Author Topic: Aurora C# Screenshots  (Read 143842 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #510 on: March 30, 2018, 12:54:50 PM »
The first screenshots of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations window. This has very similar functionality to the VB6 equivalent, although the layout is quite different.

At the top left, the first race is viewing and the second race is the alien race (from the viewing race perspective). The Alien Race Treaties section of the first box in the top row shows the treaties granted by the alien race to the viewing race, while the second box has the diplomatic options available to the viewing race. In this case, simply choosing between hostile and neutral. With higher diplomatic rating, additional options appear (Friendly, Allied, Allow Trade, Share Geological Data, Share Gravitational Data, Share Research Data). I may expand the diplomatic options for C# Aurora and will add those as appropriate.

The third box has a dropdown with the known species of the alien race and the attributes of that species (if known). The remaining boxes in the top row show a picture of the dominant species, the alien ship design and the alien flag

The first three boxes in the second row shows the known technology of the alien race (based on salvage), the systems in which an alien ship or population has been detected and the alien ship classes identified by the viewing race's sensors.

Clicking on a Alien class will show what information is known about that class, based on sensor readings, plus any weapons, sensor or technology known to be part of that alien class design. To the right is a list of known members of the class and their last known location. If the alien class summary is available, it will be shown in the bottom right box.





 
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Offline swarm_sadist

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #511 on: March 30, 2018, 04:34:36 PM »
A few things:
1. Is the line directly below the weapon systems the active sensors known?
2. Is the maximum armour penetrated mean the highest damage against a non-damaged target without seeing escaping air?
3. Is active sensor signature consider cloaking devices at all?
4. The hull description of the Mersin class is classified as a destroyer, despite having a hanger and no known weapons. Are we able to change that or does the computer do that?
5. Does the ship screen also show loaded parasites?

Some suggestions:
1. When you select a known system, there could appear (similar to selecting load specific unit in VB6) a list of known planets with populations or passive contacts.
2. Have estimates for tracking/FC speed.
3. Have estimates on total population.
4. Have estimates on armour based on size of ship, thickness observed and damage absorbed by armour.
5. Have a list of all known ships in class, including destroyed ones.
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #512 on: March 30, 2018, 05:31:01 PM »
1. Is the line directly below the weapon systems the active sensors known?
Yes. There will be a line for each weapon, sensor or known tech for the ship.

Quote
2. Is the maximum armour penetrated mean the highest damage against a non-damaged target without seeing escaping air?
The highest armour thickness penetrated in terms of layers of armour, not total damage.

Quote
3. Is active sensor signature consider cloaking devices at all?
Yes, this is the signature detected by the sensors, not the actual size of ship.

Quote
4. The hull description of the Mersin class is classified as a destroyer, despite having a hanger and no known weapons. Are we able to change that or does the computer do that?
There is a button at the bottom of the screen (Set Class Hull) that allows you to change it.

Quote
5. Does the ship screen also show loaded parasites?
No, as your sensors can't detect those.

Some suggestions:
Quote
1. When you select a known system, there could appear (similar to selecting load specific unit in VB6) a list of known planets with populations or passive contacts.
2. Have estimates for tracking/FC speed.
3. Have estimates on total population.
4. Have estimates on armour based on size of ship, thickness observed and damage absorbed by armour.
5. Have a list of all known ships in class, including destroyed ones.

1) On the system view there is a list of contacts in the sidebar, including populations.
2) Tracking speed for a ship can be determined by learning its tech (usually via salvage).
3) There is no way for your sensors to determine that based on thermal or EM because a lot of different things can contribute to the signatures.
4) Armour thickness is tracked above. I could also track max damage taken by the ship.
5) That is already included above (destroyed are flagged).
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #513 on: March 30, 2018, 05:32:17 PM »
I've been waiting about two years for this screenshot :)

The interception worked as intended for both AMMs and short-range point defence. Another step forward.

« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 06:40:14 PM by Steve Walmsley »
 
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Offline DIT_grue

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #514 on: March 31, 2018, 01:40:16 AM »
5. Have a list of all known ships in class, including destroyed ones.

5) That is already included above (destroyed are flagged).

Well, you don't have any examples showing that flagged status, but also - Huh? I'd been guessing that the lower number of Last Locations compared to Number of Units was because they'd seen some destroyed, and had intended to suggest that knowing where those ships were killed could sometimes be important, but... Is the Number of Units peeking at the alien race's database, then? Otherwise how does it determine number of ships built as opposed to the number of individual ships seen, which is the information you'd expect to see in this context.

Edit: Another potentially useful distinction just occured to me: dead ships could be flagged differently depending on whether you found a wreck or saw it blow up - which would affect the implications of the dates attached to the sighting.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2018, 01:47:10 AM by DIT_grue »
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #515 on: March 31, 2018, 04:31:02 AM »
Well, you don't have any examples showing that flagged status, but also - Huh? I'd been guessing that the lower number of Last Locations compared to Number of Units was because they'd seen some destroyed, and had intended to suggest that knowing where those ships were killed could sometimes be important, but... Is the Number of Units peeking at the alien race's database, then? Otherwise how does it determine number of ships built as opposed to the number of individual ships seen, which is the information you'd expect to see in this context.

Edit: Another potentially useful distinction just occured to me: dead ships could be flagged differently depending on whether you found a wreck or saw it blow up - which would affect the implications of the dates attached to the sighting.

The difference in number of units vs ship list is a VB6 problem that (I hope) is corrected by C#. In VB6, when a ship is destroyed the intelligence display can no longer reference it. In C#, the alien ship records should be maintained independently. I'll keep an eye on it during play test.

There is already a 'Flag Destroyed' button, so I could add some extra information to be provided there.
 
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Offline sloanjh

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #516 on: March 31, 2018, 08:06:05 AM »
The difference in number of units vs ship list is a VB6 problem that (I hope) is corrected by C#. In VB6, when a ship is destroyed the intelligence display can no longer reference it. In C#, the alien ship records should be maintained independently. I'll keep an eye on it during play test.

I'm assuming DIT_grue saw the same thing I did, and want to make sure you (Steve) are seeing and referring to it too.  In the first screen shot, in the "Selected Class Observed Attributes" panel it says 6 units are known.  In the "Last Location for ..." panel it has names for 5 ships.  In the second screen shot it's even worse: 14 units known, but only 3 in the location panel.  Since this is a C# screen shot, it appears that this is either experimental evidence that the VB6 bug has not been corrected or there's an intentional discrepancy between the counts in the two panels.

If it's not simply a bug, then it seems like knowing the name of a ship (i.e. being able to identify the instance/unit, not just the (ship, not C# :) ) class) is a higher level of information - for some contacts the player will know the unit, for others the player will only know the class, while (presumably) for others the player might only know the owning empire.  My concern (and I suspect DIT_grue's) is that there should be a way to see the last location of all Sao Paulo destroyers, not just the ones that are individually identifiable.  I that case, I think:

1)  It seems like the "Last Location ..." panel should be "Most Recent Sightings of Class Members" and include generic Sao Paulo contacts as well.  For example in the 1st screen shot there would be an additional "Sao Paulo 6" listing.
2)  This leads to the problem that the same (class-only) ship could produce multiple "most recent sightings" (e.g. if a contact is lost momentarily then seen again).  My inclination would be to go ahead and let the intel system "cheat" and auto-prune these extras completely based on the true identity of the contact (from the database).  Barring that, the player should have an easy way to prune the contacts himself.
3)  For destroyed ships, I would add an extra line "Number destroyed" to the "Selected Class" panel.  As someone said, destroyed ships could show up in the location panel in red - (I think this is what you mean by "flagged").

John
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #517 on: March 31, 2018, 08:47:30 AM »
Sorry, I wasn't very clear :)

All the data in the current C# database is from the Starfire.mdb used for the VB6 Colonial Wars campaign (although modified and ported to SQLite).

While C# should retain the destroyed ship data on this window, the current discrepancy exists because the data being displayed in the screenshots was created using the VB6 code. Once a C# campaign is up and running, the number of units and the known ship list should match (with some of the ship list potentially being listed as destroyed). I can't retrospectively fix the Colonial Wars data as it doesn't exist any more.
 
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Offline swarm_sadist

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #518 on: March 31, 2018, 12:28:42 PM »
No, as your sensors can't detect those.
Sorry, I should of been more clear. I was looking at this image.



I was wondering where the loaded parasites will be displayed?
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #519 on: April 19, 2018, 04:46:55 AM »
No specific time-frame - will depend on my level of enthusiasm but I hope months, not years.

Above post from March 2016. Optimistic as ever.

Although if I had realised just how much work was involved in the rewrite it would probably never have started :)
 
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Offline Hazard

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #520 on: April 19, 2018, 07:35:48 AM »
Glad I am to hear to you did not know how much work would be involved.

And to be honest, any one man project is going to take a long time at best.
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #521 on: April 19, 2018, 07:51:20 AM »
Above post from March 2016. Optimistic as ever.

Although if I had realised just how much work was involved in the rewrite it would probably never have started :)

To be honest this has been much more then a simple rewrite though?

Judging from the information you have made improvements or optimizations to almost every mechanic you come across, in some situations like ground combat, logistics or command & control greatly expanding the scope of game.

If you spent the time working on the old Aurora code base it wouldn't have been a simple task to add all new features, probably have taken half the time of the rewrite at least, and some of the improvements ( like optimizations ) would be impossible to do without a rewrite.
 

Offline Marski

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #522 on: April 23, 2018, 05:20:14 PM »
Yeah, Visual Basic is just so hopelessly outdated that you're actually getting a lot more done so much faster with C# than with VB if you'd had sticked to upgrading it.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #523 on: April 24, 2018, 04:17:42 AM »
To be honest this has been much more then a simple rewrite though?

Judging from the information you have made improvements or optimizations to almost every mechanic you come across, in some situations like ground combat, logistics or command & control greatly expanding the scope of game.

If you spent the time working on the old Aurora code base it wouldn't have been a simple task to add all new features, probably have taken half the time of the rewrite at least, and some of the improvements ( like optimizations ) would be impossible to do without a rewrite.

Very true - I hadn't thought about it from that perspective.

On those lines, I'm taking a different approach to the AI and how NPRs will function. I hope that will they will provide a better and more varied challenge. This would not have been possible in the VB6 version.
 
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Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Aurora C# Screenshots
« Reply #524 on: April 24, 2018, 04:36:29 AM »
On those lines, I'm taking a different approach to the AI and how NPRs will function. I hope that will they will provide a better and more varied challenge. This would not have been possible in the VB6 version.

Sounds cool. Just a small reminder that some suggestions & discussions about AI/NPR were made in the VB6 suggestion forum before a new suggestion thread in this forum was opened:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9550.0