Fleshing out of Human refugee colonies:
1. New diplomatic action when meeting the minor faction/or later via diplomacy: Trade Deal in exhange of influence. This way the faction would provide a minor increase in trade pool (1-2) in exhange of valuable early -game influence. Especially usefull when no market has been researched yet and with the coin rebalance. This way conquering them is not the only way of interacting and frankly even then they are low value as human pops are the worst and the planet is not of high-value (which is ok as early game advantage)
2.Pirates Raids generating from unoccupied systems around these colonies. The last version of this mechanic was probably disabled due to its OP nature which was probably the case so that they provide valuable tech when captured. Now they could gradually be stronger but only feature Ligh, Missile and Assault Cruisers so that they cannot be farmed for Destroyers nor would they be OP being pirates boosting heavy military hardvare. If the colony is gone, the raids would stop

These two additiona would introduce a risk/reward system which would eventually clearly be tipped against keepig the colony independant (unless you want the pirates to harass your anamies nearby in which case you might even protect them )

Diplomacy would also makesense for them even if only havinng a trade deal available (as opposed to the current state where it really does not matter and the option to declare war on them or leave them be on a diplomatic sense could be left out)

Edit: Pirate Assault Cruisers can also have Marines mounted instead of tanks withouth touching upon the AI scripts as their appearance is already scripted

Would be nice if you could decide what to do with salvaged (boarded in a battle) ships on a ship-by-ship basis (by selecting them or otherwise).

Would be very helpful if an Android build icon showed the planet "capacity" change caused by building that Android.

Some suggestions to address issues I found with Tinkers update specifically:
1. Reduce replenishment speed of munition for Tinker Forgery so that rockets are not clearly the best way to go when outfitting Tinker ships. This would be achieved by the ships not being able to constantly fire with all weapons for the duration of the whole battle, and need to have some none munition firing weapons to keep full combat efficiency
2. Have space habitats increase max population of the planet they are attached to automatically. This would both reduce Micro and make it more easy for the AI to utilzie this fucntion as all they need to do is attach the station to a planet. Also: If the effect is applied, have the AI buleprints contain habitats sometime
3. Give at least one Medium weapon mount to Asteroid Bases, so that their inate armor bonus makes sense (it does not matter for civilian stations as these are not engaged untill the battle is resolved so they dont even buy time for the PD). I would also recommend adding them an additional station module slot so that they can somewhat compeete with mid-game starbases and be clearly better in early game in defense. This slot can cotnain shield, research or habitat dome and make it somwhat viable compared to the more expensive starbase
4. Make asteroids attribute more common for ceartant types of planets so that asteroid basey are utilized outside of Tinker homeworld

The above I think are simple fixes for some of the new tech and forge mechanic

zolobolo wrote:1. Reduce replenishment speed of munition for Tinker Forgery so that rockets are not clearly the best way to go when outfitting Tinker ships.

This is like saying we should remove the Ashdar Colonials' bonus fighters because it makes carriers the best option for them. That's by design. The Tinkers Forge gives them a special bonus for using missiles and fighters. If you don't like using missiles or fighters, you're probably playing the wrong faction.

zolobolo wrote:2. Have space habitats increase max population of the planet they are attached to automatically. This would both reduce Micro and make it more easy for the AI to utilzie this fucntion as all they need to do is attach the station to a planet. Also: If the effect is applied, have the AI buleprints contain habitats sometime

This is a decent suggestion, but the problem is that Tinkers space habitats can move. This leads to some potentially confusing edge cases where it's not clear when population should be automatically loaded or unloaded. I think it's better if the player does it explicitly.

zolobolo wrote:3. Give at least one Medium weapon mount to Asteroid Bases, so that their inate armor bonus makes sense (it does not matter for civilian stations as these are not engaged untill the battle is resolved so they dont even buy time for the PD). I would also recommend adding them an additional station module slot so that they can somewhat compeete with mid-game starbases and be clearly better in early game in defense. This slot can cotnain shield, research or habitat dome and make it somwhat viable compared to the more expensive starbase

Asteroid Stations replace regular Space Stations; they're not supposed to compete with Starbases. It's true that the extra armor is not very useful on a civilian station, but the advantage of an asteroid station is that they're cheaper than regular space stations.

If you instead mean the Tinkers Asteroid Outpost, again, it competes with the Mobile Base, not the Starbase. It's less than half the cost of of the Mobile Base.

zolobolo wrote:4. Make asteroids attribute more common for ceartant types of planets so that asteroid basey are utilized outside of Tinker homeworld

That's on our list of things to do.

Arioch wrote:

zolobolo wrote:1. Reduce replenishment speed of munition for Tinker Forgery so that rockets are not clearly the best way to go when outfitting Tinker ships.

This is like saying we should remove the Ashdar Colonials' bonus fighters because it makes carriers the best option for them. That's by design. The Tinkers Forge gives them a special bonus for using missiles and fighters. If you don't like using missiles or fighters, you're probably playing the wrong faction.

In case of Ashdars, their fighters cannot fulfill most of the combat roles thanks to some changes to their loadout as they were OP before. They are not effective against PD, starbases, invisible ships, heavy shielded vessels nor ships/fleets with high PD capacity. They are a bonus to the faction in one combat area but absolutely need support from other weapon types and fleet elements which is a good thing

Same goes for stargate, Orthin busbars, Human preference for energy weapons or cloacking device of Gremak: they give the faction advantage in one distinct and quite narrow aspect of combat and thereby leave all other options open.

In case of Thinkers, there is nothing else that makes logical sense to use (even if the tech is aquired for free, it will need to be refitted once better missile tech is available and is usually not woth the time, money and metal)

I do not propose taking away the bonus, but reducing it to a level where other combat options are still viable in comparison. The player (or AI) can still decide to outfit Tinker ships with only missiles if they so desire but their combat efficiency would drop after base munition+2/3 salvos in this case which I find is appopriate given their balls to the wall configuration and even make engagements more interesting when playing with such a stretegy in meand. They would still be able to fire afterwards but with less capacity then before. Currently, the bonus just feels too handfisted: it effectively disables munition counter for Tinker ships which feels too much conssidering that the main emphasis in the game is on ships design (and accompanying tech) and using these ships in combat. In tinkers case: design is fixed in a way and their combat roles as well thereoff

If the player really wants to keep firing with only missiles for over +3 turns as Tinkers, they have the option to invest in additional munition (a tech which is currently fully negated by this bonus)

Arioch wrote:

zolobolo wrote:2. Have space habitats increase max population of the planet they are attached to automatically. This would both reduce Micro and make it more easy for the AI to utilzie this fucntion as all they need to do is attach the station to a planet. Also: If the effect is applied, have the AI buleprints contain habitats sometime

This is a decent suggestion, but the problem is that Tinkers space habitats can move. This leads to some potentially confusing edge cases where it's not clear when population should be automatically loaded or unloaded. I think it's better if the player does it explicitly.

The idea is not not have them load pop at all. By affecting habitability of the planet directly, the above cases do not matter.
The positive affect would be applied the same way consrtuction modules are: if station is deployed to a planet, its affect applies to said planet
If station is then not attached anymore (due to being destroyed or moved away in case of mobile stations), the effect is gone, and the pops start to starve untill they fit into the base habitability capacity

Arioch wrote: Asteroid Stations replace regular Space Stations; they're not supposed to compete with Starbases. It's true that the extra armor is not very useful on a civilian station, but the advantage of an asteroid station is that they're cheaper than regular space stations.

The cost of building a regular space stations is negligable and thus also the potential benefits of having an asteroid base instead (even if the player runs across a planet with this attribute).
Having an space station above a low-production planet also does not make sense as it does not reduce production time, and the reason for why to have them: the ability to produce larger (and more production costly) ships, means they are even less likely to be build above non-production focused planets. Thus the second benefit is also negated

The tech, art and code is already in the game, but the two benefits this object provides are negated by its role and function - chaing its function would make it a viable component and the tech not sitting in the research queue (unresearched) in each game

zolobolo wrote:

Arioch wrote: Asteroid Stations replace regular Space Stations; they're not supposed to compete with Starbases. It's true that the extra armor is not very useful on a civilian station, but the advantage of an asteroid station is that they're cheaper than regular space stations.

The cost of building a regular space stations is negligable and thus also the potential benefits of having an asteroid base instead (even if the player runs across a planet with this attribute).
Having an space station above a low-production planet also does not make sense as it does not reduce production time, and the reason for why to have them: the ability to produce larger (and more production costly) ships, means they are even less likely to be build above non-production focused planets. Thus the second benefit is also negated

The tech, art and code is already in the game, but the two benefits this object provides are negated by its role and function - chaing its function would make it a viable component and the tech not sitting in the research queue (unresearched) in each game

Just stick some fighters into the Station slot instead of the construction module.

zolobolo wrote:I do not propose taking away the bonus, but reducing it to a level where other combat options are still viable in comparison.

Other options are just as "viable" as they are on other faction ships; they're just not optimal. Reducing the bonus will not change missiles still being optimal for the Tinkers.

AMX wrote: Just stick some fighters into the Station slot instead of the construction module.

I have tried this as well when the DLC came out
The problem with this construct was:
1. Fighters and bobmers are very situational in their use. If they are not backed up by rockets screens and the carrier being able to move into close range, they are obliterated unless they attack in critical mass
2. Asteroid base can only support 7 units (that is -1 compared to a hangar slot of a starbase, and that one has two hangars)
3. Small craft have a nasty habit of decreasing efficiency when not in cirital mass which means that the base becomes incapacitated after its first attck round if the enemy has minimal PD capacity (which they always have)
4. Base is not supported by planetary defense PD, and its range prevents it from firing back at rockets and heavy gun attacks from long range, so it meager capacity furhter decreases before it can even attack

Hence, if it to serve any meaningfull defensive role, it needs at least PD capacity but ideally heavy gun placement so that it can at least soften up targets already from afar

Arioch wrote: Other options are just as "viable" as they are on other faction ships; they're just not optimal. Reducing the bonus will not change missiles still being optimal for the Tinkers.

I see you point: we are either looking at this from two different design philosophies or you do not think this bonus is OP when leaned into.

Even so, please consider the below for the current benefit:
1. Remove extra munition module from the base Missile Destroyer design as it does not serve any purpose but increases Coin and Metal costs (I have found Science Station to fit perfectly into the role of long-range sniper and the lack of science ouput of the Race as a whole)
2. Remove the "Asteroid Bases" tech from all races untill planet with a Debris Ring has been occupied. This way, the other factions do not need to be looking at this tech which they cannot use and will not use when the opportunity comes
3. Reduce damage of Plasma Torpedoes from 50 to 40. This is needed as Tinkers have a natural advantage in taking down Arda units (later lacking PD and long range weapons in the beginning) and the reproducing ammo combined with plasma torps is devastating under these damage numbers to everything. 40 damage would still put plasma torps clearly above Nuclear torps and AM missiles and around on par with fusion torps due to their PD negating effect and speed but would not devastate even lightly shielded targets that easily
4. OPTIONALLY: Allow other races to research "Mobile Bases" when planet with Debris Ring is conquered as this has some realistic application and other races might take up on it and thereby be interested to get the planet and reasearch the tech

Sometimes a rare salvage or tech find or something will change my plan, but my ideas about what to arm my ships with at what tech level are usually pretty clear from the outset of a game, and often what tech I should be pursuing is too. We might be able to shift what those techs will be, but there aren't really enough *contexts* in wars to make different loadouts optimal in different scenarios: the conclusions are very stable under the perturbations the game provides. I don't think adjusting the Tinker Forge would change that.

In fact, quite the opposite: the Tinkers and their heavy preference for missiles is one of few other the things that the game does to change my plans about what weapons I outfit my ships with! Seeing Tinkers nearby makes me rapidly consider researching point defence and fighter screens.

I would like to see some of the ship design complaints addressed; we discussed the strict inferiority of the Ashdar and Tinker missile cruisers in this thread.

Also, I am always sad to see the human dreadnought stuck with its extra munitions slot, given humans are supposed to prefer beams. They've surely got enough problems than weird ship loadouts! Though that ship is especially bad, I think.

Would it make sense to have a "refit" button for turining factories into Machine Altars?

Hope I'm not the only one using the (hyper)list mode of the research screen. Would be nice if the game "remembered" that I use that mode and I don't have to switch after each load. Also there are small explanatory icons (like facility upgrades) in the tree mode - would be useful to have (some of) them in the list mode too.

Dragar wrote:
In fact, quite the opposite: the Tinkers and their heavy preference for missiles is one of few other the things that the game does to change my plans about what weapons I outfit my ships with! Seeing Tinkers nearby makes me rapidly consider researching point defence and fighter screens.

Also, I am always sad to see the human dreadnought stuck with its extra munitions slot, given humans are supposed to prefer beams. They've surely got enough problems than weird ship loadouts! Though that ship is especially bad, I think.

I have quite a few constructs I use but always have PD as preference as they counter a lot of things. Usually, I try to rush for Primary PD and Tier I-II shields and on the heavy weapon side its Laser/Turpolaser and or Plasma/Railgun. In some cases I build torps ships with Leech or EMP with boarders I could name at least 4-5 loadout types but usually use a combination of various loadout types in mixes of 2 within a fleet and varying them per fleet

Only offensive tech I really avoid is Ion cannons as they get outclassed by lasers in all my games but this can also easily be fixed with some buffs to them

I agree though that both Human and Ashdar Missile cruisers are very underpowered. Usually not using their designs at all: if they were allowed to double their tube capacity that would help them be an interesting choice (4 torps are not something to smirk abouth )

I think the idea behind extra munition for Human Dred might be that they would use Leech and EMP missiles due to their boarding preference but honestly: the player is not motivated to lean into boarding with Humans besides this as they start with a heavy disadvantage in tech and need to research Boarding like anyone else (no pre-researched tech or discount)

In general I find thought that the new change to halve their upkeep costs will make up for their inferior ship loadouts so its all fine (except for their missile cruiser which will still not be worth it )

Suggest not to auto-jump to next event after succesfull planetary invasion, as I usually find myself scrolling back to the planet to issue fleet orders and send the now empty transports to trade