C# Suggestions

[Steve Walmsley]

I have a small suggestion that would probably be very useful:
On the left side of the Class Design window, where it lists all your ship designs, put in brackets an "(o)" next to the names of classes that use components that are marked as obsolete.
Alternatively, the names of the ships with obsolete components could be given a colour like red or yellow and when clicking on one of those ships and then on the "class components" tab, the obsolete components could also be highlighted in that colour. That would be nice, too.

Edit:
Similarly, unlocked class designs should also have either an "(u)" next to their name or have a different colour for their name.

I've added a change on these lines:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg160549#msg160549

There is a new checkbox that will highlight classes with obsolete components in orange. This will likely be a large majority of classes in most cases which is why I included the checkbox.

[Steve Walmsley]

With the upcoming changes to fighter management likely to make fighters much less micro-intensive, I am using fighters in my current 1.13 game to learn the ropes. One thing I've noticed is really tedious is having to manually set each and every fighter to "Automated Damage Control", as they apparently all start with that unchecked.

Would it be possible to make the default for "Automated Damage Control" to be checked? Or in the Ship Design window, add an option under the Misc tab to toggle the default for Damage Control behavior to be automated or not on a class-wide basis, which when toggled would overwrite any individual ship settings? That would allow people to make mass changes with a minimum of tedium, while still permitting granular control by ship if desired.

I've made Automated Damage Control the default for new ships. It can be unset by players as needed for detailed control.

[Snoman314]

Construct all components for ship option

Quality of life feature: Add an option under the industry, either in the components selection or preferably as its own separate  list that allows you to simply construct all components for a given ship class.  This so you don't have to constantly go trough and figure out what components is needed and individually build them.

The hours that this would save! Yes please! I could retire my spreadsheet where I manually enter the components for each class, and the planned construction for each class, to work out how many of each component I need!

I'd just add that I'd want to be able to enter a number of ships to get multiples of the required components.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hey Steve.

How difficult would it be to implement a system that would allow a ship component to change ownership? I personally would like to encourage RP between nations (trade exchanges) or to create small nations to simulate companies (and build for other larger nations components) or for multiplayer games (like the one we are playing here).

Thanks!

You could do this in the old VB Aurora, I hope Steve will add something similar to C# eventually. I use this all the time in my game. One faction might build a certain component and the export that to other factions. You also should be able to transfer the component technology so other factions can license build those components.

I've added component and ordnance transfers for v2.0.

The component tech itself might be abusable, because you could build the component and then disassemble it.

Abusing it really is not a problem when you play against yourself... 

Some faction might actually do that, happens in the real world too. But they have to live with the consequences of breaking contract etc...

[nuclearslurpee]

I've added component and ordnance transfers for v2.0.

The component tech itself might be abusable, because you could build the component and then disassemble it.

Imperial Japanese license building intensifies

Great changes to see coming down the pipeline, simple QoL that will make gameplay a lot smoother!

[Coleslaw]

Something I suggested somewhere but don't remember where:

Could Fire At Will automatically reassign a new target once it destroys its current target? I'm not the kind of player who likes to micromanage massive battles (especially when hundreds of fighters are involved.) I tend to tick the Fire At Will box and pretend that everything the fleet is doing is the admiral's orders.  However, every time a ship on Fire At Will destroys its target, it's out of the fight so to speak because it doesn't re-target, and when there's lots of ships, it's hard to tell who is and isn't firing like they should be.

Also, in a fleet's ship combat screen, could identical components be stacked? I.e., rather than a ship combat screen reading:

Beam Fire Control
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret

It instead reads:

Beam Fire Control
  x6 Twin Laser Turret

There could also be option that allows you to assign a specific number to a fire control, kind of like how you can assign a specific number of units from ground formations. This would especially help with missile ships that have to have a massive amount of missiles launchers to be effective.

[nuclearslurpee]

Something I suggested somewhere but don't remember where:

Could Fire At Will automatically reassign a new target once it destroys its current target? I'm not the kind of player who likes to micromanage massive battles (especially when hundreds of fighters are involved.) I tend to tick the Fire At Will box and pretend that everything the fleet is doing is the admiral's orders.  However, every time a ship on Fire At Will destroys its target, it's out of the fight so to speak because it doesn't re-target, and when there's lots of ships, it's hard to tell who is and isn't firing like they should be.

Also, in a fleet's ship combat screen, could identical components be stacked? I.e., rather than a ship combat screen reading:

Beam Fire Control
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret
  Twin Laser Turret

It instead reads:

Beam Fire Control
  x6 Twin Laser Turret

There could also be option that allows you to assign a specific number to a fire control, kind of like how you can assign a specific number of units from ground formations. This would especially help with missile ships that have to have a massive amount of missiles launchers to be effective.

Completely agreed.

Additionally, it would generally be preferable if the automatic FC assignment only assigned one type of weapon per FC, since this is the usual way of managing multiple-weapon ships. I keep having to fix auto-assignments where, say, 6 particle beams and 10 railguns are split between 4 fire controls in a 6PB/2PB+2RG/4RG/4RG split when I really want 3PB/3PB/5RG/5RG.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Something I suggested somewhere but don't remember where:

Could Fire At Will automatically reassign a new target once it destroys its current target? I'm not the kind of player who likes to micromanage massive battles (especially when hundreds of fighters are involved.) I tend to tick the Fire At Will box and pretend that everything the fleet is doing is the admiral's orders.  However, every time a ship on Fire At Will destroys its target, it's out of the fight so to speak because it doesn't re-target, and when there's lots of ships, it's hard to tell who is and isn't firing like they should be.

I also want to use this feature as much as possible as I find it a bit unrealistic to have perfect coordination in most beam combat situations. Some manual targeting is OK, but I think that mostly "Fire at Will" are the best way to go. It also reduce micromanagement which is a bonus.

I also think that "Fire at Will" needs to be able to re-target even if the original target is not destroyed. The situation may change as the target ship retreats and other ships close in.

[Destragon]

I have a small suggestion that would probably be very useful:
On the left side of the Class Design window, where it lists all your ship designs, put in brackets an "(o)" next to the names of classes that use components that are marked as obsolete.
Alternatively, the names of the ships with obsolete components could be given a colour like red or yellow and when clicking on one of those ships and then on the "class components" tab, the obsolete components could also be highlighted in that colour. That would be nice, too.

Edit:
Similarly, unlocked class designs should also have either an "(u)" next to their name or have a different colour for their name.

I've added a change on these lines:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg160549#msg160549

There is a new checkbox that will highlight classes with obsolete components in orange. This will likely be a large majority of classes in most cases which is why I included the checkbox.

Hell yeah, thanks Steve.

Construct all components for ship option

Quality of life feature: Add an option under the industry, either in the components selection or preferably as its own separate  list that allows you to simply construct all components for a given ship class. This so you don't have to constantly go trough and figure out what components is needed and individually build them.

I've wanted this, too. I may have also suggested it in the past.

[Sebmono]

Completely agreed.

Additionally, it would generally be preferable if the automatic FC assignment only assigned one type of weapon per FC, since this is the usual way of managing multiple-weapon ships. I keep having to fix auto-assignments where, say, 6 particle beams and 10 railguns are split between 4 fire controls in a 6PB/2PB+2RG/4RG/4RG split when I really want 3PB/3PB/5RG/5RG.

I actually wouldn't like a change in behavior of the auto FC assignment in this way, as in most of my large multi-weapon platforms I do want even distribution across FCs so that I can apply the same groupings of firepower to multiple targets at once and reduce target switching. Not to say that my way is "right" or preferable, just that changing this behavior would probably move the cheese for some others.

As an alternative I would re-raise a request I've made before to add the ability to specify FC-weapom assignment at the design template level, much like we can define missile and parasite loadouts already. This would essentially remove the need for the auto assign FC micro and allow us to do it up front just once for each design. It would also still leave the option of multiple FC configurations per design if the player so chooses, just by making an identical copy where the only difference is the FC assignment.

[nuclearslurpee]

Completely agreed.

Additionally, it would generally be preferable if the automatic FC assignment only assigned one type of weapon per FC, since this is the usual way of managing multiple-weapon ships. I keep having to fix auto-assignments where, say, 6 particle beams and 10 railguns are split between 4 fire controls in a 6PB/2PB+2RG/4RG/4RG split when I really want 3PB/3PB/5RG/5RG.

I actually wouldn't like a change in behavior of the auto FC assignment in this way, as in most of my large multi-weapon platforms I do want even distribution across FCs so that I can apply the same groupings of firepower to multiple targets at once and reduce target switching. Not to say that my way is "right" or preferable, just that changing this behavior would probably move the cheese for some others.

I appreciate the alternative take, but I have to ask - does the auto-FC assignment work this way anyways? If I have, say, 3 BFCs, 3 particle beams, and 6 railguns, I don't think the auto-assign button would set it up to be three sets of 1PB+2RG? Ideally the behavior should be something sensible, whether in line with your playstyle or mine I don't think is too important, but either way is more sensible than what currently happens.

I will say that I have also noticed an issue when using spinal lasers and a SW fire control, often the spinal laser will be grouped under a multi-weapon BFC and a "regular" laser assigned to the SW fire control - I think the algorithm should be smart enough to tell the difference between SW and regular fire controls and make the assumption here.

[TallTroll]

>> I think the algorithm should be smart enough to tell the difference between SW and regular fire controls and make the assumption here.

How about having default assignments set at the class level? Overridden by any manual or automated assignment for a ship in live combat, because sometimes there are situational circumstances, but at the time of class design, you know what the standard assignments you will want are

[Voltbot]

Idea - booster.
   Component, that is basically an engine, that can be put in addition to normal engines and can be turned off to not affect fuel usage, but is stupidly ineffective, like 3x fuel consumption.
Idea is, this component can be mounted on warships to make them rather fuel efficient when not in combat, but have good speed when in combat.
   I know I can do this with tugs or carriers, but it would be great for patrol ships, tat needs some combat power, while being cheap to produce.
   To make it even less attractive to put on every warship it could be able to overheat (get destroyed) after some time of constant usage.
   For programming simplicity it could be created, that it isn't throttable (I don't know if this is right word. It's used in KSP in this context) i.e. It can either be turned off, or work at 100%. It couldn't be able to be set to other values, like 50%.

[nuclearslurpee]

Idea - booster.
   Component, that is basically an engine, that can be put in addition to normal engines and can be turned off to not affect fuel usage, but is stupidly ineffective, like 3x fuel consumption.
Idea is, this component can be mounted on warships to make them rather fuel efficient when not in combat, but have good speed when in combat.
   I know I can do this with tugs or carriers, but it would be great for patrol ships, tat needs some combat power, while being cheap to produce.
   To make it even less attractive to put on every warship it could be able to overheat (get destroyed) after some time of constant usage.
   For programming simplicity it could be created, that it isn't throttable (I don't know if this is right word. It's used in KSP in this context) i.e. It can either be turned off, or work at 100%. It couldn't be able to be set to other values, like 50%.

It might be too complicated and/or "ship-focused" for Aurora (I think Steve has said he prefers the game to be focused on fleets more than individual ships, though I could very well be incorrect), but I also would like something like this. I would love to see something that resembles the military/commercial engine split in Starfire which I thought made for some interesting strategic/tactical tradeoffs and decision making in ship designs.

Maybe a good approach for the boosters (which could even be added to engine design as another option) would be to apply a similar overboost rule as missile engines, up to double the design EP modifier but with a linear fuel penalty up to 5x in addition to the usual -5/2 power factor for EP modifier.

[ArcWolf]

Idea - booster.
   Component, that is basically an engine, that can be put in addition to normal engines and can be turned off to not affect fuel usage, but is stupidly ineffective, like 3x fuel consumption.
Idea is, this component can be mounted on warships to make them rather fuel efficient when not in combat, but have good speed when in combat.
   I know I can do this with tugs or carriers, but it would be great for patrol ships, tat needs some combat power, while being cheap to produce.
   To make it even less attractive to put on every warship it could be able to overheat (get destroyed) after some time of constant usage.
   For programming simplicity it could be created, that it isn't throttable (I don't know if this is right word. It's used in KSP in this context) i.e. It can either be turned off, or work at 100%. It couldn't be able to be set to other values, like 50%.

It might be too complicated and/or "ship-focused" for Aurora (I think Steve has said he prefers the game to be focused on fleets more than individual ships, though I could very well be incorrect), but I also would like something like this. I would love to see something that resembles the military/commercial engine split in Starfire which I thought made for some interesting strategic/tactical tradeoffs and decision making in ship designs.

Maybe a good approach for the boosters (which could even be added to engine design as another option) would be to apply a similar overboost rule as missile engines, up to double the design EP modifier but with a linear fuel penalty up to 5x in addition to the usual -5/2 power factor for EP modifier.

Sounds good, but the "boosters" EP multiplier should be researchable levels. a flat 5x i think would be too much, but if you start with a 2.5x and research in .25 increments i think it could work quite well.

edit: additional thought, if it is possible to add boosters, could we get the agility to use multiple engine designs on one ship? Example would be using a 50HS engine as my "main" engine on capital ships, with 10 or 15 HS engines to tailor the speed that i want.