A lot of the jump point-related code is affected by the star's mass. The survey cost per survey location is equal to 400 multiplied by the square root of the star's mass (Sol = 1). The randomly generated distance of a jump point from its parent star is from 0.01 to 40 AU multiplied by the square root of the star's mass. Some stars have a mass far less than Sol, which provides jump points close to the star and a system that is easy to survey.

I had noticed that the distance of survey points scaled with mass too - yet another way that low-mass stars are easy to survey.

Interesting!  So it's dependent on the star's mass...  That 80 solar-mass star could potentially have a LOT of jump points!  Of course, stars that large are quite rare.

A lot of the jump point-related code is affected by the star's mass. The survey cost per survey location is equal to 400 multiplied by the square root of the star's mass (Sol = 1). The randomly generated distance of a jump point from its parent star is from 0.01 to 40 AU multiplied by the square root of the star's mass. Some stars have a mass far less than Sol, which provides jump points close to the star and a system that is easy to survey.

Steve

Interesting!  So it's dependent on the star's mass...  That 80 solar-mass star could potentially have a LOT of jump points!  Of course, stars that large are quite rare.

in 2 years ive encounter one,a Ia 2200millions km radius..
http://www.virtualalbum.eu/index.php?pag=5&idf=26906

On a somewhat related note, what's the algorithm for the number of jump points a system has?  It seems to go from 1 to 5 or 6, but it doesn't seem to be even chances.

Here is the pseudo-code for jump points. Essentially, it keeps looping and adding jump points but the chance of another loop decreases each time. If the primary is particularly massive, the starting chance can be much higher and therefore the number of jump points potentially greater. The most massive star in the database is 80 solar masses (an O-Ia supergiant).

Number of Jump Points = 1
Base JP Chance = 80%

Do While True
    JP Chance = Base JP Chance + (Primary Mass x 2)
    If JP Chance > 90% Then JP Chance = 90%
    If Random Percentage >  JP Chance Then Exit Loop
    Number of Jump Points = Number of Jump Points + 1
    If Base JP Chance > 50 Then Base JP Chance = Base JP Chance - 10
LoopSteve

Heya! Just started Aurora, have done a few games to try to get the 'early game' familiar to me. I usually stop around the time I've explored a few systems. However, I'm sort of having a bit of a 'feel' problem. I prefer my kooky space empires to be relatively tightly packed as opposed to being spread between 1 planet every 3 or 4 system away -- however, it seems I find systems that are uninhabitable due to a lack of any resources or unterraformable conditions. While the latter are fine with me, the dead 'waste' systems are pretty boring to me. Are there any sort of.. system generation parameters that I could change to make it more likely that a system will be generated with some resource-laden planets?

I assume I could probably go into SM mode and manually add planets with resources, but that'd be both cumbersome and rather boring since I'd know what resources were where, all the time. I don't need /every/ system to have resources -- but it seems like I find near-Earthlike planets a lot more than I find planets with a decent amount of resources! That gives a rather 'wrong' feeling to me, universe-wise.

Also, sorry to toss in an unrelated question, but -- I've never found any sort of alien ruins as of yet over multiple games, though I only explore 3-5 systems in each. Are they just rarer occurrences than I've been exploring for, or am I failing to either put the proper detection tools on ships, or possibly not recognizing when I've found alien ruins? I've been assuming it'd show up under 'Contacts' on the system map.

The amount of unused systems is deliberate. Prior to Aurora I played a pen and paper game called Starfire which had a much, much higher density of habitable planets. This led to a couple of issues I am trying to avoid in Aurora. The main one is that most Starfire wars consisted of a series of heavily defended jump point assaults. The number of populations and therefore large amount of production/wealth per system meant that the resources existed to heavily defend every populated system. This got boring fairly fast, especially after minefields came along. Aurora is intended to create more of an Age of Sail feel with a few large populations plus a scattering of military bases, mining outposts and small colonies seperated by undefended and often unpatrolled territory. There just aren't the resources to defend everything and even in apparently 'safe' territory a threat can appear that has moved through your space undetected. The battles in Aurora are far more varied as you often have to deal with threats using whatever force is available and hope reinforcements can arrive in time.

Ruins are fairly rare. If there is a suitable planet (terrestrial planet or moon, temperature between -70C and +90C, gravity > 0.4G), then there is a 20% chance of ruins. You can only detect them with a geological survey.

Steve

Ruins can only be in an Oxygen/Nitrogen Atmosphere?
What kind of rule is that? I mean, it adds dependencies without any sense, like only taking a bath when the sun is shining, and the main is door open.

I normally find ruins on Terrestrials that are anywhere from Colony Cost 0.5 to 3.99. They normally have Nitrogen but not always, the Ruined City that I got 122 facilities from is Nitrogen/Methane/Chlorine (need to double check that last one). Don't recall finding them on moons or asteroids - except for the deep space sensors.

I think that Steve's premise for Ruins is that they are from an older 'Carbon based civilization' which is why he does the restrictions that are currently in there.

You can increase your race's tolerances on game creation to give you a slightly better colony cost on planets, this way you get a better chance of being able to colonize good mineral planets that would normally be too costly to terraform.

I always up my Race so it can live on Mars after I 'fix' it's atmosphere - I find that Mars is normally too low-grav to support a 0.0 colony without increase the gravity tolerance.

In my latest game I am expanding a lot slower than normal, just the one survey fleet and I don't move on to a new system until every rock and every JP is surveyed. So I only have about 20 systems but have found 2 Ruins (one with 122 installations from a TL4 race) and 3 planets worth terraforming. Have already got one exploited nicely, the other two are in the same system together and are Planets 2 plus 3 and they should be well along the road to exploited within 10/15 more game years.

Add to the fact that my JPs so far have been close together and I have quite possibly the best game start ever

But, it is all/mostly chance as to what you get.

Heya! Just started Aurora, have done a few games to try to get the 'early game' familiar to me. I usually stop around the time I've explored a few systems. However, I'm sort of having a bit of a 'feel' problem. I prefer my kooky space empires to be relatively tightly packed as opposed to being spread between 1 planet every 3 or 4 system away -- however, it seems I find systems that are uninhabitable due to a lack of any resources or unterraformable conditions. While the latter are fine with me, the dead 'waste' systems are pretty boring to me. Are there any sort of.. system generation parameters that I could change to make it more likely that a system will be generated with some resource-laden planets?

I assume I could probably go into SM mode and manually add planets with resources, but that'd be both cumbersome and rather boring since I'd know what resources were where, all the time. I don't need /every/ system to have resources -- but it seems like I find near-Earthlike planets a lot more than I find planets with a decent amount of resources! That gives a rather 'wrong' feeling to me, universe-wise.

Also, sorry to toss in an unrelated question, but -- I've never found any sort of alien ruins as of yet over multiple games, though I only explore 3-5 systems in each. Are they just rarer occurrences than I've been exploring for, or am I failing to either put the proper detection tools on ships, or possibly not recognizing when I've found alien ruins? I've been assuming it'd show up under 'Contacts' on the system map.