Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0

[El Pip]

Honestly the main thing that currently makes me prefer refits over scrap and build new, is service history. I want to see those tonnage destroyed numbers go up higher.

This reminds me that it would be good if you could award and then transfer across Battle Honours (including the tonnage destroyed numbers) to ships with the same name.

[rainyday]

The new "Copy + Upgrade" ground formation templates is a great QoL improvement, but right now it doesn't copy the "FormationsTrained" counter into the new template, so numbering resets to one each time. In my current game, I have three 1st Infantry Brigades in service:

1st Infantry Brigade
1st Infantry Brigade - 2127
1st Infantry Brigade - 2137

Maybe the idea here is that you should go ahead and delete the previous one when you train the replacement, but I tend to have at least a couple older generations of troops around as garrison units so it would be nice to at least have the option to retain the current numbering.

[nuclearslurpee]

Maybe the idea here is that you should go ahead and delete the previous one when you train the replacement, but I tend to have at least a couple older generations of troops around as garrison units so it would be nice to at least have the option to retain the current numbering.

Related, it would be pretty great to be able to "upgrade" a formation in the following manner:

• Select formation to upgrade and formation template to replace it with (these are the only needed UI elements).
• Scrap it, get 30% minerals back as we do for scrapping now.
• Place new-build formation with same name into the queue (bonus if it keeps track of where the old formation was in the hierarchy, a la organizations).
• OPTIONAL: Instead of getting back 30% of the materials, the new formation starts at 30% completion.

I know this has been suggested before, but hopefully with a more technical suggestion including the UI description it might be easy enough that Steve does it this time? 

[Kaiser]

This is more a general suggestion to Steve for the future patch, in my opinion the quality of the game in terms of ship projecting, naval organization, components, planetary facilities, missles and so on reached the top level and we are just playing around refining small things, bugs and adding QoL improvements time to time, all good and desiderable.

What I suggest Steve, We (you ) should rework the NPR system, the diplomacy in particular (alliance, wars, tech exchange etc.), in a more intuitive way, maybe even a more simpler and predictable but realistic and interesting system like for example common commercial games (I'm thinking to the diplomacy in the paradox games, EUIV).

I imagine you wanted to design the system in your way, fair enough and you horrifies to the idea of copying other games, but the diplomatic aspect is currently not very intuitive and the NPRs a part from the ship combat which can be challenging are not very interesting in terms of who they are, what they want, their capital, leader, traits, resources so Aurora is often reduced to the destruction of one NPR after another.

Many of the info about NPRs are hidden, there's no interaction except the communication and the few pact available have again little or no impact in the whole picture of a campaign.

What do you think if We (again you ) focuses only on this aspect, for the next big patch, we create a specific 3D where we can collect suggestions and ideas to realize a much deeper diplo system?

[paolot]

Considering we are (usually) dealing with totally alien civilizations, instead of speaking with other human beings, I think it is justifiable that it is difficult to understand them and obtain a full picture of their culture and technical knowledge.
Anyway, a bit more interactions (infiltration, spying, sabotages, exchange of resources or technologies or planets/colonies, establishing a protectorate, up to conquest by diplomacy) could be an interesting and deep expansion of the game.

[nuclearslurpee]

I would settle for at least a bare-bones treaty system that lets you establish some kind of mutual understanding about borders. Something as simple as "This system is mine, that system is yours, the system in the middle we can share" would resolve a lot of ambiguity around NPR relations and make it easier to avoid having a war if you don't want one. This wouldn't get rid of the "Look, it's not my fault we colonized this system before your home world even generated" wars, but it would help the overall situation a lot otherwise.

Second thing after that would be a system for making peace so that we can have wars that aren't existential in nature, however if I've learned one thing from other 4X and grand strategy games it's that peace treaties are a royal PITA so I don't blame Steve for not wanting to tackle this.

[ChubbyPitbull]

STO QOL Requests:

1. Add the ability to set "Default STO Targeting" orders when designing an STO unit. Then, when formations are built using those units, they will start using the defined "Default STO Targeting" order for that unit. Goal for this suggestion is when building STOs they will be created using the targeting orders the player would normally use without requiring the player to go in and change each group of STO weapons.

2. Add the ability to filter the STO Targeting list by location (or add an STO section/tab to the Population screen to view all STO in a given population).

3. Allow multi-selecting STO units in the STO targeting list to change targeting orders for many STOs at once. For example, changing 5 formations of Gauss Cannons to "Target Closest Ship" instead of "Point Blank Defensive Fire" when defending an invasion.

3A. As an alternative to #3, add buttons similar to Ship weapons targeting to copy STO targeting orders to All STO of same Class, All STO of same Class at Population, and All STO at Population.


Thanks! I love using STOs in Aurora but managing them can get tedious. Building large STO formations of clustered weapons to minimize entries in the STO targeting list is expensive with long build times, but building multiple smaller, cheaper STO formations means a lot more manual clicking when setting up defense doctrines and during combat situations.

[profabide4x]

The ability for a tanker to use an order like "Load fuel until full" would remove the need to try calculating the needed order delay for collecting fuel from harvester stations.

[rainyday]

I'm really into my current game so I'm back with more suggestions.

1) Empire wide research screen (similar to Empire Mining tab), because when I have labs scattered around half a dozen Ancient Construct planets, I'd like to be able to see the completion dates of all my projects in one place.

2) Something like the new Combat Ratings tab for ships, but for commanders. I was just clicking through my Captains and found this dude with 200k military kills. He needs to be in command of the fleet flagship.

[nakorkren]

It would likely require significant work to create, but it would be really cool to have trade play a more important role in the game. Right now your civilian shipping can trade with NPC races, but at least from my experience it's fairly rare and a fairly small part of your or their economy. It would be much more realistic as well as (more importantly) more rich from a gameplay and strategy perspective if civilian trade between players/NPCs were a more significant part of the economy. Then you could intentionally manipulate it to your betterment and your enemy's detriment. Some ideas include:

• Increase magnitude of income generated by civilian inter-system trade. This could be hand waved by saying that yes you have lots of wine in Sol, but your citizens want to try wine styles from system xyz because it's novel. Ditto for spices, drugs, etc.
• Allow players and NPCs to set prices and quantities of TN minerals they're willing to sell or buy. This would enable a whole new strategic level of play, since you don't necessarily need to have mining access to all mineral types, just allies willing to sell to you, and your enemies may get their Duranium from an ally that you could cut off.
• You could establish (or let happen in an automated fashion) tariffs for trade that isn't with you but flows through a system you control. NPCs could do the same to you or other NPCs
• Diplomacy could be expanded to include economic factors

I suspect this would be a lot of work to develop and bug-test. It also may not be fully do-able without an overhaul of the diplomatic system and/or the AI for NPCs, both of which are probably not imminent on Steve's to-do list. That said, it would be really cool and add an additional strategy and RP layer which I think many players would find attractive, and hopefully Steve would as well.

Note, I will create a separate post for discussion of this topic, so if you have feedback/thoughts on this idea, please it there rather than clutter this suggestions thread.

[Kaiser]

A button "Create Fleet" in the shipyard menù, that's because I often want a bunch of new ships to directly end under a new fleet (for example new fuel harvesters designed to work in some distant system).
This would avoid going back to the naval org.,create the new fleet and come back to the shipyard menù.

[AlStar]

I love using STOs in Aurora but managing them can get tedious. Building large STO formations of clustered weapons to minimize entries in the STO targeting list is expensive with long build times, but building multiple smaller, cheaper STO formations means a lot more manual clicking when setting up defense doctrines and during combat situations.

I'm 99% sure that you can build smaller STO formations, then merge them together into larger formations afterwards (I've done this with regular troops, so I don't see why STOs would operate differently.) There'll still be some clicking involved to move the STO units, then deleting the (now empty) formations; but it should be a lot less annoying than having to duplicate firing orders to multiple STOs.

Otherwise, ++ on the other suggestions.

[Coleslaw]

Two separate suggestions:

-Officers rescued from life pods are not automatically unloaded when the Unload Survivors order completes at a population. My suggestion is that the Unload Survivors order also unloads any unassigned officers that are onboard a ship. Alternatively, an "Unload Unassigned Officers" order be available to ships that have unassigned officers onboard.

-The Load All Minerals order for cargo ships starts from the top of the mineral list and works its way down. I.e., if you have a pop with 50000 of each mineral and order a cargo ship to Load All Minerals, it will fill its hold only with duranium. My suggestion is that this order instead try to load an equal number of every available mineral, so that new colonies can be easily jumpstarted with a base stock of every mineral, instead of having to make several different Load Mineral Type orders. If the ship finds that the mineral stocks on the colony its loading from does not have enough minerals to equally fill the cargo hold, it will then just load whatever it can get its hands on, as the order does currently.

[Louella]

-Officers rescued from life pods are not automatically unloaded when the Unload Survivors order completes at a population. My suggestion is that the Unload Survivors order also unloads any unassigned officers that are onboard a ship. Alternatively, an "Unload Unassigned Officers" order be available to ships that have unassigned officers onboard.

I think you can use the "drop off commander" order to unload any rescued officers, but you are presented with a list of all ship commanders in the fleet, which can be a lot. Perhaps some highlighting of unassigned officers would be in order, if that would be simpler to implement than dropping off unassigned officers.

[Coleslaw]

-Officers rescued from life pods are not automatically unloaded when the Unload Survivors order completes at a population. My suggestion is that the Unload Survivors order also unloads any unassigned officers that are onboard a ship. Alternatively, an "Unload Unassigned Officers" order be available to ships that have unassigned officers onboard.

I think you can use the "drop off commander" order to unload any rescued officers, but you are presented with a list of all ship commanders in the fleet, which can be a lot. Perhaps some highlighting of unassigned officers would be in order, if that would be simpler to implement than dropping off unassigned officers.

Yes, this is my issue with the Drop Off Commander order. If Drop off commander highlighted unassigned officers, that would be fine too in my opinion.