Official Suggestion Thread for 5.20 or later

[swarm_sadist]

1. Officer auto assignment.
Would it be possible to get the auto-assign to assign officers that don't have crew training ratings or the relevant abilities, after all the officers with relevant abilities are assigned?  I tend to try to fill those slots, but in a large games, it's sort of a chore.

Adding a feature to cherry pick candidates may be helpful as well. Say two additional levels below normal officers: unsatisfactory level and probationary level, both of which are set by the player. Unsatisfactory level is the promotion score an officer must be generated with in order to join the officer pool. Failure to do so could result in a message such as "13 officers finished their war college this month with failing grade, and are therefor unable to become [LowestRankRelevant]". Maybe making it so that a certain initiative or training score is required for graduation, or that the officer has at least one score above a set limit will also reduce the number of useless officers in the pool. A probationary officer is one who passed, but just passed, again by the players standards. They will not be put on any ship that does not have the conscript box checked and they are the first to be deemed surplus. This would allow me to have 25+ academies in my empire turning through hundreds of officers searching for only the best there are.

2. Crew rotation and pool tracking.
I find the current system to be incredibly simplistic.  You have two levels, conscript and pool.  Nothing else, and unless I'm mistaken, the the crew in the pool persists forever.  Also, the crew will stay with a ship forever, and then magic people appear on scrapping.  The entire system only makes sense if the crew are actually robots.
Here's my suggestion.  First, the crew pool tracks people and points separately.  The academy has a level that it pumps people in at.  For example, it may add 100 people and 20000 points in a given week.  These are added to the pool values.  When a ship is commissioned, it takes the correct number of people and points, based on the pool averages.  Adjusting the academy training level only affects the inflow, not what's already in the pool.  Also, people should leave the pool.  Maybe 5% a year, of average points.  In wartime, you can check a box which temporarily slows the loss rate, but eventually (5 to 10 years later) it comes back to normal, or even goes higher.  After you uncheck it, the war timer counts backwards until it reaches 0, so people don't just toggle it on and off when they get to the point of diminishing returns.
Second, rotate people on ships.  To make it easy, whenever a ship gets shore leave, a certain number of people rotate back into the pool, based on how long it's been out.  Maybe 10% per year.  They're replaced with normal people from the pool.  This is to avoid the "ICBM station with an enormous crew rating" problem.
Third, allow picked crews, and unpicked crews.  These have maybe 150% and 50% of normal points, respectively, taking the appropriate number of people and points from the pool, and getting those values when the crew rotates.  This is to allow you to have a good crew on your fancy new battleship, and give your second-line PDCs the dregs.  

While I'm all for this, this all may be a lot farther than 6.1. Except of course for the 'elite' crew, which would take about two hours of coding. Maybe having the training rating expanded on would be a better plan. Based on WW2 and the use of total warfare and complete industrialization of most nations in that period, four years seems to be the absolute maximum that an industrialized nation is able to be fully mobilized before completely breaking down.

3. Automation of ships.
Automation has several effects.  First, no crew required (obviously).  Second, no onboard repair.  Thirdly, no captain, and the crew grade is fixed, and set by the level of automation system you use.  Fourth, there is a fixed "fleet training rating" that can't be altered, and is also set by the automation system.  Fifth, docking with a crewed ship should be able to repair the vessel, and maybe reduce the maintainence clock some.  Something like the shore leave system, where you have "time since last tune-up" and "time since last overhaul".

I don't see why an AI would not be able to learn, nor require task force training. Robots can also repair the ship just as effectively as any organic crew. All they would need is a dedicated repair component IE: Damage Control. The level of AI should determine how much the AI can learn, how fast it learns (It's default training level, since it is unaffected by commanders), and the initiative.

4. Task Force Training.
Have TF training drain off.  It's entirely possible to train a ship up all the way, park it in orbit, and leave it there for a decade or two.  I'd suggest having ships work up faster than they do today (maybe a year at training 100).  The points persist as long as the crew is away from shore, but when they get to shore, the points start to drain off.  After the shore leave timer is exhausted, the points drain at maybe 2% a month.  This way, ships have to keep training occasionally.  After a refit, for example, a ship would have to work up again to get back to full efficiency.  The drain is slow enough that a ship would only have to go to sea about one month out of four.

I like this; some additional thoughts. Although leaving a ship in orbit would be the worst thing for a crews' TF training, wandering around the solar system on patrol would also sap the task force training, especially for an auxiliary ship such as a deep space scout. A ship in combat during WW2 did not have to do training exercises for most of the war because they were at war. Their skills were not rusting in dry dock and their new recruits were usually sailors who were rescued hours before from their other ship. Today's navies require constant training just because of the fact that they spend most of their time in harbor, without any sort of enemy to prepare for. Just being 'out there' does not mean a ship should have their training level stay where it is, it should drop no matter what. It should just somehow restore itself during combat manoeuvres.

Edit: A feature to have maintenance not cost any resources, instead requiring just time and wealth to maintain with maintenance facilities.

[sloanjh]

1. Officer auto assignment.
Would it be possible to get the auto-assign to assign officers that don't have crew training ratings or the relevant abilities, after all the officers with relevant abilities are assigned?  I tend to try to fill those slots, but in a large games, it's sort of a chore.

Seconded.  Actually, I think I might have already asked for this a long time ago....

John

[Bgreman]

Two things I'd like to see:

1) On the upcoming production overview window and perhaps the industry tab itself, a toggle that changes the display so that instead of viewing the time when the total amount of a project is finished, it would display the time when the NEXT unit of that order will be completed.  E.g. if I'm producing 10 research labs, instead of telling me the date when the last one will be done, it tells me the date when the NEXT one will be done.

2) More things for espionage teams to do.  

• I'd like to be able to have them find out about ongoing enemy production projects (I.e., the Federation is producing 5 DSTS using 234.8 construction points per year (don't show the percent, so that we don't know the total amount of production available).
• The same for enemy shipbuilding projects.
• Information about existing enemy ships (names, numbers of a given class, commander, etc)
• Information about enemy colonies (for example, finding out that the Federation's Mars colony has 3 construction factories).
• Location (coordinates) of a single enemy ship or task force (would show up as a lost contact)
• Location (system/body) of an unknown enemy colony (would show up as a lost contacct)
• Acts of sabotage (destroying an installation or supply or missile stockpile, causing a production setback on a ship or industry project)
• Income/Expenditure information (wealth report) of an enemy faction

[bean]

Adding a feature to cherry pick candidates may be helpful as well. Say two additional levels below normal officers: unsatisfactory level and probationary level, both of which are set by the player. Unsatisfactory level is the promotion score an officer must be generated with in order to join the officer pool. Failure to do so could result in a message such as "13 officers finished their war college this month with failing grade, and are therefor unable to become [LowestRankRelevant]". Maybe making it so that a certain initiative or training score is required for graduation, or that the officer has at least one score above a set limit will also reduce the number of useless officers in the pool. A probationary officer is one who passed, but just passed, again by the players standards. They will not be put on any ship that does not have the conscript box checked and they are the first to be deemed surplus. This would allow me to have 25+ academies in my empire turning through hundreds of officers searching for only the best there are.

That's even better.  Surplus auto-assign would be nice, too, but half of the problem is just the sheer number of officers.

While I'm all for this, this all may be a lot farther than 6.1. Except of course for the 'elite' crew, which would take about two hours of coding. Maybe having the training rating expanded on would be a better plan. Based on WW2 and the use of total warfare and complete industrialization of most nations in that period, four years seems to be the absolute maximum that an industrialized nation is able to be fully mobilized before completely breaking down.

As much as anything, I'm trying to keep it simple.  A more realistic rotation rate would be 25% per year, and with more complex effects.  I just am slightly put off by the current robot crew system.

I like this; some additional thoughts. Although leaving a ship in orbit would be the worst thing for a crews' TF training, wandering around the solar system on patrol would also sap the task force training, especially for an auxiliary ship such as a deep space scout. A ship in combat during WW2 did not have to do training exercises for most of the war because they were at war. Their skills were not rusting in dry dock and their new recruits were usually sailors who were rescued hours before from their other ship. Today's navies require constant training just because of the fact that they spend most of their time in harbor, without any sort of enemy to prepare for. Just being 'out there' does not mean a ship should have their training level stay where it is, it should drop no matter what. It should just somehow restore itself during combat manoeuvres.

I know, but I was trying to make it relatively easy to code.  Some of it is that a deep-space scout is not going to be doing weapons drills, but the crew will probably be pretty good at "go that way" which is what you really want if there's trouble.

Edit:
One thing that would have to be addressed is how conscript-only ships would interact with the pool.  If they work normally (except not drawing people or points from the pool) the pool would rapidly flood with untrained people.  At a guess, any conscript-only ships should just dump the 10% and have it disappear.  If for some reason a conscript-only ship happens to get a good crew, set the ship for lowest 50% instead before you dock it.

I don't see why an AI would not be able to learn, nor require task force training. Robots can also repair the ship just as effectively as any organic crew. All they would need is a dedicated repair component IE: Damage Control. The level of AI should determine how much the AI can learn, how fast it learns (It's default training level, since it is unaffected by commanders), and the initiative.

I was looking more at remote-controlled dedicated vessels.  Admittedly, that suggestion was motivated by my biases with respect to automation and AI.  (The ship is like a UAV, not a manned ship crewed by robots, and no strong AI).  At the same time, I was trying to differentiate automated ships from manned ones more strongly.

[Zook]

As part of the right-click menu for jump points: "Go to that system". It would save a lot of time spent navigating the system drop-down.

[bean]

I have two more suggestions based on my earlier comments about crewing.
1. Introduce crew pay
This might only apply to those in the pool for simplicity's sake.  There is a certain charge per person, and a certain charge per grade point.  This way, you can't build up a huge reserve of crew like you can now, at least not cost-free.
2. Reintroduce mothballing
I know that at one point, this was in the game, but it got removed for balance reasons.  It should work fairly well with my other proposed changes.  The problem with a vessel coming out of mothballs is that it has no crew, it's not worked up, and its maintainence clock should tick slowly (maybe 10 to 1 or so).  So to put it in action, you have to get a crew, overhaul the ship, and work it up.  While, presumably, you're in a war.  And the crew is likely to be pretty green.  Particularly if you have to pay inactive crew, you won't have a huge number sitting around waiting for the war.  So a ship just coming out of mothballs has a green crew, a TF training of 0, and time on the maintainence clock, compared to one that was already in service.  All in all, not a bad trade.

[Zook]

A (*) to denote shipyards able to build different ship types with their current tooling.

[waresky]

Guys..too much Suggestions:

Wait for 5.7 or 6.0 and stop:)

[telegraph]

With deployment time constraints TF training of the fighter fleets became even more tedious activity for my hands. Can I please have new conditions and new conditional orders in a fleet window?

I would like following conditions:
1. Has a broken component component. (severe maintenance failure happened, time for repair)
2. MSP is below max level. (maintenance failure happened, time for overhaul)
3. Morale is below max level.
4. Shore leave ended.
5. Overhaul ended.
6. repair ended.

I would like to have following conditional orders:
1. repair at nearest shipyard.
2. repair at assigned mothership.
3. overhaul and resuply at nearest shipyard.
4. overhaul and resuply at assigned mothership.
5. Shore leave at eligible planet.
6. Shore leave at assigned mothership.
7. Start TF training.

Or maybe it would be good to exclude ships in TF training from maintenance checks and deployment time checks? After all they are flying not far from home and should visit docks from time to time.

[Nathan_]

A listening post marker for the galactic map would be fairly nice.

[UnLimiTeD]

A Semi-Real Star Option

Real stars are known stars at known positions, which might increase immersion; I can agree with that assessment, however, it also costs gameplay, as there's no chance of Black holes or nebulae.

So I'd like to suggest a mixed option:
If you start at Sol, you can set a % and distance difference.
Example:

• 75% chance to find a real star system from a real star system
• 75% chance to find a fantasy system from a fantasy system
• If same system type, reduce generated system distance by X

That would allow a sort of RP where some wormholes lead to very far away systems in yet uncharted space.[/list]

[metalax]

Option to upload partial research data to specified ship

While disscusing about setting up a mobile species, two things came up that hold you to a specific colony for significant time, underway construction, via shipyard or industry, and ongoing research. While you can load partal installations into cargo bays so that construction can continue later and it kind of makes sense that you can't bring along a partially constructed ship, it does not make sense that research data has to be abandoned entirely.

I'd like to see an option to upload partial research data to specified ship, perhaps at a 10%-20% loss so that it is a significant decision to do so. When the ship reaches the new colony that will be continuing research it will then have the option to download all research data to the colony giving it the partial progress in research that had been uploaded earlier. If the new research colony has already researched passed the point that is saved in the ship, then there is no further benefit from it.

[Nathan_]

When releasing ships from a tractor beam at a planet rather than put them all in their own taskforces, perhaps they should be in 1 taskforce named after the 1st ship released.

As with the above, to facilitate refueling, put all civilian fuel harvesters(regardless of owner) into the same taskforce at each fuel source, so that when they are scrapped, any order to refill from the taskforce as a whole is preserved.

[x2yzh9]

Hello,

I mainly lurk here, but I've been playing aurora quite a bit lately and I noticed one thing that is missing, at least in comparison to all the other deep features, is deep diplomacy. I don't know whether or not Steve would be interested in doing some work on this portion of the game, but if I feel that was coded in-Things such as suing for peace, treatys, trading colonies, ground units, minerals and so on would provide for a much more deep(than it already is, that is ) experience. That's the only thing thats really missing from the game, imo.

[swarm_sadist]

Upgrade intelligence and sensors with:
1. Fix the hide active ID so that it actually collapses the names down. May be a bug.
2. Add the ability to designate enemy ship classes as civilian, and be able to hide their names when you select "Hide civilian names".
3. Give general orders to civilian shipping, such as:
-Go to capital planet and stay there until instructed otherwise
-Go to nearest planet
-Go to specified planet
-Leave system to anywhere known
-Leave system towards capital
-Leave to specified system
-Stay still and turn off engines
Also allow the player to change the orders for each system, or make the general order dependent upon conditions, such as active enemy presence in the system.
4. Sort intelligence by ship type, both manually and automatic. Maybe make names dependent upon a list of criteria, such as whether it's a military ship, civilian, PDC, fighter, etc. Make some way to figure this stuff out without having to board the enemy ship.
4a. A way to filter out different types of contacts on the system map, whether just removing their name, changing their colour or shading, or filtering them out completely.
5. Have design and hull names dependent upon previous designs and class. EX: shipName " (" hullType "-" hullNumber ")" turns into Pheonix (CV-192). Automatically.
6. Have a filter that collapses the contacts into simplified data, such as: 4x(3) destroyer size, 6x(1) gunboat size, with the first number being the number, the second being the number of different classes in that size range.