User Suggestions from Support Email

[Balthagor]

We received some suggestions from a user. I told them I would share it here so the community could join the conversation. I haven't had time to read this so this is just a raw data dump ATM.

User Interface
-The nicer the better, this isn’t a big issue.

Eras
Will the eras existing in SRU be ported over? It would be great if they were and, could we get 1980, 2000 and 2010
as starting points?

Multiplayer
Multiplayer needs a lot of work to ensure stability. Constantly when playing sync errors occur or the game slows down
to a crawl making it unplayable. In no other game have I ever experienced these issues and it occurs every time.
Looking at forums it isn’t just my friends and I. Not sure what the fix is, but it definitely needs to be addressed.

Map Edits
Increase the number of map hexes by double-quadruple. It would allow for more tactical decision making than
currently exists. Especially around key choke points and cities. It would make naval battle groups make a little bit
more sense. This would also make islands better to pick up that are currently missed. Examples of this would be the
artificial islands and expansions of the islands in the South China Sea.
When roads and railroads cross water, a bridge should appear. Suspension bridge middle cross descending raised road
to the shore connection.
Under water communication cables- This could be turned on and off to see. This would create three new abilities in
the game. One, the diplomatic option to create undersea communication cables (military and civilian). Two, the ability
use units to search, locate, map the communication lines. Three the ability to use that unit to tap or sever the
communication line.
Unique buildings within countries for tourist sites. Also, the ability to develop tourism buildings to boost the economy.
I believe Trump Tower was an attempt at this, but never clearly explained how it worked.
Trading map shader- Similar to the under-water cables. This would be able to be turned on and off visually. This
creates a few more abilities for the game. One creating trading agreement with a country (not free trade see Economy
Management Section) that would then produce dashed lines between commercial ports of the countries (UK Ports to
east coast of US Ports). The ability for naval units to raid, interdict, mine and patrol/escort trading routes. Third would
be zones on the map that are hot spots for pirating. Here you could select a unit to patrol the selected pirate area to
protect sea lanes of you and your allies. Population between points will decide the severity of importance of sea lane
trading. If sea lane is impacted by operations, importance will grow over time on other sea lanes.
Missile Defense Area. This would be a three-ring circle located around the Missile Defense Facilities that are red
furthest circle, yellow middle circle, and green inner circle. This view would be able to be turned on and off visibly.
The various colors would correlate to interception success rate and applicable coverage location of the success rate.
Success rate percentage would be based on technology currently known by the constructor. If a hostile has higher tech
missiles than you have interceptors the missiles could still hit within the green zone. Similarly Ballistic Missile
Defense (BMD) ships will have a surrounding area that they can strike a missile. This should also have the three
colored rings for successful interception and area.
Sea Zoning- Similar to how land is broken into areas, seas should also be broken down into zones. This will allow for
better air and sea patrols (see Unit Abilities Section), as well as pirate areas.
Ability to remove and create a town/city. Removing a city would have a negative impact on approval, but people
would relocate. Creating a town and building production facilities in the area will increase the population of the nearby
towns. This way you can access resources where the town existed.
Ability to remove large sections of rail or roads.

Buildings to add/remove
Remove sea piers.
Remove Security Services Building
-See Intelligence Services Abilities Section
Add Commercial Ports
-These are where trading sea lanes start and terminate at. Can dock naval ships but offers no protection. Naval
Construction Facilities can be built with these.
Add Naval Base
-Separate from Naval Construction Facility and commercial ports these would be where naval ships are stationed.
Provide Protection to X number of surrounding sea hexes for naval ships and against subversive activities. Naval
Construction Facilities can be built with these.
Add Rare Earth Mineral Mine
-See Resources Section
Add Microchip Fabrication Facility
-See Resources Section
Missile Defense Facility
-This could be one or two buildings. If two it would be a Missile Radar/Tracking Facility and a separate Missile
Battery for interception.

Resources
I think two new resources would make sense to add. One would be Rare Earth Minerals which are crucial for many
of the military products produced today. This would come in the form of a mine similar to coal and ore. Second would
be computer chips. This isn’t necessarily a resource, but is also crucial for everything used today, especially military
equipment. This could be a civilian plant that gets built and draws from civilian work force (not a military cost).

Economy Management
General: All of the areas of the economy sliders should display the impact the decision will have on the various areas
of the economy. Example, increasing the corporate tax should display the impact it will have (immediate rise in
treasury, 6 months out decrease in revenue due to companies leaving or going out of business). This would give players
an easier time deciding what is best path forward on a risk reward basis. The below ideas would be located in the
diplomatic options or Actions Against options.
Tariffs- There should be an option to select a country, select individual resources and apply a percentage-based tariff
on it. For example, US imposing a 35% tariff for consumer goods on China. The slider should be from 0-200%. This
should be applicable to every country and every resource.
Embargos- The ability to impose an embargo on a country. This would prevent your minister/AI from selling and
purchasing good from specific countries.
Sanctions- This would the ability to implement sanctions on a country for a good or groups of goods traded. If other
countries trade those goods with the sanctioned country, the relations between you and them would suffer. This should
force aligned countries and allies of yours to gradually reduce trading with the sanctioned country eventually stopping
trading of that good(s).
Monetary Policy- Doctrines should be options. Example, Total War Economy where civilians consume the minimum
of resources required to survive (some number/percentage). Has negative impact on efficiency and support. Positive
impact on stockpiles/usage and cost of goods which increases treasury revenue.

Unit Abilities
-General:
 Unit Intelligence- When a player has various units equipped with missiles, the auto attack should distribute
lethality amongst incoming units. Currently the units will shoot their payloads at the first identified enemy
unit (Usually overkill). Unit A should target threat 1 and Unit B should target threat 2 and so on.
 Upgrade Ability- Units should be sent for upgrades to later variants. Once research of various technologies
are complete, a unit upgrade should be available for research similarly to how a new unit becomes available
now. Once the upgrade is complete, the existing unit should be sent to a facility for an upgrade for some
amount of time and some cost. Once complete the unit will have the new name. For example, DDG-51 USS
Arleigh Burke Flight I has an upgrade for DDG-73 USS Decatur Flight II and so on to Flight IIA and Flight
III. Same for Tanks, Planes etc. This does not mean you cannot produce the new unit outright but gives
existing units to upgrade. This command would appear in the same place as you would find the repair option
for a ship. Also, this should only be accomplished at a Fabrication Facility. This would obviously stop any
production of new units from those facilities.
-Ships:
 Sea Area Patrol – With creation of sea zones as discussed above, you should be able to then select a ship or
group of ships to patrol a sea zone or multiple sea zones selected (Shift right click, Shift left click to deselect)
 Mining – Mine laying ships should have the ability to mine a sea zone. This should be a dice roll scenario
for hits to enemies. Some percentage of likelihood to hit. This unit would then be occupied for some period
to accomplish some higher level of likelihood.
 Cable Laying, Tapping & Cutting– Cable laying ships (a new type of unit) would be tasked with management
of undersea cables. Development of a cable can only become available once technology is available and the
diplomatic agreement has been installed between two countries. The ships will be able to search for existing
cables in a sea zone then track it to a country. They will then be able to tap the cable or cut the cable.
 Anti-Piracy Patrols- Ships should have the ability to perform ant-piracy patrols in the new sea zones. Example
areas would be the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden and the Malacca Strait. A benefit to this would be increased
world view.
 BMD- As discussed earlier select ships should have the ability to have Ballistic Missile Defense of areas.
Only few classes of ships in the world have this ability.
 Battle Group Patrol- Ships when formed into a battle group should hold formation, and have the ability to
patrol various sea zones as a group(in formation). Planes based on a carrier should patrol the sea zones from
the air and return to the carrier.
 Sea Lane Raiding- Ships should be able to raid newly created sea trading lanes between countries. This would
take resources being traded form the countries and return them to your stockpiles.
 Sea Lane Interdiction- Ships should have the ability to interdict newly created sea lanes. This would slow
down the trade between the two countries that the lane passes through. It will also negatively affect your
relationship status with those countries.
 Sea Lane Patrol/Escort- Similarly to the above recommendations, ships should be able to go into patrol mode
on a sea lane protecting your trade.
-Planes:
 Area Patrol/Air Dominance- Option for planes to patrol an area selected. Option will vary for planes with
different roles, see Area Bombing below for bombers. For fighters there should be an option to select an area
and choose Area patrol/Air Dominance. This would send unit to patrol the area selected and intercept planes
or drop bombs on units entering the space. These planes would continue mission until selected otherwise.
They would return to base to refuel and rearm only to return to mission on their own. Option should be
available for multiple areas with shift+right click to select multiple or deselect.
 Carrier-based Area Patrol- Similar to the above, this would do the same for carrier-based aircraft. Selection
of a sea zone to patrol. Additionally, an option should be available to patrol above a carrier or carrier battle
group. This would keep the planes flying around the battle group when stationary or in transit. Example,
select plane, select point defense, right click on carrier. It should recognize if it is in a battle group or not
and what other ships (with locations) are in the battle group. Plane proceeds to patrol skies around the
ships. Will continue till ordered not to. Other option would be sea zone patrol which would work the same
way as above, but with a sea zone instead of a land area. Option should be available for multiple areas with
shift+right click to select multiple or deselect.
 Non-missile loadouts- Some of the mods started doing this, where a Unit is really two units. One of them has
a missile capacity and one does not. The one without is meant for air dominance over other fighters (dog
fighting). The other uses missiles against target. Usually planes such as the F-22 Raptor do not carry missiles
for attacking ships, buildings, nor land units. It carries anti-air missiles (which currently are not in the game)
to dominate an air space to allow for other platforms to attack their designated targets or for defense against
enemy planes.
 Area Bombing- In order to remove some of the micromanagement of units such as bombers, a selection of
an area would be nice to have. Example, B-52 selected, option for unit area bombing with two options,
infrastructure or units. Select area, then the bomber will do its thing until selected not to. It will return to
base for fuel and rearm, then redeploy to area to continue mission. Option should be available for multiple
areas with shift+right click to select multiple or deselect.
-Land Units:
 BMD- As discussed earlier select ships should have the ability to have Ballistic Missile Defense of areas.
Only few units in the world have this ability. THAAD in the US is one.
 Insurgency Seek and Destroy- Use of military forces to seek out insurgency in a country and
destroy/recapture the land. Example, select unit, select option “insurgency patrol”, select land areas to patrol
for this task.
 Area Patrol- Option to select for units to patrol an area. This would have the ability to select multiple regions
such as border regions with a nation or regions connected to the sea to prevent landing operations or quick
counterattack if units land.

Intelligence Service Abilities
 Research Stealing- Assigning spies to a nation to steal technologies. Ability to select which technologies to
attempt to acquire and show an approximate success rate of doing so.
 Network Building- Spies assigned to a nation can build a network. Overtime this network success rate would
increase.
 Reconnaissance- Perform recon of an area or selected area(s). This would require network building first.
Multiple areas would have low visibility rate of troop movements with a small network. As the network
grows so does the visibility. Networks can be taken down, which will be mentioned below in security
services.
 Cyber Attack- Spies can infiltrate power grids and communication networks. This too is percentage of
success based. If successful selected nation would see a drop in energy output for a duration which would
disrupt the production of goods and units.
 Security Services- New ability to deploy spies to your own nation for security services. This would work
similar to other operations, but instead they root out spies within your nation. This ability would be very
useful to prevent stealing of technologies, capturing spies and networks, protecting infrastructure and
protecting units.
 Sabotage/destruction of Units and infrastructure- Spies could have the abilities to go spy on a military facility,
see the units inside that facility and then the option to sabotage/destroy a unit. Obviously like the other spy
options this would come with a percentage of success. Example, spying on Murmansk Naval Base on, seeing
a Kirov Class Battlecruiser and selecting the option to destroy it. If successful it could be sunk. Russia would
have the option to raise and repair the ship for some time and cost. This same ability could be used on
buildings and infrastructure.

AI Strategy
AI Strategy is in need of an overhaul. The AI does not act according to realism nor intelligent strategy.
-War
 AI should create division comprised of various types of units.
 Should capture key objective areas, bridges, cities, transportation routes etc. A much more tactical method
to AI attacks/defense would be welcomed.
 Naval units should be in battle groups not out single ship patrols in random areas.
 Aircraft carriers should always have escorts and have planes on them being used.
 Should strategically play based on units available. If the weaker of the two nations should prepare for a
defensive war.
 Should not just dump units in a single bulge, should push along the whole front using a combined arms attack.
 Not sending units into areas of no supply and have them get stuck.
-Peace
 Should utilize spies properly with new abilities mentioned above.
 Should use soft power abilities such as embargos and sanctions.
 Should build regional alliances and expand influence to nations through trade and tech sharing. This would
advance weaker countries in the opposite sphere of influence.
 Attempt to counter what the Human is doing with soft power.
 Nations should have built in initial objectives. Example, China taking Taiwan, Russia pushing west and south
etc.
 Utilization of air land and sea patrols.
 Cable tapping
 Trade interdiction

Graphics/Models
Graphics- The biggest complaint I have as to why friends will not play this game is because of outdated graphics. I
know that isn’t the main focus of the game, but some attention to this area would go a long way to growing the
franchise.
Models- Nerei has done a lot of great work on models that are a much need/desired aspect of this game. I believe this
area is a place where 2030 should really capitalize. As nations work together on new vehicles and reduce the amount
of variation between militaries it should be easier to have nice unique models. Example, F35 is fielded or going to be
fielded across many nations so the demand to have 85 different model types isn’t there. I would say there is more
importance to this on 1980 to modern units and World War II models.
-The Tiger II or King Tiger definitely needs a unique model. This is just one example, but a glaring one when playing.
-Models should have 3 skins for different terrain. When a unit goes over green terrain it gets a green camo, desert gets
a desert camo, and snow should have a snow camo. I imagine this couldn’t be too difficult to do.
-For modeling, I am totally willing to help where I can to produce models for the game. I cannot code, but I can
produce 3D models, especially ships (Naval Architect).

Units
-I am current compiling information on existing platforms and soon to be fielded platforms in a spreadsheet that I
would be willing to work with BG on to ensure units are captured fully and accurately.

[Tnarg]

That is a very nice and detailed list, and I agree with many and have posted suggestions very similar to many of these ideas. How different will the unit file be between SRU and SR2030. Would this be any easy port for say upgrading the Unit Overhaul mod from SRU to SR2030, as the Unit Mod addresses the OPs last suggestion on a list of many current and soon to be units that are in development or research phase. I know you have some new unit images and that would be an easy fix, just curious about the rest?

[Balthagor]

.. How different will the unit file be between SRU and SR2030.

Small in some ways, big in others.

Most of the data structure is the same, but some columns have been inserted for newly created variables. It shouldn't be to difficult to compare the column layout and add what's missing.

However, combat stats have been significantly rebalanced in some places, then all attack and defense values where square rooted and keep their decimal places. So a unit might have had an attack of 12 before, was modified to 10 when balance was adjusted, then became 3.1623. So if you like the balance of your units, just square root their attack/defense and add the missing columns. I believe that's the bulk of the work required.