Few gameplay wishes

[Skywalker]

Couple of wishes about the game. Apologies if it's wrong topic for that.

Is it possible to return old political map view from SOTS 1? It allowed a very usefull glance on military and political situation that SOTS 2 lacks. Yes it can display those teeny-tiny circles near the name indicating presence of opponent's colonies in system but they aren't eye-catching and visible only in relatively extreme zoom.

One more wish would be to allow a "confirm" button in base placement, not just "confirm and exit" Imagine having several construction fleets available to build mining stations ASAP. I enter the build station" menu. And start clicking... "Build station"... waiting... "confirm&exit"... waiting..."Build station"... waiting... "confirm&exit"... waiting..."Build station"... waiting... "confirm&exit"... waiting... *quiet rage*. So a possibility to submit several such orders without need to open and reopen that screen would be very welcomed. ALso come to think of it, an option like "automatically build mining stations in owned systems" might be good as well. It might take away a bit of depth from the game tho.

Is it possible to return sublight speed info for human ships as well as timer for missions like building\upgrading stations in fleet's info as well as timers till enemy fleets reach the system in that enemy fleet's info?

Also some sort of highly notable warning about incoming catastrophe from the science station would be good since far too often a notification about VN attack is lost in pile of far less imporant notifications.

ADDED
A big, fullscreen notification of empire's demise (enemy empire, one player contacted with) would be very appreciated.

ADDED

Addition. What about adding a mines with bomb pumped lasers instead of explosives?

[BlueTemplar]

an option like "automatically build mining stations in owned systems"

It's called "stimulus".

[Skywalker]

A good point, but sadly those station don't belong to me and for them to be operational i'll have to keep pouring money into stimulus while my own mining stations don't require an upkeep. Additionaly they will appear without any control on my side. Not exactly a worthwhile trade imho

In general i try to keep away from stimulus.

[BlueTemplar]

for them to be operational i'll have to keep pouring money into stimulus

No, you won't.

Additionaly they will appear without any control on my side.

Then what exactly did you mean by "automatically"?

[Azrael Ultima]

Stimulus is only responsible for them being created, they don't require upkeep of any kind from you.

Afaik, state mandated(i.e. player built) ones do require upkeep, though. It's been a while, so i might be misremembering this.

[Skywalker]

Ok, I might be wrong on the mater then. When player pours money into stimulus it creates possibility of civilians building mining stations, freighters and colonizing planets. Now, I saw mention, it's required to keep pouring money into stimulus for those freighters to keep working and production is to be shifted to trade. Any of those factors out and freighters are gone and "civilians" will have t build them again. I thought same picture goes for mining stations as well.

And by lack of control I meant that stimulus creates chance of building those things. Means my planets have a chance of spending next 50 years without mining stations while construction ships will guaranteed to build those ASAP.

Stimulus is only responsible for them being created, they don't require upkeep of any kind from you.

No but I thought stations need stimulus allocations to exist further and this pretty much means maintenance costs.

Afaik, state mandated(i.e. player built) ones do require upkeep, though. It's been a while, so i might be misremembering this.

Whenever you build mining station it is stated in message that upkeep for station is 0/

[BlueTemplar]

No, stimulus only creates things, it doesn't maintain them.
Yes, it's a chance, but stimulus accumulates and at some point you're guaranteed to get a new freighter/mining station/civilian.

[Skywalker]

Ok, granted, I stand corrected. Guess I just hate being unsure on the matter but what you just said changes few things.

[Skywalker]

Addition. What about adding a mines with bomb pumped lasers instead of explosives?

[Azrael Ultima]

I'd question the usefulness of bomb-pumped lasers in mining. Wouldn't it be easier to just use the bombs directly?

[Skywalker]

Not really. One of the greatest advantage of laserhead in missile is that it can wreck the target halfway through the radius of their direct fire PD while even fastest conventional missiles have to travel all the way to kiss the hull. For mines it'll mean lesser vulnerability against PD, a lovely element of surprise against Disruptor shields and far greater effective reach, turning them into one-use fixed turrets for that matter.

Idk, maybe I am just under fresh impression after Honor Harrington novels but I was delighted to find out that unlike in SOTS1, missile warfare was turned into a viable and efficient endgame option and I am in love with laserheads. Tho tbh only thing I dislike in them is the way Polaris class laser missile is discharged. It comes from the top and a Heavy laser shoots the target, which is all fine and well, but for the next 3+ seconds a laser shoots out of empty space. IMHO it'd be more realistic to pack maybe 2 seconds of Heavy Laser's punch into 1\4, 1\2 discharge and selfdestruct the warhead itself AFTER the missile finished shooting... maybe with chance of it malfunctioning and detonating earlier. Tho I fully understand that current physics were probably applied for balance purposes to compensate for ungodly reach and possibilities by lower accuracy and shooting efficiency of laser shot itself (since even if target won't wiggle, part of laser discharge will be wasted when enemy ship will move at full speed).

[Azrael Ultima]

Ah, you meant mines with lasers, not mining.

Well, that mostly leaves the issue in the realm of whether those can feasibly be constructed at a cost that leaves them on par or better than regular mines. Also, if laser armed drones might not be more useful.

[Skywalker]

Well, we already have laser warheads for missiles, so I'd say it's safe to assume mines can be constructed as well. And you are right - drones would be, but no drone can possibly carry a multy use heavy combat laser for more then couple of shots and survive, and they are squishy as hell. Mines would come for much cheaper then any of those because mine is essentially a same warhead (maybe heavier payload tho) on a different platform, you don't need a huge engine section and can do with somewhat simpler targeting system when compared to missiles, no evasion maneuvering, no complex flight control. All of this results in a significantly cheaper "mine" platfrom when compared to "heavy missile" platform.
When comparing to drones you might throw away reusability, survivability, endurance, energy and reaction mass reserves, onboard autopilot, repair and maintenance and whatnot else.

Well... when you think of it, fesibility of laser warhead depends in large way on the technology used. Is this a full-scale heavy laser stripped off as much of non-essentials, failsafes, heat dumps and other systems as possible? Or a bomb with channeling rods converting energy of a blast into X-ray laser\gamma laser\laser via set of reactions and relatively simple gear instead of complex and expensive technology?

[Mockery]

If we're talking about gameplay wishes, I'm still waiting for the scrollspeed up/down on lists (like for stations, fleets, tech tree, whatever,) to be doubled or tripled or quadrupled. It's just agonizingly slow.

[Skywalker]

And don't forget magic "Scrap everything" button when it comes to scrapping ships of a certain class. Try clicking those tiny garbage bin icons 80 times >_<