C# Aurora v0.x Questions

[Steve Walmsley]

How would army damage calculations work if two parties would attack one? Would that be two separate wars or can we combine those armies and benefit from an allied army?

It would function as an allied force. Each race attacks all enemies in their attack phase. So in the above scenario, each of the two allies would attack their opponent and then that opponent would treat the combined allied force as a single enemy force when allocating attacks.

[Steve Walmsley]

How would army damage calculations work if two parties would attack one? Would that be two separate wars or can we combine those armies and benefit from an allied army?

This is pretty easy as each army just randomise their attacks, two "allied" armies fight more or less as one army but with separate command structures and supply distributions.

You could even have tree armies on one planet that all fight each other in a three front war.

Yes, that's correct. Although that last sentence does conjure the image of an Entish civil war.

[Hazard]

The civilian colony ships will move colonists where space exists. That is much more likely on a 2.00 world as less infrastructure is required to create that space compared to a 6.45 world. Also, they won't move to the 6.45 at all unless you create a colony there.

So if I have two colonies with space free, one with 2.00, one with 6.45 it will be random where the colonists are shipped to?

What can I do then to decolonize a colony if it is below the 10 million pop? Other than doing it myself 😉.

Not quite random. It would prioritize the one that is closest and has room for more people, because IIRC that's how the civilian 'search for job' code works. This can mean that the 6.45 colony eats your entire civilian shipping and infrastructure production market.

The only way to decolonize a colony below the stable/source threshold is doing it manually. At least you have the 'don't go here' marker option for civilians in C# Aurora. Without that you'd have to either capture or destroy civilian ships that are being inconvenient by shipping new people in.

Frankly, an 'empty colony' option would be nice as a hard override option that would result in the civilians shipping everything away from that colony.

Yes, that's correct. Although that last sentence does conjure the image of an Entish civil war.

Wouldn't even be that unrealistic. There's some pretty fierce competition in the forests between the various species of tree. Only reason it hasn't developed to physical violence is because trees can't move like that, yet at the same time, some trees have some truly insidious ways to fight their competition. Eucalyptus trees for example are very flammable, but they tend to be much better about surviving and exploiting the resulting forest fire in comparison to other trees in Australia.

[Rabid_Cog]

You want to be able to uproot 10 million people and just ship them like cargo to a whole other planet, leaving behind their homes, jobs and lives and you complain the game makes it too difficult? If anything, the game makes it too easy. You can just pick them up with cryo ships and move them without any unrest or productivity hit.

I think the restriction that only government vessels can "force" this evacuation (and not civilian vessels) for the last 10 million colonists is a reasonable compromise. What I would like to be able to do is set a colony as "stable" even when it has less than 10 million colonists, just to help the AI on the colony ships a bit.

[TMaekler]

You want to be able to uproot 10 million people and just ship them like cargo to a whole other planet, leaving behind their homes, jobs and lives and you complain the game makes it too difficult? If anything, the game makes it too easy. You can just pick them up with cryo ships and move them without any unrest or productivity hit.

What I would like to be able to do is set a colony as "stable" even when it has less than 10 million colonists, just to help the AI on the colony ships a bit.

Harsh way of putting it; thinking about options In The area of likelihood someone wants to stay on a colony. Aurora doesn’t simulate much in this area. So having a SM (?) Option to simulate free civilian will to go to better places... .

Your second point is interesting. What reason is there to have a minimum limit anyway? Why does a colony below a certain limit have to be „Import only“? Any programming reasons? I see why you don’t want it to run to 0. But a minimum limit of 100.000 would archive the same as 10 Mill or VB6-25 mil...

[Steve Walmsley]

What reason is there to have a minimum limit anyway? Why does a colony below a certain limit have to be „Import only“? Any programming reasons? I see why you don’t want it to run to 0. But a minimum limit of 100.000 would archive the same as 10 Mill or VB6-25 mil...

The limit exists because the civilian companies are meant to be 'independent'.. If you have too much control over where they go, you don't need your own colony ships. They are meant to add a random element to colonisation, so that all colonies naturally grow to some extent rather than just your priority colony. If the minimum was only 100k, it wouldn't really make any difference. I lowered it from 25m to 10m to compensate for colonies growing more slowly since the jump point changes increased the average distance between colonies.

[mtm84]

Quick question about missile fire controls.  In VB6 the range is 3x that of an active sensor for the same size.  This means a size 1 control has the same range as a size 3 active sensor.  With the changes in C# to sensor ranges vs size, are missile controls still 3x the range?  And would this figured be 3x the  range of a same sized active sensor or be based on a 3x sized sensor ?

[QuakeIV]

It seems like ideally you could at least offer big bounties to the civilian companies to try to entice them into evacuating a colony.

[Steve Walmsley]

Quick question about missile fire controls.  In VB6 the range is 3x that of an active sensor for the same size.  This means a size 1 control has the same range as a size 3 active sensor.  With the changes in C# to sensor ranges vs size, are missile controls still 3x the range?  And would this figured be 3x the  range of a same sized active sensor or be based on a 3x sized sensor ?

You now need a fire control about 25% of the active sensor size for the same range

MK I Frigate Active Augur Array
Resolution 100   Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 51.3m km   
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 128.3k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 4800
Cost 48   Size 150 tons   Crew 6   HTK 1

MK I Torpedo Fire Control
Resolution 100   Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 53m km   
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 132.5k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 1280
Cost 12.8   Size 40 tons   Crew 2   HTK 0

[Jorgen_CAB]

Quick question about missile fire controls.  In VB6 the range is 3x that of an active sensor for the same size.  This means a size 1 control has the same range as a size 3 active sensor.  With the changes in C# to sensor ranges vs size, are missile controls still 3x the range?  And would this figured be 3x the  range of a same sized active sensor or be based on a 3x sized sensor ?

You now need a fire control about 25% of the active sensor size for the same range

MK I Frigate Active Augur Array
Resolution 100   Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 51.3m km   
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 128.3k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 4800
Cost 48   Size 150 tons   Crew 6   HTK 1

MK I Torpedo Fire Control
Resolution 100   Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 53m km   
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 132.5k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 1280
Cost 12.8   Size 40 tons   Crew 2   HTK 0

I would say they are exactly 4x as efficient as the same active sensor...

Fire-controls are actually really effective in C#... for example...

A fighter with a 50t missile fire-control R120 (Stength 21, Resolution 11) have a range of roughly 84mkm, a R5 active sensor to spot and target the fighter at that range need roughly a size 35 active sensor. If you increase the missile fire-control to 75t it outrange any R5 sensors you could ever make at the same tech levels. So not really economical to do that rather than try to spot them with a picketing scout carrying a much smaller active scanner.

This is what I like about C#... it removes the put all ships in one formation strategies as the optimal strategy. Instead you will picket your task-forces with scouts. The enemy will have to deal with the scouts before they can deal with your task-force. This will force an escalating war of defending the picket and eventually running multiple task-forces and a layered defence as the one that can peal of the other sides layer first will be able to strike without retaliation on the main force and/or logistical train.

[misanthropope]

back when starfire was a thing that some people did, i had a playmate who had nerd wood for the same mechanic.  having it all be computer moderated will make a difference of course, but the play went from "new and interesting" to "i have a solution but i still feel really clever playing it through" to "oh god i have to manage a dozen stacks of counters in every contested system FOREVER" within, like, a week.

[vorpal+5]

I'm not too clear under which circumstance a colony will receive population from civilian ships. Say I need to install a small surveillance outpost and I role-play the thing by adding 50.000 pop. It's a military colony or at least a state owned one, for military surveillance and scientific experiments.

How can I prevent the unloading of unwanted populations, that would go beyond the infrastructure what's more?

If I forbid the entire system, I guess that would work. Would that reroute ongoing civilian ships?

I just don't want to have this kind of outpost becomes bloated by 'stupid civilians' that should not be allowed there.

[Hazard]

Any colony that 1) Has room for more people and 2) has colonists on it already and 3) is not a Stable colony or a Source colony, will have civilian craft move colonists there. Not sure how the 'don't go through here' system works, but if you station enough PPV in the system even that won't help, because IIRC the system will presume it's safe enough to move through if the PPV is higher than the 'dangerous system' points.

[vorpal+5]

Any colony that 1) Has room for more people and 2) has colonists on it already and 3) is not a Stable colony or a Source colony, will have civilian craft move colonists there. Not sure how the 'don't go through here' system works, but if you station enough PPV in the system even that won't help, because IIRC the system will presume it's safe enough to move through if the PPV is higher than the 'dangerous system' points.

Hopefully I'll not have to fight against the system as in the previous Aurora. It felt like I had a leak in a ship and I evacuated water: civilian would dump colonists to the point they would start dying from being too numerous, and I had state colony ships that removed them at regular interval and put them back from where they came, it felt silly.

Not sure why we can't have a checkbox: don't accept colonists in any case.

[Steve Walmsley]

Civilians are not part of their government, so you can't control them. However, in C# you can choose to play without them and therefore control all your colony ships.