Suggest - Features and Improvements

[Serenitis]

3. Fighters do not really have a good role to fill now...

Thinking about this a bit, maybe it might be worth looking at giving each type of fighter some additional abilities and controls.

Bombers as noted, could use the ability to carry torpedoes.
But it might also be a benefit to allow the player to specify the exact ordnance they use - a dropdown containing all known 'missile' types on an installed bomber unit shouldn't be too confusing.
(Plasma torpedoes would be a really good fit for bombers as they could be released much further away, so the bombers might actually survive )
Same limits as a standard ship mount: 1 bomber = 2 missiles or 1 torpedo

Interceptors need the most work imo.
They don't really need a weapon selection, just using the 'best' available is fine.
But they could really use some additional ability to defend ships more effectively.
For instance, when targetted at hostile missiles or fighters, it would be nice if interceptors followed thier target every turn until it has been destroyed instead of taking a single shot and then returning.
Or giving them the ability to be 'targetted' at a friendly ship (or bomber unit), where they will provide cover/extra PD support.

Strike fighters are a little bit of both, and I imagine not quite as good as either.
They can carry missiles (same selection ability as bombers), but torpeodes are too heavy/large for the spaceframes. So bombers have a reason to still be used for heavy ordnance.
They can target missiles & fighters, but only get 1 shot (same behaviour as now) as they're more massive than pure interceptors and just don't have the accelleration to catch fast targets.
They can 'guard' friendlies like interceptors and will fire missiles at any hostile ships in range, but will immediately return to re-arm if they do so.
So there's still a reason to use interceptors for purely defensive purposes.


Another thing to consider for any ship with fighters (and shuttles) would be allowing that ship to 'refill' lost fighter units by drawing from the available crew.
Push button, fighter wing gets re-populated, ship crew gets reduced.
Which would leave carriers potentially vulnerable to boarding actions, plus giving the player additional incentive to use the crew/marine quarters fitting which often gets overlooked.
1 inteceptor = 1 crew
1 strike fighter = 2 crew
1 shuttle = 2 crew
1 bomber = 3 crew

[zolobolo]

3. Fighters do not really have a good role to fill now...

Thinking about this a bit, maybe it might be worth looking at giving each type of fighter some additional abilities and controls.

Bombers as noted, could use the ability to carry torpedoes.
But it might also be a benefit to allow the player to specify the exact ordnance they use - a dropdown containing all known 'missile' types on an installed bomber unit shouldn't be too confusing.
(Plasma torpedoes would be a really good fit for bombers as they could be released much further away, so the bombers might actually survive )
Same limits as a standard ship mount: 1 bomber = 2 missiles or 1 torpedo

Interceptors need the most work imo.
They don't really need a weapon selection, just using the 'best' available is fine.
But they could really use some additional ability to defend ships more effectively.
For instance, when targetted at hostile missiles or fighters, it would be nice if interceptors followed thier target every turn until it has been destroyed instead of taking a single shot and then returning.
Or giving them the ability to be 'targetted' at a friendly ship (or bomber unit), where they will provide cover/extra PD support.

Strike fighters are a little bit of both, and I imagine not quite as good as either.
They can carry missiles (same selection ability as bombers), but torpeodes are too heavy/large for the spaceframes. So bombers have a reason to still be used for heavy ordnance.
They can target missiles & fighters, but only get 1 shot (same behaviour as now) as they're more massive than pure interceptors and just don't have the accelleration to catch fast targets.
They can 'guard' friendlies like interceptors and will fire missiles at any hostile ships in range, but will immediately return to re-arm if they do so.
So there's still a reason to use interceptors for purely defensive purposes.

Another thing to consider for any ship with fighters (and shuttles) would be allowing that ship to 'refill' lost fighter units by drawing from the available crew.
Push button, fighter wing gets re-populated, ship crew gets reduced.
Which would leave carriers potentially vulnerable to boarding actions, plus giving the player additional incentive to use the crew/marine quarters fitting which often gets overlooked.
1 inteceptor = 1 crew
1 strike fighter = 2 crew
1 shuttle = 2 crew
1 bomber = 3 crew

Yes this was in fact the case before for bombers:
Bombers did carry torps in the beginning but have been nerfed due to carrier spam: Carriers cannot be spammed anymore due to upkeep cost increase bu the nerf remained sadly

I like the idea of Strike Fighters getting rockets instead of torps that I woudl give back to bombers so they indeed have purpose
The design for now was clearly for Strike Fighters to replace both bombers and fighters though

The idea of using crew to regenerate squadrons soudns awesome, only thing is AI needs update for that

[zolobolo]

Seems like there are updates in dev branch sicne 2020-08-09(38778)
Do we still need to select in_development fro mthe beta menu of Steam to apply these?

It seems to make sence but its odd that these changes didnt make it into the lvie branch since then as it has been a while and as far as I know they have not caused any issues (but I might we wrong in this)

[Arioch]

Seems like there are updates in dev branch sicne 2020-08-09(38778)
Do we still need to select in_development fro mthe beta menu of Steam to apply these?

It seems to make sence but its odd that these changes didnt make it into the lvie branch since then as it has been a while and as far as I know they have not caused any issues (but I might we wrong in this)

There are no SiS updates that I'm aware of. Steam occasionally does ghost updates, probably to accommodate changes on their backend.

[PrivateHudson]

Conquered Population malus shouldn't apply to your colonies recaptured from an enemy within 5 or 10 turns of the loss. At least to population of your species.

[Arioch]

Conquered Population malus shouldn't apply to your colonies recaptured from an enemy within 5 or 10 turns of the loss. At least to population of your species.

I suppose this could be done by making the Conquered issue specific to the conquering and conquered factions, and have the issue disappear if the population is recaptured by its original faction... but the edge cases get messy as to which issues should apply to which population.

[PrivateHudson]

Conquered Population malus shouldn't apply to your colonies recaptured from an enemy within 5 or 10 turns of the loss. At least to population of your species.

I suppose this could be done by making the Conquered issue specific to the conquering and conquered factions, and have the issue disappear if the population is recaptured by its original faction... but the edge cases get messy as to which issues should apply to which population.

In a first approach this could be done by each colony having FormerOwner property with decreasing counter. Once the counter reaches 0, FormerOwner changes to the CurrentOwner. Once the colony is conquered, counter is set to 0/set to 10/left alone depending on new owner. Issuing Conquered Population accounts for FormerOwner <> CurrentOwner.

[Arioch]

Conquered Population malus shouldn't apply to your colonies recaptured from an enemy within 5 or 10 turns of the loss. At least to population of your species.

I suppose this could be done by making the Conquered issue specific to the conquering and conquered factions, and have the issue disappear if the population is recaptured by its original faction... but the edge cases get messy as to which issues should apply to which population.

In a first approach this could be done by each colony having FormerOwner property with decreasing counter. Once the counter reaches 0, FormerOwner changes to the CurrentOwner. Once the colony is conquered, counter is set to 0/set to 10/left alone depending on new owner. Issuing Conquered Population accounts for FormerOwner <> CurrentOwner.

The difficulty is that many colonies will have a variety of different population on them, some native, some being alien emigres, some being conquered population or purchased slaves. While having the native population react positively to being liberated will seem more realistic, similar reactions from non-native population will seem less realistic. So the mechanism needs to be tied to individual population, not the colony.

[PrivateHudson]

The difficulty is that many colonies will have a variety of different population on them, some native, some being alien emigres, some being conquered population or purchased slaves. While having the native population react positively to being liberated will seem more realistic, similar reactions from non-native population will seem less realistic. So the mechanism needs to be tied to individual population, not the colony.

Yes, in general the problem is rather complicated. Probably no need to model it all, especially because the existing code mostly ok: keep the current mechanism in place, just augment with FormerOwner for at least your own people.

[zolobolo]

Suggest:
- Tinker Asteroid Outpost to prompt player when has not entered orbit yet
It might be anoying to get the prompt every turn for a fleet that only carries a token outpost along for later use but should be a very rare case whereas these outpsot have a high chance of going under once arrived to a system as they are not market on the strategic map when merging to a fleet and generally need to block planets
- Slave Collar to be offered up for reverse engineering as soon as a faction cpatures a planet with slaves on it (not just when they are bought from Marauders) so that they can make use of slave related actions if they choose to do so. Otherwise releasing the slaved is the obvious choice as it offers increase in resource ouput. The only reason a faction would keep slaves right now without the tech is if they would rebel otherwise which migth be the case of course due to the excessive bombing going on right now but generally I found I either bomb everything or take a planet as a whole to get the pop and buildings. There is less incentive to go only half way in bombing except for the rare cases of havign to capture a planet quickly due to incoming forces and the necessary amount of tanks being there already

[zolobolo]

List the hull value and armor plate applied to the small craft when selected like rockets and guns are displayed

If armor plate is not applied on top of base hull for small craft then also recommend doing that as the hull value does not seem to be sufficient (but its difficult to tell without seeing how much damage they can take)

[PrivateHudson]

+1 for scaling small craft's hitpoints with the current armor level (who said MoO2?).

[zolobolo]

I just refitted a Marauder base after having annexed them as Gremak and noticed that it actually has 3 Heavy Mounts!

The solution is right there for base/planet sniping and for the useless asteroid base it is just not applied to the asteorid base nor is used by the Marauders

Comparison:
Marauder Base:
2 Stations
3 Medium
2 Heavy
2 Hangar

Asteroid Base now:
1 Station
1 System

Proposed Asteroid Base:
1 Station
1 System
1 Medium
1 Heavy
1 Hangar

Meaning around 50% of the Marauder Base hardpoints but more importantly: factions could finally build bases with long range heavy guns that cannot be simply sniped from afar.
Restricted to planets with Asteroid belt but still they would sometimes exist and would be a smaller version of the Marauder Bases visually and functionally

Their role could be very flexible:
2. PD role (with the increased armor and hull it can be a colid PD station)
3. Sniping role (which is not possible via starbases nor fortress)
4. Offense role with two sets of medium guns and shields onto the station for extra protection
5. Hangar for bombers or Shuttles is the only role they can already fill right now - this existing hangar would make sense to keep as it would be half the capacity of the Marauder Base and suppliment both an offensive or defensive role via interceptors or bombers

With the increased options in roles, even two bases might be worth building in some cases as tow different roles could suppliment each other e.e.: PD base + Sniping base

[PrivateHudson]

I would like to have in tactical combat menu of small craft carrying ships command "Abort current sortie and return to carrier". Can be useful in some situations to prevent excessive small craft losses.

[PrivateHudson]

If I understand correctly, currently estimate for metal surplus or shortage on the status bar accounts only for items being produced, not their successors in the queues. This spawns problems when developed shipyard colony or two mass-produces ships or ship upgrades, especially metal-costly ones. Maybe UI performance won't be adversely affected by more accurate estimating?