Author Topic: Suggestions Thread for v2.0  (Read 82773 times)

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Offline Aloriel

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #30 on: August 10, 2022, 10:13:04 AM »
Can we get Commander Health notifications separated into two different notifications?

1) Medical problems
2) Deaths

Medical problems that don't inspire retirement or cause death are not as critical as ones that do. I need to know when my officers have left my service, not so much when they're feeling poorly.
Sarah
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Offline Marski

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #31 on: August 10, 2022, 10:23:31 AM »
Shift+Click in ground force "Order of Battle" screen to select multiple units and move them.
 

Offline Borealis4x

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #32 on: August 10, 2022, 10:47:05 AM »
Damn, just like that its actually out.

I haven't dived deeply into it yet, but I see that the Biology tech is still the same. Does the genome stuff work now?

Anyways, I'm going to shill an old idea I had to make the Biology tree more relevant.

Simple Additions (I think...)

1. Triage Technology: Each level increases the amount of casualties returned to their units after battle and increases the chances of officers and crew escaping from ships alive. Also reduces the chances of officers being killed in accidents.

2. Healthcare Technology: Increases the lifespan of your leaders and reduces the chances they develop health issues.

3. Medical Technology: Increases the population growth rate.

More Complex Additions

4. Viral Agents: An alternative to using missiles or beam weapons to clear out an enemy planet. Viral Agents are launched from specialized bomb-bays requiring the ship to be in orbit of the target, causing no damage on their own but introducing a viral agent that will slowly (relative to bombardment) clear out the planet population and garrison without damaging the planet or infrastructure. Viral Agents are designed in the component designer and each agent needs to be custom made for each species you encounter, with the option to do so presenting after you conduct an autopsy. Using viral agents have a serious effect on you relations with any empires in contact with you or the target. Viral Agents would have two components; Viral Agent Potency, and Viral Agent Target (both researched in Biology).

5. More options to upgrade infantry genetic enchantments. It could be split into three different upgrades; Health, Stamina, and Reflexes. Health increases health, much like the existing enchantments do now. Stamina increases the shots they can take per turn (they don't have to rest as often). Reflexes increases the damage done per shot to reflect better accuracy.

I think adding at least the first three of these will greatly flesh out the biology tree and make it a more useful field worthy of investing in.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2022, 10:51:08 AM by Borealis4x »
 
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Offline Aloriel

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #33 on: August 10, 2022, 10:56:11 AM »
An option to suppress retirement and death notifications for unassigned personnel.
Sarah
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Offline ArcWolf

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #34 on: August 10, 2022, 12:14:24 PM »

1. Triage Technology: Each level increases the amount of casualties returned to their units after battle and increases the chances of officers and crew escaping from ships alive. Also reduces the chances of officers being killed in accidents.

I don't know if it is possible, since i think units are just "deleted" when they are killed, though it might be possible to add an extra "saving throw" if they are killed and if they pass that they are kept around.

Quote
2. Healthcare Technology: Increases the lifespan of your leaders and reduces the chances they develop health issues.

3. Medical Technology: Increases the population growth rate.


Sounds good, i'd like to see these.

Quote
More Complex Additions

4. Viral Agents: An alternative to using missiles or beam weapons to clear out an enemy planet. Viral Agents are launched from specialized bomb-bays requiring the ship to be in orbit of the target, causing no damage on their own but introducing a viral agent that will slowly (relative to bombardment) clear out the planet population and garrison without damaging the planet or infrastructure. Viral Agents are designed in the component designer and each agent needs to be custom made for each species you encounter, with the option to do so presenting after you conduct an autopsy. Using viral agents have a serious effect on you relations with any empires in contact with you or the target. Viral Agents would have two components; Viral Agent Potency, and Viral Agent Target (both researched in Biology).


While interesting, i think it's too much of an easy "I win" button. Why get involved in a long, protracted war when you can drop a couple hundred bombs and come back in 5 years with a colony fleet and get a fully developed planet practically for free.

Quote

5. More options to upgrade infantry genetic enchantments. It could be split into three different upgrades; Health, Stamina, and Reflexes. Health increases health, much like the existing enchantments do now. Stamina increases the shots they can take per turn (they don't have to rest as often). Reflexes increases the damage done per shot to reflect better accuracy.


I also like this idea, could be cool to have more upgrade paths.
 
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Offline Kashada

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #35 on: August 10, 2022, 12:39:27 PM »
I would love a note pad function linked the system currently open in the system view, so I can leave notes about what I am doing in that system. I have no idea how much of an ask this would be though.

 
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Offline unkfester

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #36 on: August 10, 2022, 01:24:00 PM »
I would love a note pad function linked the system currently open in the system view, so I can leave notes about what I am doing in that system. I have no idea how much of an ask this would be though.


that would be a good idea
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #37 on: August 10, 2022, 03:53:01 PM »
I would love a second pass on the ground combat mechanics, especially an overview of air combat is certainly needed.

Seconded.

Quote
The one other thing I would like is some sort of combat width system so you can't engage with ALL of your forces against a much smaller force.

I think a "combat width" system would have some problems, frankly a much smaller force should be surrounded and annihilated not allowed to hole up and take out the enemy peacemeal. It would create a metagame where heavy armor (either vehicle or IFN power armor) is dominant against anything lighter - if a formation of 12-armor tanks is limited to only fight up to 3x its size you can see the problem readily.

What I would like to see, though, is that formations which fire at each other have a good chance to (1) continue firing at each other in successive rounds and (2) fire back at each other defensively. This would not have a significant mechanical effect (at least on average, there would probably be a lot more variance though), but would be great for writing combat narratives if, say, the 153rd Regiment attacks an enemy tank formation at dawn and continues ambushing them throughout the day instead of randomly shooting at an enemy infantry platoon in the next increment.


Create (or allow stabilization of) LaGrange points for secondary stars in a system.  They are created for super-jovians automatically so should logically be created for dwarf stars as well.

I'm not sure this would have a lot of use, as the LPs in Aurora do not save any distance traveled to a distant body due to the 60-degree offset. LPs are most useful for traveling between the planetary systems of different components and sometime shortening the distance between JPs when the LPs line up fortuitously.

I don't agree that it needs to be a problem, first of all it would be more realistic... it certainly is not realistic that 100.000 soldiers can engage 1000 at the same time. It just would mean that defending can delay a bit more... but it would also  be combined with the concept of defending the colony or the entire planet.

There would be a slight advantage to high quality troops and technology, but I would not call that an issue... just a change from how it is now. You also could tailor your shock forces, artillery would probably be more important as it would be granted special powers, such count for less size on their attacks etc... air combat (especially if fixed) would also have a bigger impact.

It means combat would become more realistic in its simulation, the current way it works is quite gamey and very unrealistic in it's simulation. It is WAY too easy to attack with overwhelming force than it should be, combat also could be more drawn out as a result thus increase the cost in supply and increase the chances for reinforcement arriving to a larger conflict. It also would produce more combat losses if the attacker has overwhelming force, which in turn is also realistic for the most part, especially if you don't bring plenty of artillery and air combat power to the fight.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2022, 03:56:09 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline boolybooly

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #38 on: August 10, 2022, 04:09:10 PM »
I would like a tech to improve the overhaul ratio.

Justification being that as technology improves so will fault monitoring/diagnosing, design and automation of maintenance systems.

So the OV ratio might improve like jump engine ratio or cloak ratio, 1:3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

Probably a logistics tech related to maintenance. Maybe it could be linked to maintenance levels like ELINT is related to EM sensors or propulsion is related to power tech.
 

Offline Destragon

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #39 on: August 10, 2022, 05:16:29 PM »
Since 2.0 made it so that outdated ship components are highlighted in orange:
In the Ground Forces screen in the Formation Templates tab, maybe unit designs that have been designed with an outdated racial armor/weapon value could also be highlighted orange? For example, you have a Rifleman unit that was designed when your armor/weapon values were 6/6, but your current tech is higher than that, so this unit would be displayed orange in that tab. Not sure about STOs though.
 

Offline xenoscepter

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2022, 09:00:54 PM »
 --- An 'Ecumenopolis' structure. Basically, it allows you to overcome the population limit imposed by a planet. Would slow growth in accordance with Population Density. Would require research for increased gains, namely a percentage over the maximum population that could be built, to stop people from just turbostacking asteroids. Wouldn't increase gravity.
 
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Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #41 on: August 10, 2022, 09:19:16 PM »
I think a "combat width" system would have some problems, frankly a much smaller force should be surrounded and annihilated not allowed to hole up and take out the enemy peacemeal. It would create a metagame where heavy armor (either vehicle or IFN power armor) is dominant against anything lighter - if a formation of 12-armor tanks is limited to only fight up to 3x its size you can see the problem readily.

I don't agree that it needs to be a problem, first of all it would be more realistic... it certainly is not realistic that 100.000 soldiers can engage 1000 at the same time. It just would mean that defending can delay a bit more... but it would also  be combined with the concept of defending the colony or the entire planet.

While maybe not realistic, I don't think making the 100,000 vs 1,000 matchup more fair is terribly important for good gameplay. It reminds me, for example, of playing multiplayer in old RTSs like Age of Empires where your opponent would hide his last villager in a map corner and force you to spend 30 minutes hunting him down to win the game. At some point, mechanically it makes sense to allow a bit of unrealism for the sake of wrapping up the battle.

Quote
There would be a slight advantage to high quality troops and technology, but I would not call that an issue... just a change from how it is now. You also could tailor your shock forces, artillery would probably be more important as it would be granted special powers, such count for less size on their attacks etc... air combat (especially if fixed) would also have a bigger impact.

The advantage would be more than slight. With unit costs being balanced as they are now, a 12-armor UHV formation which costs 12x as much as 1-armor infantry is expected to be roughly equivalent to 12 of those infantry formations of the same size, assuming some reasonable distribution of weapon types of course. So if the combat width is, for sake of example, 3x the targeted formation size, only three of those 1-armor infantry formations can engage the 12-armor UHV formation at once. While one might think at first glance that, okay fine, so we send 12 infantry regiments and they just take longer to fight to mutual destruction, but in fact due to the way combat works the UHV will be able to sit and tank the fire of far more than 12 infantry regiments with this mechanic (if you expect the first 3 INF regiments to do 25% damage to the UHV, in fact they will do more like 6% before being wiped out due to square law scaling of combat power with numbers). Therefore, you create a system by game mechanics alone which incentivizes heavy armor and/or HP upgrades as the exclusive optimal point by a huge degree.

While the current ground combat is imperfect and has a fairly obvious metagame (CAP spam), this is not enforced by the mechanics, rather by a combination of NPR army design being infantry-heavy and the values in the DB which are readily tweaked even if finding a good rebalance is not straightforward. I think this is strongly preferable to a state where the game mechanics force an optimal strategy.

It's always tricky to discuss "balance" in Aurora, but I think most can agree that we do not demand perfect metagame balance but simply that many options are viable and even if some are stronger than others on average there are interesting gameplay decisions to be made. Often the tactically-optimal solution is not the best in grand strategic terms for example. The implications of a size-based stacking width system would violate this concept of balance, IMO - and it is not so easy to find a better basis for stacking width, for example a cost basis heavily penalizes special forces types of units, which are IMO already a bit less than optimal on average and so are not in need of such a harsh nerf. Similarly, what factor should the combat width be? If we say, okay, let's avoid the armor problem by making it 12x size, then 120,000 soldiers can assault 10,000 with no hindrance, so have we really made any change to the game on a practical level?
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #42 on: August 11, 2022, 05:19:11 AM »
I think a "combat width" system would have some problems, frankly a much smaller force should be surrounded and annihilated not allowed to hole up and take out the enemy peacemeal. It would create a metagame where heavy armor (either vehicle or IFN power armor) is dominant against anything lighter - if a formation of 12-armor tanks is limited to only fight up to 3x its size you can see the problem readily.

I don't agree that it needs to be a problem, first of all it would be more realistic... it certainly is not realistic that 100.000 soldiers can engage 1000 at the same time. It just would mean that defending can delay a bit more... but it would also  be combined with the concept of defending the colony or the entire planet.

While maybe not realistic, I don't think making the 100,000 vs 1,000 matchup more fair is terribly important for good gameplay. It reminds me, for example, of playing multiplayer in old RTSs like Age of Empires where your opponent would hide his last villager in a map corner and force you to spend 30 minutes hunting him down to win the game. At some point, mechanically it makes sense to allow a bit of unrealism for the sake of wrapping up the battle.

Quote
There would be a slight advantage to high quality troops and technology, but I would not call that an issue... just a change from how it is now. You also could tailor your shock forces, artillery would probably be more important as it would be granted special powers, such count for less size on their attacks etc... air combat (especially if fixed) would also have a bigger impact.

The advantage would be more than slight. With unit costs being balanced as they are now, a 12-armor UHV formation which costs 12x as much as 1-armor infantry is expected to be roughly equivalent to 12 of those infantry formations of the same size, assuming some reasonable distribution of weapon types of course. So if the combat width is, for sake of example, 3x the targeted formation size, only three of those 1-armor infantry formations can engage the 12-armor UHV formation at once. While one might think at first glance that, okay fine, so we send 12 infantry regiments and they just take longer to fight to mutual destruction, but in fact due to the way combat works the UHV will be able to sit and tank the fire of far more than 12 infantry regiments with this mechanic (if you expect the first 3 INF regiments to do 25% damage to the UHV, in fact they will do more like 6% before being wiped out due to square law scaling of combat power with numbers). Therefore, you create a system by game mechanics alone which incentivizes heavy armor and/or HP upgrades as the exclusive optimal point by a huge degree.

While the current ground combat is imperfect and has a fairly obvious metagame (CAP spam), this is not enforced by the mechanics, rather by a combination of NPR army design being infantry-heavy and the values in the DB which are readily tweaked even if finding a good rebalance is not straightforward. I think this is strongly preferable to a state where the game mechanics force an optimal strategy.

It's always tricky to discuss "balance" in Aurora, but I think most can agree that we do not demand perfect metagame balance but simply that many options are viable and even if some are stronger than others on average there are interesting gameplay decisions to be made. Often the tactically-optimal solution is not the best in grand strategic terms for example. The implications of a size-based stacking width system would violate this concept of balance, IMO - and it is not so easy to find a better basis for stacking width, for example a cost basis heavily penalizes special forces types of units, which are IMO already a bit less than optimal on average and so are not in need of such a harsh nerf. Similarly, what factor should the combat width be? If we say, okay, let's avoid the armor problem by making it 12x size, then 120,000 soldiers can assault 10,000 with no hindrance, so have we really made any change to the game on a practical level?

I think you miss the whole point of why you would like to have this... it would be to simulate the possibilities to hold territories for reinforcement to arrive, the fact that high quality become slightly better is not really that important... you still would want cheap forces to garrison planets as they are not suppose to "win".

Currently high quality troops is not really much worth it anyway... over time cheap troops is more effective as troop ships are not terribly expensive and will not cost you any maintenance once built. As you use commercial engines on them anyway they also will be very cheap to upgrade. I have done the numbers on this... thus making high quality troops have a niche role can be important. The attacker can tailor its forces to attack whatever enemy they are facing anyway, so this is a moot point.

This way there would be more choices in the type of troops you would like to deploy rather than the cheapest troops available.

When you play in a multi-faction environment you will learn that more cheaper troops is almost always better than quality troops, at least if you don't care about losses for winning. The only reason I still build high quality troops is role-play... more or less, to preserve soldier life, even if less efficient investment of time and resources.

The current way it works is just too simple to math, there is very little choice in actual troops types, anything bigger than medium vehicles is pretty much pointless, more or less... you might go heavy vehicles if you have technologic superiority. Genetic enhancement is also to some degree worth it if you are on par or better technology, mainly due to weapon layouts. Armoured infantry is not really worth it, most of the time, too expensive. Genetically enhance PWL infantry specifically suited for their environment can be very effective, especially if you have superiority in weapon tech, which is relatively common if you use plasma weapons, at least in my campaigns. It is very common in my campaigns that weapons tech is one or two level above armour tech for ground forces for this very reason, plasma weapons also is a very good early to mid game technology... which is where most of my campaigns tend to gravitate around.

Even investing in heavier armour for vehicles and statics is a luxury in most of my campaigns only relegated for the factions with lots of research capacity.

With the current rules, protecting planets with small number of garrisons is a role-play decision only, more or less... I would like for it to be more worth it mechanically also.

I also would not implement the combat width system in a linear scale... I would make it so that you can overwhelm a very small force more than a larger one... but I would tie this to if you defend the colony or the planet as well as the planets terrain etc... this would make combat more dynamic and harder to predict with math, I see that as a good thing not a bad one.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2022, 05:43:30 AM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #43 on: August 11, 2022, 07:23:03 AM »
snip

I think we must agree to disagree, the points have been presented and as always the decision rests with Steve. I think it is clear we play the same game very differently and that influences our respective ideas here. :)

Though I will say... I do not think it is bad if ground combat is mathematically predictable. For roleplay it might not be every player's ideal, enamored as we are with the idea of a small group of holdouts outlasting the siege until the cavalry arrives. However, strategically it is good to have a predictable outcome to decisions made t an extent, so that the player is rewarded for making decisions and the balance hangs on the decisions of both factions leading to the moment rather than balanced on mechanical edge cases. At the strategic scale ground combat is a game of numbers and technology with some influence of reasonable capability choices, frankly the mechanics are not tactical and I think that is fitting for Aurora.
 

Offline Marski

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.0
« Reply #44 on: August 11, 2022, 08:15:29 AM »
Checkbox option for ground force templates that exempts them for officer assignments, to be used for dedicated supply templates.
 
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