Hi all,
I'm TobiusBM and after remembering about this game a week ago (after not playing for 4 years) I have spent the entire week playing through a few times and noting down everything I felt was missing or needed expanding upon.
Please Remember: I have only just got back into the game so I may be missing things - what I suggest might already be implemented in one way or another that I am not aware of or may deliberately not be in the game for balancing or because it does not fit with the story aspect of the game.
Idea/Suggestion #1
Advanced Autons
* Auton Configurator - At auton shops pre-purchased ship upgrades can be, within reason, installed onto an auton for a small fee. This would include armor, shields, weapons, reactors and misc. expansion devices. This would allow you to keep your autons for longer instead of them dying just after you buy them and would add a feature to the lacking auton shops.
*Smarter Autons - Autons really need better controls including :
Guard a station, ship or other auton - Does as it says on the tin, you tell one (or more) auton to guard a station, ship or another auton and it will follow and protect it ... e.g. you can assign a battle auton to a mule or explorer auton to stop them getting killed all of the time.
Travel here - You can instruct an auton to go to a certain spot on the map or to a specific station - once there it will wait.
* Auton Controls - We should be able to group autons together which could then be controlled with a hotkey (e.g. up to 10 groups accessed with the 1-0 keys). This way you could get all of your mule autons to stop near a friendly station before you go into a battle without giving 10 instructions or call all of your battle autons to you when you need.
* New Auton Types - A new auton type could be the scavenger auton which would be a modified mule auton that automatically docks at and loots destroyed ships and stations. It would have less space that the mule (60 tons maybe) and no weapon. It would still be vulnerable to docking with irradiated wrecks and dying or being attacked and destroyed.