Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[PTTG]

Specify Mining Production

Currently, all mining production is equally effective, assuming equal accessability.

Naturally, the more specialized a mining facility is, the less efficient it is. Perhaps going from 1,000 total tons of mixed output- say 100 of each resource- to only 500 total tons exclusively of duranium.

To expand on this idea, the reasoning is that when you find a planet with one highly accessible resource deposit, it is very rare that you will focus on developing that resource rather than simply look for a better body somewhere else with several less accessible deposits. It ultimately discourages you from having tactically-interesting "key resource" sources, such as a colony that provides plentiful tritanium but nothing else. If you lose that planet, you're forced to decrease your dependence on missile weapons but may be able to use something else.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Specify Mining Production

Currently, all mining production is equally effective, assuming equal accessability.

Naturally, the more specialized a mining facility is, the less efficient it is. Perhaps going from 1,000 total tons of mixed output- say 100 of each resource- to only 500 total tons exclusively of duranium.

To expand on this idea, the reasoning is that when you find a planet with one highly accessible resource deposit, it is very rare that you will focus on developing that resource rather than simply look for a better body somewhere else with several less accessible deposits. It ultimately discourages you from having tactically-interesting "key resource" sources, such as a colony that provides plentiful tritanium but nothing else. If you lose that planet, you're forced to decrease your dependence on missile weapons but may be able to use something else.

I am a little concerned that might be unbalancing. However, in the dim and distant future when I finally get around to some type of planetary maps, I will very likely have deposits on the map and you will mine them separately - in which case you will have something similar to the above.

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

I guess the point there is to mine that duranium deposit with nothing else a bit faster than that planet with 11 minerals in bad concentrations.
Currently, mining a planet with less than 3 minerals in good concentrations is just not worth it, so having a speed-multiplier might be an interesting choice.
Like, 1+(#of deposits below 10)/X |(f.Ex X=10);
to be assigned to a single resource, which is thus mined faster.

[LizardSF]

Along the same lines, I'd like to assign mass drivers to different worlds. "Send all Duranium to Mars". "Send all other minerals to Earth". Obviously, this requires more than 1 mass driver.

[Thiosk]

Fix rates of discoveries for planetary bodies

Something works crazy with the way geo teams find minerals on a planet.  Its drivin' me nuts. 
Why is a geo team's effectiveness a function of the object size???

I put a geo team on a planet.  Pop pop pop come the discoveries, then they're done, then next planet.

Put a team on an asteroid, and it takes forEVER to find ANYTHING.

Seems to me that anybody should be able to identify a couple deposits on a rock the size of a mountain with their generic DeVry university associates degree in Surveying.  If anything, planets should be harder to find minerals on than asteroids and chunks, but take much longer to "tap out" so to speak.

[UnLimiTeD]

It's probably about how they have a chance to level up if they find something.

[IanD]

I am one of those players who have little recourse to biological modification. However what I am always short of after 50 years is population on the HI 0 worlds I have discovered. What I would like are Cloning Facilities and the rate of clone production able to be increased by research but ultimately controlled by the size of population available to the Cloning Facility. Research could decrease the cost of operating a Cloning Facility and increase the number of viable foetuses derived from a single donated egg with the maximum being sextuplets.  There would also be an 18 year delay before the start of adding to the population of the planet and a corresponding 18 year delay in shutting off the supply of additional population. That is unless you wish to postulate force grown and tape trained Azi’s as in Cherry’s Cyteen Universe.

A planet probably needs a minimum population before a Cloning Facility can be operated to avoid inbreeding. About 1 million sounds about right to give a sufficient donor population. Above the minimum population a Cloning Facility could increase the population by an additional 150 clones per million population per year.

Size of facility – same as research facility
Transportable? - Yes
Workforce – 100,000 – most of the incubators would be monitored by computers. Clones would then be subsumed into the invisible infrastructure of Aurora.
Maximum output of clones per facility – 100,000 per annum (possibly could be increased by research).
Base level of clones produced – 150 per million planetary population.

Code: [Select]

The above is based very roughly on the UK egg donation figures in 2008.
Assume 500 donors per 50 million population (actual 417 per approx 65 million population).
Assume 15 eggs per donor (Actual 10-15), assume 100% success rate (Hey! Its science fiction!).
This gives the figure of 150 clones per million population.

[PTTG]

This might be particularly useful in Newtonian, which has most economic variables, including population growth rate, halved.

[jaybud4]

Improving the autofire system:
--Set BY CONTROL, instead of global.   No, I don't want you autofiring my missiles, thanks.
--Does not reassign weaponry.   No, I don't want this gauss turret that was on a point defense FC being used alongside the offensive 80cm cannons.
--Status copies with assignments (or maybe targets).   Yes, I want you ALL to autofire.   Do it!

[horza]

I really loved the game for the first month or so, finally getting a handle on ship design and combat.

Then I started feeling sick.  Any more than an hour or so and I really had to stop.  Not a problem with any other game, or with my day job of staring at a screen all day.

I've had this before, and it's to do with the combination of bue/yellow on the system map screen.  Is there any easy way that the colour scheme could be made configurable?

I realise this is very much a minority request, but I know I'm not unique in having trouble with staring at certain colour combinations for too long.

[Thiosk]

It can be changed on the galactic map-- one of the settings... but I can't figure out how to do it on the system map.

Difficulty reading white and yellow on blue is well known from the old days of presentation technology, often causing dizziness or nausea.

[Mel Vixen]

I would like to have more options my espionage teams. It would be nice if i could conduct Assassinations (leaders, officers), Acts of terror i mean Heroic deeds in the Name of the Motherland and / or God, smuggling and brewing up revolutions. Just somemore asymetric way to conduct war. And while we are at it - using/bribing enemy shiping lines to transport my espionage guys.

[IanD]

In two recent campaigns with Precursors, Star Swarm and Invaders switched on using Aurora 5.14 and 5.42 I managed to reach year 68 and 66 years respectively of the game, before the turn delays became intolerable, the record being one day of gaming taking six weeks of real time. When the designer password was available it showed most of the delays were due to the Invaders interacting with Precursors or Star Swarm. However towards the end it was difficult to positively identify what was causing the delays. Only two or three times in the 5.42 game was the slow down due to Invader interaction with NPR races, which was invariably fatal for the NPR.

Thus my experience is that if you switch on Invaders you probably only have 66-70 years of game time to play with. The reason appeared to be connected to the rate of Invader exploration. With the designer password it was possible to see they had explored hundreds of systems compared to much less for all other races. In the 5.42 game Invaders had explored 1118 systems (in a thousand star game!), seven of the NPRS had explored 100, 16, 6, 4, 88, 26 and 12 systems respectively, the player race had only explored 23 (I turtled). Precursors had knowledge of 184 and Star Swarm 75. That game lasted 66 years.

In the 5.14 game I don’t have the data for Invaders as trying to eliminate an Invader fleet in designer mode I crashed the game and eliminated such data for Invaders but the player race had explored 42 systems, five of the NPRs had explored 67, 78, 133, 174, and 2 respectively, While the Precursors had knowledge of 44 and the Star Swarm 32 systems. I would expect the Invaders to have had explored around the 1000 system mark going on the event record for them.

I guess you could limit the number of stars to a couple of hundred, but that means with the rate of Invader exploration they are going to find you pretty quickly. Another way would be to greatly slow down Invader exploration of the galaxy or if the Invaders discover a system containing either Precursors or Star Swarm to nullify that turn of exploration.

My choice would be to make Invader incursions a quite rare event so they would only intrude into a new system in the Galaxy once every 1 to 5 years, perhaps make it possible to specify this interval at the game start? I would not have them explore unless they find enemy ships or colonies when it would be reasonable for them to attempt the extermination of the foe.

I have started a new game with 5.56 without Invaders and 58 years, 80 systems explored I have had no slow downs what so ever – so far, although I may have eliminated the primary NPR early on!

Anyone have other thoughts

[OAM47]

I'll reserve saying one way or the other till late, but recently I did run into some turn delays of doom.  Seemed the invaders couldn't take down the swarm's shield.  Fortunately someone with the password was able to delete the offending ship.

[Stephan]

a check box to mark commercial ships as government build only even if they have cargo holds, cryos, and passenger accomodations.