A Couple Ideas for down the road

[Moltrey]

Looking good with Legends so far guys. I was playing ROTS the other day and there are a couple things that I feel would improve the immersion and customization of the game.

1. NAMING SHIP CLASSES: The ability to organize ship classes by the following method: Name(n), where Name is applied to a particular class of ship. If I want all my Explorers to have the alpha-numeric designation "Deep Space x" with x starting at 1 to however many built. Use of the Mk2, etc. could still by used to denote retrofits. Maybe an expanded Fleet Organization screen (or Design?) with ability to setup the classes, etc?

2. EXCLUSION OF RETROFIT: I'd like to see a checkbox or the like that would designate an individual ship (or possibly class?) as "hands off" to the AI for retrofitting. I hate losing a nice recovered hi-tech Titan Beam ship because the game thought it needed to be upgraded. Doh!! The current workaround is clunky and not always effective, particularly once your empire gets big.

3. REVISED AI SEARCH PATTERN FOR EXPLORATION: I find that I dare not let the AI auto-control my Explorers. Instead of starting from the initial world(s) in and ever-increasing search pattern, the game uses some inexplicable voodoo (to my mind) to determine what systems to explore first, the distance, and direction, although distance seems more of a problem than direction currently. Not sure how difficult programming definable search pattern logic would be for CodeForce, but combining it's ability to find things that need to be investigated (good) with a better way of executing those searches would be fabulous.

Thanks for the best 4x out there!
pw

[lordxorn]

ORIGINAL: pdwest64

3. REVISED AI SEARCH PATTERN FOR EXPLORATION: I find that I dare not let the AI auto-control my Explorers. Instead of starting from the initial world(s) in and ever-increasing search pattern, the game uses some inexplicable voodoo (to my mind) to determine what systems to explore first, the distance, and direction, although distance seems more of a problem than direction currently. Not sure how difficult programming definable search pattern logic would be for CodeForce, but combining it's ability to find things that need to be investigated (good) with a better way of executing those searches would be fabulous.

Thanks for the best 4x out there!
pw

What I do for my Explorers is to designate specific Sectors expanding out from my starting area. Once the game progresses and you trade maps with other empires the explorer is no longer needed for scouting out resources.

[HectorOfTroy]

ORIGINAL: pdwest64

2. EXCLUSION OF RETROFIT: I'd like to see a checkbox or the like that would designate an individual ship (or possibly class?) as "hands off" to the AI for retrofitting. I hate losing a nice recovered hi-tech Titan Beam ship because the game thought it needed to be upgraded. Doh!! The current workaround is clunky and not always effective, particularly once your empire gets big.

I like that idea.