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1

Suggestions / Some UI suggestions

« on: February 14, 2019, 11:06:01 PM »

This is just a list of mostly minor UI quibbles that I haven't seen addressed somewhere else, hopefully not too much is just repeats:

1. Important quest and colony map tabs; basically, a quick way to see starred quests and where owned colonies/storages are, without having to go back and forth to the intel tab

2. Intel exploration tab gets cluttered up with domain ships pointing to random things; maybe make the exploration quests that pay out money a separate tab from the exploration hints?

3. Color coding for raids on your colonies - make "outmatched" green and "superior" red, since they are already highlighted.

4. Distress calls should say what star system they are from without having to open the intel tab

5. This one is kind of out there, but I'd like some way to set minimum quotas for weapons, so that you maintain at least x of a given weapon at your gathering point. These would automatically be appended to the end of your production queue if you aren't using all of your capacity.

2

Bug Reports & Support / [0.9a-RC10] Minor: Odd response to atypical mouse buttons

« on: December 03, 2018, 09:41:19 AM »

I use mouse 3 (thumb, not middle) as an alternate button for shift functions in this, and if I'm holding down left mouse to guide my fleet through a storm I can't begin to accelerate time unless I let go of the button, or in combat start to turn to cursor if I'm firing weapons. It only stops the detection of click down; it will stay detecting if I click 3 before LB and hold or release. The mouse is reporting this fine to other programs, so it's not just a hardware issue.

Example input sequences:

LB down, M3 down, LB up, M3 up: Fires weapons, never turns to cursor.

M3 down, LB down, LB up, M3 up: as expected, turns to cursor, fires, stops turning to cursor

M3 down, LB down, M3 up*, M3 down, LB up, M3 up, M3 down^: Stops turning to cursor at *, doesn't resume again until ^

LB down, Shift down, M3 down, Shift up*, LB up, M3 up: Stops turning to cursor at *

Just tested, same behavior with 3 and right button, too.

Possibly related, more minor: I use mouse wheel left/right for volume up/down, and that toggles weapon arcs as if I had hit `. Volume up/down are not set as alternate buttons for that.

3

Suggestions / Quick way to tell the size class of a ship?

« on: November 30, 2018, 10:09:21 PM »

Much more a problem with mods, but it can be difficult to determine the size class of a ship, especially if it's hidden in the codex and you can only see a fleet preview. I'm not sure what the solution is - I'm thinking maybe a shape (triangle for frigates to hexagon for capitals?) either behind the ship or in one corner. For some, you basically have to buy it and apply hullmods to tell if it's just a really big destroyer or a small cruiser, etc.

Is there something like this, and I'm just missing it?

4

Suggestions / "What If" build mode for colonies

« on: November 27, 2018, 06:24:53 PM »

Basically a way to see what my colony would look like if I replaced one building with another, without having to wait a couple months to go, "Nope, shouldn't have changed it." Could also let you change the population size and max out the freeport modifiers so you don't have to use an external spreadsheet to calculate for an optimal colony.

5

Suggestions / Officer types

« on: April 25, 2017, 11:31:56 AM »

With the new breadth of choices in skills, some of which being completely useless for certain kinds of officers, you can wind up with wasted levels. One suggestion to deal with this is give a choice of 3 skills at officer level up, instead of 2. I think that's a good idea, but would like to go a step further.

Basically, some officers would have a "class" that dictated what skills would show up in the third slot. 3 to 5 class skills would be enough that officers of the same type are similar, without always being identical. Only about half of officers would have a type; the generic mercenary officer would still be a thing, and would pull from all skills. Officer types would also influence their personality, so you don't get, or at least are less likely to get, an aggressive long range specialist or a timid close quarters officer.

In addition, different factions could prefer different officer types, so pirates get berserkers and the Hegemony gets stalwart captains of the line, etc. It would also reduce clicking on random officers to figure out if they had the skills or personality you wanted.

In summary: On level up, officers would get a choice between 3 skills:
Skill already known
Random skill
Class skill

6

Suggestions / Mercenaries, Escorts, and You: Unowned ships in your fleet

« on: July 03, 2014, 11:36:40 PM »

I would think something like this would have been posted, but I didn't see any likely candidates in my look back, so here goes:

The main gist of this suggestion is that you could have ships in your fleet that don't belong to you. You'd still be responsible for their repairs, but they would not draw from or add to your crew reserves, and you could not change how they are outfitted. They would be kind of like the drone fighters, except that they could be any ship in the game, from a lowly Hermes on up to a renegade Onslaught. With this, a few scenarios come to mind.

1. Mercenaries
You would hire mercenaries, either as a group of a few ships or individually, for some small percent of the price of the ship, and a per diem to keep them. Every time you send them into combat, in addition to the usual deployment CR cost, you have to pay another fee, dictated by the ship's cost and possibly the threat level of the opposing fleet. Early on, these would be helpful for getting on your feet, since, if the hire and deploy prices were 10%, you could hire two equipped Lashers for three engagements, and it would still be cheaper than buying one of your own. Obviously, the value prospect goes away the longer you keep them in your fleet, so purchasing / boarding / manufacturing ships will be better in the long run. There could still be times in the midgame where you need the extra fire power of one more capital to take on that attacking fleet, but can't afford to purchase and equip one.

2. Escortees
You would be hired by some civilians to make sure that their cargo ships or yachts made it to the target port(s), or similar. These wouldn't have extra costs, but they might get upset if you send them or their precious stuff in to fight. This would make escort missions way more controllable, and therefore less annoying than usual. This same system would also let you lead raids with assistance from the group that sent you on the raid in the first place.

3. Enlistment
You would join up with a patrol, and work as a mercenary for a power. This could be a way to make money at the beginning of the game with less risk but less reward, and a way to ingratiate yourself with one of the big players in the sector. This would work differently than the previous two, as you wouldn't have control of where the fleet goes, and you would be earning money probably in much the same way as the mercenaries from part 1.

Of course this would need some testing to make sure it adds fun to the game, but I think it gives some interesting choices, especially to the early parts of the game where you're either already a pro or you're stuck Buffalo hunting. So what do y'all think?

Edit: and of course, after posting this, I find a thread example of almost this exact thing. Whoops. At least it was over a year ago.

7

Suggestions / More ways to modify and spend CR during combat

« on: September 18, 2013, 12:58:29 AM »

As it is, unless you're a frigate, the CR you go into combat with is the CR you have for that deployment. It would be interesting if there were more ways to lose CR during combat than just the timer.

Overload Venting
Overload Venting would allow venting during an overload. However, it costs either some CR per second while venting or a single CR dump on activation. It could be a hull mod or a function every ship has.

Crash Venting
Crash Venting would be either a separate key, or a longer press of the vent key. It would allow for even faster venting, maybe triple base (half again vent) flux dissipation. Like overload venting, it would cost some CR penalty.

Ship Systems

Structural Repairs:
Using everything from modulating the strain on the chassis holding the thrusters to ripping wire harnesses from the walls to tie the ship together, the crew of this ship do what they can to make sure the hull doesn't break apart
Repairs hull, probably up to a cap of some low percent, at the cost of CR while active

Indomitable:
Quintuple redundancies and automation can make this ship work, even under the worst conditions. However, the vibrations and friction from under maintained parts can tear the ship in two
Opposite of structural repairs; Raises the ship's CR to a minimum (30%?) if it's lower than that, but while below that CR it takes hull damage per second

Limiter Bypass:
Running the systems way past their designed tolerances allows the ship to be better at just about everything, but it also drastically increases the chance something will break
Boosts to all sorts of stats, at the cost of CR while activated

Iron Shield:
The shield generator on this ship can feed directly from the main power artery, allowing it to absorb colossal amounts of punishment for its size. Unfortunately, this also means that any energy spike from the shield will damage systems across the board
A cheapo version of the Fortress Shield, this reduces incoming Flux to the shield at the cost of, of course, CR.