[Taqwus]

Minor and major tweaks I don't recall previously suggesting/hearing, e.g. major tweaks such as more mount abilities or limiting size of minefields so that my MLs don't get too obsessed and put over 900 on one warp point.

* Option for skipping ships under Minister control. Better yet would be an option to skip animating them (i.e. just computing outcome of their actions), but that's dangerous until path-finding issues et al are resolved.

* Ability to detonate own seekers (for preserving population after you've just thrashed all the WPs).

* Option for ships/fleets to not use strange warp points.

* Ability to save Empire Options settings as default for new games. I don't forsee ever playing without, say, the shipyard/resupply/spaceport letters toggled on.

* Making transport minister transport population to empty colonies, and no minister should ever fully depopulate a planet not subject to imminent destruction (planet/star instability); they *should* depopulate planets subject to imminent destruction, and not repopulate them. As noted before, but it bears noting again, it should not mix races w/ different atmospheres except in extremis (evacuation before planet/star destruction), and it should remedy this when possible.

* Minelaying ships should not unload like maniacs unless they're unescorted and expected to die. Doing strategic combat using a fleet of 30 high-tech BB/DNs (misc roles -- minelayer/sweeper/recon, shipyard, heavy carrier, warp creator/destroyer, long-range beamer, short-range beamer, missile launcher) against a puny force involving DU escorts, my MLs panicked, resulted in pointlessly leaving 56 separate minefields of 1 mine each (non-recoverable of course).

* Ships fidget too much in both combat and system view, wasting supplies. If there are no more enemies (including seekers), they should stop. If they are bLasting a defenseless planet from range 1, they should stop moving. There should always be a reason for moving, and never for moving in cycles w/o changing state (like launching/recovering units, resupply, etc).

* Tech report info (spying) isn't added to the tech view, IIRC. It should be.

* A ship out of supply entering a fight starts with no shields; a ship that uses its Last point of supply on turn 1 doesn't drop them. This is inconsistent. Likewise, weapons which take supply -- all of them, IIRC -- should stop firing, but they don't.

* The new Crystalline facility that adds up to 60 shield points per ship does not appear to be that useful, esp. at the 20-pt level, since shield strength increases rather rapidly w/ tech. The Solar Generator is worse, because even at the highest level it costs more than a Monolith III (10k/10k/10k vs 10k/5k/5k IIRC) and needs three stars to produce the same output -- i.e. you need to research lots of Stellar Manipulation, which already gives you monoliths earlier than it gives you star-making components.

* The CompEnhancement.txt has a typo in it; while the description for Massive Ship Mount says 1100kt suffices, the vehicle size field states 1200kt is required. It actually has no effect normally because there are no hulls within the range [1100,1200) if memory serves but it's still inconsistent.

* When a race surrenders, you only get one level per new tech max. Even if this is intentional, it results in a very bizarre technique -- using PPP simultaneously since if the PPP creates another faction, it'll have the same tech, receive your surrender message and probably surrender giving you one level per superior tech area. Thus it can be more to your advantage to create a new faction via PPP than for it to "work" and join you immediately. Still, PPP rarely works now.

* A minister-controlled colony ship with a damaged colony pod should head to a repair colony if the repair minister is on. It doesn't right now, and instead proceeds to attempt the impossible (namely, colonize a planet).

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night