Matrix Games Forums

TLDR
If you could set the desired stock levels (maintain) and behavior (supply depot, extractor, distribution hub) in the station design, then you could manage multiple stations at the same time by adjusting the design. Other game mechanics (like retrofitting, refueling, freighters) should respect these choices.

RETROFITTING NAMING CONVENTIONS
What I would suggest FIRSTLY is that retrofits should respect the naming convention. So my 'Caslon Mining Station' should auto-retrofit to 'Caslon Mining Station v2' and so on. This way its easy for me to maintain multiple different designs for my mining stations (large caslon mines, armed ore extractors, unarmed ore extractors, forward supply depot, etc).
The same would ofc be VERY nice for ships, spaceports and defense bases.

BEHAVIOR BAKED INTO THE DESIGN
Being able to set in the base design what stock levels to maintain (high, medium, low), or what behavior we would like it to follow (generic extractor, supply depot, refuelling station). To some extent, you can manage this (hopefully) by varying the size and number of cargo holds. Currently, fleets prioritise refueling at Caslon mining stations. But all mining stations stock caslon, and can be used in a pinch. I would like to specifically flag some mining stations as refueling hubs, and then have fleets auto-refuel at close by mining stations, and not just the closest caslon mining station.

SELECTABLE BUILD ORDERS
On a planet, you can select which spaceport to build if you have multiple active designs. But when building a mining station, it only offers the latest active design. When I click on a gas-giant (for e.g.) I want to be able to choose to build a 'Large Caslon Station' or 'Unarmed Ore Extractor' or 'Armed Ore Extractor'. As it is, I have to build a random mining station, then remember to retrofit it later to the design i actually wanted.

REFUEL AT (location)
Probably one of the most frustrating things is to click 'Refuel' and see your fleet haring off to some remote mining station far from the action, when there are other mining stations much closer. This button should PLEASE give a shortlist of nearby Caslon supplies (with amounts) so we can choose the refueling point.

Nice! These ideas seem like they would be very useful. They also seem well thought out.

I especially like the 'retrofitting naming conventions' especially if it were extended to ships. This might be the 'secret knock' to allow us to have multiple viable ship designs for a single 'role' without multiplying the micromanagement needed.

As a discrete example:

I have been considering having a particular ship design to use as a fleet support scout. These ships would be heavy on sensors, freeing up space on other ships in the fleet to have room for targeting and countermeasures in the green slots. However, my choices at this point seem to be
1) give up an entire role to have this design OR
2) manually retrofit each ship one at a time rather than retrofitting the entire fleet with one click.

I would add to you 'behavior baked into the design' with the following...

It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that 5000 caslon being the default at mining stations is a bit much. It is disheartening to have a caslon shortage and know that there is potentially 100,000 (or much more) caslon sitting in ore and luxury mining stations scattered around the empire.

Regarding stock levels, another option could be:

Put these options in Policy:
- Stock levels to maintain (high, medium, low, none) for Fuel/Construction/Luxury. (For Mine stations).

Note: I would set Fuel level to none !

That would affect all mining stations, then. Including the gas mines where it isn't a problem to have big stockpiles since they refill automatically and thus serve as a forward fueling base.

Nope.
Setting it in the policy means it would affect all designs.

The idea is to be able to distinguish behavior for different stations by having multiple designs with different behaviour sets.