C# Aurora v0.x Questions

[Agoelia]

I know you can use smaller time increments (I do that too), but new players or ingenous ones or ones that simply don't pay attention to these details might never know about it.  I feel like the game should address the problem, not the players.  At least make it suggest to the player it might be inefficient, if it's not solvable. 

About the second, yes I meant something like that.  The game shouldn't stop, I don't even know why it was made to stop in the first place.  And yes, there will be a slow down in time increments while NPR do stuff, but it is a lot less noticeable than completely stopping everything.  It might even be humanly unnoticeable with the speed of C#.

[King-Salomon]

Is there some idea how the "defence unit" for a civilian mine complex will look like? Is there already a template in your testplay atm Steve?
Will they all have the same template?
Will it depend on what research the player has done? Or would there be no "civilian ground units" now with the new ground unit concept?

[Steve Walmsley]

Is there some idea how the "defence unit" for a civilian mine complex will look like? Is there already a template in your testplay atm Steve?
Will they all have the same template?
Will it depend on what research the player has done? Or would there be no "civilian ground units" now with the new ground unit concept?

There is a civilian defence formation template for civilian mining colonies. It is mainly infantry, with a small number of LAA, LAV and CAP, plus an HQ. Numbers will vary but will be a few hundred infantry and probably single digits of the others. Their capabilities are based on player research.

Their are a number of civilian mining complexes in my test campaign, all with these defence formations.

BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.

[Father Tim]

There is a civilian defence formation template for civilian mining colonies. It is mainly infantry, with a small number of LAA, LAV and CAP, plus an HQ. Numbers will vary but will be a few hundred infantry and probably single digits of the others. Their capabilities are based on player research.

Do they have integral Supply units?  How do they re-supply?  Is 'running [the security battalion] out of ammo' going to be a common, or even valid, tactic?  If I drop a single Ultra-super-heavy-vehicle Ogre, Bolo, BattleMech, or Titan crawler on a CMC can I be confident they'll run out of 9mm bullets and surrender?

[Steve Walmsley]

There is a civilian defence formation template for civilian mining colonies. It is mainly infantry, with a small number of LAA, LAV and CAP, plus an HQ. Numbers will vary but will be a few hundred infantry and probably single digits of the others. Their capabilities are based on player research.

Do they have integral Suplly units?  How do they re-supply?  Is 'running [the security battalion] out of ammo' going to be a common, or even valid, tactic?  If I drop a single Ultra-super-heavy-vehicle Ogre, Bolo, BattleMech, or Titan crawler on a CMC can I be confident they'll run out of 9mm bullets and surrender?

I think I added supply (not at home atm). When supply runs out (for this or any other ground formation), they still function with 25% of normal attacks.

[chrislocke2000]

When it comes to boarding actions on ships is that going to follow the same resolution process as ground combat and also require both attackers and defenders to have supplies. Also what will be the time increment for each resolution tick?

[Bughunter]

BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.

This sounds like it could get annoying. Will the diplomacy features around declaring claims etc. provide a way to stop this from happening without an all out war?

[Steve Walmsley]

When it comes to boarding actions on ships is that going to follow the same resolution process as ground combat and also require both attackers and defenders to have supplies. Also what will be the time increment for each resolution tick?

Boarding combat will be much faster (as it is in VB6). I haven't coded it yet so I haven't made a decision on the supply question. At this point I would guess probably not or minimal.

[Steve Walmsley]

BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.

This sounds like it could get annoying. Will the diplomacy features around declaring claims etc. provide a way to stop this from happening without an all out war?

There will be diplomacy options around claiming territory. However, don't forget for this to happen you both need to have populations of ten million in the system. Unless there are multiple habitable worlds, you are already sharing space.

[Jorgen_CAB]

BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.

This sounds like it could get annoying. Will the diplomacy features around declaring claims etc. provide a way to stop this from happening without an all out war?

There will be diplomacy options around claiming territory. However, don't forget for this to happen you both need to have populations of ten million in the system. Unless there are multiple habitable worlds, you are already sharing space.

Why not have the option to allow CMC to set up on your own colonies, at least on colonies below a certain level of population of say 25 million people or so?

Any plans to expand on the civilian part of Aurora any more in the future, such as they demanding TN materials to function optimally, needing some fuel in an abstract way etc... would make the logistical part of the game even more fun. Especially if the price of civilian TN material was based on a supply/demand model so you can sell or buy the minerals with the civilian sector. Civilian sectors of different factions could also interact and create a market with each other depending on diplomacy status. Should need to be overly complicated though.

[Father Tim]

Why not have the option to allow CMC to set up on your own colonies, at least on colonies below a certain level of population of say 25 million people or so?

As an option, sure, but I already spend an annoying amount of time claiming every rock of interest in the system with the 'Add Colony' button in order to keep those damned civilians away from my minerals.  Don't make me start invading their thieving little hideouts in the midst of my populations.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Why not have the option to allow CMC to set up on your own colonies, at least on colonies below a certain level of population of say 25 million people or so?

As an option, sure, but I already spend an annoying amount of time claiming every rock of interest in the system with the 'Add Colony' button in order to keep those damned civilians away from my minerals.  Don't make me start invading their thieving little hideouts in the midst of my populations.

You can always buy it from them if you like... they are after all sort of free mines that way.   

[Garfunkel]

That can get really expensive, really fast, though.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I have never really had much problem with this. Some CMC are not worth buying from and give me some wealth instead and then I buy from those I need the minerals from.

I think it would be more fun if we have to compete with the civilian sector for minerals more than what we have to do currently. In most societies the civilian sector consume the most resources not the state.

[King-Salomon]

I was just (again) going through my (possible) plans for an "order of battle" for my ground troops in C# and was coming up with a question that I might just have not found explained - so sorry if it was talked about before..

If I set up an "Order of battle" like this:

(numbers are for simplification)

3 Platoons  =  1 Companies

5 Companies = 1 Battalion

5 Battalion = 1 Regiment

3 Regiment = 1 Division

5 Division = 1 Corps

5 Corps = 1 Army etc...

so... if I want to use the "officer bonus" I plan to make the "platoon" as the smallest independent unit... if I "deploy" a Division that will mean ~225 platoons + maybe some support units, artillery etc... let's say 300 units...

now my question:

will I have to micro all the ~300 "units" or for which "orders" will there be a "help" in form of "do to all detached units commands"?

I am thinking mainly about:

Building - can I set a "layout" for a division which will be build at times with the included sub formations without me loosing the "sub-formations" and having to create and build a single unit without sub-formations?? it is just a little bit of a difference to manually give 300 "build orders" instead of "build 1 division with all included formations"...

moving - guess there will be an order as in VB like (embark all detached units of this HQ?) - will something like this be used for "moving in ground combat" (moving from front line to reserve etc) too?

fighting - same as upon

resupply/repair/reinforcement - Steve said that it will be easy to move "formations" between units - so I guess this will be the main way to resupply (with new trucks) or reinforce units after combat.. now I am afraid that I have to micro the resupply for all 300 sub-formations by hand -.-   will there be some kind of command like "resupply all units/units detached too" etc?

guess there are other points I am missing...

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maybe it is just me that I have the wrong picture of how the ground-unit system will work in bigger formations... maybe it is just simple and I have something wrong...