Some Miscellaneous Suggestions

[Density]

Well, I've weighed in on jump shock, so here goes for the rest.

On the Transit Drive

--- The fuel thing is definitely the lynchpin to this suggestion. As given 1HS per fuel unit IS VERY, VERY broken. The idea was that ships might carry... 1~3... 5 units of fuel, tops? The whole idea was that this was to be a very limited resource. The concept that fuel storage got more expensive as it got more efficient was meant to reinforce that this was very powerful. The idea of a Transit Drive with 0 fuel built in was so that small ships could have a self jump drive for much less tonnage than a full on jump drive. The numbers would need to be tweaked... a lot, but the idea is that realistically speaking, a ship is not going over 3 Transit Jumps without being either absurdly expensive or cutting into mission tonnage, while a ships is NOT going over about 5 Transit Jumps without being absurdly expensive AND cutting significantly into mission tonnage.

The counterarguements that I agree with is that it doesn't matter how expensive it is, or that a ship that can do it 3+ times can't do anything else... it's that a ship that can do this 1 time is broken, as it has an ability that can easily counter an entire combat doctrine. As for a 0 fuel version to reduce tonnage compared to self jump drives, I'm also against that as it deprecates the utility of the jump drive efficiency tech line. By that I mean that with enough research, you can already make a 1hs jump engine that can jump any sized fighter.

That being said, I see the desire and utility for a way of transiting to distant secondary stars that don't already have stabilized lagrange points. The only way to reconsile this with my concern is for the transit drive to have a spin-up time: essentially the order to transit would also create an order delay before the transit. Which also happens to be one of the proposed mechanics many, many others have proposed for improving jump point transits. If that's doable (and it should be since the game can insert orders on more complicated criteria like auto-including lagrange points), then that's the only way I'm seeing of getting behind the transit drive.

On Pulse Sensors:
As things stand in the game now, we really aren't seeing continuous movement of objects. Actives show us where things are right now, and the game can also show us a movement trail extrapolated from the last snapshot. If someone wants to rp that sensors are providing a continuous feed of data or rp that sensors ping every 5 seconds, both fit with the current limits of the game. If someone really, really wants to rp that sensors ping less often... they can turn their actives on and off.

So, I really don't see the need for a new system. Even if it's implemented in a way that's well-balanced against existing active sensors, a big chunk of the players aren't going to use it or appreciate that it's there. At best it's a QoL improvement for the players who want to automate slower sensor pinging. At worst it's adding design choices for everyone including those who would rather keep things as they are now.

On Commercial Engines:
I'm in favor of changes that allow for smaller commercial engines. I don't dislike xeno's suggestion, but I don't know if it's the best way to facilitate that goal. Likewise with serger's suggestions. I see the appeal of a ramscoop (or whatever other explanation is used for fuelless commercial engines) to reduce player/AI special rule cases. The caveats there is that it reduces design choices (but I really don't know how large a % of the players enjoy balancing speed/fuel usage on their freighters) and there would need to be a check to prevent commercial engines on military craft (as I don't see it as desirable to allow fuelless engines on warships, no matter how slow they are; at that point you might as well get rid of fuel altogether). Granted, that second point is mitigated in that with seperate tech lines, an engine wouldn't be designated as commercial just because it's big and slow, and the game can already check for similar ship design rules. I also don't know if an additional tech line(s) are desirable for the overall goal (smaller commercial). Looking at how jump engines are handled, similar things can be done that way: toggle the design project to commercial, and it would alter other features (power per HS, max boost, etc).

[Droll]

On Commercial Engines:
I'm in favor of changes that allow for smaller commercial engines. I don't dislike xeno's suggestion, but I don't know if it's the best way to facilitate that goal. Likewise with serger's suggestions. I see the appeal of a ramscoop (or whatever other explanation is used for fuelless commercial engines) to reduce player/AI special rule cases. The caveats there is that it reduces design choices (but I really don't know how large a % of the players enjoy balancing speed/fuel usage on their freighters) and there would need to be a check to prevent commercial engines on military craft (as I don't see it as desirable to allow fuelless engines on warships, no matter how slow they are; at that point you might as well get rid of fuel altogether). Granted, that second point is mitigated in that with seperate tech lines, an engine wouldn't be designated as commercial just because it's big and slow, and the game can already check for similar ship design rules. I also don't know if an additional tech line(s) are desirable for the overall goal (smaller commercial). Looking at how jump engines are handled, similar things can be done that way: toggle the design project to commercial, and it would alter other features (power per HS, max boost, etc).

I absolutely despise the idea of commercial engines not being allowed on military ships much like how I also don't like that we cant use multiple sizes of the same engine type on the same ship (there was a bug that allowed this).

I think it reduces the amount of designs that you can create and reduces player freedom. So if choosing between infinite-fuel commercials and the ability to put commercial engines on military ships I am always going to favor the latter.

[Density]

I wasn't trying to say that banning commercial engines from military craft is desirable, I'm saying that it's a probable consequence of infinite-fuel commercial engines.

[serger]

On commercial engine sizes. I think it's rather doubtful mechanics now, that large engines need very large crews. It's some sort of coal epoch way of thinking: the more power, the more stokers you need. It's rather strange for space ship with nuclear power to have hundreds of crewmen to service it's engines, and even more strange to have linear dependence between engine power and crewmen needed. Is there any need to stoke nuclear fuel with shovels seriously?!

Not that it looks strange with engines only - it seems that cannons in Aurora are pointing and reloading with muscle power too!

So, there are 2 obvious problems with curent mechanics:

1. There is no mean to make commercial couriers, buisness passenger craft, something like traffic control craft and so on. And I think Steve have no desire to make it possible, because it adds some complexities for the AI and, in addition, it can slowdown any campaign very quickly, so it's easier to fully abstract such commercial smallcraft activity.
Personally I have to add some lore about aether storms, that makes smallcraft spacefaring too dangerous if you have no mil-grade engines and very good trained pilots, and so I use no couriers (even military ones) and no small patrol or survey craft too in my latest campaigs.
So, make small commercial engines possible - and it will be possible to make all these commercial smallcraft (small engines with nearly no crew and no MSP!) to populate our systems with auxiliary traffic and slowdown our campaigns. Well, it will be up to you, player, really, just don't whine in a bug thread afterwards.

2. Large commercial ships are way more crew-devouring that it can be plausible. It's rather plausible that you cannot automate detection and tactics (although it's strange therefore that your officer's skills adds no bonus to missile fire and detection at all) and hangar ops, but engine service?.. The biggest real commercial engines at tankers and even liners need only several crewmen to service them during nearly year-long voyages.

So, what I think is possible to optimize with commercial engines aside of fuel usage (ramscoop tech) to get rid of those special rules:

Make nearly all components to use crewmen in nearly static way. There is no matter really (plausibly) if it's 1-ton nuclear gun or 1000-ton nucler gun: you need 1 or 2 operators anyway, because they doesn't need their muscles to rotate and reload it, and mechanically bigger gun isn't more complex than smaller one to know how to service it onboard. So the biggest components possible may need several more crewmen then smallest ones just for redundancy of service for expensive toys, no more.

Both military and commercial ships will become smaller (and those players who love smaller ships - will have them), but the smallest ones will lose much of their advantages: they will keep most of their tactical advantages of lesser detectability, they will be still very potent at sensor picket and necessary in independent patrol (especially with new spoiler race on) or tramp roles, but it will be much less sense in making swarms of destroyer-grade battle ships or harvesters to sit in hundreds on every gas giant and so on. Less flags needed - less performance and micro burden and strange elusive bugs for average player.

[TallTroll]

I think you are misunderstanding the crew requirements somewhat. Although in design, crew are directly tied to components, their work aboard a ship is not necessarily actually related to the component they are nominally brought in for, although larger pieces of equipment do also generally require more crew for maintenance and operational purposes. Larger ships and larger crews will also have requirements for various services which are totally ignored in Aurora, and that's what those "excess" crew are doing. Rather than have additional crew requirements crop up as a design increases it's need for non-combat maint/cleaning crew, cooks, laundry service, police, medical services, internal postal service (yes, this is a real thing on larger IRL warships) and so on and so forth, it's all just subsumed into the crew requirements of the major combat components

[serger]

Well... I can understand a reason to do smth a bit simpler just because you are one man and it's rather complicated game. Yet I cannot understand a reason to do a salto mortale when you need a morning run.
Mount more powerful (forced) engine on the same fighter with the same size and functions - and you'll suddenly need much more crew. Try to design some analog of modern supertanker (hundreds of ktons, year-long voyages through storms and unpredictable traffic - still only 15 to 50 crew required) - and you just cannot do it. On the contrary - add a bunch of box launchers, and your ship will became 10 times bigger, while her crew requirements will remain the same (and no more internal postal service, as you can see). It's all completely outside of your explanation. There is a limit in which we can pretend that a math is not a math.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

 --- Well, since y'all jacked my thread I guess I'll weigh in on this myself. I see the crew requirements as the need not only for manpower, but also the various food stuffs, etc. The "Life Support" as it were. Also, I feel as though the comparisons to wet water ships are relatively poor. In space, it is far and above more difficult to maintain things. Whether Real Space or the Aether, starships of any stripe are very likely to be significantly more difficult to maintain and need significantly more supplies to keep those crew members alive.

One bad gasket can be the difference between life and a slow, quite possibly painful, death.

[Droll]

--- Well, since y'all jacked my thread I guess I'll weigh in on this myself. I see the crew requirements as the need not only for manpower, but also the various food stuffs, etc. The "Life Support" as it were. Also, I feel as though the comparisons to wet water ships are relatively poor. In space, it is far and above more difficult to maintain things. Whether Real Space or the Aether, starships of any stripe are very likely to be significantly more difficult to maintain and need significantly more supplies to keep those crew members alive.

One bad gasket can be the difference between life and a slow, quite possibly painful, death.

I think comparisons to wet navy still is fine though, not because of surface ships but because submarines exist. Submarines have been lost to a crewmember flushing the toilet wrong.

[serger]

I see the crew requirements as the need not only for manpower, but also the various food stuffs, etc. The "Life Support" as it were.

Well, then try to decrease food volume requirements by dropping Deployment Time. A math is a math indeed.
(It was possible in VB, AFAIRC, but it's not in C#.)

Also, I feel as though the comparisons to wet water ships are relatively poor. In space, it is far and above more difficult to maintain things. Whether Real Space or the Aether, starships of any stripe are very likely to be significantly more difficult to maintain and need significantly more supplies to keep those crew members alive.

One bad gasket can be the difference between life and a slow, quite possibly painful, death.

As it was mentioned by Droll, submarines are not less dangerous comparing to space ships, yet their crew requirements are nearly the same as for surface ships.
Really, even if some environment is more dangerous - it's not a cause to think that you need more crew there, these things are completely different.

In addition, deep space really isn't more dangerous comparing to deep sea even for surface ships: you cannot survive in both of those environments without uncrippled bulky equipment, and in the same time deep space is much more quiet and predictable environment comparing to deep sea - especially for mechanics inside the hull.