Unit Abilities vs The Interface

[Draco18s]

In some respect I understand the control nodes and appreciate them, but on the other hand there are a couple that I use all the time, ever time.

First: no factory auto-management.  I'd prefer if my net income was balanced to be (roughly) equal, not that they turn on when I have a net negative of that resource.  I always build this node.
Second: auto-build engineers is a global change.  It means every system you own auto-builds engineers.  There's a new one for "only this planet" but that doesn't do what I need either sometimes.  I'm not sure what it is I'm looking for, so...
Third: Engineers to not auto-assist military.  This one is a particular thorn in my side, when there are no enemy units I want them to repair my ships.  When there are I don't want them to.  If a structure I assign them to repair gets fully repaired I don't want them going anywhere.  I would prefer it if they would remain where they are in the event that the structure takes more damage (eg, I assign three engineers to a FF generator over the command station: I do not want them to do anything else but keep that FF at full health.  If it's at full health it won't be for very long).
Fourth: It takes a lot of time to find the right node.  I have to look at the description of each one in order to find the one I'm looking for.  The four/five letter tag on the top is not indicative enough of the node.
Fifth: Focus fire.  I've previously mentioned this, and I know its not going to happen, but I suggested that focus fire could be for fleet ships and that it would be per unit type.  E.g. a fighter loses its target, instead of searching for a nearby favored target it would instead check to see if nearby fighters are already firing on a target.

Rally posts: in some respect I understand what they're for.  In another, I want to be able to control that functionality with the mouse on a system-by-system and selection-by-selection basis.  Sometimes I send units places and I want them to show up at a location, but the next group of ships headed in that direction might need to go somewhere else.  I use transports a lot (frigates and space tanks are not speedy) and would like to be able to drop them on my-side of an enemy wormhole and then go micro something else while I wait (such as putting more units in transports).  When I come back it would be nice to just pop the tranports and not have to then command them to move across the system first.

[CodeMichael]

I tried to read all of this thread, I apologize, I'm certain I missed/forgot things even as I read them.  If something has been previously covered, my apologies, just say so and move on, I'll go back and re-read.

I'll start by saying that I think control nodes are critical in function and that they've worked just fine for me thus far.  I've definitely done a lot of build/destroy/rebuild for situations where I generally wanted the function they provided, but needed them offline for a time (there are times when FRD is not the least bit desirable, but most of the time I want it).  I would be fine keeping them they way they are, but I think global vs planet needs to be a bit better defined.  I did have a thought though.

I really like the riot ship idea of modular ships.  One of the things I've wanted is in the normal ship interface to have a listing of the build modules with the ability to drop a module and replace it with something new.  I don't think that's a major step from where riot is now.  An example might be a different colored column on the far left which identifies which modules are already constructed.  Once you had such and interface you could do the same thing with other ships and specifically the command station (or a new control station).  The control station could include all of these node options and you could build/enable and destroy/disable those various node options as necessary.  This interface could be used a number of places, and keeps a fairly consistent interface within the game context.  You could even keep the current controls nodes and make them the "universe wide" nodes, while the planetary control nodes were planet specific.

Either way, don't spend much time on this.  Add a section to the tutorial if for some reason you think it isn't obvious enough.

[Dragon]

A control node for controlling energy production, similar to the one for factory production, would be nice.  Have it pause mark III generators first, and if you still have excess energy after all mark III's are paused, it will start pausing the Mark II's.  If you go to build, or turn on something, and you don't have enough energy, it will bring enough online to do the job, and leave the rest offline.

The reason for that is because right now I find micromanaging my generators to be a pain.  Right now in the game I'm playing, I have 79 generators.  The Mark I's are always on, as are the two Zenith that I have captured.  Most of the Mark II's are paused on a general basis, but sometimes I'll unpause them, like when I want to use my golem.  The mark III's are almost never used, except when the Golem plus a bunch of other ships are all in use.

So to unpause the golem, I have to bring up the generator menu, which is sorted alphabetically (almost the most useless way to sort it, paused/unpaused and then subsorting by mark level would be so much nicer), and then start selecting mark II generators and bringing them online.  I can't even see half my generators, because the menu only shows the first 30 of them, so I just have to hope that I don't have a mark III online somewhere, or that somewhere in the last 40 are some paused mark II's that I don't want paused.

After the attack, the retreat and pausing of the golem, and the massive loss of ships, I suddenly have over 700,000 net power.  Now I have to go through again and pause all those power generators so my economy can be fully used to rebuild ships because I just lost 1500 ships in a couple of minutes in a failed attack on a Mark IV system.  So thus, power management is a huge micromanagement thingy, and since the game is supposed to not need it....

[RCIX]

See http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2807.msg24374.html#msg24374, and http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2807.msg24374.html#msg24374 + the surrounding replies. (Yes, i'm pointing you to earlier in this thread )

[Dragon]

Ahhhh, interesting.  Okay.  I can see that.  What about simply being able to sort the list, or even more important, have the list actually show ALL my reactors, rather then only half?

[zebramatt]

Second: auto-build engineers is a global change.  It means every system you own auto-builds engineers.  There's a new one for "only this planet" but that doesn't do what I need either sometimes.  I'm not sure what it is I'm looking for, so...

That's pretty much what I thought when I posted this.

On the issue of Rally Posts, the only thought I've had is that it might be useful to be able to build them on enemy planets - but then again, it does add an interesting strategic element having to bus a Mobile Builder into a system to set up a Rally Post, so I'm happy!

[Cydonia]

As far as I remember rally posts are invisible and undetectable

[Draco18s]

As far as I remember rally posts are invisible and undetectable

After they are built, yes!

They can also move (speed 12?) and warp, so you CAN build one in a safe system and then warp it through.