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« Last post by GenStone on Today at 07:54:40 AM »
First time posting!
Been here a few years on and off, pretty much always in the early-game. My friends and I play on 10% global research rate and it feels pretty good to us, or maybe we're all insane.
This means I have a lot of (bad, incompetent) experience with the early game techs you'd normally blitz past in all of your horrifyingly fast 100% global research rate runs. Having experienced a couple growing pains as a result of this, I have a few suggestions.
Missile Designer
Its a surprise tool that will help us later.
#1. Target Engine Size Multiplier
The current missile designer goes from 0.00-2.99. Then it changes to 3.0-3.1 all the way to 10, then changes again in increments of 0.5. In terms of UI, this is normally a good thing since you don't have to scroll through literally hundreds of options to get to higher numbers.
In the early-game "I need every single msp of available space to go into my engine" terms, everything past 2.99msp in engines is a numbers balancing nightmare since you're locked into 0.1 increments, then 0.5 increments.
Since Jump Engines got a face lift with target tons multipliers, I was hoping we could get something similar for missiles so people like me who eat pain for breakfast can delicately dump every single remaining MSP of the 7.335 tons of available space for this cluster missile submunition into the engines to maximize my early-game, abysmal chance to hit.
I definitely am not coping about having to drop from 32,000km/s to 24,000km/s and being unable to use the remaining 0.065msp for the engines. Not at all. Not one bit. No sir. I'd never.
#2. Second-Stage Placeholders
I happen to be a big fan of 2-stage missiles, from mines to 2-stage cruise missiles or cluster missiles. However, I also apparently suck at math and can't ever get my calculations right. Skill issue.
Part of the problem is that I have to design the second stage of the missile first, then design the platform that launches that second stage. So I have to make a missile, multiply its space taken by my intended submunition count, then use whatever space is left in the missile launcher to create the first stage - which I can only start doing after I've designed and then researched the second stage.
To make designing multi-stage missiles a little easier, I propose adding an option to the dropdown menu for a blank/placeholder submunition which would allow you to set a dummy missile size. In addition to the number of missiles, this would allow someone to conceive of their desired 2-stage missile from the first stage and easily identify how much space they have to work for the entire missile and importantly the second stage(s.)
Alternatively or additionally you could decouple the second stage from the design of the first stage missile. Its a little strange that my scientists have to research how to install the new missile into the exact same 4x cluster missile, but that would likely invoke some god of technical debt to come smite you.
This one is pretty much just my apparent inability to do math coupled with not realizing that certain active sensors values don't actually do anything and remove themselves, thus saving me space by accident.
#3. Last and definitely least.
You should probably load the separation range value in the "Load Previous" dropdown. I am routinely hit with dread that I accidentally forgot to change the separation range on a missile while reviewing it for upgrades, before remembering that it just defaults to 150k.
Magazines and how to read them
I don't know if I'm having another skill issue, if its a rounding or naming error, or if the number is based on something else entirely, but I'm consistently running into a calculation error with magazine capacity. My capacity 483 magazine should, according to my math, hold 12 size-40 missiles in it. In reality, or at least in my class designer ordnance&fighters tab, it holds 15. According to the class designer interface, my editor-named capacity 483 magazine has a magazine capacity of 603. And my 504 has a capacity of 654.
While I'm here, I find it a little strange that the magazine capacity of a ship isn't listed in the class designer's Ordnance&Fighters tab. Come to think of it, neither is hangar capacity? I wouldn't be surprised if this is another one of those historical pc settings skill issues, however.
Technology and History.
Can we get some easy access (or someone otherwise direct me to the existing easy access) historical technology records for our space empires? I spend an unnecessary amount of time (poorly and incompetently) documenting the research dates and prototypes of new technological innovations so I could, in theory, write up some big lore page in the distant future involving historical ships and when their specific components were designed and researched.
However, I find myself unable to remember to actually record the date when I make prototypes for new components and usually forget to record when the technology has actually been researched to completion as well. Events only goes so far back. This deprives me of (questionably) valuable information needed to write some obnoxious, low-quality lore I'm never going to use for anything meaningful, lol.
Maybe it could be put in the view technology tab? Maybe something similar for the base technologies as well? (e.g Base Jump Drive Efficiency 6)
I almost forgot!
Jump Drive Squadron Size 1-2
Feel free to ignore this one entirely, but my lizard brain parts keeps insisting that I build a jump-command ship and then make jumpless squaddies to "maximize" efficiency. I've thankfully ignored that urge in my latest game, but knowing that jump engines can move up to 3 ships by default and not exploiting that is causing me pain.
The way I see it, I'm already losing out by not creating jump drive-less variants to exploit the extra 2 free ships of transportation. May as well get like a 1% size efficiency bonus for having less than 3 squadron size, or even just a cost reduction. I'll even take pure vanity and loss of squadron function, lol.
Remove Prototype Button
Okay okay last thing, inelegantly. Can we get an easy remove prototype button? I've found myself creating a ton of quick on-the-spot "test" prototypes so I can block out a ship faster, but having a large wall of "test Beam Fire Control R48" or "test Beam Fire Control R128" spam covering up my completed research and prototypes components tabs gets a little annoying. Especially with future-prototypes that usually bug out and can't be researched when the prerequisite technology is actually unlocked. I can just click into the completed research tab and delete the techs, which works on game restart, but having a one-click solution in the class designer would also be nice.
Missile designer cope, check.
Magazine capacity cope, check.
my inability to remember-to-check-the-date-and-copy-some-numbers-into-a-notepad cope, check.
I-can't-be-bothered-to-make-optimized-jump-squadron-fleets-and-want-single-ship-jump-drives cope, check.
prototype-remove-button-plz cope, check.
I think that covers everything I can think of. Great game by the way.
I feel like I'm in school and got told to "highlight everything that's important" and ended up underlining everything. I'm going to press post before I find another hour's worth of things to type or edit in here.
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