Reading the last message here...
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15297.msg247279#msg247279...although it was last year, maybe you guys should not abandon hope, a change like this could still come in a future release.
Regarding the specific suggestion, having a simple allow/deny switch per blueprint would probably be a simple and effective tool. Personally I'm not sure how I feel about it.
On one hand, I feel like I don't care because it's far from the core gameplay... and honestly I don't even build colonies during every run. When I do, most of the time as long as my non-player fleets are half-decent, I'm good. And they are more than half decent because the existing doctrine system allows that, provided I found "good" blueprints.
On the other hand, the control-freak in me demands much more
, especially while spending 10+ hours building an empire.
Spoiler
- Generally speaking: enable, disable, change and review doctrine per fleet type/role/mission. So you don't have a single global doctrine, you have a list of doctrines: default doctrine, trading fleet doctrine, light patrol doctrine, and so on.
- Enabling/disabling a doctrine means: when a specific doctrine is disabled, the default doctrine is used.
- Changing and reviewing a doctrine means having a clear view of allowed blueprints. What is not allowed is forbidden. That is, if you have allowed 8 hulls, the doctrine screen must only show those 8 hulls and a sample fleet using those. And the doctrine screen must show the list of allowed weapons and fighters. No priority here, either it's in or it's out. So hulls, weapons, fighters, and a sample fleet all visible on the same doctrine recap screen, using the actual item sprite for all items.
- Default doctrine. A default doctrine used when the specific doctrine is disabled. The default doctrine cannot be disabled. Allows to have a single global doctrine like today or a common doctrine for some purposes.
- Specific trading fleet doctrine. Here one would probably choose a mix of specific logistic ships, and specific military escort ships.
- Specific light patrol fleet doctrine. This is where one would probably choose fast ships.
- Specific medium patrol fleet doctrine. This is where one might still choose relatively fast ships - think fast cruisers.
- Specific heavy patrol fleet doctrine. Here maybe one wants big resilient ships and fighter spam.
- Same with other potential fleet types that may exist in vanilla or not (modding!): planet defence fleet staying in orbit of a planet, jump point defence fleet, raiding fleet, bombardment fleet (for this one even Megas would put the Prometheus in the doctrine, I'm sure ), invasion fleet, and so on.
- Specific ... player fleet doctrine! Doctrine-compliant colony-produced player ships (IIRC it already works that way). Doctrine-compliant Autofit Variant?! Admittedly a very different use-case here.
- Low tech Station doctrine.
- Midline Station doctrine.
- High tech Station doctrine.
- In fact, rather than / in addition to the Station doctrine, maybe the dream is ... a station refit screen!
Crazy overkill? You tell me.