Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[swarm_sadist]

This is what I did in Astra Imperia...

Code: [Select]

ECM may be used to jam sensors. ECM used in this manner provides no protection. Jammed sensors suffer a negative modifier equal to the “To-Hit reduction” on their chances to lock on and to hit. This is shown on Table 50 on page 39. Jammed sensors also have half of the channel capacity. The ship wishing to jam a sensor must roll a to-hit as a Class II weapon. If the roll succeeds, the target’s sensors are jammed for 1d5 turns. Multiple “hits” from jamming are not cumulative.

Interesting. I've never played AI but it looks interesting. How is it that the ECM provides no protection if it damages the enemy's ability to hit you? Isn't that how ECM works?

What I was suggesting was a wavelength/frequency based sensor (based on resolution) coupled with fire control (which would operate on another frequency far away from sensors) which may be crowded by a very large enemy array. If the enemy floods a frequency, then that frequency cannot be used by either side (unless there exists jamming modulators tied in to the shipboard sensors, although if it exists it's still classified). A FC would be able to switch frequency, but there is a limited amount of wavelengths that can be used. It could also tie in to communications, with some races using different wavelengths for messages.

[Zook]

It might have been suggested before, but anyway:

1) I'm currently the victim of a massive slowdown where distant NPR wars I'm not involved in cause the game to compute the next month almost in real time. I don't mind waiting a little, there's always something else to do while Aurora is busy, it's just that a 30-day auto turn could take a minute to compute, or two hours. When I'm expecting it to take a long time, I read or cook dinner or make myself useful in other ways than commanding my star empire. I stop checking once a minute if the turn is finished. But then, maybe the next time I hit "30 days" the distant battle or war is over, the turn is done in 20 seconds and the game waits for my next input while I read the sports pages, just to pass the time. That effectively doubles the time it takes to get through a slowdown phase.

What about an option "Play a sound if the last turn took longer than 3 minutes to compute"? Just a notification that you're expected in the command center again.

Also, the event log might include a message saying that "A distant battle has caused some game slowdown". So new players know it's not a bug.

2) If the slowdown is due to such a war, what about an SM option to "End distant NPR wars"? It would simply restore all NPR relations to a state of harmonious co-existence and make the game playable again. Of course that would be a massive intervention in the history of the galaxy, but so is removing entire star systems.

[Charlie Beeler]

I was contemplating the overwhelming dominance of missiles in Aurora, and I had a thought. (I know, dangerous)

This is something I put in Astra Imperia, and sort of adapted from SFB. Sensors, or in the case of Aurora, missile fire controls have channels. The number of channels being the number of missiles that the ship could control. Obviously, this would be an upgradeable tech line. Question is, apply it to beam fire control? In AI, channels are used to control outbound missiles, incoming missiles, and target ships. Once you are out of channels, you cannot target a new ship/missile salvo, or guide your own missiles. Of course, when a channel is freed up by missiles getting destroyed, or a ship being destroyed or otherwise removed from the target pool, you can then assign the channel to something else.

I'm not proposing anything that complicated, just something to limit the number of missiles in flight. AMM MFC would probably end up designed with higher channels to account for the greater number of missiles fired, while offensive MFC would have less channels. This leads to the idea of a controller ship, with lots of MFC channels to control a large number of missiles.

Sounds familiar...http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1563.msg14232/topicseen.html#msg14232

[Erik L]

Sounds familiar...http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1563.msg14232/topicseen.html#msg14232

Good ideas never die?

[UnLimiTeD]

That system would allow for reintroducing retargeting.
Given that massive strikes aren't possible anymore unless you stack on firecontrols, the original reason for banning it goes away.

[davidr]

It would make the husbanding of ships more realistic if there was a finite length to the number of years in service of a vessel before that vessel has to be scrapped and a replacement built.

At present a vessel can be built at the beginning of the game , say in 2025 and with refitting and maintenance can exist almost indefinitely ( war losses excluded ).

I know that one could role play and scrap vessels after a certain amount of time but this would be better is it was forced onto the player by the core programme.

DavidR

[metalax]

I'd have to strongly disagree with forcing ships to be scrapped after a certain period of time. As long as ships recieve regular maintainance and overhauls there is no good reason why they should be forced to be retired due to age alone, even if their capabilities have been surpassed by newer ships. As you have already stated, you can manually scrap ships if you believ that they are too old, but forcing it to occur is a poor idea.

[Zook]

They don't put on rust in orbit, do they?

[Zook]

An economic problem: I mine much less than I try to turn into ships. I get a lot of messages about missing minerals for production, and I can see my non-existent stockpiles and the amount I need to produce all I've ordered. But I'd like to know how much I'm lacking on a per-month basis. Also, how much my mass drivers and ships brought in last month. With the information I have, it's hard to say whether need 50% more Duranium or 250%. I can manually add the amount mined in the system, but don't they have computers for that in the 21st century?

[Erik L]

An economic problem: I mine much less than I try to turn into ships. I get a lot of messages about missing minerals for production, and I can see my non-existent stockpiles and the amount I need to produce all I've ordered. But I'd like to know how much I'm lacking on a per-month basis. Also, how much my mass drivers and ships brought in last month. With the information I have, it's hard to say whether need 50% more Duranium or 250%. I can manually add the amount mined in the system, but don't they have computers for that in the 21st century?

Don't forget your maintenance consumes minerals as does your facility production.

On the mining tab there should be a column for mass driver incoming minerals. As well as the +/- column which shows usage trends.

[Zook]

On the mining tab there should be a column for mass driver incoming minerals.

Unfortunately it doesn't work. Zero since the dawn of the space age.

[Beersatron]

Unfortunately it doesn't work. Zero since the dawn of the space age.

You have to look at it on the 'tick' that the minerals arrive - which is like a mini-game within the game

[Zook]

Right-clicking an explored jump point should give me an option to go to that map.

[jseah]

If I may re-suggest something:
Have ship components be buildable in packages.  While having the ability to stock engines before-hand is nice, it would be micromanagement friendly to have orders for "Build Kuma Class Frigate Manufacturable Components" as an item that, upon completion, would dump the relevant items into your stockpiles. 

This would help greatly. 

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As for a new suggestion:
The Stable option on the civilian immigration is very useful.  It could be expanded into a Stable Level tool. 
The Stable Level should have the option of being one of two things (check box?):
An absolute number in millions
Or the difference to maximum infrastructure support in millions (so -1 means 1 million less than infrastructure will support)

What this should do is to behave as Source when above the stable level, and Destination when below it. 
Additionally, civilian colony ships should check for all incoming colonists and not route in/out if that would go over/under the Stable level. 

[jseah]

More on attempting to reduce the dominance of missiles:

Allow preferred ranges for missile firecontrols.  When AMM launching against a target outside the low and high preferred range, ships will look for another firecontrol with a preferred range that fits the target and fire that first. 
They should still fire if the preferred firecontrols are not ready (whether due to reloading tubes or can't fire enough), just that they will shoot those tubes first. 

This will allow layered AMM nets for multiple interceptions.  A 6mkm AMM, then a 3mkm AMM, then a 1mkm AMM, with increasing capabilities at shorter ranges. 
Perhaps have a ignore-number to facilitate cooperation with PD.  The firecontrol will not fire at targets that will hit in 5 seconds unless they are above a certain ignore-number. 
EDIT: currently, the impact of this is roughly 1% interception chance, but this is set to increase dramatically once the 5.7 missile fuel comes in. 


Intelligence on enemy missiles should allow you to designate ignored classes of missiles (stuff your ships will not automatically fire at).  Missiles with 0 warhead should be automatically ignored.