Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[bean]

For that particular engagement, I had set the automatic fire button.   It must have messed up the ranges.
Also, I'd like to be able to move asteroids.   It'd make things like defending jump points much easier.
A one missile per salvo PD mode would be nice for bus missiles, as well.   As it is, I tend to get massive overkill on a few salvos, and lots of wasted CMBs.   

[ExChairman]

Well we got Brigade and Division HQs but no Army HQ, not sure if its intentional or not but I miss an Army HQ...

[Erik L]

For that particular engagement, I had set the automatic fire button.   It must have messed up the ranges.
Also, I'd like to be able to move asteroids.   It'd make things like defending jump points much easier.
A one missile per salvo PD mode would be nice for bus missiles, as well.   As it is, I tend to get massive overkill on a few salvos, and lots of wasted CMBs.   

Install a small (.1) active scanner on your AMM. If their target pops, they will seek out a new one.

[Erik L]

I'd like to see a weighting on the component failure chance moved from size to usage.

If I'm puttering around the Sol system, it doesn't make much sense for the jump drive to break. It makes more sense for normal engines to break. Likewise weapon failures go up in combat/fleet training.

[schroeam]

I'd like to see a weighting on the component failure chance moved from size to usage.

If I'm puttering around the Sol system, it doesn't make much sense for the jump drive to break. It makes more sense for normal engines to break. Likewise weapon failures go up in combat/fleet training.

On the flip side, the jump drive is a vital system and therefore probably has quite a bit more preventative maintenance than your propulsion engines, since they are operating.  This means more chances that joe schmuckatelli is going to make a mistake requiring corrective maintenance.  I would just keep the component failure random but have a captain with good crew training affect the chance of breakdown due to the quality of preventative maintenance performed by his crew.  Just my two cents.

Adam.

[Erik L]

On the flip side, the jump drive is a vital system and therefore probably has quite a bit more preventative maintenance than your propulsion engines, since they are operating.  This means more chances that joe schmuckatelli is going to make a mistake requiring corrective maintenance.  I would just keep the component failure random but have a captain with good crew training affect the chance of breakdown due to the quality of preventative maintenance performed by his crew.  Just my two cents.

Adam.

Hopefully our naval boards are smart enough to put crewbeings that have at least a minimal amount of training on preventive maintenance.

I do like the idea of the captain's crew training rating affecting the breakdown chance.

[UnLimiTeD]

Thats already the sole criteria for officers on most ships anyways, no need to make that one stat even more powerful.

[bean]

Install a small (.1) active scanner on your AMM. If their target pops, they will seek out a new one.

I had that.  They didn't acquire.
Edit:
While thinking, I've had a few more ideas for things I'd like to see.  These are pretty much all things that used to be in aurora, but aren't any more.
1. Missile control.  I'm not sure why this was removed (balance or code).  If it was for balance, I have a suggestion.  Instead of allowing all missiles to be retargeted for free, I would make multiple levels.  The most basic is a simple destruct switch, either automatic, or very cheap and no mass.  Above that, you might be able to do retargeting to targets detected by onboard sensors, and finally is full control with maybe .4 MSP and a decent cost.
2. Mothballs.  I ran across a mention of it, but discovered this had been removed.  It seems like it might be useful for older ships, particularly ones it's not economical to refit (engines, etc)
3. Exclusion zones.  I read about them in the diplomatic rules, but I believe they can't be done anymore.  This is something that seems realistic, though, and might prove useful.
4. Clean warheads.  This is new, but it would work sort of like the opposite of enhanced radiation warheads.  You sacrifice hitting power on the target for reduced radiation and colateral damage during planetary bombardment.  
Edit 2:
Orbital Weapons platforms, like PDCs but in orbit, would be nice.  I know you can do them now, but it takes shipyard space, maintainence at the destination, and you have to move them.  This way you could do things like lasers for fixed defenses.

[ZimRathbone]

Install a small (.1) active scanner on your AMM. If their target pops, they will seek out a new one.

on an AMM this only really works for stationary or slow moving targets - generally missiles will easily cover much more than the detection range of such a small sensor in a 5 sec pulse.

Large ship sensors are a bit more practical (say R100)

[ZimRathbone]

I had that.  They didn't acquire.
Edit:
While thinking, I've had a few more ideas for things I'd like to see.  These are pretty much all things that used to be in aurora, but aren't any more.

Most were due to balance issues
 

1. Missile control.  I'm not sure why this was removed (balance or code).  If it was for balance, I have a suggestion.  Instead of allowing all missiles to be retargeted for free, I would make multiple levels.  The most basic is a simple destruct switch, either automatic, or very cheap and no mass.  Above that, you might be able to do retargeting to targets detected by onboard sensors, and finally is full control with maybe .4 MSP and a decent cost.

The problem here was the supersized unstoppable missile storms that were created  with full control – there is already the onboard auto retarget option if you add a (large resolution) active sensor on your missiles.[/quote]

2. Mothballs.  I ran across a mention of it, but discovered this had been removed.  It seems like it might be useful for older ships, particularly ones it's not economical to refit (engines, etc) .

Again a deliberate choice.  Mothball status has never existed in Aurora (it did in Starfire) and IIRC it was specifically to stop a common Starfire tactic of building huge mothballed fleets which could be reactivated fairly quickly, and for which you did not have to pay 15% of the purchase cost every month in maintenance – in Aurora the maintenance cost on an active unit was much less on an ongoing basis, but of course the need to periodically overhaul the ships somewhat offsets it.  I think it was also a case where Steve was trying for more a fleet-in –being feel to Aurora

[Starkiller]

One thing I might recomend, if it's possible.

I notice that even after a NPR's gate construction ship has been destroyed in a system, by
StarSwarm, that they keep sending Gate ships, over time, to be destroyed by StarSwarm. They have
sent military units to battle Precursers who did this, but it's like they don't see StarSwarm as a threat.
In one case, they even detected the approaching Swarm, and started building the Jump Gate anyway.
I woulda run like a bat out of hell! Apparently, NPRs aren't seeing them as a threat, though Precursers
seem to be reacted to, in a proper fashion. You might want to check that, or the StarSwarm will do our
job for us. ^_-

Sorry for the spoiler tags, people, but there IS info here some people might like to find out on their own.

Eric

[bean]

Another thing, this one minor.  Could you please add an unfilled posts only box to the leaders screen, please.  I find it rather annoying to have to scroll past a dozen ships to get to the one I want.

[ExChairman]

Ground combat:
Would bee nice with some scenery that affects the battle, mountains, woods, cities, etc...

Combat units:
Artillery: Good support, in offens and defence, but easily overrun... Able to attach to HQ units, above the 4 unit limit.

Able to rename unit types before you build them.

[Arwyn]

This has been a minor thing, but on the officer front, it would be nice to see something related to combat proficiency on fleet officers similar to the Ground Combat bonus on ground officers.

Right now, the single most important stat for ship captains or fleet commanders is the training bonus. While that is and should be a key stat, just because an officer is an effective trainer, it is not an indicator that they would be an effective combat leader.

I found it odd to see that there was a Ground Combat stat for ground officers, but not for fleet officers when the training bonuses were the same.

To that same point, while we have Xenology, Mining, Survey, Logistics, ect. I would love to see something like Sensor Operations, Maintenance Operations, Weapons Officer.

Particularly for immersion/roleplay, it would be nice to have an officer who was a wizard at Sensor Ops, with the bonus adding to the detection range of the ship, or having Maintenance Ops bonus reducing the chance of failure on a ship, or Weapons bonus reducing the reload/refire rate on the ship.

[sausage]

This has probably been suggested several times, and might already exist (haven't played too far to know for sure) but I think it would be cool if pirate organizations appeared in underdeveloped systems