Suggestions Thread for v2.0

[xenoscepter]

 --- Hey, so fighters can land on planets, yeah? So what if we had a fighter specific Troop Transport Bay? It would be more efficient than Standard ones, but could only be mounted on, and loaded / offloaded by, fighter craft. If a design is not flagged as fighter, the component would be hidden, and like Bridges being auto-added when tonnage is exceeded, these bays would be auto removed if the ship becomes flagged as a fighter.

[nuclearslurpee]

So what if we had a fighter specific Troop Transport Bay? It would be more efficient than Standard ones,

More efficient how???  What fantastical technology are we proposing that can cram, say, 500 tons of troops and equipment (and the majority of that tonnage is equipment, so don't say the word "cryogenic") into even 250 tons let alone anything smaller that is probably needed to be viable for a fighter?

but could only be mounted on, and loaded / offloaded by, fighter craft.

And then how do we justify this? One of Steve's key design points is that there needs to be a very, very good reason why something that can be mounted on a fighter couldn't also be mounted on a larger ship. I see no plausible explanation for why this hypothetical magical troop-compression technology could only work if the ship it is mounted on is exactly 500 tons or smaller.

[xenoscepter]

 --- Oops, I messed up. Standard bays are 1 to 1. Ignore that.

[papent]

I would like to request that fighter troop transports don't require a spaceport or cargo station to unload. some times I just want to sneak a few reinforcements or supplies on a disputed world.

[xenoscepter]

 --- They aren't supposed to, but it's bugged. You are supposed to be able to load / unload troops and/or colonists via fighters without a cargo shuttle bay.

[Garfunkel]

Maybe someone with more free time could trawl through the Bugs thread and double-check whether Steve has fixed that bug for 2.2

[Borealis4x]

I think an important thing to add to the next update would be to finish implementing the auto-assign feature for all the positions that still need it. I believe these are only Sector Admins and Academy Commandants. Automating Academy Commandants so you always have the right kind of leader in charge is especially important imo, since thats a major way you can control your recruitment.

[nuclearslurpee]

Maybe someone with more free time could trawl through the Bugs thread and double-check whether Steve has fixed that bug for 2.2

I see no response from Steve on the most recent post about it.

E: Looks like the last couple posts on the same topic have not been addressed by Steve. Candidly, I wonder if maybe he doesn't care to address it for whatever reason - certainly fighter-size colony ships are not terribly practical anyways so maybe he considers it a very low priority.

I think an important thing to add to the next update would be to finish implementing the auto-assign feature for all the positions that still need it. I believe these are only Sector Admins and Academy Commandants. Automating Academy Commandants so you always have the right kind of leader in charge is especially important imo, since thats a major way you can control your recruitment.

Doubly so because it's very difficult to find if your academies actually have commandants, so making it set-and-forget would be very useful.

[Borealis4x]

I'd also like to add options to Ground Unit HQs similar to Command Modules which would both incentivize you to tailor command units more based on what they are leading (currently I see no reason not to make them heavily armored static units) and to give more jobs to your officers that aren't just command positions.

For example, you add a Supply Command to your HQ and you then create a slot for a Supply Officer that can add their Logistics bonus to reduce consumption on Supply to the unit. These positions are for officers 2 ranks below the HQ Commander and adding any of them will also create an Executive Officer slot for an officer 1 rank below the HQ commander.

I'd even go so far as to expand this system into Admin Commands as well. It'd give your officers many more opportunities and as a result much richer service histories.

Oh, and I'd also like to be able to que up shipyard upgrades. So instead of only adding one slipyard at a time or a set amount of tonnage I can designate exactly how many and how much I want added in one order.

[Warer]

Single Shot Beam Weapons
-A compact beam weapon mean to provide a maximum damage profile for it's size at the expense of being expended on use. Basically ship/fighter mounted box launcher missiles that can't be intercepted by PD. Something like a design option for all/some beam weapons (except gauss cannons) that reduces the mass of the weapons by 75-90% ala box launchers, so a 10cm Laser would be a 15tons (MS6) pop of three damage at point blank that can't be intercepted. It's assumed they have an inbuilt precharged powerpack or they need power as normal.

[nuclearslurpee]

I'd also like to add options to Ground Unit HQs similar to Command Modules which would both incentivize you to tailor command units more based on what they are leading (currently I see no reason not to make them heavily armored static units) and to give more jobs to your officers that aren't just command positions.

For example, you add a Supply Command to your HQ and you then create a slot for a Supply Officer that can add their Logistics bonus to reduce consumption on Supply to the unit. These positions are for officers 2 ranks below the HQ Commander and adding any of them will also create an Executive Officer slot for an officer 1 rank below the HQ commander.

I'd even go so far as to expand this system into Admin Commands as well. It'd give your officers many more opportunities and as a result much richer service histories.

I'd love to have an admin command structure.  After the first 3-4 levels of actual combat units there's very little that having a formation in the field with HQ100,000,000 can actually contribute in combat - plus it would be nice to have unified system or even sector commands for the army.

For the command modules... I would love the roleplay aspect, but in practice as it currently stands these would be pretty much useless for me as I usually can build more formations than my commanders could control, so I would not have the officers to spare except maybe for the highest-level HQs (and then I would prefer an admin command structure anyways).

[xenoscepter]

Maybe someone with more free time could trawl through the Bugs thread and double-check whether Steve has fixed that bug for 2.2

 --- I am that person, I have, multiple times. Two releases have seen Steve attempt to fix the bug, yet it persists. AFAIK, 2.2 has no such fix, and nothing of the sort is mentioned in the fix log.

[Garfunkel]

Maybe someone with more free time could trawl through the Bugs thread and double-check whether Steve has fixed that bug for 2.2

I see no response from Steve on the most recent post about it.

E: Looks like the last couple posts on the same topic have not been addressed by Steve. Candidly, I wonder if maybe he doesn't care to address it for whatever reason - certainly fighter-size colony ships are not terribly practical anyways so maybe he considers it a very low priority.

Maybe someone with more free time could trawl through the Bugs thread and double-check whether Steve has fixed that bug for 2.2

 --- I am that person, I have, multiple times. Two releases have seen Steve attempt to fix the bug, yet it persists. AFAIK, 2.2 has no such fix, and nothing of the sort is mentioned in the fix log.

Thanks for checking dudes, that's what I remembered too but wasn't 100% sure. Damn shame, having fighter-sized ships able to land & load/unload on planets would be really cool for mega-conventional RP games too, to simulate very early space stuff before shipyards can be built.

[papent]

Request for Fighter sized Cargo Holds (5HS or 2HS). 
It would be nice to move small amounts of minerals around after all we can do GFs, MSPs, Fuel, & Colonist with large shuttles just need cargo to complete the tiny freighter set. 

 

I'd also like to add options to Ground Unit HQs similar to Command Modules which would both incentivize you to tailor command units more based on what they are leading (currently I see no reason not to make them heavily armored static units) and to give more jobs to your officers that aren't just command positions.

For example, you add a Supply Command to your HQ and you then create a slot for a Supply Officer that can add their Logistics bonus to reduce consumption on Supply to the unit. These positions are for officers 2 ranks below the HQ Commander and adding any of them will also create an Executive Officer slot for an officer 1 rank below the HQ commander.

I'd even go so far as to expand this system into Admin Commands as well. It'd give your officers many more opportunities and as a result much richer service histories.

I'd love to have an admin command structure.  After the first 3-4 levels of actual combat units there's very little that having a formation in the field with HQ100,000,000 can actually contribute in combat - plus it would be nice to have unified system or even sector commands for the army.

For the command modules... I would love the roleplay aspect, but in practice as it currently stands these would be pretty much useless for me as I usually can build more formations than my commanders could control, so I would not have the officers to spare except maybe for the highest-level HQs (and then I would prefer an admin command structure anyways).

Agreed Ground Forces could use admin commands and an a option for a Unified Combatant Command where an Naval Admin Command or Ground Admin Command can have lower level Admin Commands of either type assigned to each other.

Speaking of more positions for VIPs/Offiers

• Would like to suggest System Governors as a layer between colony and Sector.
• Ability to retrain officers from Naval/Ground/Admin/Sci to another Branch of Service sometimes you get attached to a character and want to see them grow + It would be great for RP.
• For Naval/Ground positions ± 1 rank for assignment would be a welcomed addition.
• My Perennial suggestion that we have Misc Crew Positions on Spacecraft. http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10640.msg158509#msg158509

 

I always kinda headcanon'd that officers without a job were doing shore tours / staff type stuff, especially since staff jobs were removed after VB6. (Consequently, that may be a worthwhile thing to look back into now that we're constrained by only total officers now and nothing else for ranks, otherwise you could stack like 10 tiers over an admin command if you wanted to minmax: staff requirements would provide a cool rp tool while providing an actual coded disincentive)
~Snip~

• Staff Officers to Admin Commands.

~snip~
In that vein, maybe it would be very interesting to allow for hybrid missile launchers (or maybe just box launchers? Designing a reload system that would accept such a wide variety of sizes would be hellish IRL), that could allow for several different sizes of missiles to be put in a launcher, as long as the total missile size would be below the launcher size.
~snip~

This is an interesting idea and how USN derived VLS Missile launchers work IRL. usually with quad packing smaller ESSM missiles into larger cells.

My suggested mechanic to have something similar to this for Aurora is to have smaller missiles may be assigned to the larger launchers as suggested by GrandNord.

• A Multi-packed Missile launcher utilize firing mode options (similar to the PD mode options) such as X missile per launch or launch all loaded missiles (with the default option being launch all loaded missiles).
• A loaded launcher with missiles remaining rate of fire could be every 5 seconds or perhaps the racial ROF for whatever size missile is packed inside divided by 2 rounded up to the nearest 5 seconds.
• Reloading multi-Pack Missile launcher is based on launcher size and perhaps with a extra delay of 1 second per missile rounded to the nearest 5 seconds.

[nuclearslurpee]

Would like to suggest System Governors as a layer between colony and Sector.

+1.