Patch wishlist

[Nats]

I have some suggestions for the next patches:

Firstly what about an extra technology to cover personnel training. Much like Fleet/ship training this could be used to train individual captains for ships depending on what you want to use them for eg tactics, warfare, exploration, trading. The result would be trained pilots that could be placed in a ship and would add to the ship in some way. This could also personalise your favourite ships or fleets.

Secondly there are a few things wrong with the battle viewer in my opinion:

There is no way to skip a tactical battle mid way and get to a strategic battle, this would be really useful when you get into a battle you dont want to bother playing all the way through.

Also its difficult to arrange new formations for ships whilst in a battle, you have to keep reassigning all the positions every time. Im sure theres a better way this could be implemented. Can you not introduce an auto new formation command where all ships are automatically reassigned positions in the formation based on strength and value. Or cant you set up formations for various types of ships eg one for front line ships, another for escorts and traders etc etc.

Thirdly what about introducing non-static backdrops. Eg if you fight in an asteriod field what about having asteriods moving around you as you fight? Also in map views what about moving planets and moons? Should be simple enough to do in a turn based environment like this and would really add to the game.

I would like to see stars larger than one sector in map view eg red giants. Also gravity should have an effect in the battle view much like the black holes in the maps. Your ships should have to fight against gravity in battle when near planets or stars etc

What about unmanned probes to be able to be sent out to the further systems in the map view.

Other ideas for the battle viewer screen include: decoys to be launched to redirect missiles as missiles are far too deadly at the moment; being able to paralise ships temporarily to board them using energy sapping weapons or the like; mines in the battle view are useless why not change them to effect a radius right around your ship instead of placing them on a square. This could in effect keep ships away from you.

A nice idea for the map view would be being able to run your ships or fleets silent using a special command similar to cloaking. Similarly being around a planet you should be slightly less detectable. Such running silent effects would effectively mean you could leave ship fleets in a system, using less supplies, in wait for passing pirates or enemies. The down side would be that it would take a few turns to get into the silent running mode.

Many more ideas like shis could be gleaned from present day naval/submarine tactics.

Anyone have any other ideas? Im sure much more could be added to this game. Although I know its pretty good already.