C# Suggestions

[Scandinavian]

Make player able to buy the output of civilian refinery ships like the civilian mines

I thought we already could do this? Just order tankers to transfer fuel from the civilian harvesters and the wealth is transferred automatically?

If you set tankers to repeat this, you need to go in and modify the order list every time the civvies launch or decommission a harvester. You also don't get warnings when civilian harvesters are nearing capacity.

It seems reasonable enough that you have to provide your own tankers, rather than expect the harvester to wander all the way to your nearest colony. But there would be merit to some additional automation options for tanker routing.

Or just civilian tankers to move fuel, but I guess that would be more a feature for a wider civilian economy overhaul.

[skoormit]

You also don't get warnings when civilian harvesters are nearing capacity.

You actually do get such a warning (at least, I have), but new civ harvs launch with a full tank, and you'll never get a warning for it until you've taken the fuel out of it. I guess because it's never "nearing" capacity--it's already at capacity.

[Steve Walmsley]

You also don't get warnings when civilian harvesters are nearing capacity.

You actually do get such a warning (at least, I have), but new civ harvs launch with a full tank, and you'll never get a warning for it until you've taken the fuel out of it. I guess because it's never "nearing" capacity--it's already at capacity.

I've changed automated harvester and tanker design to set a minimum fuel level of 10%.

[Garfunkel]

In that vein, it would be grand if all harvesters stopped working when their tanks are full.

[Steve Walmsley]

In that vein, it would be grand if all harvesters stopped working when their tanks are full.

That is already the case. Harvesters with full fuel tanks are ignored during the harvester mining phase.

[hostergaard]

Thinking of it, some said they would not like civilian harvesters to fly of to to colonies when full, so maybe there can be civilian fuel shipping lines that ship fuel instead?

Could even make the whole civilian trading and the universe come more alive. I remember in the previous aurora shipping lines bought new ships with money they earned. So how about something like this:

Have the fuel harvester civilian corporation that spawn fuel harvesters, they will just harvest fuel and do nothing when full. Oil rigs if you will. Then we have the fuel shipping lines, the oil tankers, they will fly around and buy fuel from civilian harvesters and then fly it back to the nearest colony. When they reach the nearest colony it either get sold to the civilian population which earns you tax income, or the player buys it automatically depending on settings. Or the oil tankers and rigs can be all be spawned within the same civilian line. Dunno what would work best.

Now how you set it is a bit of a question. Although, setting it on a per planet basis works well with minerals, so I guess you could say something like buy all sorium from this gas giant or sell to civs.

Now if you really wanna make it interesting, have it so friendly aliens and players can trade fuel, so they can set to buy fuel from aliens they have trade pacts with. And if you wanna make it really really interesting start simulating the price of sorium according to supply and demand. A harvester that is almost full will likely sell it of cheaper to get rid of it, while a planet with plenty of fuel won't pay as much, but a planet with low supply might pay high prices.

[Warer]

Kinetic Weapon Ammo
-To give other weapons similar design depth to missiles Railguns and/or Gauss Cannon, or "just" limiting their ammo to give Energy weapons another advantage. Also giving Railguns more "character"/flavour.

Simple
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have ammunition similar to missiles but no design is needed, they just require one of three preset gun magazines that provide a fixed amount of ammo.

Complex
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have special munitions, either preset or designed ala missiles, that grant some kind of bonus to damage, accuracy etc.

[Erik L]

Kinetic Weapon Ammo
-To give other weapons similar design depth to missiles Railguns and/or Gauss Cannon, or "just" limiting their ammo to give Energy weapons another advantage. Also giving Railguns more "character"/flavour.

Simple
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have ammunition similar to missiles but no design is needed, they just require one of three preset gun magazines that provide a fixed amount of ammo.

Complex
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have special munitions, either preset or designed ala missiles, that grant some kind of bonus to damage, accuracy etc.

I like the idea, but that's a lot of micro

[Ship Research Modules]

since DSP can't have ground installations some ship modules that replace these ground installations would be good to provide more use for DSP and to allow more RP Nomad scenarios. 

Since maintenance modules, mining modules and terraforming modules add to the population amounts, could something similar be done with research modules?

balance:

A the same amount of workers and the same/similar price/size as they are now except on a ship seems fair and less cheeseable in low population games.

Or

A much higher price than normal labs would be needed if it's not possible/easy to make ship components require workers on the population they orbit.


Similar modules for fighter/ordnance/Financial center/Ground forces/Academies would be nice too but less important IMO.   

[Garfunkel]

Please register your account for future use so that we don't have to manually approve of each post you make.

[trainhighway]

Kinetic Weapon Ammo
-To give other weapons similar design depth to missiles Railguns and/or Gauss Cannon, or "just" limiting their ammo to give Energy weapons another advantage.  Also giving Railguns more "character"/flavour.

Simple
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have ammunition similar to missiles but no design is needed, they just require one of three preset gun magazines that provide a fixed amount of ammo.

Complex
Railguns and or Gauss Cannons have special munitions, either preset or designed ala missiles, that grant some kind of bonus to damage, accuracy etc.

I like the idea, but that's a lot of micro

Seeing as maintenance can be toggled off on the start menu, I'm sure a system like this could also be disabled for those who do not enjoy this.  I think the need to deal with the manufacture of and supply of ammunition for kinetic weapons systems adds an interesting element, though some changes might have to be made to keep them balanced with energy weapons. 

[Black]

Problem is that if you make ammo for gauss/railgun optional, you would also have to make balancing changes for beam weapons optional with it. So Steve would have to continue to think about two sets of beam weapons for any future changes and additions.

It would also heavily change the use of railguns for fighters/FACs as they would have to carry ammo as well.

[trainhighway]

I hadn't considered the difficulty of maintaining two differently balanced weapon options, which is obviously an unreasonable amount of work for steve. 
I still think that it would be interesting to add the need for ammunition for kinetic weapons, maybe associated with kinetics having faster firing rates or damage amounts.  As they stand I think the differences between the kinetic beam weapons and the energy beam weapons is kind of meaningless and adding ammunition would make them noticeably different.

[nuclearslurpee]

If we need to differentiate between beam and kinetic weapons (do we though?), I'd rather see a mechanical change instead of a micromanagement change. Right now I think most people are fine with considering MSP as ammo.

[trainhighway]

I hadn't considered that MSP could be viewed as ammo, that's a pretty good point.  It probably isn't necessary for beam and kinetic to be differentiated, but I think if it were done with the right mechanics it would make the decision between an energy weapon or kinetic weapon more interesting in the ship design process.