Suggestions/Observations

fae Kothyxaan,

to whomever it may concern,

i tried making an account at wargames so i could post feedback on Aster of Orion - Conquer the Stars.
but... i could not post on the same day, i had to wait a day until the next day
i waited a couple of days and now i cant log in, i tried to reset password, but its says something along the lines of "there is no account wih this email address", so i tried to re-register, but it says email address is in use... so feck it ill post here and hope that some kind soul will transplant this into the www.masteroforion.com suggestions section.

What follow is a list of observation/suggestions/wishes
When you research updates to pre-existing ship items (engines, armour etc) it would probably be better if the updates for the ship are updates to the releveant item and nothing else, no other changes to ship equipment.  If it goes over the capacity for equipment, then remove 1 of the weakest weapons or (as someone else suggested, somewhere else) red flag it as an invalid design so the player can change it at their convenience.

Tech/Item idea
Just an idea, anti fighter rockets? small homing missiles for fighters and or missiles (sorta like the anti missile rockets), not really bothered about this.

Space Combat:
1)Would be nice to see turn based combat as an option (ie you can choose real time or turn based, some other games have done this, x-com apocalypse springs to mind so does fallout tactics).  Maybe simultaneous turns (you choose your moves, then when turn starts the computer ships also move according to their AI).  Some people dont mind long combats, some people do.
2)Retreat option
3)Roles for ships.  For example long range, short range, run at 50% hull.  I would also suggest stand off for missile ships but... the range for missiles is cr... not good, seriously why is the range of missiles so short?
4) Pre Combat fleet formations.

Land Invasion/Planet Assault:
1)An option to either choose how many marines will take part in the invasion or better yet a choice on how many will stay on the planet invaded (maybe 50% to 100% the planets normal capacity for marines, or if no marine base then 05 to 1 per population?) I once invaded a planet with a lot of marines before I realised all remain. Well the planet ended up with 130+ marines... Took me many turns (and curse words) to retrieve them...
2)Local Militia.  In Moo2 the planet had the locals rise up to try and fight off invaders.  I guess patriotism has died since Moo2.
3)Why cant I invade a planet that has no marines and no population, only buildings?  Are my settlers superstitious and afraid of ghosts? This also applies to the enemy.  I actually had planets I settled in the same system as an enemy just so I could gift them planets, they were defenceless, the enemy ignored them. So I wiped out the enemies fleet hoping that they would then make troop transports to invade.  They did not, they bombarded the planets, wiped out the population. Then when all were dead, nuked the free wonderful buildings that were left standing... ???

Ship Equiping/Retrofiting:
1)Would be nice to be able to equip/retrofit your stations (One of my station was shooting lasers and had no shields even though I was teched out. However I almost won the battle due to the enemies inability to focus their attacks due to their fits of laughter).  You could do this in Moo3 (a much reviled game that I actually quite liked... well when it was all patched up with fan patches and a plethora of bug fixes).
2)Small annoying bug; when you retrofit one ship and move to the next it retains the name of the last ship whih means you have to rename it or click on the another ship and then the ship you want to retrofit... annoying (I started to get a case of repetitive strain).
3) More information on the equipment in the retrofit screen.  Especially weapons (show short range, medium range, long range penalties, RoF, DPS with mods, any inbuilt specials etc - could make it a little "tick to open for more information" tab kinda thing), but for all equipment.  Pretty sure those futuristic computers should be able to tell you exactly what your getting for your money.

New Games:
1)Option to remove Orion.  Why not? Freedom of choice! (I would probably keep it in, but hey, good to have the choice).
2)No restrictions on the amount of enemies (in Moo2 you could play a small map with all the enemies present).
3)More information on the map choices (basically how many systems there are)
4)More map sizes.
5)Hoping those dastardly Antarans will make an appearance (optional off course).

Controls:
1)More key short cuts (Moo2 had; shift + left/right cursor to change between colonies, b for build etc).

Diplomacy:
I think this is still very much WIP (especially since there is no espionage).
Scenario 1:  I was a powerhouse, all over civilizations were feeble in comparisson. The Psilons had one planet/system left.  I decided to trade with them.  Their attitude to me was "afraid" and in the red.  They agreed to everything I wanted essentially.  I took them under my wing via alliance.  Their attitude was still in the red, but it wasnt afraid anymore (cant remember what it became though). They became utter snobs and wanted a ridiculous amount of money to carry on trading...? So I cancelled my alliance and then (after a period of sulking where the little buggers just wouldnt talk to me) they went back to being afraid and doing everything I wanted... Weirdos.
2) What are the requirements to Cede a planet? I wanted to give away planets, but the planets I wanted to give away did not turn up.  It would be nice if there was a way to scroll through all your planets and choose any to give away.
3) Be also nice if i could give away ships (if it went over the command cap of the gifted race then they could scrap weaker ships?, although that could be exploited... so maybe the weakest ships of the gift?)
4) After you make a deal in diplomacy it would be nice to return to the diplomacy window.
5) Trade agreements are silly.  19 round of nothing then on the 20th you get money.  Make it more like Moo2 (slight decrease in income to both races to start with and then a continous increase of income for both races)
6) Never tried the research "trade" agreement, but if its like the trading then ditto to what I said above.
7) A way to alter a displomatic proposal from aliens (they can do it with you)

Planetary Management:
1) Bigger building cue and for it to be open from the start, instead of having to click click just to open it up fully.
2) When you put on autobuild have it stay on even if you make changed to the building order or buy out the item being built.
3) Autobuild should not build system uniques.
4) Autobuild should add items in front of ongoing items as they appear via research breakthroughs.
5) Manage Structures: Make a list for the love of God, do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to try and find a specific building to scrap?
6) Independant tax levels based on individual planets rather than an all encompassing emperical choice.  Basically the planet will start of taxed according to the taxation choice in the Empire menu, but then you can change it in the planet screen to whatever you want.  You will need to do this again if you change the taxation level in the empire screen.

Empire Screen:
Have the auto order for planets stay even when you leave the screen (also have it so that the order stays when your cycling through your colonies.

Saving/Loading:
Quick save and load with 3 quick saves to cycle through.

Galactic Council:
An option to defy the council (as in Moo2).

Galactic map:
Your races colour to show up on systems you own (just as they do with AI Races)

Turn:
force end turn (had a game where i mass produced ships but was going to leave them for a while, but you cannot do that without going to each ship and either moving them putting them to sleep or skipping, when you have made over 100 ships thats a lot of clicking...

1) bring back moo2 method for population transfer, which is both simple and elegant
moo2 method: 0) make transporters 1) open up colonial planet screen 2) select population unit/s to be moved 3) select destination, if you had enough transporters no problem if you didnt you were warned, transporters were renewable and they were transported after x turns
moo4 method: 1) select planet to create civilian transport 2) wait till its built 3) select newly built civilian transport 4a) select destination 4b) if you have more population to move go back to 1, 5) wait until they reach destination 6) unload civlian, repeat for each population unti you wish to move
2) it would be nice to see which race is contained in the colony/civilian transport ship

planetary bombardment:
not sure about changing this, but i did like old method where you could use lasers, however why cant i blast an unbuilt enemy station with [insert beam/missile/torpedo weapon here]?