Master Wishlist Thread

[Brainsucker]

Why not just erase the corvette, destroyer thing from the design and let the player to create their own type of ships?

Well, we have already free Tonnage Ship, so we could create our own type of ship.

The most important is not to limit the ship tonnage, but to create a condition that there is a limit that a ship has a battle efficiency weight.

Yes, a 10.000 KTon ship will be bad ass, just imagine the death star in Star Wars. It can become a mobile fortress. Buuut, just like in reality, It won't be very efficient to used in a battle.

In reality, big ships always escorted by the smaller ones. In World War 2, a battleship is the biggest, bad ass ship in the navy, but it won't be able to stand against smaller ships alone. Sooo
rather than limit the KTon of the ship type, the developer should create is a limit for the battle efficiency weight.

I have a suggestion although it require a lot of editing. What if you add "SHIP MANOUVER" You don't need to give a lot. Just put three or four types of manouvers. Just like hit and run, etc. This way, a smaller but fast ship will able to out-manouver the big one.

The problem for DW and other 4x game is that the game mechanic favors the bigger ships more than the smaller one. So player will create the biggest ship possible that the construction yard can create. Usually, to limit this, the developer will limit the ship Tonnage for each ship types. But it will force the players to create the biggest ship type available in the game.

To prevent this and make DW different to the other previous game, weapon arc should be implemented.
My idea is like this :
-Limit the Torpedo arc to only forward and backward.
- Split the energy weapon to several type. Blaster and turret for example. Turret will be given 360 degree arc but with short range and weaker fire power, while blaster will be limited to spesific arc, but has longer range than the turret.

This way, you can create several ship type for battle. A small but fast frigate with blaster, a capital ship with a lot of turret, a combined ship with torpedoes and turrets, etc.

What if a player decide to create a super fast ship? I mean a ship with the biggest KTon possible but equiped with a lot of engine? Or... to create the biggest ship possible for every ship type? Balancing the speed to the KTon is the answer. a 200 KT ship should be faster and agile than a 330 KTon Ship. In order for 330 KTon Ship to match the 200 KTon Ship speed, enormous truster and the manouver engine is needed. But it will reduce the space for other equipment. But it up to the player to decide their ship design. They want to create a super fast gigantic ship with only a blaster? why not?

To prevent the player creating only one single type of ship, add more support equipments to the design. This equipments will give great deal benefit to the player in combat but need a lot of weight to put into all ship. There is already one of this. The Long Range Scanner. But we need a lot more to create a big support ship that we called a flag ship.

[Shark7]

This idea came to me while posting in the 'Policy' thread below.

We need the ability to define to the AI an auto-build policy based on certain conditions being met.

1. Starports could be build or retrofitted based on population criteria. These could be set by the player in the options with simple check boxes and being able to type a number in.

Examples:

- (check box) Build a small starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 4 digit number) million population.
- (check box) Build/retrofit to a medium starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 4 digit number) million population.
- (check box) Build/retrofit to a large starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 5 digit number) million population.

So I could set up mine to read that I build a small starport at 10 million population, retrofit to a medium at 1 billion population (1000 million) and finally a large starport at 10 billion population (10000 million). Or if I like I can set it for small at 10 million, medium at 500 million, and large at 2 billion. In other words, I can control when it auto builds.

Defense bases could fall under a similar system. Though there are two ways to go about it. One where you define specifically at each point a base will be built, or define a milestone where the AI will build a new base. Specifically you could define up to (arbitrarily lets say 4) build points at 1 billion, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion just like the starport example above or secondly build 1 every 2 billion population gain which would look something like this:

- (Check Box) Build a new defense base at a colony each time the population of the colony increases by a number >= (5 digit box) million population.

This would give a player a lot of macro control without having to micro-manage it himself or depend completely on the AI to make the decisions. You could even have a definition of when to delay building a check-box that says:

- (check box) do not auto-build military ships or bases if treasury is <= (3 digit box) ,000.

So you could set it as low as 1000 or as high as 999,000. This could be a global setting to help keep the AI from building military products when you are low on cash.

Just a few ideas. [:D]

[Brainsucker]

It just ideas that flip out from my head seconds ago. Well, it just ideas, so you know, is only an idea even if it sound retarted :

- add the type of troop in the game. For example : Navy, Air Force, Army, Mech Warrior, etc.
Navy will get bonus in att and def in Ocean world, Army will get bonus on marsh and continental worlds, Mech Warrior for Lava and barren worlds, Air force just a support to add bonus to the other troop types.
- Experience for troops. Recruit, Veteran, Elite.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

This idea came to me while posting in the 'Policy' thread below.

We need the ability to define to the AI an auto-build policy based on certain conditions being met.

1. Starports could be build or retrofitted based on population criteria. These could be set by the player in the options with simple check boxes and being able to type a number in.

Examples:

- (check box) Build a small starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 4 digit number) million population.
- (check box) Build/retrofit to a medium starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 4 digit number) million population.
- (check box) Build/retrofit to a large starport when if colony population is >= (box for a 5 digit number) million population.

So I could set up mine to read that I build a small starport at 10 million population, retrofit to a medium at 1 billion population (1000 million) and finally a large starport at 10 billion population (10000 million). Or if I like I can set it for small at 10 million, medium at 500 million, and large at 2 billion. In other words, I can control when it auto builds.

Defense bases could fall under a similar system. Though there are two ways to go about it. One where you define specifically at each point a base will be built, or define a milestone where the AI will build a new base. Specifically you could define up to (arbitrarily lets say 4) build points at 1 billion, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion just like the starport example above or secondly build 1 every 2 billion population gain which would look something like this:

- (Check Box) Build a new defense base at a colony each time the population of the colony increases by a number >= (5 digit box) million population.

This would give a player a lot of macro control without having to micro-manage it himself or depend completely on the AI to make the decisions. You could even have a definition of when to delay building a check-box that says:

- (check box) do not auto-build military ships or bases if treasury is <= (3 digit box) ,000.

So you could set it as low as 1000 or as high as 999,000. This could be a global setting to help keep the AI from building military products when you are low on cash.

Just a few ideas. [:D]

awesome suggestions, will certainly help.

[Shark7]

Troops:

When you conquer/assimilate an alien race, instead of using your races troop name, when you build troops for that assimilated race, it uses that races naming convention instead of your own. If it's my race's empire, it should continue using my race's naming convention.

IE if I am Human using XX Marine Regiment for names, then when I conquer some Securans, the new units built from Securans should still be XX Marine Regiment, not XX Securan Guard or whatever it is. It is a minor thing, but it does break the continuity.

[Baleur]

Modding request: Allowing the game to play whatever length .wav you changed, without interruption...
I just started working on an ambient radiochatter mod but the problem is, due to my files being longer (11sec as opposed to the tiny vanilla 4sec files), they start to mix ingame, as it seems the game is on a hardcoded 4sec limit for those specific sounds, rather than playing their full duration without interruption. Which needless to say frustrated me quite alot after about two hours of work, just assuming that the game would at the very least be smart enough to play a sound file from start to finish before starting to play the next. [:@]

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[lancer]

G'day,

One of the things that gets me frustrated with an otherwise excellent game is the amount of clicking I need to do in order to find out what is happening with resources in my empire.

To get the information I need I have to open up a large number of GUI elements. It's all there but it's spread far and wide. Given that the game revolves around resources I've been putting some thought into a more efficient method of displaying the information.

So I've come up with a revamp of the Expansion planner. Not as the end all and be all but as a starting point for a discussion.

Personally I think there is a need for a better information flow but others may not.

I'd also put a vote in for a slider that determines the amount of resources found in the galaxy. I rarely find myself with a shortage of strategic elements, such is their prevelance.

I've copied this to the wishlist.





Cheers,
Lancer

[Evil Steve]

Just would like to add my support for a resource slider. From my POV the game could, perhaps, shape your strategies a little more mid-game - the only thought I've had is resources, but as limiting resources might lead to other problems, I was wondering whether Technology could be linked to Resources in a way that progressively better technologies can only be researched if you have access to progressively rarer resources. This might help shape mid-game strategies/choices?

Also, anything to distinguish races outside of % and colonisation world types would add character.

To me this kind of 'living world' game (like SR2) is (one of the) futures of gaming. Good luck with the expansion.

Stevil

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: lancer

G'day,

One of the things that gets me frustrated with an otherwise excellent game is the amount of clicking I need to do in order to find out what is happening with resources in my empire.

To get the information I need I have to open up a large number of GUI elements. It's all there but it's spread far and wide. Given that the game revolves around resources I've been putting some thought into a more efficient method of displaying the information.

So I've come up with a revamp of the Expansion planner. Not as the end all and be all but as a starting point for a discussion.

Personally I think there is a need for a better information flow but others may not.

I'd also put a vote in for a slider that determines the amount of resources found in the galaxy. I rarely find myself with a shortage of strategic elements, such is their prevelance.

I've copied this to the wishlist.





Cheers,
Lancer

overall i agree with the suggestions... the "no need for a filter" one though I am a bit confused by... you say "click on a resource name and list auto filters". Well, how will you be able to click on its name without a filter?
I found the filter quite useful on occasion, I used it to look up korbebian spice, loros fruit, zentebia fluid, and hydrogen.

[lancer]

G'dye

overall i agree with the suggestions... the "no need for a filter" one though I am a bit confused by... you say "click on a resource name and list auto filters". Well, how will you be able to click on its name without a filter?
I found the filter quite useful on occasion, I used it to look up korbebian spice, loros fruit, zentebia fluid, and hydrogen.

Bad explanation on my part.

Currently when you click on the name of a resource in the top left pane, eg. 'Loros Fruit', you get the help screen for that resource.

I thought that perhaps a bettter way of doing it was that if you click on 'Loros Fruit' then the bottom left panel automatically filters for whatever you've clicked on, eg. Loros Fruit.

You can do the same thing with the filter but it takes more clicks and if you want to check the status of, say five different resources, then those clicks add up.

The expansion planner currently tells you that you have, say 4, sources of gold. Doesn't tell you where those sources are. Click on my 'Empire' tab and it'll show them.

My other idea, apart from the tabs, was for the bottom left panel, eg. the one that shows all sources of Loros Fruit.

If you click on the name of a colony or mining station that has Loros Fruit (eg. in the "Empire" Tab - all the stuff you currently have) then it then fires up the top right panel (where the planet pictures currently are) and shows the stockpile for that colony or mining base.

Thinking being that if you want to check on a resource, you open up the expansion planner, quickly zero in on the type of resource you need via the tabs ('Strategic' or 'Luxury'), click the name of the one you want and all the relevant information is then displayed without anymore clicking or messing about with pull down filters. Quick and easy.

If you then want to check your stockpiles of that resource throughout your empire, or even at a key ship building colony, all you have to do is click on the name of the displayed colony. Bang, there it is.

As a contrast, have a think how much effort is currently required to find out how much Loros Fruit each of your colonies or mining stations currently have in stockpile. [edit] actually not that hard for planets (but not mining stations) via the Colony screen[edit]

All the information is currently tracked by the game, it's just spread out over a number of GUI elements instead of being accessible in the one place. Expansion planner still does it's of job letting you plan and execute expansion only it now also acts as a means of figuring out what's happening with resources within your empire.

As I said in the original post it's just a suggestion.

Interestingly I also think that if a slider for resources is introduced (a good thing) and strategic resources start to have meaning (as opposed to currently being so plentiful that they don't really register) then players will be wanting a more streamlined means of getting information on resources so perhaps it's a timely suggestion.

Cheers,

Lancer

[Brainsucker]

Well, maybe it is not important, but what about to add ship order buttons on the interface or add hotkeys to it? Just like in SV5, Starcraft 2, etc. Right clicking the ships / fleets to open it's menu is tiresome.

Now some retarded Ideas :

A. Ground Combat
- I'm not sastified with ground combat. It just like... errr you put as many as your units on a planets to conquer it. Not only that, you can even skip all the opponent's space defend with Troop Transport to conquer a lightly defended planet.
- But I hate how SV5 and Imperium Galactica way to handle 'this' ground combat.

So how to make ground combat more interesting?
- First of all, add the Fire support Module to help the ground force for the any space unit around the planet (for example Space Port, Troop Transport, Starbase, etc. This way, as long as the space port or other starbase is still intact, the defender ground unit will get bonuses to kick out the enemy.That is also apply to the attacker as well. But because of the capability of Space Port usually more powerful that a mere Troop Transport, then the Troop Transport will destroyed in no time. This way, the attacker should handle the space protection first before destroy the enemy def on the planet.
- More planetary troop type. yes, Navy and the Army. You can even research better units for each Troop Type. For example, you will get Infantry Division for you first Army, then you can upgrade it to Mech / Robot Division, or Armor Division, etc.

This way, you won't be able to conquer a planet with a little preparation. In contrary, you need a long way of preparation and strategy. Attacking an ocean planet with army will definately destroy your expedition force. Sending Troop Transports without back up is the same as give them a suicide mission.

To give a better troop management, you can create a... fleet for troop. Just like combine several troop into one greater unit. This way you could easily choose which units combination you want to load to the troop transports.

B. Fighter
Well I like how SV5 handle the Fighter, buuuuut, you can see that they need a lot of micromanagement for the player. With the style of DW (real time strategy) it can cause a great deal of time consuming for the player to handle these tiny ships.

So what is my retarded idea?
I still stand to the my Protoss Carrier type of fighter. These tiny ships should be equiped on the mothership and they will move out when the player click an order button of the carrier. To make it interesting, you can add several Fighter support technology. Just like Mission Operator, etc. By equiping these technologies, you can add the capability of your fighters that docked on your carriers.

What kind of capability are they? Fighter mission Type. For example, your initial fighter command that you can choose from your carrier option will be "defend the mothership" that will make them fly out when there is an enemy around the carrier's fighter range.

Then you can upgrade / research better command centres. To give your fighter more mission. Like planetary bombardment, Planetary patrol ( you can put some waypoint to your fighters to go), etc

It is easier if you just put the fighter type to the technology tree; but I wish you could give us the capability to design the fighter, too.

[malisle]

I would like to see some improvements to the game editor;

-add possibility to change type of resources on all planets
-add possibility to add or remove rings around planets
-add possibility to edit scenery percentage of black holes,neutron stars,asteroids and planets with rings
-fix bug: when the new planet is added it always has 100% quality
-fix error message you get when you try to change resource quantity in gas clouds

First three would add to the role playing experience (create Arrakis from the Dune or one super rich planet in strategically important place that everybody wants or something like that)

[Simulation01]

I'm requesting a method of selecting an empire or system and making it off limits to your ships.  I have ships flitting about everywhere and they are causing me issues with another empire that I would like to remain at peace with.

So, if this already exists, but I'm too dumb to realize it...I apologize.  If it does not exist....we need it to exist.

[Vector]

I waded through this thread and could not find a mid to late game invasion event (like the Borg from Birth of the Federation or the Antarans from MoO2/3). Apologies if this was already wished for. I was also wondering if DW has the racial traits of assimilation (Borg) and eating population (Ithkul from MoO3) or if they may be in the expansion...

V

[vonboy]

i'd like to have the option of building my own freighters, mining stations/ships, and passenger ships. of course have the private sector keep building these ships like they've been doing, but give me the ability to build my own if for example i really want some strategic resources sent to a deepspace starbase in the middle of an enemy empire.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: vonboy

i'd like to have the option of building my own freighters, mining stations/ships, and passenger ships. of course have the private sector keep building these ships like they've been doing, but give me the ability to build my own if for example i really want some strategic resources sent to a deepspace starbase in the middle of an enemy empire.

You mean like a merchant marine?

Might be simpler to allow players to designate 'military transports', which may be what you are wanting.

[Shark7]

I've put this in the modding wishlist thread as well, as it should be something the players can mod, but I also feel it belongs here as well since it will require a bit of code change to implement.

*An ability to set empire policies. Note that this will probably take a revision of the game code itself to allow for it.

Policies:

1. Empire Alien Relations: What you do with the aliens that you conquer/colonize. I currently suggest the following categories:

a. Assimilation: Basically the DW default as it is now. The Alien race is accepted into your empire and you gain their bonuses. Aliens are free to leave their 'home' planets and intermingle with your people on all colonies. Can colonize new planets.
b. Quarantine: The Aliens are allowed to live on their home planet, but may not leave it and may not intermingle with other races of the empire. You gain their bonuses only for that planet, and only at 25% of normal. Can colonize new planets.
c. Forced labour: The aliens are herded up into camps and forced to work for your people. You gain no bonuses from their race, but you do get a 30% increase in mining efficiency on the planet the aliens are located on. Not allowed to colonize.
d. Annihilation: Aliens are slowly reduced over time until they are no more...self explanatory. I'd avoid eating the soylent green.

On the policies, they should not only do what is described, but also have an effect on reputation. An empire that assimilates would recieve a small reputation boost, quarantine would be a reputation nuetral policy, Forced labour would be a small negative effect, and annihilation would make you evil. Obviously the policy would best be tied into the goverment type. Way of Darkness can annihilate away without too much worry, Republic would want to assimilate.

Also could be tied into the love/hate suggestion. Obviously if you hate the Boskara, you would actually approve of the Securans wiping off the galactic map and vice-versa.

Again, a simple table or number setting would suffice. Policy could be set by the player in game, but for the AI, policy would be set in a table for each race...IE just because you hate the Boskara doesn't mean you wouldn't like to assimilate the Sluken. A table just like the love/hate table suggestion would suffice.

0 = Assimilate
1 = Quarantine
2 = Forced Labor
3 = Annihilate

2. Spending policy: This is a way to determine if the empire spends money as fast as it makes it or saves for a rainy day. Affects only AI empires.

a. Spender: Empire spends 75% of income on military and colonizing at all times. Disadvantage is not much money on hand when war comes.
b. Balanced: Empire spends 50% of income on ships/bases, but saves the other 50% of that years income. Balanced obviously.
c. Saver: Spends only 35% of income. Lots of money on hand when needed.
d. War: Bumps up to 80% of income spent. This goes into effect when 1 empire is at war with you, and until other conditions are met. This policy will not allow spending to go into the red though. Ends when war is ended or until empire survival is at stake (25% of planets lost).
e. Survival: NO SPENDING LIMITS. Goes into effect when 2 or more empires declare war or 25% of planets are lost.

Again would really be keyed to empire tendencies. Warlike aliens would use spender, cautious empires would probably use saver, and friendly would likely use balanced (as they don't plan to go to war). Hive minded races (Boskara, Dayut, and Sluken) could probably be assigned war or survival as default due to their aggressiveness.

[Carewolf]

A quick way of making ship design simpler:

Integrate "Edit", "Copy as new" and "Upgrade" to same interface.

1. Remove all but "Edit" from the Ship Design overview, possibly just call the button Select.
2. If a user changes a component of an design that has already been constructed make changing the name required (saving it as a new design).
3. Add a button within the ship designer to let the AI suggest a standard version for that role
4. Add a button within the ship designer to let the AI upgrade the design (could also be the same as suggest)
5. Add undo button (especially for the AI upgrade action if it changes a lot).

This system would make it faster and more convient to do:
- Specializing a current design (cur: Copy as New then Edit).
- Upgrading and reviewing a design (cur: Upgrade then Edit).
- Making a new design from scratch (cur: Add, but requiring the user to add every basic feature manually)

[avdpos]

Quote: Shark 7
1. Empire Alien Relations: What you do with the aliens that you conquer/colonize. I currently suggest the following categories:

a. Assimilation: Basically the DW default as it is now. The Alien race is accepted into your empire and you gain their bonuses. Aliens are free to leave their 'home' planets and intermingle with your people on all colonies. Can colonize new planets.
b. Quarantine: The Aliens are allowed to live on their home planet, but may not leave it and may not intermingle with other races of the empire. You gain their bonuses only for that planet, and only at 25% of normal. Can colonize new planets.
c. Forced labour: The aliens are herded up into camps and forced to work for your people. You gain no bonuses from their race, but you do get a 30% increase in mining efficiency on the planet the aliens are located on. Not allowed to colonize.
d. Annihilation: Aliens are slowly reduced over time until they are no more...self explanatory. I'd avoid eating the soylent green.

On the policies, they should not only do what is described, but also have an effect on reputation. An empire that assimilates would recieve a small reputation boost, quarantine would be a reputation nuetral policy, Forced labour would be a small negative effect, and annihilation would make you evil. Obviously the policy would best be tied into the goverment type. Way of Darkness can annihilate away without too much worry, Republic would want to assimilate.

Also could be tied into the love/hate suggestion. Obviously if you hate the Boskara, you would actually approve of the Securans wiping off the galactic map and vice-versa.

Again, a simple table or number setting would suffice. Policy could be set by the player in game, but for the AI, policy would be set in a table for each race...IE just because you hate the Boskara doesn't mean you wouldn't like to assimilate the Sluken. A table just like the love/hate table suggestion would suffice.

0 = Assimilate
1 = Quarantine
2 = Forced Labor
3 = Annihilate

I do also miss something like this. Even if we ain´t racist´s between humans that dosen´t meen that I would like my spacerace to like aliens. Some sort of Machiavellian ways to rule your empire´s conquers, and maybe more rebellios becouse of that I have conquered a planet of a empire..

Machiavelli wrote of different ways to rule a new land. Assimilate do I think was one, Force labour wouldn´t I be suprised it was one and I know that kill all and recolonize was one (don´t remember all 10 years since I read his book).

quote: Brainsucker
Why not just erase the corvette, destroyer thing from the design and let the player to create their own type of ships?

Well, we have already free Tonnage Ship, so we could create our own type of ship.

The most important is not to limit the ship tonnage, but to create a condition that there is a limit that a ship has a battle efficiency weight.

Yes, a 10.000 KTon ship will be bad ass, just imagine the death star in Star Wars. It can become a mobile fortress. Buuut, just like in reality, It won't be very efficient to used in a battle.

In reality, big ships always escorted by the smaller ones. In World War 2, a battleship is the biggest, bad ass ship in the navy, but it won't be able to stand against smaller ships alone. Sooo
rather than limit the KTon of the ship type, the developer should create is a limit for the battle efficiency weight.

I have a suggestion although it require a lot of editing. What if you add "SHIP MANOUVER" You don't need to give a lot. Just put three or four types of manouvers. Just like hit and run, etc. This way, a smaller but fast ship will able to out-manouver the big one.

The problem for DW and other 4x game is that the game mechanic favors the bigger ships more than the smaller one. So player will create the biggest ship possible that the construction yard can create. Usually, to limit this, the developer will limit the ship Tonnage for each ship types. But it will force the players to create the biggest ship type available in the game.

To prevent this and make DW different to the other previous game, weapon arc should be implemented.
My idea is like this :
-Limit the Torpedo arc to only forward and backward.
- Split the energy weapon to several type. Blaster and turret for example. Turret will be given 360 degree arc but with short range and weaker fire power, while blaster will be limited to spesific arc, but has longer range than the turret.

This way, you can create several ship type for battle. A small but fast frigate with blaster, a capital ship with a lot of turret, a combined ship with torpedoes and turrets, etc.

What if a player decide to create a super fast ship? I mean a ship with the biggest KTon possible but equiped with a lot of engine? Or... to create the biggest ship possible for every ship type? Balancing the speed to the KTon is the answer. a 200 KT ship should be faster and agile than a 330 KTon Ship. In order for 330 KTon Ship to match the 200 KTon Ship speed, enormous truster and the manouver engine is needed. But it will reduce the space for other equipment. But it up to the player to decide their ship design. They want to create a super fast gigantic ship with only a blaster? why not?

To prevent the player creating only one single type of ship, add more support equipments to the design. This equipments will give great deal benefit to the player in combat but need a lot of weight to put into all ship. There is already one of this. The Long Range Scanner. But we need a lot more to create a big support ship that we called a flag ship.

[WanderDaekar]

Lacking the time to go through the entire thread to see if my ideas have been presented yet, I will beg forgiveness of any repeats.

1 - A spending bias method for the AI would be helpful.  A good example would be the method in Imperium Galactica 2 with empire budget being spent on Auto Build(colony improvements)/Production/Research with a marker in the triangle indicating how much of a percentage each area is provided from empire income.  I envision a variation on this, perhaps in several sliders indicating priority spending, would be extremely helpful for those of us looking to focus more intently on things like controlling fleet operations or construction ships being directed to immediately tear through battle debris fields and other events.

2 - More options for ships being placed in fleets.  Simply for ease of grouping when needed, being able to put construction ships into a special fleet arrangement would be nice.  I believe a special restriction of construction ship only fleets would be a nice bonus that isn't helpful to the AI, but a bonus for players.

3 - Expansion Planner needs a bit of help.  Last night I spent over an hour on that one screen slowly clicking through a slow-to-refresh list of potential colonies after getting a new grade of colonizer tech.  I have to go back to do this kind of droning click-work regularly or the list also backs up.  I believe the earlier suggestion someone made about replacing the picture in the upper right with data would be helpful.  In that location, we could have info and options for things like how many colony ships can currently be made for each planet type based on appropriate population/tech, current number of ships the empire can afford immediately, and a way to assign colony ships to build for ALL of a given planet type at the same time.  The AI is, in a sense, piss poor at keeping up with a large exploration effort as far as firing off colony ships immediately.  The *click-wait for refresh-assign again* method required currently is very time consuming and is wide-open for streamlining. ~Edit: Also an option to assign a colony ship to the max for all potential colonies currently build-able by the the empire, with a checkbox to choose allowing colonization in pirate-infested systems.~

4 - Another AI helper trick that came to mind was noticing a lack of ability to flag locations for a AI-controlled construction ship to be sent.  An example is finding a planet with Loros Fruit.  Being able to flag the location for an AI action with the nearest available construction ship (if building something, factor time to complete against next nearest ship ETA, etc.) would greatly streamline empire management far more dramatically.  As the purpose of all the AI is to allow focus on parts each individual player likes, this is a huge step towards being more of a true empire leadership role than omnipresent ship captain.  Direct the minions by task lists, rather than direct orders.  Another quick example of task flags for the AI is research locations like black holes and novae.  A quick system click and right-click menu to direct some research station placement would be great.

Hopefully I have presented these ideas clearly.  I'll throw in some more if I think of em.