First of all, the audio cue doesnt always work, like, if a ship is built at the same time an enemy invades, or pirates attack, you dont hear the audio cue... at least last time i checked, they may and probably have changed it.
nonetheless, i think there should be greater diversity of audio cues. for instance, rather than saying "Our fleet is under attack!!!!!" when a scout or colony ship or even a defending 3 ships is/are attacked, it should say "Scouting party under attack!", or "A Colony Ship is being attacked!" I know these things come up on the screen, but i have my game set at 1920 by 1200 resolution, and sometimes the little green warning text goes missing.
Same thing goes for inbound attackers. When a scout or a few ships jump in, it should say: Scouting party inbound, or strike force/task force inbound, or if you have seige frigates inbound: Seige Frigates inbound. "Enemy Fleet inbound should only apply to an actual fleet... based either on numbers of ships or actual fleet status. that said, maybe if we assign some arbitrary numbers (based on fleet supply and number of ships, or something) then these cues would mean something.
Too many times have i heard "Enemy Forces approaching planet X!!!ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!" rushed over just to see a single scout or maybe 3-5-10-even 15 ships.
We can see general force make up on the screen along the phase lane, but if you are micro-ing something elsewhere, id like to know if i have to stop what im doing for a reason, or of its just to see a scout enter my planet and run away or get destroyed.
Seperate point, id like the computer not to consider it a battle when i have trade ships in a GW with enemy forces. "Our ally has joined the battle!!!!!" wait, what battle? im not fighting anyone? oh, right, i have a starbase or a trade ship in a stars GW, and the enemy has forces on the other side of the star, and my ally just sent in 3 ships...
thats not a battle, thats logistics, and unfortunate timing by the trade ship, but cmon, lets make the audio cues mean something, it wont be hard for the next X pack (or even an update, if IC feels so inclined) the infrastructure is already there, you can find all the above mentioned information in one place or another, but i would rather have the most amount of info possible easily and quickly available... remember, we are single handedly managing an empire.
now, after that rant, back on topic, i do think there should be a patrol option... set which planets you want to go to and set your ships to patrol...
that said, i think IC may have seen patrolling as a form of early detection against enemy incursions... and so instead of patrolling, they gave us phase detection and later, starbases. but i agree, i was playing a map with 3 stars, 2 large systems and a much smaller one. i had control of most of my home system, plus all of the the smaller system, and i then went and decided to make a foot hold in the other large system, as a proactive defense type thing. anyway, i eventually pushed all the original inhabitants of my original system into the other large system and everyone set up shop surrounding me. so, i had 2 fleets, against 4 enemies, plus pirates. so i fortified chokepoint worlds, but even with mines and starbases etc, a full fleet supply would get through those defenses, so i made a smaller, specialised fleet to deal with incursions. problem was, i only had one, with 4 more fronts to cover, so i qued jump orders around all my chokepoints so that at least some of the time, i would have some extra firepower close by to augment defenses.
still, the need to keep queing orders was bad, once i was so caught up in fighting with my main fleets i forgot the re-issue orders to my defense fleet, and one of my chokepoints was attacked and nearly wiped out.
so basically, yeah, patrol mode is definitly needed...
