Author Topic: Initial Suggestions after a cold start  (Read 1104 times)

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Offline Aotrs Commander (OP)

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Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« on: November 21, 2022, 07:39:46 AM »
I played for the first time yesterday (after doing some suitable reading around, but otherwise never having played before), did about 12-ish hours.  As these days I feel it especially important to leave some constructive feedback (or any feedback) to places, double-especially to people kind enough to be supplying free entertainment as their hobby, I figured I am obliged to make a few suggestions that stood out to me.

Bear in mind I say these 100% in the understanding that this is the dev's hobby, not his job and that I have no expectations that my suggestions will be acted on, but merely things that occured to me as I was playing.  (It's possible some of this may already be there, that I just didn't fnd between the wiki and google searches; and I apologise if some of this is old hat - but I figured a completely fresh set of eyes sometimes finds things.  I've had it myself with my own wargames rules!)

1) The biggest one, I think.  A button or hot key for the shipyards screen.  It surprised me there wasn't one, given how much it is used; I find ymsefl getting to it by research or mining or something and then tabbing over.

2) The ability to build conventional industry.  Why? With what is new (from my understanding) to 2. 0, it is entirely possible to have a fairly slow game just bimbling around the solar system and doing thins with researching Trans-Neutonian technology.  (I spent the entire day just doing that, actually).  If building conventional industry (or some sort of pre-TNT project) was available, you could stay in the pre-FTL stage for longer (if, like, threas at things were turned off).  I don't think I have ever seen a game in which the pre-FTL phase is so playable, so it seems kind of a shame not to be able to maximise that bit of potential.

3) In ship orders, I keenly felt the lack of a "Supply points at 40% or less" or something option like with the fuel, since I found that was the limiting factor and 20% was, well, largely too late.  (Admittedly, that was because I did not know how severe not putting an engineering bay on was, but. . . )

4) I was (and remain) uncertain as to whether you can make a custom rank system name list (etc) like the other name lists, though I have been told you can edit the existing ones.




Things That Would Be Nice
Double under-lining the point about no expectations and this being the dev's hobby, but they would be nice to have.  I also appreciate these things may be extremely non-trivial under the C# engine; my own programming skills are limited to what I can manage in Notepad (NotePad++ at a push), Excel 2010 and the threat of a sound beating, so I can only infer they would be difficult or time-consuming.

1) Multiple save options.  It would be nice to have an in-game method of saving (and loading) different files of the same game (as opposed to having to occasioally manually copy/paste/rename the entire database) for more than the rotating back-up saves.  The whole database doesn't appear to be much bigger than a lot of my typical save games with other games.  (But as I say, I would guess if this were easy to do, the dev would probably have already done it. ) In most games generally, I tend to have a rotating stack of several saves (which minimised the chances of loosing data if something Goes Horribly Wrong. . .  Not that it always helps, Imperator, looking at you. . . ) The ability to load up a save when I do something inept like miss the notification for idle labs for six months or something.

2) Tooltips.  They would be nice (but VERY non-trivial to do, of course, assuming they could even be done in C#).  But I would feel remiss if I didn't at least mention them.

3) Some sort of additional feedback, maybe just for important events (e. g.  idle labs, things that requires the player's input or action), like audio that plays on auto-turn interrupt or something.  In a perfect world, a slightly different sound for different events.  (Simple pings or dings would be enough. ) Failing that, possibly some sort of colour-coding for the events logs, making it slightly easier not to miss important notifications? (I'd say little flags like the Paradox GSG use or something, but that would require both graphical effort (and  KNOW how much of a pain that is, having done my own icons for yesterday, just cribbing from my own wargaming efferts) and likely a GREAT deal of extra technical effort for something that the dev himself likely doesn't need. 



As I say, I intend to put forward these suggestions constructively as things that I think would improve the game, rather than a demand for "do x,y,z!" as you sadly so often see these days, so please take them in the spirit that they are intended; and thnk you again for the hard work that has brought the game to this point already.
 

Offline Nori

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2022, 08:45:12 AM »
4) I believe that all exists in the DB which is able to be opened up.

Multiple saves I doubt will happen with how the save system works.
When the gave saves it creates a DB Save Backup and it keeps the old save backup too, so there is 2 copies if need be.
The DB can get a lot larger in longer games. As more systems are explored, NPRs found, spoilers, ships built etc. I have one from last year that is 400mb, but I do believe they get even bigger.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2022, 12:15:09 PM »
The conversion of conventional industry to TN is extremely cheap, so building conventional industry would be unbalancing unless it cost the same as TN (in which case no one would build it anyway).

Ranks can be edited, either in the game or in the DB, but there is no import option at the moment.

Supply points at 40% hasn't been requested before because that is still quite a lot. Fuel is more of an issue because it is generally used at a much higher rate than MSP. Military designs tend to have a lot less fuel burn time than MSP burn time as ships spend a lot of time not moving. I'll add it in though when I get around to it.

Shipyard hot key I didn't even realise was missing as I tend to play with the mouse.

Save game method is unlikely to change, beyond perhaps adding more rotating saves.

There are a lot of tooltips already. Adding more is just a question of time and enthusiasm.

You can already add colours to the event log, using different combinations of foreground and background colours.

As a general point, Aurora is just a part-time hobby that I share with others so new features usually get added when 1) I personally need something, 2) during one of my trawls through the suggestion thread, 3) on the spur of the moment when I read something interesting. Also its quite enthusiasm-driven, as I have other hobbies as well, so there tend to be bursts of activity rather than constant updates.
 
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Offline Aotrs Commander (OP)

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2022, 12:50:22 PM »
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13161. msg163224#msg163224 date=1669054509
As a general point, Aurora is just a part-time hobby that I share with others so new features usually get added when 1) I personally need something, 2) during one of my trawls through the suggestion thread, 3) on the spur of the moment when I read something interesting.  Also its quite enthusiasm-driven, as I have other hobbies as well, so there tend to be bursts of activity rather than constant updates.

I quite understand (I can be often the same way; I am currently in burst of revising my D&D houserules/edition. . . )

Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13161. msg163224#msg163224 date=1669054509
The conversion of conventional industry to TN is extremely cheap, so building conventional industry would be unbalancing unless it cost the same as TN (in which case no one would build it anyway).

I was thinking purely in terms of before TN was researched.  (You could have it at the same as TN and be obsoleted and replaced as soon as that tech is researched. )

Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13161. msg163224#msg163224 date=1669054509
Ranks can be edited, either in the game or in the DB, but there is no import option at the moment.

There are a lot of tooltips already.  Adding more is just a question of time and enthusiasm.

You can already add colours to the event log, using different combinations of foreground and background colours.

Noted.

Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13161. msg163224#msg163224 date=1669054509
Supply points at 40% hasn't been requested before because that is still quite a lot.  Fuel is more of an issue because it is generally used at a much higher rate than MSP.  Military designs tend to have a lot less fuel burn time than MSP burn time as ships spend a lot of time not moving.  I'll add it in though when I get around to it.

Shipyard hot key I didn't even realise was missing as I tend to play with the mouse. 

Well, hopefully I have at least helped in some small way!

Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13161. msg163224#msg163224 date=1669054509
Save game method is unlikely to change, beyond perhaps adding more rotating saves.

Pretty much as I expected.  I sort of figured if it could have been done easily, it would have been by now.  (One thing I have picked up from stuff like the mess HBS made of the saving system for BattleTech especially initially, is that saves aren't always a terribly straight-forward thing to do. )
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2022, 09:33:53 PM »
I would second the shipyards button as I often wonder why there is no button for this. I do not use the hotkeys either as I can't be bothered to learn them, but this and GU training both seem like they should have a button (although maybe I train GUs a bit more intently than  most players).
 
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Offline StarshipCactus

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2022, 02:53:20 AM »
Agreed on the shipyard button.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2022, 05:25:22 AM »
Same!
 

Offline Aloriel

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Re: Initial Suggestions after a cold start
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2022, 12:50:51 PM »
Agreed on a shipyard button and GU training :)
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