Questions about automation and other various things

[Khift (OP)]

So I've been playing Aurora for about a week now in a sandbox game, no NPRs but still left precursors and swarms on so I could get the hang of things and I've been doing fairly well.  Learning the ropes, working out how to perform combat, etc.  I've got some questions, though.

1.  Can you automate the shipping of minerals between star systems? Mass drivers are obviously a godsend within a system, but outside of that you need to rely on freighters and I can't seem to see any way to automate it.  I want it to sit at a colony filling up its cargohold, then, when full, go to Earth, dump the load, and return.  I could make it constantly take trips, but that wastes fuel and is no good.

2.  I have two jump enabled carriers with a bunch of survey module equipped fighters which I've been using to survey systems with.  It works really well and is quite efficient, but it's taking a lot more micro than I wanted compared to my previous system with individual small survey craft.  Mainly the issue is that I cannot get the fighters back onto the carrier without giving each and every one of them the order to dock, and when you've got 10 fighters which only spend ~3 months per system that gets to be a pain in the rear really fast.  Here's what I've been doing, and if anyone can think of a way to automate this or at least make it less of a hassle I would appreciate it:

- Jump the carrier in
- Wait 5s in case there are thermal/EM contacts (carrier has very strong passive sensors)
- Hit F7, launch the fighters
- Set special orders on fighters to survey nearest body/location
- Tell fighters to turn active sensors on, then divide
- Wait ~3 months until system is surveyed
- Manually tell each fighter to dock at the carrier
- And then watch the system until all are docked because I don't even get a 'completed orders' event when they're done and I'll forget about the carrier if I'm not careful

3.  Speaking of fighters, do I seriously have to match the deployment time on the fighter design to the carrier's design?  The above system has a 10 year deployment time on the carrier, with more than enough spare berths to carry the fighter's crew too, but the fighters have a 1 year deployment time each.  I thought the fighter's deployment time would be a function of how long they are away from the carrier, but apparently not as it still is ticking down when docked.

4.  Speaking of morale, what all does it do, and which ships need and don't need it? And why do some types of ships tell me when shore leave has been completed but others don't?

5.  How is the build time of a ship determined? It seems to be BP agnostic -- I have one 11443 BP ship with a 3. 84 year build time, and another 12815 BP ship with a 14. 13 year build time, and a third 12479. 5 BP ship with a 1. 31 year build time.  Instead it seems to be a function of how fancy the components are; that 14 year build time ship was supposed to be a sensor suite ship with three different massive (50HS) active sensors of differing strengths but once I saw its build time I abandoned the idea completely.  Granted, the thing was massively overdesigned, but still, I would like to know how to predict build time in the future.

6.  Is it normal for the 'star swarm' ships to not leave wrecks? Also good lord I hate meson cannons.

Thanks in advance, guys.

[Wolfius]

1.  Can you automate the shipping of minerals between star systems? Mass drivers are obviously a godsend within a system, but outside of that you need to rely on freighters and I can't seem to see any way to automate it.  I want it to sit at a colony filling up its cargohold, then, when full, go to Earth, dump the load, and return.  I could make it constantly take trips, but that wastes fuel and is no good.

In the Task Groups window where you issue orders, there should be a little checkboc called 'Cycle Moves'. With this enabled, once the tast group completes an action, it should move it to the bottom of it's order queue instead of removing it as normal, so you can have ships cycling through a set of orders forever or until they hit a snag somewhere.

[Khift (OP)]

In the Task Groups window where you issue orders, there should be a little checkboc called 'Cycle Moves'.  With this enabled, once the tast group completes an action, it should move it to the bottom of it's order queue instead of removing it as normal, so you can have ships cycling through a set of orders forever or until they hit a snag somewhere.

Oh, I get that, been using that for ages.  The problem is if I use that, then my freighters will constantly be running about 10% full, wasting fuel.  What I want is for the ships to fill their cargo bay, then leave with a full cargo bay.

[davidb86]

1.  Can you automate the shipping of minerals between star systems? Mass drivers are obviously a godsend within a system, but outside of that you need to rely on freighters and I can't seem to see any way to automate it.  I want it to sit at a colony filling up its cargohold, then, when full, go to Earth, dump the load, and return.  I could make it constantly take trips, but that wastes fuel and is no good.

There is no conditional order to wait until the cargo bay is full.

- Jump the carrier in
- Wait 5s in case there are thermal/EM contacts (carrier has very strong passive sensors)
- Hit F7, launch the fighters
- Set special orders on fighters to survey nearest body/location
- Tell fighters to turn active sensors on, then divide
- Wait ~3 months until system is surveyed
- Manually tell each fighter to dock at the carrier
- And then watch the system until all are docked because I don't even get a 'completed orders' event when they're done and I'll forget about the carrier if I'm not careful

This is the best way.

3.  Speaking of fighters, do I seriously have to match the deployment time on the fighter design to the carrier's design?  The above system has a 10 year deployment time on the carrier, with more than enough spare berths to carry the fighter's crew too, but the fighters have a 1 year deployment time each.  I thought the fighter's deployment time would be a function of how long they are away from the carrier, but apparently not as it still is ticking down when docked.

Fighter deployment time when launched is based on time since last in a hanger.  When on the Carrier it is the carrier's time.

4.  Speaking of morale, what all does it do, and which ships need and don't need it? And why do some types of ships tell me when shore leave has been completed but others don't?

Morale is a penalty to combat and surveying, so Aurora only notifies you for military or survey ships(ships with either gravitational or geological survey instruments) that have completed shore leave.  Civilian ships have no penalty, so Steve turned off the notifications.

5.  How is the build time of a ship determined? It seems to be BP agnostic -- I have one 11443 BP ship with a 3. 84 year build time, and another 12815 BP ship with a 14. 13 year build time, and a third 12479. 5 BP ship with a 1. 31 year build time.  Instead it seems to be a function of how fancy the components are; that 14 year build time ship was supposed to be a sensor suite ship with three different massive (50HS) active sensors of differing strengths but once I saw its build time I abandoned the idea completely.  Granted, the thing was massively overdesigned, but still, I would like to know how to predict build time in the future.

Build time is determined by your racial build rate as modified by governors.  The given rate is to construct a 5000 ton ship,  the rate increases for larger ships and decreases for smaller ships.  See http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Shipyards for the actual build rate formulas.  You can increase the rate by pre-building components in your factories for installation in the ship.

6.  Is it normal for the 'star swarm' ships to not leave wrecks? Also good lord I hate meson cannons.

See the spoiler sections for this answer.

[Khift (OP)]

There is no conditional order to wait until the cargo bay is full.

Well hell.  Can you think of any better way to do it, then, or should I just design some really small freighters for the sole purpose of mineral hauling?

This is the best way.

You have got to be kidding me.  There is literally no better way to do this? This takes forever to do.

Fighter deployment time when launched is based on time since last in a hanger.   When on the Carrier it is the carrier's time.

Yeah, but the fighter's deployment time maintains when on the carrier, meaning you still need really long deployment times on tiny fighters that won't be coming home soon.

Morale is a penalty to combat and surveying, so Aurora only notifies you for military or survey ships(ships with either gravitational or geological survey instruments) that have completed shore leave.   Civilian ships have no penalty, so Steve turned off the notifications.

Okay, that's good news.  I was afraid it affected mining and fuel harvesting and terraforming and the like.  But if those ships don't care about morale, then they can just stuff it.  No more casino ships for you guys.  Apparently the fighters need them more.

Build time is determined by your racial build rate as modified by governors.   The given rate is to construct a 5000 ton ship,  the rate increases for larger ships and decreases for smaller ships.   See hxxp: aurorawiki. pentarch. org/index. php?title=Shipyards for the actual build rate formulas.   You can increase the rate by pre-building components in your factories for installation in the ship.

Okay, okay, that makes sense.  The larger the ship is, the higher the build rate, and the build rate ticks against the build points.  So the reason that one ship took 14 years to make is because it had some really expensive high tech equipment on it that nonetheless was rather small in size, so it didn't get a high build rate multiplier to offset its high build cost, unlike my other ships.  Okay, that's good, I like that.  It also makes me feel less guilty for putting overdesigned fire controls on everything, and explains why with this one ship the build time went down as I added engines to it.

See the spoiler sections for this answer.

I didn't even realize that was a forum until now.  Neat, thanks.

One last question: how do you assign people to task force command, and what all does it affect? Everything in that task force?

[davidb86]

There are two methods.

One is to reduce the speed of your freighter so that it matches the accumulation of minerals and use the cycle orders.  This has the same effect as waiting for a full cargo bay.  I use this method with sorium harvesters.  As the production facilities increase either through additional mines or increased technology you can increase the speed of the ship.  The other is to send the ship and manually wait to fill it.

The best way to survey is dedicated ships that can be told to survey a system until they run out of targets.  The fighter method is more efficient, but requires more player interaction to accomplish.

I have not had that happen in my game (6.21), perhaps something changed.

If you have auto assign officers on, then all you have to do is assign a Task force commander.  The rest of the task force staff positions will be filled automatically.  Each position has an associated skill.  All Ships assigned to the task force and in the same system as the Commander will get a bonus based on the skills of the officers in the staff positions.  In addition, each of the staff officers has a normal chance to increase his position skill.  The wiki recommend using a #4 or higher commander as staff positions are given to officers at least one grade below the commander.

From the wiki
Assigning a staff position to naval officers
Go to the ranks and Seniority box in the upper left and select Naval Officers. Select a #4 officer or higher.
Then go to the Potential Assignments area, and select the staff officers area.
Here you can assign staff positions, these officers grant a bonus to the all ships assigned to the task force in the same system as the task force HQ. 
Select your #4 rating officer or higher and the position you want him in, and then in the lower right click assign.