Riftmaster

You could kinda force this by having two nearly identical ship designs saved, one with barriers over the fighter launch bays and one with them open. Switch back and forth to change which hangers are available. That would be a pain in the ass.

This may be mostly thematic, but it also has a functional/workaround aspect. Depending on fighter speed and maneuverability, small hangers are hard for them to dock with. My suggestion is to give players the option of designating which hangers may launch and which dock fighters. This would allow a ship design with multiple tiny "launch bays or tubes", and a larger "landing bay". This could both be thematically pleasing (Thinking Battlestar Galactica design here, but there are many others), but also functionally effective, allowing multiple launches in quick succession and an easier docking of the returning craft.

If this suggestion would break the intended default economy of the game, please ignore it. Suggestion: Add a block type or option for assembly block that processes scrap and ore into resources. Alternatively, add a module that allows this, perhaps reliant on assembly blocks for amount processed. I'm not sure what beyond that would be required to allow an R-mining/salvaging fleet to have one or two refining ships traveling with that would process their efforts into resources. I am aware that there is an existing mod which adds a module that refines scrap/ore on a cycle, specifically (as it appears on Steam): [2.0] - (SDK) System Upgrade - Commercial Refinery Bay

A fairly common thing I find myself doing is creating a smaller scout or hacking ship that docks with my my primary exploration ship. This allows the hacking modules to be mounted in it, and not take up slots on my main ship which are only used occasionally. While it is possible to dock with a larger ship while flying a smaller, the larger ship's docking beams will not draw the smaller one in, and you have to manually make hull to hull contact by carefully maneuvering the smaller ship. You can, of course, switch to the larger and draw the small one in. I am curious whether it would be possible to add a togglable option to allow the larger ship's more powerful beams to draw your small ship onto it, while still flying the smaller. More thematic and all that. Incidentally, this might allow creation of a mothership that has multiple smaller ship docking bays more feasible, since you could fly into the bay and dock instead of flying in and then switching to mothership to dock.

There is at least one mod out there that changes the texture of the armor to be without the camo pattern. I'm currently using "Avorion The Journey Texture Pack", and I like it.

Frankly I stopped using gates with my main ship when I got that message and didn't even realize there was an issue.

Depends how fast you want to kill the enemy. Or, alternatively, accidentally piss off an ally. I think you could do it with a relatively small ship, assuming you had the right mods. There are mods out there that vastly increase the turret slots systems give, so that (for example) exotic turret control systems give +120 turret slots. Assuming you have other mods which increase weapon power or add more powerful weapons, you could possibly get omicron that high.

A workaround might be to dock a small "Admirals Barge" to the mothership, enter that with the player, then give orders to the mothership. Haven't tested. Edit: Seems to work fine, I made a starter ship and docked it to my battleship, then went into strategic mode and gave the battleship orders while playing from the starter ship. Edit 2: Could take this a bit further and design a mothership with a bridge or "captain's quarters" that is a separate ship, then put your player in that and ride around in style. Disclaimer: I have a bunch of Mods installed, it is possible one of them is allowing this to work.

Unless I'm doing something wrong, ordering a captained carrier docked with my mothership to salvage automatically undocks it, before it launches salvage fighters. Is it feasible to allow docked ships (or modules) to fire weapons or launch fighters? The configuration might be complicated, but it might allow you to design a "mothership" that docked various modules and could effectively launch far more than 120 fighters. Or could mount far more weapons? Or for that matter could be configured with different modules depending on mission...

Is it possible to completely wipe out a faction? Question just occurred to me, and I can't recall running across an answer anywhere. I mean...not sure why you would want to when you could just repeatedly raid them, but...

My thinking is more of the reverse of this. If the devs think making a ship should be easy because otherwise it would make the game too hard to get into. Then why is trading and turret production so obtuse and completely different from how ships are made. Even though those elements don't really seem to fit with the logic the rest of the game works on? That, and you can't even make ship systems. You can only upgrade them at a research lab. Which can also do with turrets. Also, this it doesn't cost anything. The labs just freely combine items together and reroll the stats. That means there are three totally different ways of making ship parts, if you include the ship itself as just a part. Three methods of creation that have no logical connection to each other. You can get free turrets by killing a bunch of pirates and aliens, keeping the best ones, and throwing the rest at a mob of mad scientists in a box who sometimes toss you back something really nice. Picking your result is way more in-depth. A bit too much IMO but then I haven't dived into it yet.

Actually have been wondering if there will ever be a way to reposition the camera towards the front or back of the ship - currently we have vertical and horizontal adjustment only, so far as I know.

Pirate torpedoes can be irritating, but with sufficient engine power (most of my ships have 2500-3500m/s with boost) you can outrun them if low on health/shields. Or make a short boost at right angles to their attack vector when they get near, they don't turn so well and can be dodged. Or put a few point defense or anti-fighter turrets on, although they miss if you are maneuvering alot. Or manually fire your chainguns at the torp (early game). Or boost right at the torpedo (try to make it miss to one side or the other) and go take out it's launching ship so no more show up (I usually kill those first in a pirate nest hidden mass sector.) I actually have yet to use torpedoes myself, oddly enough.

Some ideas: Cloak energy usage increases if moving, proportional to speed. Cannot fire while cloaked, and after decloaking there is a cooldown period before firing is possible, which is effected by material type and other such parameters. Fighters cannot be controlled while cloaked, but will follow the last order sent. No interact menu while cloaked (so no communication with AI ships, stations, or even your own AI minions). Possibly add a special trading system that allows that part at least while cloaked. Scanners can work while cloaked, but are much less effective (maybe half the range or something?) because obviously they must be passive.

I am struggling to imagine how you get curves like that with the current block system, it must be many thousands of blocks. Very nice.