I saw a few times the idea but I'm seeing the benefit of the idea more and more.
1. Contacting an ally to make peace with another warring ally
2. Trade technology
3. Influence gained or lost in battles that are won or lost

Display the efficiency of Boarding Module and Assault Shuttles (how many soldiers are deployed and what other effect apply) and have some difference between the two:

Since Assault Shuttles can be shot down, they should get some sort of advantage over Boarding Module (I think there is already a bonus to them in that normally during planetary invasion the attackers get some penalty when invading with these but the effect is not made clear nor quantified)

zolobolo wrote:Since Assault Shuttles can be shot down, they should get some sort of advantage over Boarding Module (I think there is already a bonus to them in that normally during planetary invasion the attackers get some penalty when invading with these but the effect is not made clear nor quantified)

Assault Shuttles do have an advantage: they can be used at range.

A report similarly to Food shortage report which lists all the planets where chance to revolt is >0%
Currently, this is only visible when selecting the system above the planet - percentage only visible when hovering over the icon

A magnifier glass next to each system in the above list and in the list of Food shortage to jump to the effected system

Currently, researching Torpedo does not make a lot of sense as most races either do not have a ship that can mount them or have a better option (like energy torpedo)

How about allowing Destroyers to utilize Torpedoes?
This would strengthen their position in the fleet as anti-capital ship vessels that can pack a punch and are difficult to hit with heavy weapons

It also seems to make sense for the nimble vessels to be able to launch these, as they have an easier time facing their enemies and like mentioned above, avoid heavy weapons fire - naturally the issue here would be if the AI can be tough to utilize Destroyers with torpedoes properly even in mid to late game

Make Human "Powered Armor" a pre-requirement tech for Assault Cruiser and have an Assault Marine populate the Cruiser when produced instead of Tank Battalion

Reason:
1. The primary benefit of the Assault Marine is in Boarding role, thus it does not make much sense to produce them in themselves= lots of micro producing Marines, Assault Cruisers, disembarking Tanks and embarking Marines which also tend to embark transports first if they are also in orbit
2. Assault Marines are a unique Human technology which also tie thematically in to the races background. Such solution (with the exception of Mercenaries) tend to be implemented right at the beginning: Haduir Stargate, Ashdar production and early carriers, Gremak slavery, energy torpedo and distortion field generator - the combination of tech requirement and production enables the usage of this mechanic from mid game on
3. Packing the Marines into the Assault Cruiser per default, is a simple change that enables the AI to make use of them more easily. In this scenario, it "only" needs to be tough to use the Assault shuttles to take full advantage of Marines, while in the current scenario it would also need to go through the first point in order to do so

Arioch wrote:

zolobolo wrote:Since Assault Shuttles can be shot down, they should get some sort of advantage over Boarding Module (I think there is already a bonus to them in that normally during planetary invasion the attackers get some penalty when invading with these but the effect is not made clear nor quantified)

Assault Shuttles do have an advantage: they can be used at range.

In the desc of Shuttles it says: "Designed to bring military units to hostile worlds..."
I was assuming that since they were designed for this purpose, they are better at it then other solutions that do the same and were not specifically designed for it=transports... Why would we design something for a purpose in which it is equally efficient as our current solution ?

If longer range is their intended bonus, then I suggest to make this clear in the module description e.g.:
Boarding Module:
Range: 1
Troop delivery rate: 10% (I do not actually know how many troops they deliver after so much laying )

Shuttle:
Range: 5
Troop delivery rate: 15% (suggest to have this slightly higher then boarding module)
Vessel hull: 20 (wouldn't be bad to see this also for other small vessels to be able to calculate how effective PD is going to be against them)

An idea to balance out the benefit of capturing ships:
Reduce the Hull capacity of the ship by 30%

Lore rational: as the ship has been the subject of intense combat, its structural integrity has been permanently decreased
Game rational: Currently, it is a major advantage to both incapacitate an turn enemy vessels against their former owners. Permanently decreasing their combat efficiency makes scrapping them for a brand new ship a viable option (research is already a great option)

Ideally the above is increased via hovering over an icon next to the hull marking captured vessels that could be titled: "Looted ship"

Assault Shuttles were designed to be better at delivering troops for a ground invasion than a regular cargo hull. Unfortunately, this functionality was never implemented. Delivering Marines remotely was a secondary feature.

Critical hit chance for Bombers against capital vessels.

I do not know if this mechanic is used at all besides for reactor explosions. but it would be thematic to have this effect for bombers, slowly crippling capital ships as they would be doing small amounts of system damage despite heavy shielding

Admittedly this can lead to exploits where a lot of squadrons are spammed against a single ship, and maybe that is something that would need to be addressed a different way like: allowing the launch of a single squadron each turn while the others are being prepped for launch (mechanically that would basically be a disabled status for all other squadrons)

On the top two highest level of Galaxy map zoom it is no longer visible who own which system, only fleet movements

My guess is that players do not use this zoom level as it hides one of the most important information though it still shows fleet movement

What if the system icon showing the star would be replaced with the faction banner instead?
This would make it instantly recognizable where the control zone of each faction lies

The same could be extended to the fleet movements, with the ship and faction banner icon being displayed though I think the color is more or less satisfactory if there are no duplicates of the same faction in the Galaxy. If there are, it is mostly unreadable

If you do not want to loose the feeling of clean map layout on the top level, the above can be implemented only for one or two zoom levels beyond that, or be made a toggle-able map function

Take a look at the below how this would look like:
- Owned systems display the faction banner of the owner
- The cool logos of minor factions can be put to good use here (Pirates, Marauders, Monsters)
- Took the Asteroid image for Harpy infested systems with base
- Neutral systems can remain with a star icon

Just look how cool a pirate controlled system looks with their logo

Here is a perfect opportunity to mix up things and encourage dissent:
Issue a relationship penalty between all the top three members of the Galaxy Council vote

In the example below, this would mean that Yoral, Human and Tickers would all get for example -25 relationship penalty towards each other

Benefits:
- Dramatically increase the chances of war between the top three most powerful empires sparing the less power full ones
- Makes perfect sense story wise, as each of the top thee candidates would probably have strong disdain against the other nominees after having lost the vote because of them
- The mechanic is perfectly predictable (which is very good). The player knows when the Council meeting will be held, who are the top three nominees, the eventual penalty can be displayed clearly beforehand
- The player also has the choice to close alliance with other large empires to avoid the penalty with them during the vote, but if they are more powerful, they will still vote for themselves (due to having a larger pop)

If the player would chose to ignore this, the more powerful ally and vote against it, the penalty could be increase to like -50 and even risk the Alliance itself

Even the fact that the Council meetings are only held once all other races have been contacted plays perfectly into the mechanic as the relationship penalty would only kick in from mid-game on where the game gets easy

Suggest to change the way how Space Habitats work

Currently, a pop needs to be uploaded to the base where they do not particularly serve much purpose.

How about simply increasing the pop capacity of the planet over which the base hosting the module has been built or deployed to?
This would apply their effect automatically, saving the micro-management (both Human and AI friendly aspect )

Now the advantage of transporting pop to a new colony and giving them an initial production boost is gone but I doubt a lot of people have used this aspect and the boost is not particularly helpful when a transport can do the same

Tech and module description can even stay as is

I REALLY like the idea of a diplomatic 'tension' penalty among the top-3 winners in the Galactic Council vote. I'd possibly make it progressive over multiple votes rather than one big relations hit, but either way I think it will help shake it up the late game in good ways.

-Will

When space gets really busy with lots of fleets flying around, and you have the tech to see a ton of them, it's really really hard to see the things that matter. Suggest there be some keystroke or something when you're hovering over a system to only see the fleets approaching that system.