(Edit: Bluh, it didn't carry over the formatting from copy/pasting wordpad...)
Okay, so, I wasn't sure if this would be better suited to be put into the General Discussion forum, or the suggestions forum. So I decided to throw it here, because it kinda has suggestions in it, more than discussion. Anyway, I apologize if some of these things are in the game already (Please tell me if they are and how to do them, because that would be great!), and if they've already been suggested, but, I'm fairly new and have very limited time to actually play the game or look around to see if it has been suggested. (Though I have plenty of time to think about things...)
A lot of these ideas are actually on a "We already have the technology for this in real life, why wouldn't a future tech setting have them" basis, honestly...
Ship support effects:
<Reconnaissance:>
Sensors:
One of the first things in this list is, an some kind of improved sensor suite for ships. I tend to make a lot of recon / scout ships, honestly, or other swift craft, or missile boats (which would want improved sensors in order to be more capable of achieving their objective in combat). This could come in play with just increased range that things show up in the navigation list, but it could also be more ability to pierce through jammers or cloaking, or being able to scan a ship and be able to determine what kind of weaponry it's packed with, or support modules, et cetera. Or for a more civilian side of things, being able to detect the type of ores on a planet, and maybe get a feel for their location, so you don't have to salvage up the whole thing if you don't want everything.
This would make sense to me to be with an effect computer, or the like; In some way, make it so that the more blocks you have in your sensor systems, the more effective it is. Conversely, jammers and cloaking could have a number of blocks as well, that counters the sensor systems. Or, the larger the ship that is cloaked, the easier it is for a recon ship to detect it. A 1,000,000,000 mass cloaked ship, if possible, should take little to no effort, but something that is only 4 blocks (Core, generator, cloak, thruster) should be very difficult.
(P.S. Having it be an entire system makes it harder for a single ship to have everything maybe make various blocks, such as weapons systems, or power or shield systems, interfere with sensors on the same ship? All the electromagnetic noise those things put out could be causing problems...), and thus encourages more of a fleet dynamic. Or at least, support craft.)
Which leads me to my next thought:
Information networking.
Being able to share information between ships in your fleet is just sensible. And not just through vocal communication (makes AI recon ships a bit pointless, ne?), but from networked computers. The obvious solution is to make all ships owned by the same player, or faction, communicate their recon data to each other (making long range attack ships, IE snipers / missile boats, more viable, as they can have a spotter), but, what would be more interesting, is having "frequencies" that a ship communicates on. That way, you can have your own ships, and say your roommates ships, all communicating data to each other. Or more interestingly, you can have espionage: an enemy sneaks into your ship, or uses specialized equipment, to discover / hack your frequency. Also, it allows you to hire mercenaries and give them information: Give them the frequency, and they can pick it up and transmit to it. Having more than one network per ship allows for faction secure, and mercenary only communication, and could be used for increased integrity of data should someone hack in and throw in false information. This also opens up the possibility of a communication ship if you add in:
(P.S. This also adds in the ability to launch probes and the like from your ship)
Limited communication range:
Specifically tied to the above idea, ships have separate receiver and transmitter components. Most ships should have at least some level of basics, but, what if you want to be able to send data to your allies in the next sector, or a few sectors away? Then you might need specialized equipment. Or what if you want whole systems away? Why, only capital ships and stations have the capacity to use something like that! But why would you need that kind of range, unless...
Interstellar maps:
Be it stored on a ships computer, or in a given pilot's PDA, we should have some kind of map of sectors and beyond, in relation to each other. But why would these things start out up to date, or, for that matter, be KEPT up to date? That goes against the very logic of reality. Things change, and unless you're watching, you won't know about it. With the ability to have specialized exploration equipment from sensors, and the ability to have communications, you can have those dedicated to scouting out new territory, and keeping an eye on an enemy's operations. Deep space observation stations become useful, as you can have the communication hardware to keep your entire faction up to date to your home base, and the sensor equipment to keep track of the movement of fleets a few sectors away, to warn you of incoming attacks. Relay stations ensure that even the capital ships on the other side of your empire know that your bitter rival is massing an attack on one of your observation posts near his border; that could only mean he intends to make something more of this than just a "rivalry". More advanced sensor suites could even go so far as to predict the movement of planets and stars (and the orbit of stations) in a given system, and indicate such to the cartographer.
</Reconnaissance>
<Combat support effects>
Just because your ship doesn't have the heavy hitting weapons, doesn't mean it's useless in combat. That boost to your allies might be that critical key that ensures that your fleet is victorious, even though you didn't fire a single shot.
Point Defense turrets are already planned to be a thing, but, if not already the intention, I'd like to be able to have frigates on the picket of my fleet be covering my battleship, rather than just the battleship's turrets protecting itself. Recon ships and communication can aid these ships in detecting missiles through their ECCM equipment, and boost their ability to track the missiles in order to hit them with their cannons.
Speaking of recon ships, speciailized sensors could communicate to allies "weak spots" in the enemy's defense grid, improving the damage of shots directed at that location. Or, lower power could just be for the ship's own weapons; afterall, the computer may not have the data on your ally's weapons to pinpoint the best spot to hit them!
For that matter, jammers being a "hides the owning ship" thing kinda... Bugs me. It makes some sense, if you're using more passive jammers. But active jammers that throw too much noise into the area for your opponent to make heads or tails of their readings through should really cover more than just the ship equipped with them. If your radar is picking up thousands of distorted waves from your opponent's general direction, why would it know EXACTLY where the ship two meters to their right is?
Alternatively, weapons that specifically make targets more vulnerable to another type of weapon could be nice.Possibly make it so that it has to be from a different origin signature (IE not the same main ship including turrets?), to encourage groups?
</Combat support effects>
<AI>
Be able to set the AI to target FRIENDLY ships. This allows you to make ships/turrets that are designed to be power/shield supply for allied ships. Perhaps, if you work with the frequency system, have them target ships on the same frequency, and have them able to target the ship with the lowest shield / power % remaining. You could differentiate between BOBBY and NPCs by making Bobby only check frequency, and NPCs check frequency AND faction, or some other means to relate that actually "people" are more intelligent than the AI. This could just be in that only NPCs can prioritize targets.
</AI>
<General thoughts>
Docking / colonies
Being able to pick up power from the host ship is great and all, but, I'd like for docked ships/turrets to be able to have their shields CHARGED by their host. Not saying have them share the same shields, but... If the main ship's shields are full, then why not have them be able to send some of their generated shielding to their constituent parts? It'd also make ship designs that are only power/shield capacitors and no generation more viable/interesting, without forcing them to go to charging points that specifically have a transfer beam set up.
Also, that alone, would make another thing I'd like more viable. With colonies (on planets), I'd like to to be possible to fabricate a building off site, and then land it in, and have it be connected to the colony as a whole. Having the main power grid of the colony be a main ship, and all the sub buildings be docked to it, could work (and would work better if you could have a shield generation facility in that main "ship/station"), but it doesn't feel right to have to have added buildings be ships in their own right. Not sure if there's a solution (other than just building directly on to the planet, that doesn't count to the thought of building it offsite.), but it'd be nice. Depending on how it's done, it could be that the "lifter" ship that puts the building down could take it out, and move it to a new colony, should you find a need to abandon the exiting one.
Stations / Overall
I want players to be able to, and have motivation to, control stations. Support effects, such as those listed, as well as shield / power transfer weapons, and the like, help with this, but just plain having the ability to would be nice. Maybe make it so that a player (in general, not just on stations) can link turrets to their controls, so that they fire where they're aiming; and especially for stations, be able to rotate the camera so that you can aim at things not dead ahead / cone ahead. I know that you can rotate camera blocks (that's something I recently tested), but, maybe make it so that you can pan view as long as cameras have an overlapping adjoining angle?
Overall, I'd like there to be things that encourage working as a team, working as a fleet, and having specialized ships, rather than having a "do everything" capital ship be the typical answer.
Manuevering
Having more of a manueverability difference among small craft would be nice. It's a little hard to make an intercepter designed to get behind bombers and shoot them in the rear, when they can turn faster than you can move in degrees of angle, even at short range. Maybe I just pack too many thrusters into my ships as a whole, even my missile boat? XD I've only played with ships under 25 x 25 x 8, or in excess of 250 x something or other, so I don't know the real range that well.
HUD
Having more of a HUD would be nice, as well. In that having more features possible in it. The already mentioned missile lock warning would be nice. A target information window (At the very least, a picture of what you're targeting) would be handy, with more detailed information potential for recon craft. Being able to have a kind of damage report panel: be able to teach the thing what the ship is SUPPOSED to be like, and it tell you what/when something is wrong.
Oh! I know display monitors are a thing (don't know what they're capable of, haven't had a chance to play with them, and last I checked the wiki was a bit useless on all matters. I know that's being worked on, but I figure it's best to wait some more time before relying on it), why not make is so that you can program a ship's core, or something, to display the information on linked display monitors on the HUD when piloting the ship? Saving the window configuration could be a part of the blueprint, to make simulated cockpits.
Logic systems
I also haven't played with the logic blocks, but, I'm rather fond of ComputerCraft, a mod from Minecraft. It allows you to basically write LUA code for controlling your redstone systems, and only send a logic signal on certain sides of the terminal, and stuff like that. All of which can be executed from the terminal with basically a DOS program command, after programming it (rather than just typing in the logic commands live. Ew). I'd really love to be able to do something like that.
That's all for now, if I think of anything while I'm at work, I'll add to this thread. ^_^
Okay, so, I wasn't sure if this would be better suited to be put into the General Discussion forum, or the suggestions forum. So I decided to throw it here, because it kinda has suggestions in it, more than discussion. Anyway, I apologize if some of these things are in the game already (Please tell me if they are and how to do them, because that would be great!), and if they've already been suggested, but, I'm fairly new and have very limited time to actually play the game or look around to see if it has been suggested. (Though I have plenty of time to think about things...)
A lot of these ideas are actually on a "We already have the technology for this in real life, why wouldn't a future tech setting have them" basis, honestly...
Ship support effects:
<Reconnaissance:>
Sensors:
One of the first things in this list is, an some kind of improved sensor suite for ships. I tend to make a lot of recon / scout ships, honestly, or other swift craft, or missile boats (which would want improved sensors in order to be more capable of achieving their objective in combat). This could come in play with just increased range that things show up in the navigation list, but it could also be more ability to pierce through jammers or cloaking, or being able to scan a ship and be able to determine what kind of weaponry it's packed with, or support modules, et cetera. Or for a more civilian side of things, being able to detect the type of ores on a planet, and maybe get a feel for their location, so you don't have to salvage up the whole thing if you don't want everything.
This would make sense to me to be with an effect computer, or the like; In some way, make it so that the more blocks you have in your sensor systems, the more effective it is. Conversely, jammers and cloaking could have a number of blocks as well, that counters the sensor systems. Or, the larger the ship that is cloaked, the easier it is for a recon ship to detect it. A 1,000,000,000 mass cloaked ship, if possible, should take little to no effort, but something that is only 4 blocks (Core, generator, cloak, thruster) should be very difficult.
(P.S. Having it be an entire system makes it harder for a single ship to have everything maybe make various blocks, such as weapons systems, or power or shield systems, interfere with sensors on the same ship? All the electromagnetic noise those things put out could be causing problems...), and thus encourages more of a fleet dynamic. Or at least, support craft.)
Which leads me to my next thought:
Information networking.
Being able to share information between ships in your fleet is just sensible. And not just through vocal communication (makes AI recon ships a bit pointless, ne?), but from networked computers. The obvious solution is to make all ships owned by the same player, or faction, communicate their recon data to each other (making long range attack ships, IE snipers / missile boats, more viable, as they can have a spotter), but, what would be more interesting, is having "frequencies" that a ship communicates on. That way, you can have your own ships, and say your roommates ships, all communicating data to each other. Or more interestingly, you can have espionage: an enemy sneaks into your ship, or uses specialized equipment, to discover / hack your frequency. Also, it allows you to hire mercenaries and give them information: Give them the frequency, and they can pick it up and transmit to it. Having more than one network per ship allows for faction secure, and mercenary only communication, and could be used for increased integrity of data should someone hack in and throw in false information. This also opens up the possibility of a communication ship if you add in:
(P.S. This also adds in the ability to launch probes and the like from your ship)
Limited communication range:
Specifically tied to the above idea, ships have separate receiver and transmitter components. Most ships should have at least some level of basics, but, what if you want to be able to send data to your allies in the next sector, or a few sectors away? Then you might need specialized equipment. Or what if you want whole systems away? Why, only capital ships and stations have the capacity to use something like that! But why would you need that kind of range, unless...
Interstellar maps:
Be it stored on a ships computer, or in a given pilot's PDA, we should have some kind of map of sectors and beyond, in relation to each other. But why would these things start out up to date, or, for that matter, be KEPT up to date? That goes against the very logic of reality. Things change, and unless you're watching, you won't know about it. With the ability to have specialized exploration equipment from sensors, and the ability to have communications, you can have those dedicated to scouting out new territory, and keeping an eye on an enemy's operations. Deep space observation stations become useful, as you can have the communication hardware to keep your entire faction up to date to your home base, and the sensor equipment to keep track of the movement of fleets a few sectors away, to warn you of incoming attacks. Relay stations ensure that even the capital ships on the other side of your empire know that your bitter rival is massing an attack on one of your observation posts near his border; that could only mean he intends to make something more of this than just a "rivalry". More advanced sensor suites could even go so far as to predict the movement of planets and stars (and the orbit of stations) in a given system, and indicate such to the cartographer.
</Reconnaissance>
<Combat support effects>
Just because your ship doesn't have the heavy hitting weapons, doesn't mean it's useless in combat. That boost to your allies might be that critical key that ensures that your fleet is victorious, even though you didn't fire a single shot.
Point Defense turrets are already planned to be a thing, but, if not already the intention, I'd like to be able to have frigates on the picket of my fleet be covering my battleship, rather than just the battleship's turrets protecting itself. Recon ships and communication can aid these ships in detecting missiles through their ECCM equipment, and boost their ability to track the missiles in order to hit them with their cannons.
Speaking of recon ships, speciailized sensors could communicate to allies "weak spots" in the enemy's defense grid, improving the damage of shots directed at that location. Or, lower power could just be for the ship's own weapons; afterall, the computer may not have the data on your ally's weapons to pinpoint the best spot to hit them!
For that matter, jammers being a "hides the owning ship" thing kinda... Bugs me. It makes some sense, if you're using more passive jammers. But active jammers that throw too much noise into the area for your opponent to make heads or tails of their readings through should really cover more than just the ship equipped with them. If your radar is picking up thousands of distorted waves from your opponent's general direction, why would it know EXACTLY where the ship two meters to their right is?
Alternatively, weapons that specifically make targets more vulnerable to another type of weapon could be nice.Possibly make it so that it has to be from a different origin signature (IE not the same main ship including turrets?), to encourage groups?
</Combat support effects>
<AI>
Be able to set the AI to target FRIENDLY ships. This allows you to make ships/turrets that are designed to be power/shield supply for allied ships. Perhaps, if you work with the frequency system, have them target ships on the same frequency, and have them able to target the ship with the lowest shield / power % remaining. You could differentiate between BOBBY and NPCs by making Bobby only check frequency, and NPCs check frequency AND faction, or some other means to relate that actually "people" are more intelligent than the AI. This could just be in that only NPCs can prioritize targets.
</AI>
<General thoughts>
Docking / colonies
Being able to pick up power from the host ship is great and all, but, I'd like for docked ships/turrets to be able to have their shields CHARGED by their host. Not saying have them share the same shields, but... If the main ship's shields are full, then why not have them be able to send some of their generated shielding to their constituent parts? It'd also make ship designs that are only power/shield capacitors and no generation more viable/interesting, without forcing them to go to charging points that specifically have a transfer beam set up.
Also, that alone, would make another thing I'd like more viable. With colonies (on planets), I'd like to to be possible to fabricate a building off site, and then land it in, and have it be connected to the colony as a whole. Having the main power grid of the colony be a main ship, and all the sub buildings be docked to it, could work (and would work better if you could have a shield generation facility in that main "ship/station"), but it doesn't feel right to have to have added buildings be ships in their own right. Not sure if there's a solution (other than just building directly on to the planet, that doesn't count to the thought of building it offsite.), but it'd be nice. Depending on how it's done, it could be that the "lifter" ship that puts the building down could take it out, and move it to a new colony, should you find a need to abandon the exiting one.
Stations / Overall
I want players to be able to, and have motivation to, control stations. Support effects, such as those listed, as well as shield / power transfer weapons, and the like, help with this, but just plain having the ability to would be nice. Maybe make it so that a player (in general, not just on stations) can link turrets to their controls, so that they fire where they're aiming; and especially for stations, be able to rotate the camera so that you can aim at things not dead ahead / cone ahead. I know that you can rotate camera blocks (that's something I recently tested), but, maybe make it so that you can pan view as long as cameras have an overlapping adjoining angle?
Overall, I'd like there to be things that encourage working as a team, working as a fleet, and having specialized ships, rather than having a "do everything" capital ship be the typical answer.
Manuevering
Having more of a manueverability difference among small craft would be nice. It's a little hard to make an intercepter designed to get behind bombers and shoot them in the rear, when they can turn faster than you can move in degrees of angle, even at short range. Maybe I just pack too many thrusters into my ships as a whole, even my missile boat? XD I've only played with ships under 25 x 25 x 8, or in excess of 250 x something or other, so I don't know the real range that well.
HUD
Having more of a HUD would be nice, as well. In that having more features possible in it. The already mentioned missile lock warning would be nice. A target information window (At the very least, a picture of what you're targeting) would be handy, with more detailed information potential for recon craft. Being able to have a kind of damage report panel: be able to teach the thing what the ship is SUPPOSED to be like, and it tell you what/when something is wrong.
Oh! I know display monitors are a thing (don't know what they're capable of, haven't had a chance to play with them, and last I checked the wiki was a bit useless on all matters. I know that's being worked on, but I figure it's best to wait some more time before relying on it), why not make is so that you can program a ship's core, or something, to display the information on linked display monitors on the HUD when piloting the ship? Saving the window configuration could be a part of the blueprint, to make simulated cockpits.
Logic systems
I also haven't played with the logic blocks, but, I'm rather fond of ComputerCraft, a mod from Minecraft. It allows you to basically write LUA code for controlling your redstone systems, and only send a logic signal on certain sides of the terminal, and stuff like that. All of which can be executed from the terminal with basically a DOS program command, after programming it (rather than just typing in the logic commands live. Ew). I'd really love to be able to do something like that.
That's all for now, if I think of anything while I'm at work, I'll add to this thread. ^_^