Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[PTTG]

Geo Sensors make sense as a suite of active sensors. Grav sensors, meanwhile, seem to me like they would be similar to those "gravity wave" sensors running off of lasers and all internally contained. Besides any EM from the power plant, they would be quiet.

In fact, what if geo sensors were very loud and very clearly geo-sensors? So loud, in fact, that they effectively jam other transmissions from the ship? So if you just have crude EM sensors and no thermal or active sensors, you couldn't tell a simple survey mission to a powerful missile cruiser that just happens to have a geo-survey device attached?

[MehMuffin]

Geo Sensors make sense as a suite of active sensors. Grav sensors, meanwhile, seem to me like they would be similar to those "gravity wave" sensors running off of lasers and all internally contained. Besides any EM from the power plant, they would be quiet.

In fact, what if geo sensors were very loud and very clearly geo-sensors? So loud, in fact, that they effectively jam other transmissions from the ship? So if you just have crude EM sensors and no thermal or active sensors, you couldn't tell a simple survey mission to a powerful missile cruiser that just happens to have a geo-survey device attached?

I feel like grav sensors make sense as active sensors (Maybe not as 'loud' sensors though) as you need them to tell how large the enemy ship is, and that seems like what a device that determined the strength of an objects gravitational field would do.

[LizardSF]

I feel like grav sensors make sense as active sensors (Maybe not as 'loud' sensors though) as you need them to tell how large the enemy ship is, and that seems like what a device that determined the strength of an objects gravitational field would do.

See, I feel just the opposite. You can passively measure gravity by having super-sensitive strings or gyroscopes or other ultra-balanced objects that will reflect any distortion caused by an object moving nearby (computers automatically cancel all the effects of the ship's own motion and vibration).

I mean, right now, we're detecting alien planets entirely by passive gravitational sensors (stellar wobble), and in only about two decades, we've increased this sensitivity hundreds of times over. The technology of Aurora should be able to do the same thing.

[Erik L]

Not sure if I've suggested this prior, but the ability to assign multiple officers to a ship in various capacities, i.e. XO, Chief Engineer, Chief Medical Officer, etc. These need not have any game play benefits, but merely for story purposes.

[xeryon]

That would make for excellent game play mechanics as well. 
Engineers affect maintenance rates, overhaul rates and damage control success with more engineer slots available with more engineering sections, maintenance facilities damage control and so on
Medical officers limit and reduce health/death of officers on ship which would become more relevant if ships and personnel were altered to have numerous officers on board.
Logistics/supply officers were tied more closely with cargo handling loading and unloading times for hangers, cargo holds, cryos and troops
Navigation officers could improve the speed with which the ship could travel
Sensor officers (not sure of official command title here) could reduce JP blindness, possibly increase sensor and FC ranges, modify ECM and ECCM effectiveness.

Each additional officer slot would be tied to a specific ship module.  Allowing really large ships to potentially have several officers of one type: say a carrier might have 10 engineering sections so you could have 10 engineers on that ship.  The Chief Engineer would have a full effect and the additional 9 would have a reduced rate cumulative effect that added to the chief's.  This would limit exploitation.

I think this would go a long way toward personalizing each vessel.  Each ship may have several officers on it and would be less of a blip on the screen and ensuring the survival of a single craft would have more weight.

[praguepride]

Introducing MORE micromanagement

An idea could be that you create command "teams" and have those teams command the ship.

This would let you create your "dream teams" without having to assign each member individually over and over again. You set up command crews and assign them together.

[xeryon]

Because of the auto assign features it would add no additional micromanagement unless you chose to individually select the officers in question. 

The major thing it would change would be how you deploy your ships and make you reconsider the risks of your strategies.  Faced with losing one qualified officer or 10+ will change play styles. It would also alter ship designs and modules to accommodate desired officer layouts.

[viperfan7]

how about a new checkbox, I think there would be room under the destination for colonists bit, but have the same idea as that except for minerals, the options could be "Destination of Minerals" "Source of Minerals" and "Keep Stable"

[Moonshadow101]

I sorta posted this over there already, but I'd like to see some of the ideas in the "Newtonian Aurora - Rules" thread make their way into regular Aurora. The depth of design available for railguns, with configurable sizes and mass ratios, is particularly attractive. I'm not necessarily asking for the actual Newtonian elements, with inherited projectile velocity and interception calculation and such, but it would generally be nice if non-missile weapons felt like they were as detailed, configurable and generally useful as missiles. Also, the whole "Massive Railgun running the full length of the ship" image is one I find appealing.

Besides that,

I find much of a ship's concept of "Power" to be weirdly arbitrary. I mean, why do shields eat fuel, while energy weapons draw their power from "Power Plants," which are magical devices that produce infinite energy (albeit at a limited pace) without any sort of input? I suppose most engines make sense, since they're essentially reactors that spit their energy out for thrust instead of turning it into electricity, but don't some engines (Ion comes to mind) actually require power input to function? I guess a Star-Trek style thing of having to shift a finite amount of energy around between different systems might be a bit more per-ship micromanagement than it wanted by most people, but it'd be nice if some of this stuff was clarified or made more uniform. 

In more practical terms, I'd like it if we could define routes between key places. Like, if you have two Sector centers, the Sol System and the Hell system, you could define a series of jumps that bring you between them. Thereafter, when giving orders to task groups in either system, an order called "Route to <Other>" would be an option. I suppose this functionality is theoretically supposed to be provided by telling ships to go to planets in other systems  and having it pathfind through jumps, but every time I've attempted to set up a complex circuit in this way things have screwed up. Having the player define the pathfinding seems like it would be easier.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I think the idea is that power plants run off non-TN minerals and so arnt a part of your economy (or ship design) you have to bother with.

[someanon]

I for one, would really love filtered events to not stop auto turns.   To have more than 5 academies is painful, you can't advance time more than 5 days without an interrupt from some random officer graduating/getting sick/dying.   Right now the filter for events is rather useless, if the hidden event stops the auto turns, it stops the reason for hiding the event.   

Also, while on the topic of officers, could it be made so the officers that don't have a bonus to crew training still be assigned to ships via the auto assign button, because going through and assigning 200 if them to disposable fighters so they gain experience is.  .  .  painful. 

Edit: I would love it if we had more options for system editing in sm mode, being able to add, remove or modify planets would be a godsend.  And in the vein of editing, the ability to edit leaders bonuses in the leaders page would also be great. 

One last thing; On civilian contracts.  Sometimes it seems that really important contracts are just ignored in the face of better profits from moving goods around, so perhaps if it was possible to increase the payout value of various contracts manually, giving more control to the player in these things.  I guess the player would need to put the contract above how much the goods pay per run, which might be hard to guess, so perhaps a trade routes screen, where it lists the value of shipping goods from one planet with >1mil pop (or whatever the arbitrary limit is) to another.  I think it would be a good addition, and would add depth to the game. 

Just some things to think about, in between working on newtonian aurora. 

I will probably add more to this message as I think of neat things I think would benefit the game. 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

When I set up a new game or race, I usually want to tailor the tech to fit some predetermined idea.  If we could have some way to use the research all button within a single group of techs.  My first thought was the same tech groups as are used for the scientist bonuses.

Brian

I have added a new "All Field Res" button next to the All Research button. This works in the same way as the All Research button except it is restricted to tech systems in the currently selected research field (Construction and Production, Energy Weapons, etc.)

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A quick search of Suggestions doesn't show this, but a means to construct conventional industry. Perhaps construction rate is based off population. Some means of eventually clawing your way back to space after elimination of construction factories and mines.

I haven't included this because it is pretty cheap to convert conventional to TN industry. I think some way of using population to build construction factories and mines is probably one option - I just need to find a mechanic that allows you to recover without also giving a massive production boost to very large populations.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

A friend who plays would like me to forward the suggestion that it be possible to have civilian shipbuilding contracts, utilizing the invisible civilian shipyards to build commercial ships for the empire.

Possible in the long term. I am considering changing civs so they become more much self sufficient. They would build their own shipyards, build their own ships, mine their own minerals, etc. At the moment, civ ships are built by invisible shipyards and use invisible minerals

Steve

[sloanjh]

Possible in the long term. I am considering changing civs so they become more much self sufficient. They would build their own shipyards, build their own ships, mine their own minerals, etc. At the moment, civ ships are built by invisible shipyards and use invisible minerals

Well 90-ish percent of galactic mass *is* dark matter....

John