New DLC

[Serenitis]

The 'generic' outfit templates I don't find all that useful because they're so heavy-handed, insomuch as they overwrite everything. And have other quirks - like the 'seige' template not having any defensive weapons at all. 'Escort' and 'balanced' seem to be identical.
So whenever I use them I will almost always end up further tweaking the layout because it doesn't include what I want, so they're no faster than doing everything manually.

If you did use a dynamic list, you wouldn't need every possible config on there.
You don't need to put any of the 'base/default' configs on there at all tbh, because if the player is refitting a captured ship they will always be changing the config away from that layout (otherwise they wouldn't be refitting it), so what what's the point of saving that?
All you need to do is save the layout when the player okays the design - that's what goes into the dynamic list.
Then it's as simple as open designer, pick "copy <ship type> layout", apply. Done.

And if you want to be strict about it, the list can be culled whenever there is a saved layout with zero active ships of that type.

My personal preference for handling this would be unlocking a design template for every foreign ship type you capture.
You can't build ships from it because you don't have the nesecessary means to duplicate the parts/processes etc.
But you can refit ships to it.
This would then allow captured ships to be mass-refitted (either by cash or industry) in the same streamlined manner as 'native' ships.

It doesn't really matter if it uses templates, lookups or literally any other means, so long the end result is copy layout of <ship A> onto <ship B> so captured ships can be repurposed without having to manually change every component, I will be happy with it.

[zolobolo]

Can we please, please have an update while we are waiting for a DLC for the below?:
1. Fast battle animation activation bugfix: the option needs to be deselected and selected after each restart
2. Fix minor diplomacy relationship penalty if a faction does not vote for another faction on Galactic Council and major penalty if an ally does not vote for another ally that has higher pop - this effect has been introduced long ago and was in the game for a while but has been lost at some point and has been missing since. It was logical and great in generating tension between power blocks and also to prevent the player for getting around a more powerful ally
3. Integration of the pop MGMT menu from the mod into the game proper
4. Special effect on Ion guns to make the weapon type a valid choice for some cases
5. Ancient Stargate effect does not apply to AI fleets (instead of reducing their trave time to 1 turn they have the normal duration)
6. Tinkers Forge does not restore ammunition (it does seem to have this effect for the Tinkers themselves just not for other faction when reverse engineered though listed in the description as an effect)
7. Landing Notification options needs some empty space in between the two options (I have seen this pre and post 4K):

Landing spacing.png (341.26 KiB) Viewed 30397 times

[zolobolo]

Can we please, please have an update while we are waiting for a DLC for the below?:
1. Fast battle animation activation bugfix: the option needs to be deselected and selected after each restart
2. Fix minor diplomacy relationship penalty if a faction does not vote for another faction on Galactic Council and major penalty if an ally does not vote for another ally that has higher pop - this effect has been introduced long ago and was in the game for a while but has been lost at some point and has been missing since. It was logical and great in generating tension between power blocks and also to prevent the player for getting around a more powerful ally
3. Integration of the pop MGMT menu from the mod into the game proper
4. Special effect on Ion guns to make the weapon type a valid choice for some cases
5. Ancient Stargate effect does not apply to AI fleets (instead of reducing their trave time to 1 turn they have the normal duration)
6. Tinkers Forge does not restore ammunition (it does seem to have this effect for the Tinkers themselves just not for other faction when reverse engineered though listed in the description as an effect)
7. Landing Notification options needs some empty space in between the two options (I have seen this pre and post 4K):

Landing spacing.png

+ Allow special planetary attribute: "Debris Ring" to be generated on one or two other planets as well outside of Rastaban II and Eye of Dzibix and give asteroid bases at least one weapon or special hardpoint with Science Stations as a default (otherwise there is no reason for other factiosn to build a station instead of the normal one- for Tinkers its fine as they can benefit from a mobile base but even for them there is a better alternative in the form of the mobile base whihc though costs more metal, has shield and weapon hardpoints- and which I havent seen the use yet

[Serenitis]

+ Allow special planetary attribute: "Debris Ring" to be generated on one or two other planets as well outside of Rastaban II and Eye of Dzibix and give asteroid bases at least one weapon or special hardpoint

You can mini-mod both of these if you want to play with it right now.

The debris rings are part of the planet resource setup in \setup\planet_decks.lua
Making rings appear around planets 'in the wild' is as simple as adding "debris_ring = x" to the different planet categories starting at line 438 and going down to ~490-ish.
Where x is a small number, like 1-5.
Iirc there's 8 planet categories that this can potentially be added to.
I set all mine as 'better' planets have smaller numbers and vice-versa.


Making asteroid stations actually useful is also fairly easy.
\drawers\ships\universalasteroid\universalasteroid.lua
The various equipment mounts start at line 15, and you can add various others as you see fit.
I went for the fairly simple approach of just doubling up the current mounts so they have 2x station + 2x system, which seems reasonably fair.
Hangars would also work with no issue.
Not sure about weapons tho.

[zolobolo]

+ Allow special planetary attribute: "Debris Ring" to be generated on one or two other planets as well outside of Rastaban II and Eye of Dzibix and give asteroid bases at least one weapon or special hardpoint

You can mini-mod both of these if you want to play with it right now.

The debris rings are part of the planet resource setup in \setup\planet_decks.lua
Making rings appear around planets 'in the wild' is as simple as adding "debris_ring = x" to the different planet categories starting at line 438 and going down to ~490-ish.
Where x is a small number, like 1-5.
Iirc there's 8 planet categories that this can potentially be added to.
I set all mine as 'better' planets have smaller numbers and vice-versa.


Making asteroid stations actually useful is also fairly easy.
\drawers\ships\universalasteroid\universalasteroid.lua
The various equipment mounts start at line 15, and you can add various others as you see fit.
I went for the fairly simple approach of just doubling up the current mounts so they have 2x station + 2x system, which seems reasonably fair.
Hangars would also work with no issue.
Not sure about weapons tho.

Nice
Sadly I am out of modding since around the 2000s but I might give this a go

Is the value 1-5 the probabilty of the attribute being assigned during the galaxy generation to each of the planets of the type?

Question: Wouddl the AI make use of the altered asteroid station layouts?
Once they research new tech I assume they apply pre-defined templates instead of dynamically allocated the new modules where possible

[zolobolo]

We're making progress. Sven coded up the first pass on the new terraforming system, and we're currently doing internal testing on it.

Can we beta test this for you once the design is set and internal testing is done?

[Arioch]

We're making progress. Sven coded up the first pass on the new terraforming system, and we're currently doing internal testing on it.

Can we beta test this for you once the design is set and internal testing is done?

Yes, of course we'll do external testing.

[zolobolo]

Yes, of course we'll do external testing.

Just let us know if you have something to poke with stick

[RanDumGai]

Sign me up for beta testing... you know... if you want to.

[zolobolo]

Sign me up for beta testing... you know... if you want to.

I was thinking that colonisation mechanics are already in the game, it would be a "beta" update just like any other updates which we can test in the Steam Beta branch so no need to sign up per say

But now that you mentioned it, there was a code I think we needed to input once in the beginning to enable the branch you might need to get that code if you havent activated it yet

Naturally I would love to get my hands on the new Gardeners faction as well to see how they tick but that will most likely be a closed testing like it was in the case for Tinkers if I recall correctly

[zolobolo]

My line of thinking is this:
1. Terraforming is an existing tech and function which will be altered
2. Currently the tech is restricted to late game: this makes testing difficult as well as unlikely that the player is exposed to it at all
3. General species design concept does provide late game tech to some races to differentiate them more and indeed the new Gardeners faction on this thread seems like it would make heavy use of terraforming right from the beginning of the game
4. Now I assume that terraformin will also be made more proadly available to all the factions and not jsut in the lat egame (I recall a mentioning on spreading it out evenly on the tech tree) AND/OR that one or two other factions will also get access to that function right from the beginning
5. My money would be on Humans as:
A: Lore wise it would make sesne for this faction to start terraforming the hell out of everything they touch in order to create garden worlds for themsves having spent their lifes on spaceships before
B: Their new arkship design seems like something that might offer terraforming input for the planet it is attached to (we both have attachment modules to planets now and it was mentioned that shovels will be proivded by infra in soem cases for example from orbiting assets)

So I thought it would be logical that:
1. The new terraforming mechanic would be available for at least the Humans right off the bat (with or without arkship) and as a simple (beta) update via Steam and others
2. And allows testing of the redesign without spoling the new DLC race at all

[grothmag]

Can we please, please have an update while we are waiting for a DLC for the below?:
6. Tinkers Forge does not restore ammunition (it does seem to have this effect for the Tinkers themselves just not for other faction when reverse engineered though listed in the description as an effect)

To add to this (maybe it should be a bug report?) playing as Tinker, putting a Forge on designs that don't start with one does not restore ammunition - so a Forge on a Starbase or Superdreadnaught repairs them, but doesn't replenish missles (or Vindicators).

One more quality-of-life improvement I'd love added would be more hotkeys - especially "next turn" in battles, and maybe something like "double-click to select/deselect all ships of a class" for dealing with big fleets on the map.

An update for 2022 would be sweet ... the Soylent Green year. "It's Phidi!"

[emky]

maybe something like "double-click to select/deselect all ships of a class" for dealing with big fleets on the map.

Something like that exists. EXACTLY like that.

[grothmag]

Something like that exists. EXACTLY like that.

In the development/beta build? Certainly not in my GOG r38774, which is the latest there. Looks like it's the same on Steam. I'd love to see whatever new features have arrived in the 16 months since that last patch. But I'm not in the closed beta, obviously. So... must be nice!

38568 is the latest mentioned on stars-in-shadow.com's own news page; that's clearly out of date. If there's any publicly-available newer version than 38774 (Aug. 2020), I'm all ears.

[Arioch]

In the development/beta build? Certainly not in my GOG r38774, which is the latest there. Looks like it's the same on Steam. I'd love to see whatever new features have arrived in the 16 months since that last patch. But I'm not in the closed beta, obviously. So... must be nice!

38568 is the latest mentioned on stars-in-shadow.com's own news page; that's clearly out of date. If there's any publicly-available newer version than 38774 (Aug. 2020), I'm all ears.

In tactical combat, a double-left-click on a ship will select all ships of the same class. This has been in the game for a very long time.