I've Forgotten Everything: Basic Ship Designs

[jscott991 (OP)]

I haven't played Aurora in a few years and I am back to try it.

I'm blanking on how to design basic ships like survey vessels (grav in particular), freighters, colony ships, etc.  And I forgot that the game didn't support multiple save games so my plan to reload my old game and look at my designs wasn't a very well thought out one.

I seem to remember finding some simple suggestions somewhere here but I can't find them at the moment.

Thanks!

[Velociranga]

The C# Bureau of Design (https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=278.0) on this forum might help alternatively there's the academy (https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=19.0)

Personally though when I was learning Aurora I did it through reading Steve's stories. Seeing how he built his ships really helped me get my head around what was needed and means that as long as you aim for similar numbers (in terms of range, weapons and armour) then you now the ships will be at least not be completely useless. Just keep in mind that he uses different versions across his fiction so the numbers wont line up 100% with your game. Here's a link to his fiction: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=279.0

[Rince Wind]

You can technically use more saves by copying the database after a save.

[jscott991 (OP)]

Thanks for the replies.

It's survey ships (the sensors) and freighters that I am stuck on. I sort of remember there is some optimum size to a freighter in terms of Holds that lets it haul some of the more eclectic items easily (mass drivers and other big things).  And I can't remember how many sensors is most efficient on a geo survey ship and how to configure grav sensors for survey purposes.

I might reinstall the old version of the game on my laptop and use a backup database I kept to see my old ships.  But I am sure I found some of this info somewhere before I started originally.

[Pedroig]

Standard Cargo Hold 25kt does the job for most standard installations.  I run ~55kt Freighter, Tanker, Troopship, Colony Ship off a single Base Design, same design whole game, just update the tech usually.  For most the space construction stuff (Starports, Depots, Docks, etc.) will need Large Cargo Holds with their 125kt holds to make moving the 500kt to 2mt reasonable.

Geosensors and Grav sensors is all about time really, there is no "efficient" other than getting better sensor tech, they always mass the same.

Don't have to configure anything to Grav Survey, Planets, Moons, and Bodies are all Geo survey, and System Locations include Jump Points.  If a ship has both sensors, then will need to detail the orders out a tad, else, just use Survey Next Three Locations and the Geo will hit the Bodies and the Grav will hit the JP's.

[jscott991 (OP)]

It's starports that I was thinking of. I remember hauling them from earth at the rate of like .1 per ship and being so frustrated.

I thought people changed the resolution of grav sensors or something to be less sensitive but faster at surveying a system but I'm remembering wrong.  And I found the blog I used for strategy long ago and they put multiple geo sensors on each ship.

Thanks!

[Pedroig]

Yeah throwing multiple sensors reduces the amount of time to do a survey, but each sensor has the same mass.

I think the resolution use to be for Survey Missiles/Buoys, but that loophole was closed IIRC.

[Rince Wind]

I always use my standard freighters in fleets of 5 unless I just bring a single mass driver somewhere or something similar. But that is mostly done by the civilians anyway.

[Falryx]

The Aurora4x discord also has an faq channel with a lot of handy reminders of game mechanics, as well as a ships-and-missiles channel and various guides if you're a discord user.   In particular, I've copied some data over from a post from Azuraal over there:

Installation	Cargo Space	Number of Std. Cargo Holds
Infrastructure	2,500	0. 10
Low Gravity Infrastructure	2,500	0. 10
Construction Factory	25,000	1
Mine	25,000	1
Automated Mine	25,000	1
Forced Labor Construction Camp	100,000	4
Forced Labor Mining Camp	100,000	4
Ordnance Factory	25,000	1
Fighter Factory	25,000	1
Fuel Refinery	25,000	1
Maintenance Facility	25,000	1
Financial Center	25,000	1
Research Facility	500,000	20
Ground Force Construction Complex	500,000	20
Terraforming Installation	75,000	3
Spaceport	1,000,000	40
Refueling Station	250,000	10
Ordnance Transfer Station	250,000	10
Cargo Shuttle Station	250,000	10
Deep Space Tracking Station	25,000	1
Mass Driver	25. 000	1
Naval Headquarters	250,000	10
Military Academy	500,000	20
Sectory Command	500,000	20

Like Rince Wind, I usually have standard freighters in fleets of 5.   That makes transporting most things pretty easily considered in either groups of 5 or multiple trips of that group of 5 (the obvious exception is the Force Labor stuff and Terraforming Installations), but most folks use terraforming stations (as they're more pop efficient) and Forced Labor is a bit of a niche installation type.

[nuclearslurpee]

Like Rince Wind, I usually have standard freighters in fleets of 5.   That makes transporting most things pretty easily considered in either groups of 5 or multiple trips of that group of 5 (the obvious exception is the Force Labor stuff and Terraforming Installations), but most folks use terraforming stations (as they're more pop efficient) and Forced Labor is a bit of a niche installation type.

Terraforming installations are being further reduced to 50k (2 holds) in 2.2 due to frequent issues with rounding 1/3 of an installation.

Additionally, ground installations are now (since 2.0, I think, but maybe 2.1?) much cheaper than orbital ones at a cost of 300 BP vs. 500 BP, so both kinds of terraformers see use now. Ground-based is cheaper if you have population to work them (not counting cost of infrastructure, but past a certain point you usually have some available anyways), but orbital don't require population and can be built out of shipyards if you don't want to devote planetary industry to building terraformers.