Author Topic: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0  (Read 78969 times)

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Offline skoormit

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #735 on: November 16, 2024, 07:24:13 AM »
Suggestion: "Collapse All NACs" button

A button to collapse all the nodes in the fleet treeview (leaving just the root expanded) would be very useful for crazy people like me with a dozen or so 6-deep NAC hierarchies under the root.
A perfect spot would be the far left of the row of buttons at the bottom of the Naval window.

Alternatively (if this is possible with this treeview control): special case the "collapse node" event so that if it is the root node, it also collapses all other nodes.
That way we can just double click the root twice (to collapse and re-expand it) to have a nice and tidy tree again (so we can go find what we want without as much hassle).
 
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Offline skoormit

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #736 on: November 17, 2024, 02:35:41 PM »
On the Ground Forces window OOB tab, double-clicking the template name in the Replacement Template fields selects the name text, which can lead users to believe that they can edit this text to change the replacement template for the current formation.

Suggestion: double-clicking that field should open the template selection dialog (just like clicking the Change Temp button at the bottom of the window).
 

Offline skoormit

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #737 on: November 22, 2024, 06:13:54 AM »
Double-clicking a colony-based event (usually) opens the Econ window for that colony.

Often, however, I would prefer to go to that colony on the map.

Suggestion: For population-based events, make shift+double-click center the map on the colony
 

Offline mike2R

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #738 on: November 23, 2024, 04:54:28 AM »
I've been thinking about some QoL improvements I'd really like with Order Templates to make them easier to manage.  Nothing that changes the actual functionality of how they work (not asking for appending them to existing orders etc.)

I always end up with tons of these, often fairly complicated, and anything that could make working with them easier would be amazing.

The ability to edit existing templates would be great.  You can apply one to a fleet and then save a modified version, but its a bit clunky and you have to delete the old template and type out the name again for the new one.

The ability to rename existing templates would be really nice (which would also allow copy/pasting from existing names).  So many times I've made a small mistake in my naming scheme, and faced the choice between doing it all again, or living with a typo for the rest of the game...

And if we got both of those, the ability to copy an existing template, which could then be modified and renamed, would be the cherry on top  :)


« Last Edit: November 23, 2024, 04:56:08 AM by mike2R »
 
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Offline mike2R

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #739 on: November 23, 2024, 09:09:34 AM »
Suggestion: "Collapse All NACs" button

A button to collapse all the nodes in the fleet treeview (leaving just the root expanded) would be very useful for crazy people like me with a dozen or so 6-deep NAC hierarchies under the root.
A perfect spot would be the far left of the row of buttons at the bottom of the Naval window.

Alternatively (if this is possible with this treeview control): special case the "collapse node" event so that if it is the root node, it also collapses all other nodes.
That way we can just double click the root twice (to collapse and re-expand it) to have a nice and tidy tree again (so we can go find what we want without as much hassle).

I'd love this.  I'd also really like something similar in the component list in the ship design screen.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #740 on: November 23, 2024, 09:51:15 AM »
Suggestion: "Collapse All NACs" button

A button to collapse all the nodes in the fleet treeview (leaving just the root expanded) would be very useful for crazy people like me with a dozen or so 6-deep NAC hierarchies under the root.
A perfect spot would be the far left of the row of buttons at the bottom of the Naval window.

Alternatively (if this is possible with this treeview control): special case the "collapse node" event so that if it is the root node, it also collapses all other nodes.
That way we can just double click the root twice (to collapse and re-expand it) to have a nice and tidy tree again (so we can go find what we want without as much hassle).

I've added a Collapse All button that closes every node in the tree, including admin commands, fleets, sub-fleets, ships and squadrons.
 
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Offline Reiko

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #741 on: November 25, 2024, 08:05:47 AM »
Suggestion 1: close windows by rightclicking anywhere, where a rightclick would do nothing otherwise

Suggestion 2: close windows by hitting the 'Escape'-key

    one or both of the above will make my life a lot easier literally every few minutes at least - having to navigate the cursor to the
    small x is a chore in the long run.

Suggestion 3: checkbox to hide comets from the system view

Suggestion 4: zoom to/from mouse cursor on map-views - very, very handy in other games and should be easy to do

Suggestion 5: stop reading date- and number formats from the OS - this makes the game
                     unplayable in large parts of the world where the numbers are written like 2.000,64
                     and which, no doubt, has already excluded thousands of people from playing the game.
                     should be possible to hardcode that instead.

Suggestion 6: some control over colours - people who cannot live with the default colours always have to hope
                     that the colour-theme-mod which they use continues to function

Suggestion 7: option to choose the hull types being displayed as a choice in the drop-down in class-design
                     - maybe an option to choose a simple much reduced list, since there are soo many and having to work through them to
                      deactivate most of them would be a chore by itself - there is a Mod for that, but it does not work anymore, apparently

Suggestion 8: I have a really hard time to read the small font on a 1080p monitor - and they are getting ever bigger -
                     i know solving this is complicated - but many people pray for that, I'm sure
« Last Edit: November 25, 2024, 08:11:33 AM by Reiko »
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Offline Ghostly

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #742 on: November 26, 2024, 08:02:43 AM »
Since the NPR AI code is getting updated to accommodate fighters and carriers, have you considered giving the AI a touch up in other areas?

From my observation, NPRs suffer from several operational group-related issues. My understanding of how this system works is rudimentary at best, but I've done my best to guess what's going on. I should note that I only experienced protracted warfare against one (missile-focused) major NPR so far, with a home system invasion currently in progress, so some of these might only affect that particular type:

  • First of all, it only uses escorts in Troop Transport Groups and Orbital Miner Groups that belong to the group itself. There are no corresponding Beam Escort operational groups in existence for that NPR in my DB, although other (presumably beam-based) races have them. In practice, this means the NPR's beam escorts never leave the group even when fired upon, unless it slows down to below the group's speed, so any ship fast enough to catch up with the lumbering commercial ships of the group and long-ranged enough to outrange the escort's puny point defence railguns can take it apart with impunity. Perhaps missile-based races do not have access to Escort operational groups and should be granted it?

  • Similarly, said NPR's biggest surviving fleet is currently stranded deep within another race's territory, transitting a stabilized JP back and forth every few 3h+ increments (I noticed that's the minimum increment length for a standing order to activate) and according to DB it did so 8000+ times already. It's completely out of fuel, there's no stabilized link between its position and its race's homeworld and the fleet possesses no jump-capable ships despite being classified as a FAC Hunter Squadron - Jump. I noticed Beam Jump CA is a 100% chance guaranteed(?), but not a key element of said operational group (I'm honestly not sure what's the difference here), so it must've had one at some point to get there but then lost it.

    The NPR has many such cruisers currently assigned to Troop Transport Group - Jump operational groups in its territory (incidentally, all their dropships are too big for the cruiser's jump drives to make those groups actually jump-capable and none of the groups have any jump tenders, I guess that's why I never saw it attempt to invade me or any other race?). Is NPR AI incapable of detaching a jump-capable ship from an idle operational group and attaching it to another group with a higher priority task (1+ Mt of military ships being stranded while their home system is being invaded) or is there something else going on here? Could danger rating in the systems between somehow be preventing them from doing so despite all ships involved being military?

  • Additionally, I saw several fleets gimp themselves by including an older-generation ship or two and bringing the fleet's speed way, way down. Maybe give NPRs a rule where they will create separate operational groups for ships that differ significantly in speed, or assign heavily obsolete ships to more stationary duties?
On a strategic level, I also observed some very questionable decisions. I blockaded one of the two JP's leading to their home system for several months prior to invasion and over that time saw a couple dozen lone, brand-new combat ships, as well as a couple Troop Transport Group - Jump groups, perform standard transit through the JP only to be destroyed instantly. The only few squadron transits were performed by unarmed scout ships, and their second home system jump point where I had buoy coverage saw next to no military traffic, despite leading to an uncontested, populated system that offered a slightly longer alternate route to the system where my blockade was stationed. I'm not sure how to explain this behavior, but it feels like they were unable to comprehend the danger of taking the shorter route and made no attempt at assembling a jump-capable task force to break the blockade, despite technically having plenty of suitable ships, which crippled them massively.

When I invaded their home system and defeated their JP guard and a first response fleet, I observed the rest of their (still sizeable) fleets move towards the JP into the aforementioned populated system, leaving nothing but static orbital defenses to protect their homeworld. I also saw, thanks to my buoy in that system, that the fleeing fleets rallied at a tiny colony around an asteroid instead of their populated worlds. This seems very weird to me as despite their percieved danger of my significantly faster ships, I would expect them to try and protect their homeworld to the very end. Perhaps NPR's danger evaluation should be altered in cases where their home is under attack.

Also, after poking around the DB I was frustrated to learn that the few ~10m populated colonies I've encountered were in fact the biggest NPR colonies around and the rest of their population still inhabited their homeworlds, but I hope the upcoming multi-system NPR feature will take care of that.

As always, thank you.
 
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Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #743 on: November 28, 2024, 05:54:12 PM »
A suggestion to perhaps alleviate the frequent decimal point problems we see so often around here:

When Aurora loads up, read a number from a string literal like "1,000.01" into a floating-point variable and then check if the value is what the game expects. If not, throw up a fatal error pop-up or something telling the user that their decimal point separator is incorrect.

Hopefully the user can then fix the issue immediately, instead of after advancing time for several months/years before noticing absurd production/population values.
 
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Offline skoormit

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #744 on: November 29, 2024, 06:01:38 AM »
Case 1:
I often have a carrier delivering a squadron of fighters to another carrier.
Currently, this requires waiting for the carrier to move to the location, then manually launching the squadron and giving it orders to land on the target carrier.

Suggestion: "Transfer Squadron to Mothership" order.
Just target the desired carrier, pick the order, and double click the squadron from the list (similar to Join Sub-Fleet order).

Case 2:
I often have a carrier delivering a squadron of fighters to a non-carrier fleet.
Sometimes to join the base fleet, sometimes to join a sub-fleet, and sometimes to create a new sub-fleet.
The micro for this is similar to the above, but manually giving the launched squadron some flavor of join order at the end instead of an order to land on a carrier.

Suggestion: Three new orders -- "Transfer Squadron to Fleet", "Transfer Squadron to Sub-Fleet" and "Transfer Squadron as Sub-Fleet."
Same as above. Just target the desired fleet and pick the order. (In the case of transferring to a sub-fleet, also pick the sub-fleet.)
« Last Edit: November 29, 2024, 06:03:10 AM by skoormit »
 
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Offline nakorkren

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #745 on: November 29, 2024, 09:53:05 PM »
It would be helpful if missile salvos being displayed on the map could be "condensed" much like fleets are. I know they're already sort of condensed in that you don't see every missile, but it would be a lot more readable if it said "20x salvos of 5x missiles each" instead of showing 20 lines of "Salvo of 5x missiles". Yes, I know it would probably expand back out to more lines as some salvos lost missiles due to PD, but it would still be no worse than the current display and in almost all cases it would be much better, visually.

SJW: Already in v2.6. See the Changes List
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.0
« Last Edit: November 30, 2024, 06:04:18 AM by Steve Walmsley »
 
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Offline Ghostly

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #746 on: November 29, 2024, 10:57:30 PM »
Case 1:
I often have a carrier delivering a squadron of fighters to another carrier.
Currently, this requires waiting for the carrier to move to the location, then manually launching the squadron and giving it orders to land on the target carrier.

Suggestion: "Transfer Squadron to Mothership" order.
Just target the desired carrier, pick the order, and double click the squadron from the list (similar to Join Sub-Fleet order).

Case 2:
I often have a carrier delivering a squadron of fighters to a non-carrier fleet.
Sometimes to join the base fleet, sometimes to join a sub-fleet, and sometimes to create a new sub-fleet.
The micro for this is similar to the above, but manually giving the launched squadron some flavor of join order at the end instead of an order to land on a carrier.

Suggestion: Three new orders -- "Transfer Squadron to Fleet", "Transfer Squadron to Sub-Fleet" and "Transfer Squadron as Sub-Fleet."
Same as above. Just target the desired fleet and pick the order. (In the case of transferring to a sub-fleet, also pick the sub-fleet.)

Would the game support an order with two additional inputs? You would need to pick a carrier then a squadron in case 1, and a squadron then a subfleet in case 2b. But yeah, I'd love this, especially if such functionality were extended to sub-fleets as well as squadrons.

It would be helpful if missile salvos being displayed on the map could be "condensed" much like fleets are. I know they're already sort of condensed in that you don't see every missile, but it would be a lot more readable if it said "20x salvos of 5x missiles each" instead of showing 20 lines of "Salvo of 5x missiles". Yes, I know it would probably expand back out to more lines as some salvos lost missiles due to PD, but it would still be no worse than the current display and in almost all cases it would be much better, visually.

That's already coming. :)
Missile contacts will be grouped in the same way as ships.
 

Offline Kaiser

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #747 on: November 30, 2024, 02:21:44 PM »
Hey Steve, I was reading a bit on Discord about other players discussions and I started wordering, do NPR colonize and fortify their empire strategically speaking?

I mean, is the game coded in a way that the NPR sistematically create different/several outposts or military bases with STOs and ground forces to create a "front" against other NPR and human player in order to defend itself?

I am asking this because I cannot find the wiki about how NPR works and I often find its logistic and strategy a bit random and considering last update in 2.6.0 it might be maybe a good idea to edit/add something in this direction?

Specifically I wish to see NPRs focusing on the creation of more fortified bases in systems where they have a claim especially the systems bordering other species to make life difficult for the human player and other NPRs in case of war or for example more bases in moons or asteroid close to where they have important colonies or strategic sites in order to create a military cluster hard to defeat without paying a big price.

After all this is what we would do in the space ;)

I know it is not simple to code all of this but maybe it is worth to add something.
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #748 on: November 30, 2024, 04:18:12 PM »
Suggestion: Make Cloaking and Thermal Reduction tech levels match.

Rationale: currently, when encountering a cloaked ship, it is immediately obvious that the ship is cloaked because its active sensor signature and thermal emissions signature don't match. For example, a ship with a 90% cloaking efficiency may have a thermal reduction effect of 12% normal or 8% normal. In either case, it is immediately obvious that the ship is cloaked and using thermal reduction, and furthermore it is usually pretty trivial to construct a table using the discrete cloaking and thermal reduction tech levels to work out either the exact tonnage of that ship or at worst 2 or 3 possibilities, of which usually only one is probable due to, e.g., observed engine speeds or sensor signatures and the implied tech level.

Matching the cloak and thermal reduction tech values would allow effective deception in addition to the existing stealth capabilities, particularly in AAR narratives and multiple-player-race campaigns. I consider cultivating these opportunities preferable to what is right now purely a metagaming way to discern opponent ship capabilities.

I feel similarly about NPR sensor resolutions but I acknowledge the latter is a much trickier problem to solve cleanly.
 
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Offline nakorkren

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Re: Suggestions Thread for v2.4.0
« Reply #749 on: December 01, 2024, 07:36:25 PM »
It would be helpful if missile salvos being displayed on the map could be "condensed" much like fleets are. I know they're already sort of condensed in that you don't see every missile, but it would be a lot more readable if it said "20x salvos of 5x missiles each" instead of showing 20 lines of "Salvo of 5x missiles". Yes, I know it would probably expand back out to more lines as some salvos lost missiles due to PD, but it would still be no worse than the current display and in almost all cases it would be much better, visually.

SJW: Already in v2.6. See the Changes List
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13463.0


Derp. I actually had the thought, thought it had already been fixed, re-read the change log (but not the minor fixes, just the major ones), and missed seeing that. So very, very excited for 2.6!