to suggest random research.
As in, the Alpha Centauri Kind.
Scientists could just pick an undisclosed matter of research, and when they are half done, you see what they do and can put it on hold if you don't like it.
Optional, of course.

[blue emu]

I would like to see another level or two to the Tractor Beam tech, which would allow miniaturization from 10 HS down to smaller sizes... perhaps by steps of -10% or -20%.

... and yes, I have a specific application in mind (Modular Ship Design), for which smaller Tractor Beams would be very useful.