#9 Ship Designer Enhancements

[Daniel Vale]

From m.a@stars on HWF (http://starsautohost.org/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th=4526&start=0&rid=917&S=f7c4f07cc6427b5697261d40d2c6bbbd):

In the interests of enhancing playability with minimal effort, I'd like to suggest the following Ship Design pane "enhancements":

Deal Allow the "Transfer" of designs, own or alien, in much the same way as actual fleets would be Transferred. That would ease intel sharing, particularly in Team or Mentor games. And it would use game mechanics already in place. Teleport

Pros: It would give races another bargaining chip. War Mongers would benefit. Since this kind of intel can be shared already thru outside means, games would be mostly the same, but easier, and cooler. Cool
Cons: Races would never be sure whether 3rd parties had acquired their design secrets this way. But this already happens, so... Sherlock

Deal Have the spotted "alien" designs tagged with the year of discovery. That would make immensely easier to track new discoveries, and to tell apart the newer from the older designs. Again, this can already be done thru outside means, but it would be easier, and cooler. Rolling Eyes

Perhaps even send messages to the player in much the same way as alien planets are reported, detailing all the new techs spotted. Whisper

Deal Keep a running account of spotted "alien" designs in much the same way as is done for own ones. Just add up what the scanners can spot in the current turn, with perhaps a "maximum ever" amount stored to allow a better sense of evolution through time.

Pros: Better, easier intel. Less mistakes. Twisted Evil
Cons: Lots of sums, but that's what computers are for. Might be regarded as the little brother of Public Player Scores. But it can already be done thru outside means anyway, so... Pirate

Speaking of adding up ships, that should be already happening to create the Fleet Reports, I guess. Which begs for another tweak / enhancement:

Deal Instead of reporting amounts per ship class (unarmed, bomber, utility) when multi-token fleets are reported, just report the amounts per ship design. It would be more useful, no harder to digest, and perhaps even easier to calculate. Very Happy

Pros: Better match with single-token fleet reporting.
Cons: More columns. Razz

[Daniel Vale]

Comment by Marduk:

I would like to see an option (with confirmation) to delete an enemy design. It can be a nuisance to have the ship dialog heavily cluttered by obsolete designs. Of course they would show up the next year if you saw any, so it would only help if the deleted designs really were more or less gone... which might not happen if the number of available design slots goes up too much.

I would also like to be able to rename existing designs, though that would probably require a notification to any players that knew the design by the original name. I hate building some ships and only afterward coming up with the perfect name for the class so that I am stuck with a lousy name.

[Daniel Vale]

From m.a@stars on HWF: I have yet another suggestion for the Ship Designer UI: allow several different designs to be opened at once, mostly for comparison purposes. Also, allow searches by name/race/hull/date/components.