4.1 Suggestions

[waresky]

Carrier-Maintenance
In another campaign ive been build an Parassite-Carriers with Maintenance for 2000tons,hangar for 8000tons,so ive put into 4 GravSurvey-2000tons each,and this never lost any maintenance.
So am convicted this design "maintenance" effectively parassite onboard.
hope am understandable:)

[Charlie Beeler]

Carrier-Maintenance
In another campaign ive been build an Parassite-Carriers with Maintenance for 2000tons,hangar for 8000tons,so ive put into 4 GravSurvey-2000tons each,and this never lost any maintenance.
So am convicted this design "maintenance" effectively parassite onboard.
hope am understandable:)

Maintenance and repair are different  things.  As I recall there was an extended discussion about this in relation to FAC and carrier design around the end of February.  

In a nutshell,  maintenance modules installed in ships are limited as to when and where they function.  A colony needs to be established on a system body (asteroid, moon, planet, etc) but does not need a population.  Said colony will need raw ore available just as maintenance installations do for support of ships in orbit.  For the module to perform the support function it must be in orbit of the colony.  Another difference is that the module does not have the ability to produce maintenance supplies.

In your above example, while aboard ship the parasite does not accumulate time nor need to use maintenance supplies.  

You've got the right idea, but as yet we don't have a means to execute it.

[Steve Walmsley]

I am having problems with increment adjustment when precursors are near by. My fleet has managed to move several days into the system and it seems the precursors have exhausted all their missiles, they are also beyond detection range of the player ships. Every time , i move things on I get a 10 second increment due to the proximit of the aliens after about 10 minutes of this there is no sign of them and no way to progress at any speed.
I think there needs to be some checking on if it is necessary to stop every 10 seconds if nothing has changed presumably the precursor ships know what they are doing and it would be better if there was only an interupt when they need to change their minds or when they are noticed by the player . Earlier after the missile engagment ended , 1 day increments where possible while the fleet moved across the system

Calrification , by giving myself some ships with truly implausible sensors I located the precursors and they are about 2 billion km from any of my ships, they where probably closer when I was having 1 day increments succesfully

It's possible that combat is taking place somewhere else and the fact you have precursors nearby is a coincidence. If you still have this problem, please zip up the database and send it to me so I can take a look. The database file is Stevefire.mdb.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

On the "Manage Shipyards" tab, exclude any class with zero ships in the class from the "refit from" list.

I would like to see this as well.

Added for v4.1

Steve

[schroeam]

How about an option to give different colonies on the same planet different names, that way they are distinguishable from each other.  I like to have more than one colony on Earth if I have one government representing several different countries.  This is also useful for a war in which one territory is invaded but physically separated from the rest of the country by an ocean, I.E U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.

Adam.

[sloanjh]

I am having problems with increment adjustment when precursors are near by. My fleet has managed to move several days into the system and it seems the precursors have exhausted all their missiles, they are also beyond detection range of the player ships. Every time , i move things on I get a 10 second increment due to the proximit of the aliens after about 10 minutes of this there is no sign of them and no way to progress at any speed.
I think there needs to be some checking on if it is necessary to stop every 10 seconds if nothing has changed presumably the precursor ships know what they are doing and it would be better if there was only an interupt when they need to change their minds or when they are noticed by the player . Earlier after the missile engagment ended , 1 day increments where possible while the fleet moved across the system

Calrification , by giving myself some ships with truly implausible sensors I located the precursors and they are about 2 billion km from any of my ships, they where probably closer when I was having 1 day increments succesfully

It's possible that combat is taking place somewhere else and the fact you have precursors nearby is a coincidence. If you still have this problem, please zip up the database and send it to me so I can take a look. The database file is Stevefire.mdb.

Steve

I saw something that I think might be related right after the Precursors blew up one of my Keyhole EM surveillance ships.  A salvo of 5 missiles came in, only 3 of which were required to kill my ship.  For about 10 minutes (I think) of Aurora time thereafter I was stuck on tiny (I think it was 5 second) increments, then everything went back to normal.  I assumed that while the missiles were active they were forcing tiny timesteps; I assume that once they ran out of gas everything went back to normal.

John

[SteveAlt]

How about an option to give different colonies on the same planet different names, that way they are distinguishable from each other.  I like to have more than one colony on Earth if I have one government representing several different countries.  This is also useful for a war in which one territory is invaded but physically separated from the rest of the country by an ocean, I.E U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.

I can add a pop name field separate to the system body name. My concern is that names are used throughout Aurora and it would be a huge task to make sure that everywhere the system body name is currently used was replaced by the pop name. However, for either v4.1 or v4.2 I plan to add some far more detailed alliance rules, primarily for the campaign which I intend to be the basis of the book I am planning to write. The thrust of these rules would be sharing key information such as research or grav survey data. Essentially the plan is that if one member of an alliance learns something, that knowledge will immediately become available to other members. I hope to even allow a joint survey fleet to survey a system with each ship being aware of which system bodies or survey locations allied ships are surveying. This is so that organizations such as NATO or the European Union can have individual 'empires' like France or Italy, yet function in many ways as a political unit. The new Trade rules already employ an element of this as ships from one empire can carry goods of a second empire to a population of a third empire

This will probably provide you with the type of overall government you need yet still allow distinct populations of different member countries.

Steve

[Starkiller]

One thing I would like to see in a future version, not necessarily 4.1, is a combat simulator associated with the ship design section, perhaps, in some
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.

Eric

[sloanjh]

One thing I would like to see in a future version, not necessarily 4.1, is a combat simulator associated with the ship design section, perhaps, in some
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.

Eric

You can do this now by making a copy of your database (which you should be doing every now and then anyway as a backup) to save the state of your current game, then go into SpaceMaster (SM) mode and use fast OOB creation to make whichever fleets (and/or races) you want.  You can change the position of fleets in SM mode by going to the "additional information" tab and changing the current location stuff - in SM mode the "save" button is active (don't forget to hit it).  You can also give yourself whatever tech you need by using the "instant" button (also accessible from SM mode).  Note that e.g. the F2 and F12 screens need to be opened while in SM mode for these sorts of buttons to appear and/or be activated, so you should probably close all windows and reopen them after going into SM mode.

When you're done with your experiment, simply overwrite the database with your backup copy.

John

[waresky]

One thing I would like to see in a future version, not necessarily 4.1, is a combat simulator associated with the ship design section, perhaps, in some
way, using the existing combat routine. Being able to test designs in simulated combat against an adjustable foe, would weed out bad designs and show
flaws very quickly. Nothing like having, what you think, is the ultimate 'kickass' ship, only to learn that the sensors you selected can see that 25000 ton
behemoth at 8 billion km distance, but doesn't notice the missles coming to kill you, until it's too late.

Eric

You can do this now by making a copy of your database (which you should be doing every now and then anyway as a backup) to save the state of your current game, then go into SpaceMaster (SM) mode and use fast OOB creation to make whichever fleets (and/or races) you want.  You can change the position of fleets in SM mode by going to the "additional information" tab and changing the current location stuff - in SM mode the "save" button is active (don't forget to hit it).  You can also give yourself whatever tech you need by using the "instant" button (also accessible from SM mode).  Note that e.g. the F2 and F12 screens need to be opened while in SM mode for these sorts of buttons to appear and/or be activated, so you should probably close all windows and reopen them after going into SM mode.

When you're done with your experiment, simply overwrite the database with your backup copy.

John

nononono...real life r truly boring..if an "game" become same real life am left immediately every games:)))

Raise hand for "Combat Simulator" linked to test design.
IF r possible to programming.

See ya:)

[sloanjh]

The abililty to independently turn on active sensors.  I can forsee situations where I would want my PD radar active at all times while keeping my search radar off (to avoid passive detection).

John

[Starkiller]

The only problem with that method, is the tedious and time consuming setup just to test each design. It's a great workaround to use if one really MUST
test a ship design, but an ingame engine would be less problematical. You only need to set up the oposition and it's teck level, perhaps based on intel
on an alien race you've encountered. It can even be faulty intel on the alien capabilities, thus adding uncertainty to the mix. I don't know how hard this
would be, especially if you can 'hijack' the actual combat section of Aurora for this. In fact, you can set up combat against you own designs, which you know,
but if he could set it up to design alien opponents based on possibly faulty, or somewhat accurate, intel, you have a ship that can fight, but may be
surprised by an alien weapon you, and therefore the simulator, didn't know about. And of course if there is no intel, the sim can only design a ship
based on your VERY hypothetcal input. Could be a lot of fun, if it is doable.

And do I EVER agree with the PD and search actives being separate. You don't want to give yourself away, but you DO want to see incoming missles, though
that DOES kinda mean they know you are there already.

Eric

[sloanjh]

The only problem with that method, is the tedious and time consuming setup just to test each design. It's a great workaround to use if one really MUST
test a ship design, but an ingame engine would be less problematical.

The reason I suggested it was that I've seen this request go by several times in the past, and I don't think I've seen Steve expressing much interest in it, so I thought I'd give you a work-around (that I believe has been suggested in the past).  Don't forget that his stated motivation isn't to make a commercial game - it's mostly to be a basis for his writing activities, so his motivation for what he wants to work on doesn't always align with what we want in the game (Pi-Rats!...Pi-Rats! :-)

John

PS - Just kidding about the pirates Steve - I know you've expressed a willingness to get them in if you can figure out a way to do so that makes sense.

[Starkiller]

Very true. He does make nice toys. Now I just thought of something. Does Starfire Assistant have a combat sim? While many of the things between
the games are different, maybe it's similiar enough to test it in SA before commiting to building it.

Eric

[sloanjh]

1) On the DAC/RANK tab of the Class Design (F5) screen, provide some sort of numerical rank that rates the relative importance of that class when it comes time to auto-assign officers.

I want my best officers (highest crew rating) to go on my warships, then on my jump ships, but auto-assign thinks that missile bases are more important, so it assigns high crew ratings to them first.

2)  Provide some way to specify a "primary responsibility" for Task Forces for use during auto-assign.  

In my home system, I break thinks up into "Logistics Command" (logistics), "Survey Command" (survey), "Home Fleet" (combat), etc.  I would like my best logistics staff officer to go to Logistics Command during auto-assign, but it rarely works out that way :-)

John