Will the game use more than one core?
How about GUI consistency?
Some numbers use a thousand separator, others not.
Part of the game use HS, other parts tons, distance is measured in "millions of km". Why not use the SI and its prefixes or even the scientific notation?
There will be the possibility to multiselection? In the current state i have to use an input recorder to do certain repetitive task, like converting 150 ground units in cadre, or adding slipways to multiple shipyard.
The atrocious GUI for the naval organization will be fixed?
Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
I had laser warheads down as working like this;Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
Just FYI, but laser warheads currently work.
Or, well, they function.
What they do; laser warheads do not change the damage profile (penetration still goes by the square root of damage). Plus, usually, laser warheads will lower your damage, since damage is controlled by number of laser emitters, which is related to warhead msp by a simple formula I don't remember at the moment that usually ends up giving less damage output.
However, the one big advantage of laser warheads is their standoff range. Laser warheads detonate and apply damage from a distance away from the enemy ship dependent on your laser tech.
That said, I'm all for a C# redefinition that allows laser warheads to use the laser profile.
Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
Probably not hyper drive, but probably laser warheads, although not initially.
I will look at some other options but for travel to distant systems. I have been considering the option of player-created Lagrange points using jump gate construction ships - the task would be more difficult (longer) the greater the difference in mass of the target system body and the mass required for a natural Lagrange point. Changing jump gates to jump point stabilization would work well with this concept, because you would also stabilize potential Lagrange points that are below the normal threshold.
Using this methodology, it would become worth mounting long-term expeditions to distant stars.
Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
Probably not hyper drive, but probably laser warheads, although not initially.
I will look at some other options but for travel to distant systems. I have been considering the option of player-created Lagrange points using jump gate construction ships - the task would be more difficult (longer) the greater the difference in mass of the target system body and the mass required for a natural Lagrange point. Changing jump gates to jump point stabilization would work well with this concept, because you would also stabilize potential Lagrange points that are below the normal threshold.
Using this methodology, it would become worth mounting long-term expeditions to distant stars.
Player-created lagrange points sound great. It's so irritating when you have a system with a very distant star and multiple colonizable planets there. Who cares if the investment is large, the point is that it can be done. And so you're not stuck with a completely useless star system.
My personal opinion is that said artificial lagrange points should probably be built very close to the stars to be connected.
They will be easiest near large mass planets (smaller gas giants below the current mass requirements). I'll make the requirements exponentially more difficult for lower mass planets, but not impossible.
That's not how Lagrange points work Zincat. It'd be easier to resolve by just not allowing the primary of star systems with multiple stars to be generated without at least 1 medium to high mass planet in orbit, unless the other star also has no planets.
Not entirely realistic, but at least in that case you can be fairly certain you can create a bridge between far outliers.
That's not how Lagrange points work Zincat. It'd be easier to resolve by just not allowing the primary of star systems with multiple stars to be generated without at least 1 medium to high mass planet in orbit, unless the other star also has no planets.
Not entirely realistic, but at least in that case you can be fairly certain you can create a bridge between far outliers.
I understand how Lagrange points work. But Steve proposed this method as a substitute to hyperdrive. And with hyperdrive you could always reach the distant star.
Frankly, I see this more as a sort of "in system stable jump point". I don't care about the "lagrange point" part at all.
That's not how Lagrange points work Zincat. It'd be easier to resolve by just not allowing the primary of star systems with multiple stars to be generated without at least 1 medium to high mass planet in orbit, unless the other star also has no planets.Except there is a Lagrange point, L1 between star A and B. This point will be closer to the star with less mass. Make it so an LP can be built on the Barycenter of the two stars (towards the more massive star) and you have a makeshift highway for two stars without planets, without needing to force the algorithim.
Not entirely realistic, but at least in that case you can be fairly certain you can create a bridge between far outliers.
That's not how Lagrange points work Zincat. It'd be easier to resolve by just not allowing the primary of star systems with multiple stars to be generated without at least 1 medium to high mass planet in orbit, unless the other star also has no planets.Except there is a Lagrange point, L1 between star A and B. This point will be closer to the star with less mass. Make it so an LP can be built on the Barycenter of the two stars (towards the more massive star) and you have a makeshift highway for two stars without planets, without needing to force the algorithim.
Not entirely realistic, but at least in that case you can be fairly certain you can create a bridge between far outliers.
While that is scientifically correct, and there are other real-world Lagrange points as well, the only Lagrange points that exist in Aurora are the ones in following orbits, so any player-created ones will have exist within that constraint.
Wouldn't Legrange points of stars be useless due to it leading to the middle of nowhere?
That depends on the size of the two binary stars compared to each other. Stars that are similar to each other would have the barycenter and L1 almost on top of each other, while two very differently sized stars might have 90% of the jouney shortened.Wouldn't Legrange points of stars be useless due to it leading to the middle of nowhere?
For the galactic orbits? Well, yes, because then you'd have a point about 1/6th of the galaxy away. But for companion stars they should create an exploitable Lagrange Point. IIRC though that doesn't actually shorten the distance to travel to the star.
Except there is a Lagrange point, L1 between star A and B. This point will be closer to the star with less mass. Make it so an LP can be built on the Barycenter of the two stars (towards the more massive star) and you have a makeshift highway for two stars without planets, without needing to force the algorithim.
For the galactic orbits? Well, yes, because then you'd have a point about 1/6th of the galaxy away. But for companion stars they should create an exploitable Lagrange Point. IIRC though that doesn't actually shorten the distance to travel to the star.
I don't really get the idea f how Lagrange points are supposed to work in Aurora, why they act as teleporters, and certainly no idea how you would construct one. Can someone explain to me how i've missed the point?
I don't really get the idea f how Lagrange points are supposed to work in Aurora, why they act as teleporters, and certainly no idea how you would construct one. Can someone explain to me how i've missed the point?
Lagrange point means something slightly different in Aurora than they do in real life. In Aurora, they act as intra-system jump points, and currently exist; you've probably seen some if you've played 7.1 in large systems or systems with large gas giants or multiple stars.
They're connected to the real life concept of Lagrangian points by the conceit that jump points of all sorts are areas of strange gravitational topology, and some Lagrangian points in some Aurora systems allow for short-range wormhole-like jumps to certain other Lagrangian points - which is why these intra-system jump points are invariably on the leading or trailing Trojan point for some system body or other.
The idea is to allow the player to force these Lagrangian points to work as intra-system jump points by allowing him to construct miniature jump gates or some such that link them together, much like naturally-occuring (in Aurora terms) Lagrange points.
Should add that they only appear around Jovian type planets.
Should add that they only appear around Jovian type planets.
They don't, though. I've seen intra-system jump points tied to stars in a binary and a trinary system.
Dunno if this has been asked yet, but if you build an STO ground unit with a beam weapon, will it take advantage of any ship components in stock at the population?
Will beam fire controls still have the same range limit?
Yes, except STO versions which have a 25% range bonus.
Yes, except STO versions which have a 25% range bonus.
Does this mean max tech STO fire controls will be able to go past the 5 light-second limit? Or are they still subject to that limit?
Its only 1.5 mkm or so, I hit that quite quickly with spinal beam warships. In general the current laser system in my opinion strongly favors having the largest lasers possible so you can do your best to win the kiting game.
Are there any changes to Aurora AI?
Will the way ship movement is calculated be more advanced when travelling between two moving objects (like planets)? I.E. will the ship take its travel time into account and move towards the expected target position at that time, or simply calc its movement to the actual position of the target and then every movement cycle "adjust" to the "new" position?
Hi Steve
Will there be any way to upgrade ground units with better equipment after they've been built?
Somewhere along the lines NPR that do not use jump gates have been mentioned. Can these NPRs handle civilian traffic/use jump tenders? Similarly, does the players civilian network will use jump tenders stationed at WPs?
Fleets will adjust their course to intercept moving fleets but not system bodies. The problem in the latter case is that the body could be a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star which is orbiting another star, which itself is orbiting another star (and everything is moving in an arc, not a straight line). Trying to calculate the best intercept position for a fleet and a system body in that situation is not straightforward. Doing that for a lot of fleets would be a lot of calculations.
As system bodies move slowly compared to fleets, I think the performance downside of all those extra calculations is probably not worth the game play benefit.
Hello
Sorry if this is mentioned before but i couldn't find any info on this.
Will this version of aurora also have exposed elements to screen readers, like the original aurora did?
Just want to know to be hyped or not :)
To be honest it was accidental on my part that VB6 Aurora worked with screen readers, although once I become aware I also added coordinates to make it more compatible. I am not doing anything very different in UI terms for C# Aurora, apart from being able to drag the screen around and zoom using the mouse wheel (VB6 doesn't know about mouse wheels). I can also add the coordinates again. So if normal C# applications work that way, then Aurora should too.This is good news! I'm not familiar with programming but i know that QT or java based guis need some sort of accessibility library to be included and activated. Most c# apps however come with keyboard navigation already active and buttons labeled. Unless a custom toolkit or gui wrapper is used to draw objects such as menu buttons and sliders.
Currently, body movement isn't entirely deterministic since it is only updated during production ticks and those are +/- 5 days depending on when interrupts occur and what timescales the player selects. Even if it was, in VB6 body movement is optional as a performance boost. While I hope C# will be significantly faster, this could still be prohibitive.Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg108826#msg108826 date=1530804311Fleets will adjust their course to intercept moving fleets but not system bodies. The problem in the latter case is that the body could be a moon orbiting a planet orbiting a star which is orbiting another star, which itself is orbiting another star (and everything is moving in an arc, not a straight line). Trying to calculate the best intercept position for a fleet and a system body in that situation is not straightforward. Doing that for a lot of fleets would be a lot of calculations.
As system bodies move slowly compared to fleets, I think the performance downside of all those extra calculations is probably not worth the game play benefit.
If the movement of celestial bodies is deterministic then run the celestial simulation ahead at startup and store in memory. Run the future scheduled positions during your main loop as normal to keep the stack filled. In that way you always have X number of stored positions in memory to use for your AI decisions. Players generally don't miss the seconds during boot to get ahead of schedule. Use those future positions for navigation intercept calculations.
Dimensions, image format and naming policy of flags/leader pics?
Forgot to ask do the flags get streched to fit on all sides, ignoring the original aspect ratio - or just one side, leaving parts transparent?Quote from: Indefatigable link=topic=10097. msg109185#msg109185 date=1533147864Dimensions, image format and naming policy of flags/leader pics?
Flags are jpg with naming convention flag####. jpg. No size restriction.
Races are bmp with naming convention Race###. bmp. 215 x 175 pixels.
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg109188#msg109188 date=1533152497Forgot to ask do the flags get streched to fit on all sides, ignoring the original aspect ratio - or just one side, leaving parts transparent?Quote from: Indefatigable link=topic=10097. msg109185#msg109185 date=1533147864Dimensions, image format and naming policy of flags/leader pics?
Flags are jpg with naming convention flag####. jpg. No size restriction.
Races are bmp with naming convention Race###. bmp. 215 x 175 pixels.
example: https://imgur. com/a/hPZqefM
Thanks.
Shouldn't the new button be to "add planet IX" rather than X?
8) ;D 8)
Shouldn't the new button be to "add planet IX" rather than X?
8) ;D 8)
Now we just need a "Create mirror Earth" button that puts a copy of Earth on the exact other side of the sun with a copy of your empire on it, except NPR and hostile.
Now we just need a "Create mirror Earth" button that puts a copy of Earth on the exact other side of the sun with a copy of your empire on it, except NPR and hostile.
It's more Planet 'X' than Planet '10' :)
I thought that had avoided the Pluto as the ninth planet debate but of course forgot that X is also 10 :)
Quote from: hadi link=topic=10097. msg109120#msg109120 date=1532764071Hello
Sorry if this is mentioned before but i couldn't find any info on this.
Will this version of aurora also have exposed elements to screen readers, like the original aurora did?
Just want to know to be hyped or not :)
To be honest it was accidental on my part that VB6 Aurora worked with screen readers, although once I become aware I also added coordinates to make it more compatible. I am not doing anything very different in UI terms for C# Aurora, apart from being able to drag the screen around and zoom using the mouse wheel (VB6 doesn't know about mouse wheels). I can also add the coordinates again. So if normal C# applications work that way, then Aurora should too.
Aurora tracks objects in VB6 at a granularity of 10cm and in C# at fractions of a millimeter, so a grid system isn't really workable. The coordinate system is based on kilometers but you can go to four decimal places in VB6 while C# uses a 64-bit floating point variable.How feasible is it to implement the coordinate system, then put all the bodies and ships and other objects into a scrollable list that we optionally could open up and navigate with the arrow keys and filter using typing letters on the keyboard?
Speaking of grids, have you remade the galactic map yet? And made it a tiny bit less painful to use, maybe?
Something like the systems automatically going toward grid nodes as you drop them would be nice, or an option to show the grid so it's easier to set things and then click "Line Up" without having half your repositioned systems move in the wrong direction.
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg109360#msg109360 date=1534255317Aurora tracks objects in VB6 at a granularity of 10cm and in C# at fractions of a millimeter, so a grid system isn't really workable. The coordinate system is based on kilometers but you can go to four decimal places in VB6 while C# uses a 64-bit floating point variable.How feasible is it to implement the coordinate system, then put all the bodies and ships and other objects into a scrollable list that we optionally could open up and navigate with the arrow keys and filter using typing letters on the keyboard?
This way the coordinate system could be usable and we can find ways to instantly calculate distance and maybe heading between two objects in the current system.
It would be a list of thousands of items, but it would be much much easier than trying to search for an object on the map, which is not possible when reading the screen Linearly, not mentioning the scrolling and zooming part which is inaccessible.
apologies for the off topic post.
Is drag and drop required for assigning fire controls, ECCM, etc during combat? Is it possible to do so using buttons or was the old UI completely removed?
I'm mostly asking as drag and drop is a bit of an unusual UI, from a screen reading perspective. It's theoretically possible to use, but might be a bit harder.
Is drag and drop required for assigning fire controls, ECCM, etc during combat? Is it possible to do so using buttons or was the old UI completely removed?
I'm mostly asking as drag and drop is a bit of an unusual UI, from a screen reading perspective. It's theoretically possible to use, but might be a bit harder.
Yes, there are quite a few areas that are drag and drop now. I could add the additional UI later though for it to be button-driven.
And some more questions - officers, auto assign & auto promote:
First, how will the game handle the specific amount of needed officers? Through the new structures and rules, the demand for people of specific ranks can vary a lot by how you organize your nation. In VB6 the game auto promoted according to if certain amount of numbers (9 rank one meant 3 rank two, meant 1 rank three...). Will the game auto promote according to the nations needs?
Second, if it cannot auto assign, could we get warning messages, that there are open positions available, so one could potentially manual promote?
Third, what happens if a person is auto promoted to the next rank, but there are no free positions available? He then has to leave his actual post. Can this happen, or would the game wait with the promotion until a free position has come up?
Fourth, lets say the position of captain on the flagship becomes free. Would the auto assign then only look into free officers or would it also cross "promote" captains of other vessels?
Two general and one specific questions:
a) What IDE are you using to program C# Aurora?
b) The old problem of points and decimals when using Aurora, will it be gone with the C# version, or would we still need the launcher?
c) What resources would you suggest to learn C#?
And some more questions - officers, auto assign & auto promote:
First, how will the game handle the specific amount of needed officers? Through the new structures and rules, the demand for people of specific ranks can vary a lot by how you organize your nation. In VB6 the game auto promoted according to if certain amount of numbers (9 rank one meant 3 rank two, meant 1 rank three...). Will the game auto promote according to the nations needs?
Second, if it cannot auto assign, could we get warning messages, that there are open positions available, so one could potentially manual promote?
Third, what happens if a person is auto promoted to the next rank, but there are no free positions available? He then has to leave his actual post. Can this happen, or would the game wait with the promotion until a free position has come up?
Fourth, lets say the position of captain on the flagship becomes free. Would the auto assign then only look into free officers or would it also cross "promote" captains of other vessels?
In addition to this can we have a selection on the maximum allowed rank for a ship class. No more admiral fighter pilots.
And some more questions - officers, auto assign & auto promote:
First, how will the game handle the specific amount of needed officers? Through the new structures and rules, the demand for people of specific ranks can vary a lot by how you organize your nation. In VB6 the game auto promoted according to if certain amount of numbers (9 rank one meant 3 rank two, meant 1 rank three...). Will the game auto promote according to the nations needs?
Second, if it cannot auto assign, could we get warning messages, that there are open positions available, so one could potentially manual promote?
Third, what happens if a person is auto promoted to the next rank, but there are no free positions available? He then has to leave his actual post. Can this happen, or would the game wait with the promotion until a free position has come up?
Fourth, lets say the position of captain on the flagship becomes free. Would the auto assign then only look into free officers or would it also cross "promote" captains of other vessels?
Currently naval ranks are half the number of previous rank (compared to one third for VB6), while ground ranks are one third (compared to one quarter for VB6). I might change this based on play test.I think it would be nice if the promotions are made roughly upon the need of the navy. Quickly calculated together US personell numbers from Navy + Air Force and have come up with these numbers (when applying some kind of Aurora logic to the ranking system without the new module system):
On missile interception mechanics I've never been sure if the occasional failure for slower AMMs to actually intercept incoming missiles was a bug or a feature. I'm hopping the former and something addressed in C#?
Don't know about the promotions, but an eager captain of a destroyer might be very interested in commanding an aircraft carrier, if a spot becomes available. And if he has prooven himself whilst performing his duty, he probably would be chosen in real life, rather then someone from the free roster, I guess.
Right now, when a ship is scraped, the crew automatically disapears with all the training they have. Is any mechanism to prevent that planed?
I dont post this in sugestions because I dont have a good solution. Maybe they could add some training to existing or future ships?
Will we be able to exchange multiple forms of cargo in a single order? We've got multiple forms of cargo after all, all of which take time to unload.
It'd be annoying if we had to spent multiple weeks loading Cargo, Troops, Maintenance Supplies, Ordnance and Fuel each. Especially since while Cargo, Troops and Maintenance Supplies all use the same Cargo Shuttle system, Ordnance and Fuel have dedicated systems.
Which reminds me, it'd probably be more consistent if Cargo Shuttles had the same (units of cargo) per hour transfer rate as Ordnance and Fuel transfer systems do. And a similar upgrade progression.
Will we be able to move some Maintenance Supplies, Ordnance or Fuel from one ship to another, if there is a 3rd ship in the fleet that has handling system (Cargo Shuttles.
- for example to move one missile from an missile ship that has some spare missiles to an other ship which is missing that missile to fire a full salvo
- or to move some spare supplies to an damaged ship so that it can repair a damaged component.
Will we be able to move POW, rescued crew, crew that is not supported by the life system (damaged file support) to other ships?
In terms of moving supplies using the cargo shuttles of a third ship, you can't currently do that, although the same thing had occurred to me. The problem is that tracking which ship is using which other ship's shuttles would be very complex and probably isn't worth the effort (especially given that time is now a factor). Also, I want to avoid the simple Equalise Fuel and Supplies options from VB6 Aurora in order to make logistics more realistic and challenging.
All ships have the option to engage Automated Damage Control, in which case the ship will assign its own damage control queue based on the same repair priorities as NPRs
You could handle it on a per fleet level. For any cargo related order (which are at fleet level), all Cargo Shuttles of the fleet would be used.
It would still need time to move the supplies, and you would still need some Cargo Shuttels in the fleet.
Kurt is going through an NPR "wave of attacks" in one of his stories and I was wondering, if the new AI in C# Aurora would be able to see the fault in their strategy of sending "single" ships and change that to "wait 9 month and then send 20 ships en masse"?
Because, if it could, that would be phantastic... meaning a phantastic new level of AI complexity... ;)
Question on new Intelligence mechanics, will AI use them?
Hi Steve. Will we be able to decipher alien languages solely from monitoring a colony with the ELINT system?
Will every ship require a reactor to power life support, sensors etc.? Or is that too annoying.
I am currently playing a Warhammer 40K based game where all ships should have a Void Shield. I was wondering will shields will be usable on civilian ships in Aurora C#?
I am currently playing a Warhammer 40K based game where all ships should have a Void Shield. I was wondering will shields will be usable on civilian ships in Aurora C#?you can consider it part of the engine if you want.
I am currently playing a Warhammer 40K based game where all ships should have a Void Shield. I was wondering will shields will be usable on civilian ships in Aurora C#?you can consider it part of the engine if you want.
When a formation element of logistics units provides supply, a number of units will be consumed based on the supply required. For example, assume the 10 tanks above each have a GSP requirement of 100, which is 1000 for the whole element. If they draw on a logistics element using light vehicles with normal logistics modules (which have 500 GSP each), two of those logistics vehicles would be consumed. When the GSP requirement does not neatly fit into the 500 point granularity, there is a chance of an additional logistics vehicle being consumed. This chance is dependent on the fraction of supplies required. For example, if there were 12 tanks with a requirement of 1200, then two logistic vehicles would be consumed and there is 40% chance (200 / 500) than a third vehicle will be consumed. This adds an element of uncertainty, as supplies may be consumed faster or slower than normal (although it will average out over time), plus it avoids any tracking of partial supplies per vehicle.
Is there any way to easily train new units for a formation without building a whole new formation? IE: "Add 500 Light Infantry to Third Infantry Regiment", or would we have to train a new formation of 500 infantry and transfer them over? It just seems odd to train "placeholder" formations to manually split them up to other units.
Would be nice if we had an order for a ground formation to be reconstructed according to the established TO&E for that formation. Similar as the replace ordnance orders for missile equipped ships.
Re survivors rescued - will there be any means to repatriate friendly / non hostile race survivors to their own Homeworld or other owned planet instead of treating every survivor as a POW? Repatriating friendly race survivors should instead earn some "kudosh" from the receiving race.
DavidR
So I take it that unlike VB6 there will be no inbuilt recovery of a units strength once they have ceased fighting? I wonder if military academies will need a bit of a boost in output rate to help manage the extra requirements.
Steve
Have you had a chance to run any test ground combat scenarios as yet? Just wondering if you had a feel for how long ground combat may take to resolve v VB6. Just looking at the logistics info, if it takes say 30 days of fighting or (6 construction cycle phases in old money, which off the top of my head is about the time needed to get a victory with a decent numerical advantage), then for 2 of your divisions (as per the rules example) to defeat 1 equiv opposing division you would need to bring in an extra 180 combat phases worth of provisions which is roughly three times the starting provisions available. That equates to about 5500 supply trucks or about 340,000 tons worth of supplies to bring in. That's a lot of logistics! Am I way off or are we looking at a far more significant logistical effort to invade?
Also just thinking about the management of logistics will you be adding interrupts to give the play low supply warnings?
I've run simulations but not a full test yet. I do want managing logistics to be a major consideration for ground combat, but I may adjust based on testing. This could either be through altering the supply requirement or changing the frequency of combat rounds.
For the 'division' in the screenshots, the GSP is about 40,000, which is about 4000 GSP per combat round. One month would be about 240 combat rounds, or 960,000 GSP. That is 1920 supply trucks, or 119,000 tons of lift. However, the 'division' includes almost 400 100-ton heavy tanks, 144 42-ton medium tanks, 120 98-ton flak tanks, 144 heavy artillery pieces (1/4 of which are self-propelled), 6600 infantry and close to 600 other infantry elements with light artillery, anti-tank, machine guns, etc.
As a comparison, a WW2 US Heavy Armoured Division had 232 Medium tanks while a light armoured division had 168 tanks. These are WW2 era tanks, so are about 40 tons. Including tank crews and support, they had 16,000 and 12,000 personnel respectively. So the above 'division' is more likely a Corps and has much larger vehicles as well.
According to a book I am reading on logistics (see link below), each US division in 1944 consumed (on average) about 20,000 tons of supplies each month. That doesn't take into account all the supply chain organisation, the actual movement of supplies, rear area protection, etc., which Aurora doesn't simulate but which would require its own supplies to function. Based on all of the above, 119,000 tons of supplies doesn't seem too bad. However, I will see how that works out in practice.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Supplying-War-Logistics-Wallenstein-Patton/dp/0521546575
Sounds Awesome!
I'm very exited that your putting alot of effort into logistics!
Will there be any consumption for idle divisions / ground units as well? ( besides wealth for maintenance ) Historical figures seems to be about 5-15% of combat consumption levels for idle ground forces.
Something else I thought about is that I've always felt that the logistical challenge of moving TN minerals around have always felt very underwhelming compared to moving anything else. A single freighter in VB6 Aurora can supply the minerals for an entire planets industrial output for a quite significant time, and if in the same system the Mass Drivers deliver it for free once set up.
Id like a stretched out empire feeling the strain of getting minerals home to the capital from the fringe systems as heavily as getting the ammunition, fuel and supplies back to the combat zone in the fringe.
Rather than robots popping out of the ground in VB6, the C# Precursor ground forces will be already entrenched around the ruins. Also, just to make it more interesting, the installations in ruins that are yet to be recovered will take damage from orbital bombardment and may suffer collateral damage from ground combat. So accessing ruins will now be more of a combined arms operation.
Will there be different chances of installation damage depending on weapons?
Because that would give us the option of sending in the much lighter armed infantry to engage the defense unsupported (despite the massive casualties likely to result) instead of heavy tanks so as to lower the odds of flattening the entire ruins complex.
You are.It might be nice to eventually also give a special purpose to airborne supply units.
Infantry supply units can only function within the formation they are part of. Vehicle supply can be drawn from by units further down the HQ chain.
You are.It might be nice to eventually also give a special purpose to airborne supply units.
Infantry supply units can only function within the formation they are part of. Vehicle supply can be drawn from by units further down the HQ chain.
You are.
Infantry supply units can only function within the formation they are part of. Vehicle supply can be drawn from by units further down the HQ chain.
just a question for understanding about turrets on land units:
the turret-weapons for the new STO weapons are the same we design for starships right? What about the (starship-like) armour of the turrets that were added in the design?
Will the extra armour have any impact? will it be just "dead weight" or maybe automatically removed from size and costs? Or will we have to design turrets with and without armour for these? ???
or am I just wrong in my thinking? :-[
It would be dead weight, so you need to design ground-specific weapons if you generally armour your turrets.
Will STO contacts fade away from being 'known' over time or if a faction loses Active Sensor coverage?
Once an element is flagged by a particular race, it stays flagged.
I could add something to change the flag under certain situations, such as the parent formation being moved or the element choosing to remove its fortification (simulating a move).
I note the collateral damage calculations specify 10 damage for infantry instead of 1. I assume that means it uses tech modified values?
In that case perhaps collateral damage should be reduced by the armor tech of the owning side? Otherwise it seems like it would cause a situation where collateral damage becomes exponentially larger as your tech levels rise, since both weapons will be dealing more damage and ground units will have higher defenses.
Collateral damage has become more devastating as weapons technology becomes more powerful IRL. The only reason cities like Baghdad didn't end up flattened during major wars is because greater weapon accuracy made that unnecessary.But that is exactly the point. A WW1 artillery piece will likely deal more collateral damage than a modern howitzer with GPS guided ammunition, even though the second will me much more lethal. Of course WW2 bombers inflict much more collateral damage than WW1 bombers, which has a lot to do with how much damage they inflict in the first place. (Well, collateral damage was pretty much the the usage of heavy bombers)
I note the collateral damage calculations specify 10 damage for infantry instead of 1. I assume that means it uses tech modified values?
In that case perhaps collateral damage should be reduced by the armor tech of the owning side? Otherwise it seems like it would cause a situation where collateral damage becomes exponentially larger as your tech levels rise, since both weapons will be dealing more damage and ground units will have higher defenses.
I note the collateral damage calculations specify 10 damage for infantry instead of 1. I assume that means it uses tech modified values?
In that case perhaps collateral damage should be reduced by the armor tech of the owning side? Otherwise it seems like it would cause a situation where collateral damage becomes exponentially larger as your tech levels rise, since both weapons will be dealing more damage and ground units will have higher defenses.
Collateral damage has become more devastating as weapons technology becomes more powerful IRL. The only reason cities like Baghdad didn't end up flattened during major wars is because greater weapon accuracy made that unnecessary.
Steve, does collateral damage in rubble still cause civilian casualties and dust build up? I'd say it should do the first (if to a smaller extent) and to full extent the second. And can rubble be cleared or is that permanently part of the planet now?
Once an element is flagged by a particular race, it stays flagged.
I could add something to change the flag under certain situations, such as the parent formation being moved or the element choosing to remove its fortification (simulating a move).
Please do. Otherwise you will occasionally get times where your STO units get hammered even though they had yet to open fire.
But that is exactly the point. A WW1 artillery piece will likely deal more collateral damage than a modern howitzer with GPS guided ammunition, even though the second will me much more lethal. Of course WW2 bombers inflict much more collateral damage than WW1 bombers, which has a lot to do with how much damage they inflict in the first place. (Well, collateral damage was pretty much the the usage of heavy bombers)
So overall I would say the category of weapon should be more important than the tech level of the weapon for how much collateral damage is inflicted.
Yes, it is modified by tech. More powerful versions of the same weapon type will do more damage. As defenders improve their armour, it will take more firepower to overcome them.
Also, as tech levels rise, population and industry will likely be larger so the collateral damage may not be much different in proportion.
Damage to rubble doesn't cause civilian casualties or dust. The assumption is that civilians generally won't be in destroyed areas and the fires that would contribute to atmospheric dust have burned through already. It's not perfect, but it is intended to simulate that collateral damage has diminishing returns if an area has been fought over for a while.
STO units can only be attacked once they fire.
There are two arguments here. One is that once they move the enemy can't tell what they are. On the other hand, once one side identifies a hostile formation, they will continue to know its capabilities. At some point ELINT will be extended to cover identification of hostile formations based long-term observation, in which case, the STO units will be flagged as such when their formation is identified even in the first scenario.
Damage to rubble doesn't cause civilian casualties or dust. The assumption is that civilians generally won't be in destroyed areas and the fires that would contribute to atmospheric dust have burned through already. It's not perfect, but it is intended to simulate that collateral damage has diminishing returns if an area has been fought over for a while.
This gets really weird once you start ground combat on planets with no atmosphere then. I get your point that on planets with a breathable(-ish) atmosphere and close enough to their star to support growing crops with minimal infrastructure support (so basically very low colony cost planets) atmospheric soot caused by fires resulting from combat are a major concern, but a planet that's not capable of doing that and has no (native) biosphere will not have the sort of fires that impact atmospheric dust. Either there's no atmosphere, so any dust and soot enters a ballistic trajectory that's going to fall back down in days at the most and more likely seconds or minutes, or the atmosphere is so unhealthy to crops and the population in general that all biomass is internal in the colony's infrastructure and there's a not inconsiderable investment in the atmospheric processing equipment to scrub dust and other contaminants out of the air without it ever getting ejected into the atmosphere. And this gets worse if the planetary atmosphere pressure is higher than the native population's tolerances.
So... collateral damage should probably always produce atmospheric dust, although certain classifications of planet may produce more/less dust than normal.
Until the dust causes the temperature factor to escalate above a colony cost of 2.0, which is hardly impossible when the temperature factor is already close to 2.0.
Until the dust causes the temperature factor to escalate above a colony cost of 2.0, which is hardly impossible when the temperature factor is already close to 2.0.
true, but you can also consider that as an incentive to terraform beyond the minimum required to avoid gaining a colony cost, and it makes a world that has not been terraformed extra vulnerable, which is a good strategic consideration to add.
I don't want dust to be too major a factor for purely collateral damage, which is one of the reasons why damage vs rubble causes no dust.
All of this is an abstraction of the environmental impact of heavy combat with the intent that environmental impact becomes a consideration for attacking forces - it isn't an attempt to accurately model that situation for all different potential circumstances.
And I suppose it ended up buried among the other things, but is there going to be a way to clear rubble from a planet?
STO units can only be attacked once they fire.How often does this reset? Can I fly a scout ship past a defended planet, take one round of STO fire, and come back a year later with my whole fleet and still have perfect info on the STO formations?
There are two arguments here. One is that once they move the enemy can't tell what they are. On the other hand, once one side identifies a hostile formation, they will continue to know its capabilities. At some point ELINT will be extended to cover identification of hostile formations based long-term observation, in which case, the STO units will be flagged as such when their formation is identified even in the first scenario.
I note the collateral damage calculations specify 10 damage for infantry instead of 1. I assume that means it uses tech modified values?
In that case perhaps collateral damage should be reduced by the armor tech of the owning side? Otherwise it seems like it would cause a situation where collateral damage becomes exponentially larger as your tech levels rise, since both weapons will be dealing more damage and ground units will have higher defenses.
Yes, it is modified by tech. More powerful versions of the same weapon type will do more damage. As defenders improve their armour, it will take more firepower to overcome them.
Also, as tech levels rise, population and industry will likely be larger so the collateral damage may not be much different in proportion.
For example, I am currently coding up Precursors and I will be adding a ground-based element to some of the ruin defender forces. Rather than robots popping out of the ground in VB6, the C# Precursor ground forces will be already entrenched around the ruins. Also, just to make it more interesting, the installations in ruins that are yet to be recovered will take damage from orbital bombardment and may suffer collateral damage from ground combat. So accessing ruins will now be more of a combined arms operation.
For example, I am currently coding up Precursors and I will be adding a ground-based element to some of the ruin defender forces. Rather than robots popping out of the ground in VB6, the C# Precursor ground forces will be already entrenched around the ruins. Also, just to make it more interesting, the installations in ruins that are yet to be recovered will take damage from orbital bombardment and may suffer collateral damage from ground combat. So accessing ruins will now be more of a combined arms operation.
Out of curiosity, will they be following the same supply rules that normal player/npr ground forces follow? Because if so, particularly callous players could embrace the Zapp Brannigan gambit and send waves of men until the killbots' guns ran dry- hardly an optimal strategy, but certainly an amusing one.
Will there be surface to space missile weapons?
No, I have nothing planned on those lines. I want to avoid tracking any type of munitions or ordnance for ground units and keep them relatively simple (in management terms).
Wouldn't it be possible to have them fire munitions straight from the planetary stockpile to get around this if you wanted?
Not sure if I missed this information or if this has been considered but will there be a finer granulation of fighter engines now that the fuel economy are somewhat different from before. There will be a huge difference between a size 1 and size 2 engine now.
If it wouldn't be too much a trouble to make it like 1 and 0.1 increments to 2, 0.2 increments to 3 and 0.25 increments to 4 and 0.5 increments to 5 or some such.
The munition management would be quite simple with just drawing from the planetary stockpile. I guess the trouble would be more with missiles not fitting as integral weapon systems, you need few dedicated large sensors, and you want many launchers per FC.No, I have nothing planned on those lines. I want to avoid tracking any type of munitions or ordnance for ground units and keep them relatively simple (in management terms).
Wouldn't it be possible to have them fire munitions straight from the planetary stockpile to get around this if you wanted?
Not sure if I missed this information or if this has been considered but will there be a finer granulation of fighter engines now that the fuel economy are somewhat different from before. There will be a huge difference between a size 1 and size 2 engine now.
If it wouldn't be too much a trouble to make it like 1 and 0.1 increments to 2, 0.2 increments to 3 and 0.25 increments to 4 and 0.5 increments to 5 or some such.
Fighter engines start at 0.1 HS now.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109885#msg109885
The munition management would be quite simple with just drawing from the planetary stockpile. I guess the trouble would be more with missiles not fitting as integral weapon systems, you need few dedicated large sensors, and you want many launchers per FC.
At least orbital missile bases can now be covered by planetary PD
How compatible will the databases be when you update the C# versions? Any plans to make them more compatible than in the past?
One question that I have for the C# Aurora.Having a dedicated RnR order would be useful for that as well. Basically wait until the timer is run down to 0.
In the old version you can set an "Order Delay", but the problem is that this delay between orders don't persist and are not shown in the order list. Will this be changed in any way?
In order to set up patrol routes with ships that have relatively low deployment times it would be very helpful if these order delays gets added to the list of orders and are repeated when you cycle an order.
This would be a huge quality of life for patrol or repeating orders where you want the crew to get some RnR between patrols. As it is it is just too much micro.
Having a dedicated RnR order would be useful for that as well. Basically wait until the timer is run down to 0.
Agreed! That would also allow the creation of complex looping orders.
Is there some idea how the "defence unit" for a civilian mine complex will look like? Is there already a template in your testplay atm Steve?
Will they all have the same template?
Will it depend on what research the player has done? Or would there be no "civilian ground units" now with the new ground unit concept?
There is a civilian defence formation template for civilian mining colonies. It is mainly infantry, with a small number of LAA, LAV and CAP, plus an HQ. Numbers will vary but will be a few hundred infantry and probably single digits of the others. Their capabilities are based on player research.
There is a civilian defence formation template for civilian mining colonies. It is mainly infantry, with a small number of LAA, LAV and CAP, plus an HQ. Numbers will vary but will be a few hundred infantry and probably single digits of the others. Their capabilities are based on player research.
Do they have integral Suplly units? How do they re-supply? Is 'running [the security battalion] out of ammo' going to be a common, or even valid, tactic? If I drop a single Ultra-super-heavy-vehicle Ogre, Bolo, BattleMech, or Titan crawler on a CMC can I be confident they'll run out of 9mm bullets and surrender?
BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.
When it comes to boarding actions on ships is that going to follow the same resolution process as ground combat and also require both attackers and defenders to have supplies. Also what will be the time increment for each resolution tick?
BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.
This sounds like it could get annoying. Will the diplomacy features around declaring claims etc. provide a way to stop this from happening without an all out war?
BTW in C#, CMC will not setup on the colonies you create, but they may be created on bodies with colonies from other races. So you could end up with two CMC from different races on the same body (assuming they both have populations in the system of at least 10m), or a CMC from another race being created where you have a 'normal' colony.
This sounds like it could get annoying. Will the diplomacy features around declaring claims etc. provide a way to stop this from happening without an all out war?
There will be diplomacy options around claiming territory. However, don't forget for this to happen you both need to have populations of ten million in the system. Unless there are multiple habitable worlds, you are already sharing space.
Why not have the option to allow CMC to set up on your own colonies, at least on colonies below a certain level of population of say 25 million people or so?
Why not have the option to allow CMC to set up on your own colonies, at least on colonies below a certain level of population of say 25 million people or so?
As an option, sure, but I already spend an annoying amount of time claiming every rock of interest in the system with the 'Add Colony' button in order to keep those damned civilians away from my minerals. Don't make me start invading their thieving little hideouts in the midst of my populations.
Not sure if it was raised when posted, but for the changes to the abandon overhaul system, shouldn't there be a delay in the penalty being applied?
What I mean is: it doesn't make sense that a ship pulls into the drydock for an overhaul, then suffers 100% of the penalties when it has to move away 30 seconds later to respond to an incident.
I've never had a problem with the 30-day abandon timeframe (except maybe the lack of feedback that it takes 30 days), but that you have to wait 30 days even if you started the overhaul 5 seconds ago.
Has loading / unloading of ground units and the implementation of drop pods already been discussed and fletched out (and I can't find it) or is it just in the works still?
How far are you going to go with the new AI routines? One thing that (in general) annoys me with AI is the "All or Nothing" approach. Once an AI has set itself the goal to conquer an object or destroy a certain target, it will not deviate from that if initial plans fail. It just begins pumping more and more ships and resources into the set goal; rather than a human player who would at some point see, that he looses his long term goal, when he continues that way.
Also in ship-to-ship combat. At some point human players realize that it would be better to withdraw from a certain position and take the loss of a space station or a planet in order to preserve the fleet, which could be very usefull having it in a different combat. Meaning, it would be worse if there is no fleet but still have that one planet or space station.
Will the C# AI be able to alter its goals depending on such circumstances?
How far are you going to go with the new AI routines? One thing that (in general) annoys me with AI is the "All or Nothing" approach. Once an AI has set itself the goal to conquer an object or destroy a certain target, it will not deviate from that if initial plans fail. It just begins pumping more and more ships and resources into the set goal; rather than a human player who would at some point see, that he looses his long term goal, when he continues that way.
Also in ship-to-ship combat. At some point human players realize that it would be better to withdraw from a certain position and take the loss of a space station or a planet in order to preserve the fleet, which could be very usefull having it in a different combat. Meaning, it would be worse if there is no fleet but still have that one planet or space station.
Will the C# AI be able to alter its goals depending on such circumstances?
The AI will assess the situation and determine if an attack is a good idea. If the AI does not believe it can win a fight, it will retreat or not engage. It will start withdrawing unarmed ships from systems near any threat and if hostile forces are in the system it will choose the least threatened route to run (one AI function is actually called PlanEscapeRoute). If no good way out of the system exists, the AI will move to the cover of a defended population if possible.
If the AI chooses to fight, it will deploy accordingly. A single hostile ship might only attract the attention of a destroyer squadron while any NPR battle fleet remains at a strategic location. The AI will stage forces before launching a major attack and will not approach piecemeal. It will also decide if certain locations need protection and if that is more important than attacking. The major difference for C# is that there are Race, System, Fleet, Ship and Population AIs that exchange information and make decisions at different levels. In VB6, each fleet has its own directives and these are often not coordinated (although escorts will attempt to protect other ships for example).
I haven't coded this portion yet but the AI will also learn about your ships through observation and estimate their threat level, strength and defences based on that observation. Those estimates will influence its actions.
Although it won't be a good as a human, the C# AI should be significantly better than in VB6.
I can't recall if this has been covered or not, but will C# Aurora treat TN and non-TN NPR's in the same way as the current Aurora? So will a Non-TN NPR ever be able to progress to a TN civilization?
Although the AI will convert conventional factories if they exist, I haven't added full support for progressing from conventional to TN yet. I plan to to do that at some point though.
Although the AI will convert conventional factories if they exist, I haven't added full support for progressing from conventional to TN yet. I plan to to do that at some point though.
Out of curiosity, are there unique difficulties in doing this, or is it just low on your priority list? If there are unique difficulties, what are they?
just going through the old chance-topics... and a question came up about "refulling"...
is using "transfering fuel to a planet" the same new rules as refulling?
so will a harvester (or the system body the harvester wants to drop the fuel) needs the new equipment/installation too?
I guess it will be the case (also of course the tanker which get's refueled)?
just wanted to be sure.. nice chance ... no more "dumping" all the fuel on a moon without installations for the harvesters...
As you said you are atm at "boarding combat" Steve..
is in your planing a point were a ship/crew in a desperate situation (no chance of winning) might surrender when/before beeing boarded?
in a war (better: between races that take POW's) it seems too lunatic to "fight to the last man"... so maybe if the captain of a ship nows that there is no point in resistence he/it should surrender when crippled (or even out-runned) - but at least when beeing boarded...
in a war with a race which does not take POW's (or worse, might even eat them) fighting to the last man (and even blow up the ship while beeing boarded to not let the enemy take it or the crew corpses) might make sense
this might also bring some more "differences" between NPR's (some take POW's others don't, others collect the bodys as food source)
When transferring fuel to a colony, you need a refuelling system on the delivery ship and the colony needs a refuelling station or spaceport. You can transfer to a ship using a refuelling system (or hub, or station) and the target ship does not require any special equipment. If you send a tanker to collect fuel from the harvester, the harvester would still need the refuelling system as it is the 'tanker' in this situation. The refuelling system on the harvester also means that any ship can refuel at a harvester, not just tankers.
follow up question: will the player still need to "flag" a ship as a tanker or will it be flagged automaticaly if it get's added a refuelling system as only this would make the ship a tanker and every ship with this would be a tanker?
When transferring fuel to a colony, you need a refuelling system on the delivery ship and the colony needs a refuelling station or spaceport. You can transfer to a ship using a refuelling system (or hub, or station) and the target ship does not require any special equipment. If you send a tanker to collect fuel from the harvester, the harvester would still need the refuelling system as it is the 'tanker' in this situation. The refuelling system on the harvester also means that any ship can refuel at a harvester, not just tankers.It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.
It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.
They are still separate at the moment, but that is a good point. Unless there are situation where a player might not want a ship flagged as a tanker (which I can't think of right now), I should probably remove the checkbox and just assign the tanker flag automatically.
It seems a little strange to not allow full spaceports to unload fuel. I get why we'll want to make transfers one-way for the supply depots and underway replenishment systems, but it seems strange that a vessel built for moving fuel between established hubs would necessarily require the ability to perform underway refueling. Not suspension of disbelief breaking or anything, but strange.
The refuelling system isn't for underway - it is for all refuelling. If you want to refuel from a stationary tanker or base, it still needs a refuelling system (or a refuelling hub).
It's a little like a petrol (gas) station. Ideal for fuelling cars but not designed to remove fuel from the cars. When a petrol tanker turns up to add more fuel to the petrol station, the tanker pumps the fuel into the underground tanks - the station doesn't extract the fuel from the tanker.
A question about the Spaceport..
ships bigger than 500t can't land on a planet - so I thought a Spaceport (in technobable not coding) might be an orbital "Spacestation" and not a ground based installation...
but is seems I am wrong as it can be destroyed by Planetary Bombardment as collateral damage with a target-size of 1000 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107703#msg107703)...
as a spaceport deals with trading, resupply, refuel etc of big ships - shouldn't it be in some kind of "orbit" like a shipyard instead than being on the ground were the spaceships could not reach it - at least in terms of targeting it in space combat and being not able to target/destroy in land combat?
In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.
In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.
Just be prepared for the first four of them to suffer unpleasant mishaps :)
John
Questions about boarding:
1) after the marines got into the enemy ship, is the "boarding ship" still needed to stay with the boarded ship or can it moved away?
2) after a successful boarding, will the marines (if the ship could moved away) needed to "transferred" again to there "home-ship" as there might be no troop-transport-bay in the "liberated" one or will they be "teleported automatically" to reduce micro?
3) as boarding might kill all the enemy crew, the "new ship crew" is 0 - will the necessary crew be taken from the Boarding ship (so it might be a good idea to have more crew in boarding ships than needed), any kind of ship and their might be an order to "split crew" between ships or will there just be a min moral of 25% according to "normal under-manning rule" (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104052#msg104052) and the ship is "abandoned on overhaul" with 0 crew but functional? (or might the surviving marines act as temporary crew?)
4) is it possible to add specific a specific ground-troop-formation-typ to a ship-class with troop-bay like a missile or fighter load so that after being build the ship automatic gets the "marine detachment" (which is already on the yard-planet) loaded? - this would reduce the micro if the player decides to add his bigger warships with marine-detachments as this would be added by designing the class and all ships of these class add a formation after being build...
In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.
Just be prepared for the first four of them to suffer unpleasant mishaps :)
John
Actually, when you build the fourth one, it will automatically appear at the start of your campaign.
Question: If my ship carries a boarding shuttle with a marine contingent, will these marines be properly included in a boarding combat situation? Currently there seems to be no need to be troop transport capabilities onto a ship if you are going to use a drop shuttle anyway.
Questions about boarding:
1) after the marines got into the enemy ship, is the "boarding ship" still needed to stay with the boarded ship or can it moved away?
2) after a successful boarding, will the marines (if the ship could moved away) needed to "transferred" again to there "home-ship" as there might be no troop-transport-bay in the "liberated" one or will they be "teleported automatically" to reduce micro?
3) as boarding might kill all the enemy crew, the "new ship crew" is 0 - will the necessary crew be taken from the Boarding ship (so it might be a good idea to have more crew in boarding ships than needed), any kind of ship and their might be an order to "split crew" between ships or will there just be a min moral of 25% according to "normal under-manning rule" (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104052#msg104052) and the ship is "abandoned on overhaul" with 0 crew but functional? (or might the surviving marines act as temporary crew?)
4) is it possible to add specific a specific ground-troop-formation-typ to a ship-class with troop-bay like a missile or fighter load so that after being build the ship automatic gets the "marine detachment" (which is already on the yard-planet) loaded? - this would reduce the micro if the player decides to add his bigger warships with marine-detachments as this would be added by designing the class and all ships of these class add a formation after being build...
1) It can move away immediately
2) Currently, the only way to get the marines off will be the normal unload procedure. I might add something to make this easier
3) Good question. For the moment, I think it would be undermanned. It sounds like I do need to have some way of transferring crew on and troops off in space.
4) That would be possible, but not straightforward. I'll give it some thought.
For #3, historically, warships/privateers/pirates would generally transfer a "prize crew" aboard a captured ship. This prize crew would be capable of getting the ship to dock, but little else. Perhaps if ships had the option of being "under crewed", once they achieved that status, either through capture by boarding or combat damage, they would only be able to move, not fire offensive weapons.
This includes a lot of relabeling of gauges and translating of manuals.Not to mention changing tentacle-controls to finger-controls :P
What happens to boarders who succeed in capturing a ship that does not have troop transport capability?
I have a question about system generation.
I assume C# Aurora will have a real stars/randomly generated option, but have you considered giving us the ability to customize our home system at all? I envision something like being able to select sun type, binary/trinary/etc, number of planets, presence and number of asteroid belts, and so on.
I have a question about system generation.
I assume C# Aurora will have a real stars/randomly generated option, but have you considered giving us the ability to customize our home system at all? I envision something like being able to select sun type, binary/trinary/etc, number of planets, presence and number of asteroid belts, and so on.
In the past Steve has said no, because the system generation code is so complex and inter-linked. It's faster to generate new systems until you get one close to what you want. (Save for the 'Add Comet' and 'Add Ruins' and 'Add Precursor' buttons in SM mode, F9 (System) window.)
Please note that creating a habitable world is easy. All you need is a rock (not gas giant) with appropriate gravity and then SM the atmosphere to Nitr-Ox or Nitro-Methane and Greenhouse or Anti-Greenhouse to a reasonable temperature. Any race created there will be ideally suited to the world.
It is only slightly more difficult to make a Hamun-habitable planet/moon. Follow the exact same steps above; the only difference is that the "appropriate gravity" and "reasonable temperature" are already picked for you.
I have a question about system generation.
I assume C# Aurora will have a real stars/randomly generated option, but have you considered giving us the ability to customize our home system at all? I envision something like being able to select sun type, binary/trinary/etc, number of planets, presence and number of asteroid belts, and so on.
I have a question about system generation.
I assume C# Aurora will have a real stars/randomly generated option, but have you considered giving us the ability to customize our home system at all? I envision something like being able to select sun type, binary/trinary/etc, number of planets, presence and number of asteroid belts, and so on.
It is very complex with a lot of constraints, so a custom system would require a huge amount of input from the player without the player necessarily understanding the impact of the choices he is making. It would be a lot faster just to generate systems until you find one in which you modify environmental conditions to create one or more habitable worlds. In fact, that is exactly what the code does for generation of starting NPR home systems.
Another option (in VB6 and C#) is that you can choose which 'real stars' system to generate, so if you want a binary, trinary, or specific stellar types, etc, you can keep generating that same system until it creates a layout you prefer.
Steve,
In the Mesons thread you mentioned that NPRs will not make significant changes to their ship designs as they encounter our ships and strategies which is understandable. Will the NPRs be capable of changes like:
Increasing or scaling up their standard armor thickness upon determining enemy common missile warhead size?
Increasing allocations of ships in the AMM role if they encounter overwhelming missile combat like missile swarm?
Basically changing the ratio of ship roles in a fleet or ratios of things like armor within a ship.
Making a "generate home system" would be useful on its own, letting the algorithm run until it finds a candidate for an NPR home system. You'll still need to click it a few times to get your desired start, but it would be an improvement.
Steve,
In the Mesons thread you mentioned that NPRs will not make significant changes to their ship designs as they encounter our ships and strategies which is understandable. Will the NPRs be capable of changes like:
Increasing or scaling up their standard armor thickness upon determining enemy common missile warhead size?
Increasing allocations of ships in the AMM role if they encounter overwhelming missile combat like missile swarm?
Basically changing the ratio of ship roles in a fleet or ratios of things like armor within a ship.
Not with the current code as I haven't done combat AI yet. However, they are capable of monitoring, learning about and analysing alien ships, including their weapons, speed, anti-missile capabilities, passive defences, etc.. In the short-term this is so they can make decisions about whether to engage and how much force is required. Longer-term, I may add some code that allows them to adapt but I don't want to get too creative too soon. I want the basics working well first.
Does this then mean the AI for all NPR and spoiler races will make "intelligent" choices regarding combat? If I happen to have a full fleet or some such in a system will they decide to run away or perhaps just shadow me at a distance instead of closing in to attack even in war times?Would be nice if the AI could reach that level of smartness :-)
Does this then mean the AI for all NPR and spoiler races will make "intelligent" choices regarding combat? If I happen to have a full fleet or some such in a system will they decide to run away or perhaps just shadow me at a distance instead of closing in to attack even in war times?
Does this then mean the AI for all NPR and spoiler races will make "intelligent" choices regarding combat? If I happen to have a full fleet or some such in a system will they decide to run away or perhaps just shadow me at a distance instead of closing in to attack even in war times?
When building troop formations, will the required manpower be taken from the local population?
Likewise, if you disband or destroy a troop formation, will any manpower go into the local population?
Also, will some percent of the TN materials used to create the equipment for the troop formation be recovered?
Question about spaceports:
If I am not wring, a spaceport is a combination of Cargo Shuttle Station, Ordnance Transfer Station and Refuelling Station - cost 3600 BP (2400 first but 3600 with the Ordnance Transfer chances), need 1mio worker and weights 80 factories...
now my question: if I am correct, building the 3 installations instead of the Spaceport they would cost 3600 BP, need 0 worker and weight 30factories (if the Cargo Shuttle Station is only 10 like the other two)...
are the numbers correct or am I missing something that would count for the higher numbers for the spaceport?
1 - None. It is assumed you care enough about these (and will have few enough) that you will assign their officers manually.
1 - None. It is assumed you care enough about these (and will have few enough) that you will assign their officers manually.
this would mean that NPR don't assign Commander to there Admin Commands at all as they would use the same priority list as Auto Assignment as far as I understand it... which would bring NPRs to an even bigger disadvantage ...
also with the possibility to add multiple layer of Admin Commands there might be a little more around than just "few enough" I think...
NPRs have their own code for assigning administrators.
Hey Steve, have you added a new Stellar catalogue to the game? I can't recall ever seeing IRAS 21500+5903 or something similar before.
Question about Fighters in Ground Combat:
Is is still possible in C# to add shields into Fighter? I was thinking about the new Ground Combat mechanics and I guess a fighter with shield could be a little OP with the way it works...
also:
let's say both enemy parties have landforces but only the defender has fighters involved - no side has AA or other anti-fighter weapons... The defender gets all it's land units destroyed but has still it's land based fighters... will the land battle be over or (as the defender has still fighters) go on with the fighters bombarding the attacker without he has a chance to fight back till he is destroyed? (sorry stupid question but I didn't found a point when a battle is "won")
I was reading through the combat mechanic on the Wiki and one thing that struck me as a potential loophole (or it might be intentional) is using the fact the the defensive front-line only engages enemy front-line troops.
Say you make a contested landing an a planet with a good chunk of enemy troops is it possible to simply land mostly infantry or other units good at absorbing damage and put them all in supporting line and have no troops in the front line at all?
If this is possible you would force the enemy to come out of their fortifications to attack you and you could start to dig in your infantry. Once you are dug in good enough you can move them to front line and start attacking the enemy on more equal footing. You can deploy most support and artillery in rear echelon until you are ready to attack and have them fortify as well.
Would this be possible?
As coded, I think it is possible. Now you have me thinking whether it is a good idea. I had worked on the assumption that both sides would use front line, but of course the scenario you outline is possible too. It probably is reasonable that the strategic attacker could decline to engage and that the strategic defender would have to decide whether to abandon his fortifications to force the issue or just hold in place. I'll give it some thought.
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg112204#msg112204 date=1547722734As coded, I think it is possible. Now you have me thinking whether it is a good idea. I had worked on the assumption that both sides would use front line, but of course the scenario you outline is possible too. It probably is reasonable that the strategic attacker could decline to engage and that the strategic defender would have to decide whether to abandon his fortifications to force the issue or just hold in place. I'll give it some thought.
Sounds like a proper siege. Sally forth early or hold out and race to see who gets the most reinforcements. Or alternatively, seems very WW1 with a long phase of entrenchment.
I think it's very good for Aurora to have the tension building elements before the action.
Any force that is not actively seeking combat but knows that the enemy is, will deploy to protect its own assets as well as possible while staying outside the enemy's capacity to engage. It's extremely unlikely that in such an event an attacking force is likely to hit the support and rear echelon forces, as any defenses will be calculated to force an engagement at the outermost defenses and keep it there if possible, or if it's not supporting forces and other defenses will be positioned so that as many hard points and other defenses lay as possible between the likely axes of advance and the supporting elements of those defenses.
Support/Rear Echelon engagement is actually more likely for attacking support and rear echelon forces due to the risk of counter attacks forcing through the attacker's lines, the need to keep such forces closer to the front to give some extra space for the advance and sallies from bottled up defenders further behind the lines.
Even during the lulls in the trench warfare of WW1 with both sides licking their wounds there was a lot of active probing of enemy positions, infiltration, intelligence gathering, maintenance of the wire and mine fields and so on. And in earlier warfare there would still be skirmishing between the archers on the walls and besiegers' archers, trying to snipe at valuable targets or just putting pressure on the other side by the risk of casualties.
Rigid and immobile a defense may be, but it's rarely passive.
Passive forces eventually get attacked to see if they're weaker than expected.
I agree with Hazard here. We also have to remember that we're talking about combat on a planetary scale. Now it might just be a ten guys versus twenty tentacles on a planet the size of Jupiter, or it could be twenty million souls versus five billion death-machines on an asteroid, and so a mechanic should work and be reasonably "logical" in both cases.
The loophole that Jorgen_CAB brought up is, IMHO, not a loophole at all but a very valid tactic for an attacker to take when facing heavily fortified defenders, and that dilemma of sallying forth or remaining in the forts is a very real thing that has plagued human commanders through the history. But it doesn't make the attackers support/rear echelon units any more vulnerable.
I also agree with Jorgen on the tempo of planetary combat. There should be lulls and pauses where combat intensity goes down - not completely passive, as wars are never that, but no force can maintain maximum intensity forever.
Do two empires at war automatically fight if their ground units are on the same planetary body? Back in VB6 Aurora you actually have to set your units to "Attack" otherwise they just stand there looking at the enemy (or defend themselves if the enemy sets their units to attack).
I've read the changes list over time, but I think I might be missing something. Has size 1 missile (abuse) spam been mitigated. It seems like missiles are generally going to be slower and/or shorter range, but I'm not sure that addresses excessive size 1 spam.There are a lot of moving parts, but there is a notable change to ECM/ECCM for missiles, as both are now a fixed 0.25 MSP for missiles, and the missile ECCM is what counters ship ECM for hit chance. Steve said that "Large volleys of size-1 missiles will be less effective in a heavy EW environment and no longer have a huge advantage in launching speed (due to the missile launcher changes)." Obviously that may or may not hold true in actual playtesting.
I've read the changes list over time, but I think I might be missing something. Has size 1 missile (abuse) spam been mitigated. It seems like missiles are generally going to be slower and/or shorter range, but I'm not sure that addresses excessive size 1 spam.
Thanks for the replies. I had to refresh my memory on how ECM affected missiles in the VB version. It appears that ECM got far better against missiles in C# because it now effects their hit chance, if I'm reading this all correctly.
I wasn't too sure how the lower range would change size 1s but it would probably make them pretty short ranged now that you mention it.
Was it anywhere adressed if the C# version will be playable without the launcher app? Or are the language and number settings still relevant?
In regards to "Auto-Assignment of Naval Commanders": both, the primary and secondary assignment priority are of decending order; how about the commander priority? Will that also be a decending order?
"Forced Labor Camps": Do they effect the pacification of an occupied population? Meaning, do they slow that process down, even to a point of driving them into revolts?
3. It appears they will speed it up, as each FLB will "consume" a chunk of population, thus reducing the amount of Police Strength needed for occupation.
Question about the new "Wealth generation Tech":
is the tech reduced to just how much wealth is produced by workers as the text suggests? This would mean that with better tech the trade influence in weath gaining would go down ??? I thought one of the (minor) goals was to make trade income more significant? ???
Will the existence of forced labour camps keep unrest there or would that fade out after some time; and if you wait long enough everyone wouldn't bother with it any longer and just accepts, that they are there?3. It appears they will speed it up, as each FLB will "consume" a chunk of population, thus reducing the amount of Police Strength needed for occupation.
Created the forced labour camp generates extra unrest and I don't think pacification moves forward while unrest exists.
Will the existence of forced labour camps keep unrest there or would that fade out after some time; and if you wait long enough everyone wouldn't bother with it any longer and just accepts, that they are there?
Will C# Aurora allow the placing of GRAV sensors on missiles? I note that http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103096#msg103096 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103096#msg103096) mentions GEO sensors, but nothng about those pesky jump point surveys.
Do NPRs count firing missiles of any type in the same system as their vessels as a hostile action?
If so that could lead to some fun scenarios where they think they're being fired on (But its just a mass-produced survey missile), and vice versa if NPRs use survey missiles themself.
Do NPRs count firing missiles of any type in the same system as their vessels as a hostile action?
If so that could lead to some fun scenarios where they think they're being fired on (But its just a mass-produced survey missile), and vice versa if NPRs use survey missiles themself.
Do NPRs count firing missiles of any type in the same system as their vessels as a hostile action?
If so that could lead to some fun scenarios where they think they're being fired on (But its just a mass-produced survey missile), and vice versa if NPRs use survey missiles themself.
Not in VB6. I haven't coded diplomacy yet for C#.
So the NPRs are always hostile in your campaign ?
I'll code it when I meet one :)
Steve,
In VB, if I remember correctly, an Orbital Habitat that contains a population cannot be moved to another location without removing the colonists or providing cryogenic transport.
In C# Aurora, will it be possible to move an Orbital Habitat without unloading the population?
and probably dies horribly
So the NPRs are always hostile in your campaign ?
I'll code it when I meet one :)
Steve,
In VB, if I remember correctly, an Orbital Habitat that contains a population cannot be moved to another location without removing the colonists or providing cryogenic transport.
In C# Aurora, will it be possible to move an Orbital Habitat without unloading the population?
No, the habitat is like infrastructure. It adds to the capacity of a population, but it doesn't provide any transport capacity. If you move it, the population stays on the planet (and probably dies horribly).
Scenario:
10 habs each supporting 1 million population
1 million population are removed by transports.
If I tractor 1 hab away from the planet, will the code will be smart enough to remove the hab capacity without harming the remaining population? Effectively treating the hab population as an aggregate versus an even distribution across all habs?
Just trying to make sure I understand how it works.
Thanks
Scenario:
10 habs each supporting 1 million population
1 million population are removed by transports.
If I tractor 1 hab away from the planet, will the code will be smart enough to remove the hab capacity without harming the remaining population? Effectively treating the hab population as an aggregate versus an even distribution across all habs?
Just trying to make sure I understand how it works.
Thanks
The current fuel shortages in the Cold Sun campaign, made me wonder, when a civilian line launches a Fuel Harvester, will any nation be able to buy the fuel from it, or just the nation the civilian line is registered with?
If you're allied to someone can you purchase their fuel?
Not at the moment. You may not want your allies to purchase your fuel, so it would have to be optional. If I go down that route, I might consider having some form of trading where you offer items for sale (including fuel, minerals, installations, ships, etc.) for either money or minerals and set the acceptable level of relations for the trade.
Not at the moment. You may not want your allies to purchase your fuel, so it would have to be optional. If I go down that route, I might consider having some form of trading where you offer items for sale (including fuel, minerals, installations, ships, etc.) for either money or minerals and set the acceptable level of relations for the trade.
Something I often do in SM is to trade ship components or missiles. It seems logical to not buy a whole ship if your ally have superior engines & missiles, but instead just the parts you need.
Agreed. Nations do develop variations of their weapon systems for the international market. Would definitely be interesting to have that as an ingame option rather then having to do it via SM mode... . Also, could open up an interesting way for strength through alliance; each nation going into a specific direction research-wise. On the other side, that could be misused as well... .Not at the moment. You may not want your allies to purchase your fuel, so it would have to be optional. If I go down that route, I might consider having some form of trading where you offer items for sale (including fuel, minerals, installations, ships, etc.) for either money or minerals and set the acceptable level of relations for the trade.
Something I often do in SM is to trade ship components or missiles. It seems logical to not buy a whole ship if your ally have superior engines & missiles, but instead just the parts you need.
This happens allot in my games to... sometimes factions may license build certain components as well so I gift the technology and have some other trade going on.
It would be allot easier of there were some more official mechanic for this in the game, but SM otherwise works ok for me.
The smallest troop transport bay is 100 tons or 120 tons with drop capability included, so you can make very small (fighter-sized) ships to drop off small formations.
Is this a new type of transport specifically for boarding or has it always been like this and I just never noticed?It is a new type - discussed in some of the C# threads but not in the changes list yet.
Based on comments above and my own play test, I have changed how HQ capacity works. Instead of multiple HQ components, there is now a single component with a configurable capacity (similar to STO in principle).
You select the HQ component and then type in the required capacity. The component cost is Capacity / 2500 and the component size is Capacity / 50 with a max of 500 tons. There is no limit on cost.
Because of this configurable aspect, the HQ can only be placed in the primary slot for those units with multiple slots.
How does boarding combat fit in with the new ground combat changes? I love boarding enemy ships, although I do hate that it's locked behind a ton of research points in VB6 (assault infantry -> marine bn -> marine company + combat drop (company) is something ridiculous like 30,000 RP). Is it harder/easier in C#? Can you build marines from the get-go?
Agreed. Nations do develop variations of their weapon systems for the international market. Would definitely be interesting to have that as an ingame option rather then having to do it via SM mode... . Also, could open up an interesting way for strength through alliance; each nation going into a specific direction research-wise. On the other side, that could be misused as well... .Not at the moment. You may not want your allies to purchase your fuel, so it would have to be optional. If I go down that route, I might consider having some form of trading where you offer items for sale (including fuel, minerals, installations, ships, etc.) for either money or minerals and set the acceptable level of relations for the trade.
Something I often do in SM is to trade ship components or missiles. It seems logical to not buy a whole ship if your ally have superior engines & missiles, but instead just the parts you need.
This happens allot in my games to... sometimes factions may license build certain components as well so I gift the technology and have some other trade going on.
It would be allot easier of there were some more official mechanic for this in the game, but SM otherwise works ok for me.
Question regarding the new custom tailored-to-fit HQs, does their capacity (size wise) need to include the HQ itself? Or is it sufficient that a HQ capacity is enough for the other units in a formation? If it's the former, it can get tricky calculating the necessary size.
In addition to this, can HQ capacity be changed on the fly in-game, or does the old HQ need to be swapped with a new HQ that has an increased capacity?
I got a question. . . From the screenshots, the ranks all have abbreviations like Commander (CMDR).
Does Aurora C# still allow us to create military ranks? (eg. Sector Commander, High Admiral) Do we decide on the abbreviations? (eg. SCMR, HADM)
I'm asking this as all the screenshots show Lieutenant commanders as the lowest rank but it's gonna seem weird to me if I set a grav survey ship with the captain as a LCMR and it's science officer (Lieutenant?) and Engineering Officer (JR Lieutenant?) have the same rank.
Reading over the Particle Lance again, I want to make sure that the PL 'option' is also available for smaller particle beam projectors. For example, once I unlock Particle Lance at base strength 6, can I go back and make a smaller, base strength 4 Particle Beam into a Lance (and thus double its damage to 8 and get the single-column profile), or am I stuck with only Lances size 6 (12) or larger?
Ship Commander Rank
The required rank of a ship commander is set automatically by Aurora and will be the lowest race rank, unless one of the following component rules is activated. Component rules are not cumulative so only the highest requirement applies.
If a ship is greater than 1000 tons and has any of the following component, the required rank is lowest rank + 1: Weapons, survey sensors, a jump drive, a hangar deck, Auxiliary Control, Science Department, Primary Flight Control.
If a ship is greater than 1000 tons and has any of the following component, the required rank is lowest rank + 2: Main Engineering, CIC, Flag Bridge.
The Class Window has a checkbox entitled Senior C.O. If this is checked, the class will have a required rank one higher than the above rules require (to allow the player to designate certain classes as worthy of a more senior officer than normal).
The rule is an enhancement to the command and control rules: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818
4) Regardless of the above, any ship of 1000 tons or less will be the lowest rank, unless it has one of the control stations (Auxiliary Control, Science Department, Main Engineering, CIC)
about your newest postQuoteShip Commander Rank
The required rank of a ship commander is set automatically by Aurora and will be the lowest race rank, unless one of the following component rules is activated. Component rules are not cumulative so only the highest requirement applies.
If a ship is greater than 1000 tons and has any of the following component, the required rank is lowest rank + 1: Weapons, survey sensors, a jump drive, a hangar deck, Auxiliary Control, Science Department, Primary Flight Control.
If a ship is greater than 1000 tons and has any of the following component, the required rank is lowest rank + 2: Main Engineering, CIC, Flag Bridge.
The Class Window has a checkbox entitled Senior C.O. If this is checked, the class will have a required rank one higher than the above rules require (to allow the player to designate certain classes as worthy of a more senior officer than normal).
The rule is an enhancement to the command and control rules: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818
does the specification to >1000t ships mean that the ruleQuote4) Regardless of the above, any ship of 1000 tons or less will be the lowest rank, unless it has one of the control stations (Auxiliary Control, Science Department, Main Engineering, CIC)
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104038#msg104038
is not longer relevant? ??? so a 1000t ship or less will be of lowest rang regardless of the modules?
I was wondering what the benefit will be to build shipyards with multiple slipways in them now when the amount of personnel to man them are the same per tonnage? . . .
Well, since the amount of workers is NOT the same,Rules as written, it is going to be the same: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg112323#msg112323
Had a few questions pop into my head during lunch and figured I would ask.
1. Is there any possibility for DB access or APIs that would allow us to access game data? There are a few neat tools I have come across for VB6 that allowed you to dump data to create reports or create files that could be imported into Space Engine which helped add a ton of flavor to my games, providing you had access to the DB. Is this something that's an option or could be an option with C# sharp as well?
2. How much are you looking into AI Deployment/Combat when it comes to players devising ways to fool it? Can I crank out large missile drones with as large as possible active sensors to send them on wild goose chases across the known universe? Will the AI be able to discern between fleet contacts and missile contacts in this context? Could I do this endlessly or would it be possible to have them catch on at some point? I cannot remember in VB6 if active sensors on missiles give it away that it was a missile.
So Just asking ;D can we still give titles to the Officers? for Role Play purpose of course. . . Hail to the Emperor!
Just wanted to ask if you have any intention of looking into the fire-control versus salvo issue for Aurora C# at some time?
I mean there are some mechanical issues in how salvos and fire-controls can often be abused mechanically that makes relatively little sense. So.. expanding on the fire-control and how many guns or missiles they can control or incoming targets they can track or some such?
In general I try not to abuse this mechanic but it is often very hard to walk the line since it is a very grey one.
Are you talking about creating many small salvos to confuse point defence?
And as a counterpoint allow remaining pd after destroying a salvo to retarget other salvos hitting in teh same increment, but at a malus based on the firecontrol tech.
When on the topic of point defense.The same actually holds true for Laser PD, which right now seems pretty much inferior to Gauss weapons, because again area defense seems useless, and thus range doesn't matter, because the missiles are just too fast.
Wouldn't it make sense if there was a point in researching range upgrades to Gauss cannons and if weapon range had a bit of impact on final fire PD as well?
I mean if our incoming missiles travels at say 40'000km/s that means that during a 5 second increment it will travel 200'000km. A Gauss cannon with 10'000km range should have a significant disadvantage in how much volume of fire it can output compared to one with 50'000km range due to being able to open fire only in the very last 0.25 seconds instead of the last 1.25 seconds.
If a Gauss Cannon can fire 5 rounds per 5 seconds an even rate of fire would mean it's actually only within range long enough to be hit by 1 round for the 10'000km range Gauss and only 2 rounds for the 50'000km Gauss. Even if we assume the Gauss cannon fires bursts up to 1 second long and then reloads for 4 seconds the 10'000km range Gauss still is at a significant disadvantage only having time for 25% of a full burst, and that could be even worse vs faster lategame missiles.
I guess what I'm asking for is a more logical resolution of the last 5 seconds of missile approach vs PD. And also more weapons capable of firing faster than once every 5 seconds, for example a 10cm laser with 12 recharge rate capacitors logically should be able to fire 4 times each 5 second increment ( 12/3 = 4 ).
This would naturally require a rebalance of point defense weapons, probably increasing the range and/or rate of fire of Gauss a bit and potentially nerfing laser PD a bit as well.
Hello Steve, how are the increment turn times looking as you keep adding more content and fuctionality?
I recall last year you mentioned something like what used to take 30 seconds, now takes 3 or less seconds in C#.
I don't know what the current status of the AI is, but how are you planning on having the AI handle same-system empires? Will it share jump points with the other empires, or try and claim one or more for itself, and would that change if there are more/fewer jump points than empires?
Anything big planned for diplomacy Steve? I would love something simple like Paradox war score to demand planets, systems, disarmament etc.
Anything big planned for diplomacy Steve? I would love something simple like Paradox war score to demand planets, systems, disarmament etc.
For the new race comparison chart is that SM only or will there be a non SM version where the details get revealed as you gather more intelligence?
With the comparison menu and tracking, as well as the changes in espionage mechanics, would it be possible to have a comparison screen where your own resources are compared to the (estimated) resources of any known other powers?
Are you planning on making it so NPRs fighting in some far off system doesn't force the game into small increments? Or is that just how it's gonna have to be?
Is there anything that is going to change in regards to retooling between similar designs for a shipyard or are the rules identical to VB Aurora? Couldn’t find anything about that in the change List ...
With the C# version might we see a better split between civilian and military leader training?
So rather than having all leaders come from military academies and a singular training grade level, could there be a civilian leadership training complex and then a separate complex for military leadership training with the option to different grade of training between Civilian and Military.
It can be quite annoying at times playing a more pacifist or military light empire and wanting a strong science/civilian sector in your empire and having to build military academies that spew out countless dozens upon dozens of military officers just to generate some scientists and civilian administrators.
You are also always going to need a large number of naval officers anyway, just to crew all your ships.
You can assign the academy an administrator or scientist as commandant, which will produce more of that type.
But if you're intentionally going for a significantly small military fielding empire then this isn't the case, and a small number of military academies would be more than sufficient for ship crew purposes in such a scenario but not sufficient enough to manage the rest of the civilian aspects of the empire.I always assumed that the pool of unused administrators, officers, etc. trained by my military academies represented a society-wide recruitment potential from the civilian sector, rather than a pool of active duty but unassigned personnel. Many of the skills of a warship captain would translate reasonably well from the captain of a commercial spaceliner or survey vessel, and there is no good reason a scientist cannot be doing R&D for a private company if she isn't running a government lab. So presumably all those idle military officers waiting to be deployed are enjoying productive civilian careers that are just not simulated, because Aurora abstracts away the details of the civilian economy.
But if you're intentionally going for a significantly small military fielding empire then this isn't the case, and a small number of military academies would be more than sufficient for ship crew purposes in such a scenario but not sufficient enough to manage the rest of the civilian aspects of the empire.I always assumed that the pool of unused administrators, officers, etc. trained by my military academies represented a society-wide recruitment potential from the civilian sector, rather than a pool of active duty but unassigned personnel. Many of the skills of a warship captain would translate reasonably well from the captain of a commercial spaceliner or survey vessel, and there is no good reason a scientist cannot be doing R&D for a private company if she isn't running a government lab. So presumably all those idle military officers waiting to be deployed are enjoying productive civilian careers that are just not simulated, because Aurora abstracts away the details of the civilian economy.
Has the population density modifier any effect on crew calculations or size of crew quarters?
Has the population density modifier any effect on crew calculations or size of crew quarters?
No, it affects colonies and orbital habitats. Interesting point though.
With the new Population Capacity features, will the limit for the "Source/Destination for Colonists" flag be changed from 25 million to some fraction of the colony's max?
I assume the "Pop growth --> 0%" factor upon reaching the limit will prevent civilians from dumping colonists on, for example, Ceres once it has 22 million. If I have four dozen colonies throughout the asteroid belt, none of which will ever support more than 25 million, will civilians only fill them from Earth/Mars/Luna? Will no one ever move from one rock to another without direct Imperial intervention?
What if I send four '1 million pop' orbital habitats to Ceres. Now its max pop is 26 million. Will it suddenly flood the rest of the belt with that last 1 million Cereans? Being so close to the pop limit will dramatically slow pop growth, so will I get a weird, surge-and-swell effect where population rushes from the Inners to Ceres, taking Ceres over 25 million, then rushes off Ceres to the smaller rocks, dropping Ceres below 25 million, then another wave from the Inners, etc.
Wouldn't it be better to make a rule that pop can only be taken from worlds which have more unemployment to worlds with less?With the new Population Capacity features, will the limit for the "Source/Destination for Colonists" flag be changed from 25 million to some fraction of the colony's max?
I assume the "Pop growth --> 0%" factor upon reaching the limit will prevent civilians from dumping colonists on, for example, Ceres once it has 22 million. If I have four dozen colonies throughout the asteroid belt, none of which will ever support more than 25 million, will civilians only fill them from Earth/Mars/Luna? Will no one ever move from one rock to another without direct Imperial intervention?
What if I send four '1 million pop' orbital habitats to Ceres. Now its max pop is 26 million. Will it suddenly flood the rest of the belt with that last 1 million Cereans? Being so close to the pop limit will dramatically slow pop growth, so will I get a weird, surge-and-swell effect where population rushes from the Inners to Ceres, taking Ceres over 25 million, then rushes off Ceres to the smaller rocks, dropping Ceres below 25 million, then another wave from the Inners, etc.
This is a good point.
The destination/source/stable flag is what shipping lines use when deciding potential destinations. That will be set to destination for each new colony unless you manually change it. Even if a population is flagged as a potential destination, colonists will not be sent unless there is space.
The VB6 criteria for a colony to be an automatic destination (i.e. you can't change to stable or source) is a population of 25m or less. For C#, it is now a population of 25m or less where the current total population on the body (all races) is less than half of the maximum capacity.
It would also encourage actually developing colonies, instead of just dumping population and watch it generate wealth.
It would also encourage actually developing colonies, instead of just dumping population and watch it generate wealth.
With wealth generation changing from 'total population' to 'employed population' for C# Aurora, I doubt that will be a thing anymore.
This is a good point.
The destination/source/stable flag is what shipping lines use when deciding potential destinations. That will be set to destination for each new colony unless you manually change it. Even if a population is flagged as a potential destination, colonists will not be sent unless there is space.
The VB6 criteria for a colony to be an automatic destination (i.e. you can't change to stable or source) is a population of 25m or less. For C#, it is now a population of 25m or less where the current total population on the body (all races) is less than half of the maximum capacity.
Agreed but, what about trade goods? Does a population without any facility, basically just a population farm, still generate trade goods for the civilian sector?
I was reading the changes thread and from what I gathered we will no longer manually be able to set which rank of officer can command any given class of ship and will instead be restricted by a criteria dictated by which command modules we have installed.
This is worrying as I model officers all the way down to ensigns as I like using fighters (which would be piloted by ensigns) and this would mean most of my ships would be commanded by mere lieutenants.
I hope this isn't the case. I was hoping that we'd simply be able to set a minimum rank and a maximum rank to dictate who commands what (no more Admiral fighter-pilots please).
I was reading the changes thread and from what I gathered we will no longer manually be able to set which rank of officer can command any given class of ship and will instead be restricted by a criteria dictated by which command modules we have installed.
This is worrying as I model officers all the way down to ensigns as I like using fighters (which would be piloted by ensigns) and this would mean most of my ships would be commanded by mere lieutenants.
I hope this isn't the case. I was hoping that we'd simply be able to set a minimum rank and a maximum rank to dictate who commands what (no more Admiral fighter-pilots please).
Classes do have specific rank requirements, because there needs to be space for the lower-ranked officers on the same ship. There is a checkbox to give a ship a rank one higher than normal. I could add a +2 as well if required.
I was reading the changes thread and from what I gathered we will no longer manually be able to set which rank of officer can command any given class of ship and will instead be restricted by a criteria dictated by which command modules we have installed.
This is worrying as I model officers all the way down to ensigns as I like using fighters (which would be piloted by ensigns) and this would mean most of my ships would be commanded by mere lieutenants.
I hope this isn't the case. I was hoping that we'd simply be able to set a minimum rank and a maximum rank to dictate who commands what (no more Admiral fighter-pilots please).
Classes do have specific rank requirements, because there needs to be space for the lower-ranked officers on the same ship. There is a checkbox to give a ship a rank one higher than normal. I could add a +2 as well if required.
Does that mean you can no longer manually dictate whether a ship is commanded by a certain rank?
Since the game seems designed to only model senior officers (OF-5 and above) will craft of a small enough size (like fighters) need an officer character even though normally they'd be too small to be commanded by such a senior officer?
I was reading the changes thread and from what I gathered we will no longer manually be able to set which rank of officer can command any given class of ship and will instead be restricted by a criteria dictated by which command modules we have installed.
This is worrying as I model officers all the way down to ensigns as I like using fighters (which would be piloted by ensigns) and this would mean most of my ships would be commanded by mere lieutenants.
I hope this isn't the case. I was hoping that we'd simply be able to set a minimum rank and a maximum rank to dictate who commands what (no more Admiral fighter-pilots please).
Classes do have specific rank requirements, because there needs to be space for the lower-ranked officers on the same ship. There is a checkbox to give a ship a rank one higher than normal. I could add a +2 as well if required.
Does that mean you can no longer manually dictate whether a ship is commanded by a certain rank?
Since the game seems designed to only model senior officers (OF-5 and above) will craft of a small enough size (like fighters) need an officer character even though normally they'd be too small to be commanded by such a senior officer?
It means you can only dictate the rank within certain constraints. If a design has components that require more junior officers, you can only assign a rank that provides space for those officers below it. You can avoid that increase in rank by not including those components. You can also specify the rank be one higher than it would normally be for the ship type, which is what I am doing in my current campaign for ships at 36,000 tons and higher.
As I mentioned in my previous reply I could add a +2 so you can push the required rank higher, which means you could create your rank hierarchy from a lower starting point. My current game has officers starting at Lieutenant commander (OF-3).
Since the game seems designed to only model senior officers (OF-5 and above) will craft of a small enough size (like fighters) need an officer character even though normally they'd be too small to be commanded by such a senior officer?
Sorry for the question, its just too many things to read through to understand if that is possible.
Will I be able in C# to establish a deep-space station on jump point with recreation and maintenance facilities to hold dozens of weapon platforms (1000ton ships with smallest engine to be able just to leave the hangar when enemy comes from jump point)?
Im just thinking of a defense force that can stand on one place for almost forever with minimum micro required while having a good punch.
In VB Aurora jump gates will be discovered by active sensors. Will stabilized jump points work the same, or need survey?
Didn't give it much thought myself, but the latter would provide more of a defenders advantage, and maybe also some interesting strategies of preventing an advancing enemy from surveying to delay them.
Sorry for the question, its just too many things to read through to understand if that is possible.
Will I be able in C# to establish a deep-space station on jump point with recreation and maintenance facilities to hold dozens of weapon platforms (1000ton ships with smallest engine to be able just to leave the hangar when enemy comes from jump point)?
Im just thinking of a defense force that can stand on one place for almost forever with minimum micro required while having a good punch.
I would probably do it as group of ships/stations, but yes that is possible.
Just don't lose projects 1 through 4.
Just don't lose projects 1 through 4.
Losing 4 is fine, because it helps you before you build it.
In my current game an NPR spawned on a planet orbiting a massive star at extreme distance. They are still doing ok and sending ships to other systems, but probably wouldn't without the AI fuel cheat.
In C# since they cannot cheat on fuel, will they have an estimate of what range their designs need to accomplish their missions? In this case with orbiting distance 91b km even a 200b range would just barely take them out of the system and back. And will they recognize the fuel production/logistics required on a strategic level to expand ahead of time and prioritize that.
I don't expect the AI to handle extreme corner cases well, but this may also apply in some more common scenarios like the AI ensuring they actually have the range to get to you before deciding to attack. Just throwing the thought out in case it helps Steve spot a bug in advance.
In my current game an NPR spawned on a planet orbiting a massive star at extreme distance. They are still doing ok and sending ships to other systems, but probably wouldn't without the AI fuel cheat.
In C# since they cannot cheat on fuel, will they have an estimate of what range their designs need to accomplish their missions? In this case with orbiting distance 91b km even a 200b range would just barely take them out of the system and back. And will they recognize the fuel production/logistics required on a strategic level to expand ahead of time and prioritize that.
I don't expect the AI to handle extreme corner cases well, but this may also apply in some more common scenarios like the AI ensuring they actually have the range to get to you before deciding to attack. Just throwing the thought out in case it helps Steve spot a bug in advance.
in C#, NPRs won't spawn in that situation. The code checks whether the potential home world is within a certain distance of the primary, taking Lagrange points into consideration, before allowing the creation of an NPR.
In my current game an NPR spawned on a planet orbiting a massive star at extreme distance. They are still doing ok and sending ships to other systems, but probably wouldn't without the AI fuel cheat.
In C# since they cannot cheat on fuel, will they have an estimate of what range their designs need to accomplish their missions? In this case with orbiting distance 91b km even a 200b range would just barely take them out of the system and back. And will they recognize the fuel production/logistics required on a strategic level to expand ahead of time and prioritize that.
I don't expect the AI to handle extreme corner cases well, but this may also apply in some more common scenarios like the AI ensuring they actually have the range to get to you before deciding to attack. Just throwing the thought out in case it helps Steve spot a bug in advance.
in C#, NPRs won't spawn in that situation. The code checks whether the potential home world is within a certain distance of the primary, taking Lagrange points into consideration, before allowing the creation of an NPR.
Do you have any plan to allow us to exploit distant companion stars Steve? It's something that... has been painful for a long while :) It'f fine if it's not in the game at release ofc, I just wanted to know if you do plan to do something about it
I have two options in mind.
1) Remove planetary systems from stars in that situation post-generation. Doesn't solve the problem exactly but removes the annoyance.
2) Allow stabilisation ships to create new Lagrange points. This would take a varying amount of time depending on the mass of the chosen planet vs the normal minimum mass for the Lagrange point to form. This is my preferred option. I just haven't got around to it yet. You would still need to get a ship to the destination as a long-term project, but that long-term mission would eventually open up the companion system to easier access.
I seconded the suggestion of allowing intra-system jumps from star to star it would be a quick and easy solution.
Although on the other hand it wouldn't allow for creating a shortcut like being able to stabilize your own intra-system jump-points would (possibly) allow i.e. stabilize a intra-system point at Planet X/Pluto and another one by Venus to enable shorten travel time to your primary jump chain which is near Mercury.
I also really like the idea of being able to create artificial lagrange points. That sounds like it would turn into a fun infrastructure project sort of thing.
2) Allow stabilisation ships to create new Lagrange points. This would take a varying amount of time depending on the mass of the chosen planet vs the normal minimum mass for the Lagrange point to form. This is my preferred option. I just haven't got around to it yet. You would still need to get a ship to the destination as a long-term project, but that long-term mission would eventually open up the companion system to easier access.
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange pointsGreat news! Will NPRs use this mechanic?
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange points
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange points
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
Thank you, it's a really great gameplay improvement in my opinion.
About the Lagrange points. I know that they are "trailing" their planet, but how far are they exactly from such planet? Could we have an approximated formula or even just a quick and dirty estimate?
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange pointsGreat news! Will NPRs use this mechanic?
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
Also, is it possible to set the minimum size of a planet for this during game startup? For me personally 0.25 is too small and I would like to have 1.0 as minimum possible.
Thanks!
NPRs don't have code for this at the moment. I may add it in future.
I could add a restriction, but as this is a single-player game, it would be straightforward to set yourself whatever restrictions seem reasonable, such as not using planets with mass below 1.0. I chose 0.25 because that is the mass where the time to stabilize is ten years and I didn't want every asteroid to be listed with a ten thousand year timescale.
Does it work on moons' L5s too? If I find one with a mass over 0.25 earth mass, that is.
Does it work on moons' L5s too? If I find one with a mass over 0.25 earth mass, that is.
No, only planets.
Does it work on moons' L5s too? If I find one with a mass over 0.25 earth mass, that is.
No, only planets.
But conveniently, any moon with a mass over 0.25E will orbit a planet with a mass over 0.25E.
AFAIK its still a thing in C#, though I personally wouldn't mind a game with finite systems (say 100 or so) which are all spawned in at the beginning, to prevent this nonsense. I almost always go with finite space anyways since its incomprehensible to me why people would want to play on a potentially infinite map doomed to lag death.I guess there could be an option also to just generate the jump points instead of whole systems so that the jump points would never be dormant.
My personal pet peeve is the fact that dormant points needs to be explored from the active side. Otherwise I'm pretty much fine with them. I like the rude awakening thing they do to you once you notice hostile fleet in your system
My personal pet peeve is the fact that dormant points needs to be explored from the active side. Otherwise I'm pretty much fine with them. I like the rude awakening thing they do to you once you notice hostile fleet in your system
I don't know, it seems to make more sense to me that there are some warp points that are very difficult to detect from one end (even if they've been there all along) than for new surveyable warp points to appear when you explore an entirely different system.
(Incidentally, dormant warp points - known as "closed" points in universe - and their effects on defensive planning, are a major plot point in the Starfire book and game series that Aurora is heavily inspired by)
My personal pet peeve is the fact that dormant points needs to be explored from the active side. Otherwise I'm pretty much fine with them. I like the rude awakening thing they do to you once you notice hostile fleet in your system
I don't know, it seems to make more sense to me that there are some warp points that are very difficult to detect from one end (even if they've been there all along) than for new surveyable warp points to appear when you explore an entirely different system.
(Incidentally, dormant warp points - known as "closed" points in universe - and their effects on defensive planning, are a major plot point in the Starfire book and game series that Aurora is heavily inspired by)
Yes, that is where they originate. The difference is that in Starfire you cannot detect a closed warp point even after someone transits, unless you detect a transit on sensors. Dormant Jump points 'wake up' in Aurora once a transit happens and then you can detect them. Without dormant jump points, you have three options for system generation.
1) Generate everything at start - which would mean a set universe size.
2) Don't allow connections to existing systems, so everything is in chains
3) Only connect to jump points that no one has explored yet.
The problem with all three of those options is that once you survey a system and check the jump points, you have identified all potential threats. You always know your core systems are safe because threats can only appear in non-surveyed frontier systems. You also also never going to find a shortcut from a valuable frontier region to the core worlds. With dormant jump points, you have the potential for sudden threats in unexpected locations and for galactic re-alignment when an unexpected connection is made.
I'm not quite sure if this has been answered in the distant past but after re-reading the post for the change on missile engines being integrated I'm curious. I noticed you can only have one engine, is the max size for missile engines still only 5 MSP? Has it been increased? I really like making making size 40 super missiles that go 1/3rd the speed of light for my fighter-bombers. But perhaps that won't be possible with the new fuel consumption rules. It will be interesting nonetheless to experiment though.
sidestepping the war crime potential. if you capture the habitat do you capture the population as well or do the population get redistributed throughout the original colony i.e going onto the surface and other orbital habitats?
Population is tied to the colony, not the habitat. Think of the habitat as infrastructure. So the population remains part of the colony and has to be handled by the remaining habitats and infrastructure.
A couple of questions around commanders:
1. I remember reading that initially you had set the promotion ratio to 2:1 and was discussing at some point to maybe have promotions happen to fill available vacancies. What model did you end up going with? Have you had any trouble filling commander roles?
2. I do also remember reading that you could still manually assign a ship commander above the max rank for the ship, can this still happen?
3. Did you end up adding the flag for 2+ commander rank for a ship?
Thanks :)
Planetary Installations
There are a few additions and changes for planetary installations, including changes to mineral requirements. Here is a table of the current situation.
<Table snipped for space>
Planetary Installations
There are a few additions and changes for planetary installations, including changes to mineral requirements. Here is a table of the current situation.
<Table snipped for space>
There are no entries in the Sorium or Gallicite columns. I assume those columns were included for completeness sake, and not that the numbers have gone missing?
Are there any plans for a future implementation of orbital eccentricity for all bodies? As I understand, C# Aurora is supposed to be significantly more performant, and we already have comets in-game anyway. Maybe in v1.x?
I was looking through the changes list and I noticed that you said that the bonuses a tactical officer gives are TBD. Did you ever figure this out or is it still on the to do list?
Regarding Ordnance Transfer Hubs on space stations, are they capable of transferring ordnance from one ship to another without needing internal magazines? I'd imagine you don't want huge amounts of unstable ordnance clustered in one place.
The composition of troops and their organization can impact the effectiveness of an army quite a lot. If two armies with equivalent mechanized parts were to engage, usually the better organized had an edge over the other - despite the fact that on paper there wasn’t much of a difference.
Have you made any experience in that area, Steve? How does the new army structure affect the effectiveness of the armed forces?
I have been wondering about the mass of ships in Aurora for some time now. The International Space Station (ISS) is 412 Metric tons, an F-35 is 27 Metric tons, the Space Shuttle is ~2,000 Metric tons just before takeoff (With boosters, fuel), and 75 Metric tons empty. I am struggling to get a sense of the size of ships/fighters are in Aurora. Fighters in Aurora can be bigger than the ISS. I know trans-newtonian elements would be larger, but this is still strange to me.
I have been wondering about the mass of ships in Aurora for some time now. The International Space Station (ISS) is 412 Metric tons, an F-35 is 27 Metric tons, the Space Shuttle is ~2,000 Metric tons just before takeoff (With boosters, fuel), and 75 Metric tons empty. I am struggling to get a sense of the size of ships/fighters are in Aurora. Fighters in Aurora can be bigger than the ISS. I know trans-newtonian elements would be larger, but this is still strange to me.
Aurora doesn't differentiate between size and mass so 'tons' are used for both. An Aurora 'ton' is fourteen cubic metres, which is the volume of one ton of liquid hydrogen. The ISS is large in terms of width and height but internal volume is very small.
I have been wondering about the mass of ships in Aurora for some time now. The International Space Station (ISS) is 412 Metric tons, an F-35 is 27 Metric tons, the Space Shuttle is ~2,000 Metric tons just before takeoff (With boosters, fuel), and 75 Metric tons empty. I am struggling to get a sense of the size of ships/fighters are in Aurora. Fighters in Aurora can be bigger than the ISS. I know trans-newtonian elements would be larger, but this is still strange to me.
Aurora doesn't differentiate between size and mass so 'tons' are used for both. An Aurora 'ton' is fourteen cubic metres, which is the volume of one ton of liquid hydrogen. The ISS is large in terms of width and height but internal volume is very small.
Never really reflected on what the size the ships and missiles actually would roughly be...
So a Size 1 AMM could be roughly 0.5*0.5*3 meters and a 1000ton ship could be roughly 12*12*100m in size.
So I would say that Newtonian materials are way lighter and stronger than current material which seems perfectly fine to me.
I have been wondering about the mass of ships in Aurora for some time now. The International Space Station (ISS) is 412 Metric tons, an F-35 is 27 Metric tons, the Space Shuttle is ~2,000 Metric tons just before takeoff (With boosters, fuel), and 75 Metric tons empty. I am struggling to get a sense of the size of ships/fighters are in Aurora. Fighters in Aurora can be bigger than the ISS. I know trans-newtonian elements would be larger, but this is still strange to me.
Aurora doesn't differentiate between size and mass so 'tons' are used for both. An Aurora 'ton' is fourteen cubic metres, which is the volume of one ton of liquid hydrogen. The ISS is large in terms of width and height but internal volume is very small.
Never really reflected on what the size the ships and missiles actually would roughly be...
So a Size 1 AMM could be roughly 0.5*0.5*3 meters and a 1000ton ship could be roughly 12*12*100m in size.
So I would say that Newtonian materials are way lighter and stronger than current material which seems perfectly fine to me.
Nah. A size 1 AMM is 1.25 tons, so 1.25*1.25*11m or so (Alternately, about the size of a small bus or a large van). That's actually really big, and I think that fits - I picture missiles in Aurora as basically just single use spacecraft, given their enormous ranges.
It also suggests that a Nimitz class Aircraft carrier sized ship would be in the range of 30-50,000 tons, as Aurora measures things. That's big but not overly so for an Aurora capital ship, so again, I think it fits pretty well.
One Missile Size Point (MSP, not to be confused with Maintenance Supply Points, also called MSP) equals 1/20 HS (Hull Spaces), or 2.5 tons.
Reviewing the new Ground Combat rules -- specifically Fortification -- I'm not seeing any way to reduce fortification other than (the owner) setting a unit to Front Line Attack or removing it from the colony entirely. I had remembered (or maybe just assumed) that combat would reduce a unit's fortification level when it was fired upon.
Does shooting at a ground unit reduce its fortification in any way? Is there a ground-support mission (for fighters or ships) to reduce fortification levels?
Reviewing the new Ground Combat rules -- specifically Fortification -- I'm not seeing any way to reduce fortification other than (the owner) setting a unit to Front Line Attack or removing it from the colony entirely. I had remembered (or maybe just assumed) that combat would reduce a unit's fortification level when it was fired upon.
Does shooting at a ground unit reduce its fortification in any way? Is there a ground-support mission (for fighters or ships) to reduce fortification levels?
Should it, though?
Historically, fortifications have been basically unaffected by bombardment since around WWI.
One of the reasons the initial offensives on the Somme were such costly fiascoes for the British is that their general staff thought they could degrade the opposing fortifications with preliminary bombardments. And it turns out that you really can't very substantially degrade a well constructed trench system by blasting it with artillery. Similarly, WWII demonstrated that preparatory bombardments (as opposed to infantry-directed fire support) of urban areas is downright counterproductive - blasting a city actually improves its defensive properties (at the cost, obviously, of making it uninhabitable for the civilian population, which is why defenders do not tend to do it themselves). Air power and cruise missiles used without specific ground direction against built-up or fortified areas are basically just terror weapons (blasting moving vehicles in rural areas is a different story; undirected air power is great for that).
That would introduce a new parameter and thus subtlety, like in some WW2 wargames where some planes are really good at 'de-fortification'.
It can also be a parameter attached to a unit, think special ops, weak in regular combat but able to sabotage or blow bridges, bunkers, command posts.
Not inaccurate for World War I but we are talking science fiction with nukes, lasers, and mass drivers firing from space are a part of warfare and you would think the power of those weapons if directed could reduce fortifications.Emphasis mine.
(I'm abstracting away air power here, because for most actual use cases it is just expensive artillery.)
It's because of this and other factors that modern day warfare is much less focused on fortification based warfare, but that doesn't mean that such warfare isn't still conducted, especially in places that are well suited to such warfare, like heavily wooded and mountainous terrain.We should always be very careful with drawing lessons from history and especially comparing different time periods, because there are many factors involved.
The reason WW2 didn't become the stalemate of WW1 isn't improvements in artillery or because of airpower.We're not debating that. And just like WW1 had fluid phases, WW2 had stalemate phases, they are just poorly known in popular culture. My point was that there were improvements in both offensive and defensive capabilities. Just like there have been to this day, and there will be in the future, including the science fiction future of Aurora. Hence, it would be misleading to assume, like
It really bears mentioning that artillery in world war 1 could reduce fortifications just fineNo, it could not. It could only destroy old forts, the ones built in the 18th and 19th centuries, but more modern forfications that used domes were almost invulnerable. Shells were generally very underpowered and fuses were unreliable. Gunnery firing arcs were parabolic (not sure that's the right word) and meant that impact angles were low, not high. And of course, calibres were generally relatively small as well. Shells would only graze domed fortifications and bounce off, directing the explosive power outwards.
generally speaking infantry had to abandon their trenches and then try to come back and defend whatever was left after the bombardmentMisleading and only partially true. Infantry would generally take shelter in pillboxes and bunkers during bombardmend, to reduce casualties even further, but the trenches - once they were chest-deep - were good enough to cut down casualties by themselves massively because the attacker basically needed a direct hit on a manned section of the trench to cause any casualties. Even in WW2, when timed fuzes became common place, airbursts weren't reliably hitting inside trenches. Once the bombardment was over, the defending infantry would swarm out of their shelters to man the firing pits, bringing machine guns and light mortars with them, and the trench lines were usually intact. Because again, you needed a direct hit to get it to collapse, and even then the infantry could use the resulting crater as cover.
It makes logical sense for fortification level to degrade due to intense fighting though. One infantryman manages to toss a satchel charge through a gunport, suddenly the pillbox is gone and your fortification is strictly less than it was before. And you can't really rebuild it in the middle of combat, so its gone for good.Not really. The satchel charge is not going to destroy the pillbox. Sure, the gun is wrecked but defender can easily bring up a replacement gun. Maybe not for some heavy coastal gun, but anything smaller is replaceable. Field fortifications were rebuilt during combat all the time. In both WW1 and WW2 we have thousands and thousands of examples of attacker gaining control of part of the fortifications, only for the defender to counter-attack and then resume defending the original line. Fieldworks can be repaired/rebuilt overnight with only shovels, crowbars and pickaxes.
attackers can still drive defenders out of their hardened structures, thereby capturing an opponent's fortifications, thereby reducing the enemy's level of fortificationNot completely true. Unless the attacker manages an actual breakthrough, instead of the far more common break-in, the defender will have a good chance of regaining the position through counter-attacks. The attacker can be subjected to enfilading fusillade from multiple directions while the defender brings in reserves and then throws the attacker out. Every
Which is why I'm advocating that you need special troops to combat fortification levels in Aurora. Because they are a mixture of terrain and construction, basically everything is abstracted into them, from camouflage to natural formations to field works to reinforced concrete (neutronium-duranium?) fortifications, the game shouldn't allow the attacker to wipe it all out "just because".
Having paid almost zero attention to this thread
With the removal of PDC are fighters still going to be able to be based on planets or will space stations need to be constructed to house them?
Would there be a way to mark a colony for de-populization? Thinking of simulating people moving to better suited colonies when they become available, and they choose to leave by themselves with civilian colonist transports - rather than having to simulate it by doing it with my own transports.
In that line: is there a weight calculated into where colonists move in terms of suitability of the colony? I would suspect that a colonist would rather move to a 2.00 world than to a 6.45 world - even if the 6.45 would be way closer than the 2.00 world... .
Would there be a way to mark a colony for de-populization? Thinking of simulating people moving to better suited colonies when they become available, and they choose to leave by themselves with civilian colonist transports - rather than having to simulate it by doing it with my own transports.
In that line: is there a weight calculated into where colonists move in terms of suitability of the colony? I would suspect that a colonist would rather move to a 2.00 world than to a 6.45 world - even if the 6.45 would be way closer than the 2.00 world... .
The minimum pop for directing civilian traffic has been reduced to ten million. Above that level, you can flag a population as a source of colonists.
The civilian companies are meant to be 'independent', which is why the limit exists. If you have too much control over where they go, you don't need your own colony ships. They are meant to add a random element to colonisation, so that all colonies naturally grow to some extent rather than just your priority colony.
The civilian companies are meant to be 'independent', which is why the limit exists. If you have too much control over where they go, you don't need your own colony ships. They are meant to add a random element to colonisation, so that all colonies naturally grow to some extent rather than just your priority colony.
I believe this is an acceptable compromise. After all, in c# we can choose to "shut down" civilian companies, preventing them to build ships/sorium harvesters. So we can simulate empires or races who are too autocratic/alien to have companies
If they do exist instead, they should be sort of independent.
A question though Steve. Can we also have a switch for civilian mining companies? For the same reasons, roleplay.
The civilian colony ships will move colonists where space exists. That is much more likely on a 2.00 world as less infrastructure is required to create that space compared to a 6.45 world. Also, they won't move to the 6.45 at all unless you create a colony there.So if I have two colonies with space free, one with 2.00, one with 6.45 it will be random where the colonists are shipped to?
How would army damage calculations work if two parties would attack one? Would that be two separate wars or can we combine those armies and benefit from an allied army?
How would army damage calculations work if two parties would attack one? Would that be two separate wars or can we combine those armies and benefit from an allied army?
How would army damage calculations work if two parties would attack one? Would that be two separate wars or can we combine those armies and benefit from an allied army?
This is pretty easy as each army just randomise their attacks, two "allied" armies fight more or less as one army but with separate command structures and supply distributions.
You could even have tree armies on one planet that all fight each other in a three front war.
The civilian colony ships will move colonists where space exists. That is much more likely on a 2.00 world as less infrastructure is required to create that space compared to a 6.45 world. Also, they won't move to the 6.45 at all unless you create a colony there.So if I have two colonies with space free, one with 2.00, one with 6.45 it will be random where the colonists are shipped to?
What can I do then to decolonize a colony if it is below the 10 million pop? Other than doing it myself 😉.
Yes, that's correct. Although that last sentence does conjure the image of an Entish civil war.
You want to be able to uproot 10 million people and just ship them like cargo to a whole other planet, leaving behind their homes, jobs and lives and you complain the game makes it too difficult? If anything, the game makes it too easy. You can just pick them up with cryo ships and move them without any unrest or productivity hit.Harsh way of putting it; thinking about options In The area of likelihood someone wants to stay on a colony. Aurora doesn’t simulate much in this area. So having a SM (?) Option to simulate free civilian will to go to better places... .
What I would like to be able to do is set a colony as "stable" even when it has less than 10 million colonists, just to help the AI on the colony ships a bit.
What reason is there to have a minimum limit anyway? Why does a colony below a certain limit have to be „Import only“? Any programming reasons? I see why you don’t want it to run to 0. But a minimum limit of 100.000 would archive the same as 10 Mill or VB6-25 mil...
Quick question about missile fire controls. In VB6 the range is 3x that of an active sensor for the same size. This means a size 1 control has the same range as a size 3 active sensor. With the changes in C# to sensor ranges vs size, are missile controls still 3x the range? And would this figured be 3x the range of a same sized active sensor or be based on a 3x sized sensor ?
Quick question about missile fire controls. In VB6 the range is 3x that of an active sensor for the same size. This means a size 1 control has the same range as a size 3 active sensor. With the changes in C# to sensor ranges vs size, are missile controls still 3x the range? And would this figured be 3x the range of a same sized active sensor or be based on a 3x sized sensor ?
You now need a fire control about 25% of the active sensor size for the same range
MK I Frigate Active Augur Array
Resolution 100 Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 51.3m km
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 128.3k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 4800
Cost 48 Size 150 tons Crew 6 HTK 1
MK I Torpedo Fire Control
Resolution 100 Range vs 5,000 ton object (or larger) Range 53m km
Range vs 1000 ton object 2.1m km
Range vs 250 ton object 132.5k km
Signature vs Passive Detection: 1280
Cost 12.8 Size 40 tons Crew 2 HTK 0
Any colony that 1) Has room for more people and 2) has colonists on it already and 3) is not a Stable colony or a Source colony, will have civilian craft move colonists there. Not sure how the 'don't go through here' system works, but if you station enough PPV in the system even that won't help, because IIRC the system will presume it's safe enough to move through if the PPV is higher than the 'dangerous system' points.
The newest ground combat detection explanation shows, that 50% of the time the shown number of enemy troops will be above the real value, and the other 50% below the real one. Wouldn’t it then be possible to „guess“ the real number?
As it’s explained, if the real number is 1000, the shown number can be between 500 and 2000. if in one round it shows 700 and in the next one 1690, then 750, 720, 1580 and so on, one could guess that the real numbers must be around 1000. Kinda defeats the purpose, right?
Will C# Aurora be installed as an update, a new installation, or something else? Also, will it interfere with switching back to VB6 Aurora to continue existing games beyond what updating from 6. 43 to 7. 10 did?
Civilians are not part of their government, so you can't control them. However, in C# you can choose to play without them and therefore control all your colony ships.
Civilians are not part of their government, so you can't control them. However, in C# you can choose to play without them and therefore control all your colony ships.
Well, I understand some of your reasoning (they do what they like) and the game balance issue here, but there should be some plausibility. Like (1) a system is off limit and the military enforces this 'blockade', either by preventing jumping through a wormhole (government controlled jump station right?) or having a military ship Board And Search civilian ships and rerouting them.
And (2) as for specifically colony population, if an outpost is a military installation with 50.000 contract workers, then there is 0% chance a colony ship will be allowed to land there.
But that's your game and if you feel the gameplay around civies is ok, because 'reasons', then ok anyway. :)
I have no problem in conceptual terms with the idea of military-only outposts or military systems, but that mechanic can't simply be a back-door to total military control of civilian traffic. I am open to suggestions on those lines.
The game play question in abstract terms is how much control the player should have over the civilian traffic. If the answer is total control, then the 'civilian traffic' would simply be another arm of the government/military forces. My concept for civilians is to add some randomness and chaos to the growth of an Empire, which is the opposite of total control. However, you can gain total control in several ways. For example, if you can block civilians from entering specific systems, then you can simply restrict every system except the ones you specifically need. Equally, if you can block specific population as 'military outposts', you can block every population except the one you want civilians to colonize.
I have no problem in conceptual terms with the idea of military-only outposts or military systems, but that mechanic can't simply be a back-door to total military control of civilian traffic. I am open to suggestions on those lines.
I assume civilians won't path through a restricted system either, correct? For example, if Aurelia is a restricted system, a colony in Equinox will never see a civilian ship either, correct?
Just a question about the last change : "A system can be flagged as 'Military Restricted' on the Miscellaneous tab of the Galactic Map. Once flagged, civilians will avoid the system. Civilians will also avoid any system flagged as alien-controlled."
Does it means that even alien controlled systems with alien who are friendly enough to allow trade are restricted?
Or just hostile alien?
Thanks a bunch Steve. Some devs studios around could get some lessons from you regarding behavior and open mindedness.
And indeed, Aurora is SP and can be abused a lot if the player wants that. This is not our intent, for most of us I think.
Plus, if I get it right, forbidding a colony to civilians also means no transportation through the contracting system and trade goods, so there is a drawback.
Just a question about the last change : "A system can be flagged as 'Military Restricted' on the Miscellaneous tab of the Galactic Map. Once flagged, civilians will avoid the system. Civilians will also avoid any system flagged as alien-controlled."
Does it means that even alien controlled systems with alien who are friendly enough to allow trade are restricted?
Or just hostile alien?
Did they have good access to Duranium and/or Sorium? Because those are the triggers for CMC mining, and good enough Sorium access in gas giants is the trigger for civilian fuel production.
After that, it's a random dice roll thing that is affected by yearly wealth production.
Did they have good access to Duranium and/or Sorium? Because those are the triggers for CMC mining, and good enough Sorium access in gas giants is the trigger for civilian fuel production.
After that, it's a random dice roll thing that is affected by yearly wealth production.
Quick question, Steve: How granular is the A.I with it's ground forces? We talking one big blob or company level, here?
In addition to what @JustAnotherDude asked.
I am curious if there is several different preformed/premade Templates for NPR ground forces where they have several basic formations with a mix of units and will only deploy these formations regardless of if the NPR only needs a portion of the troops in that formation. I.e Warsaw Pact style TOE organization
or
Is it ground forces built more ad-hoc and organic where the NPR will build and deploy what it calculates is best for the planet/invasion Target and based on it's strategic situation? I.e. british expeditionary Force organization
Steve, I was just taking a look at the changes list and I saw something about Squadron Jumps being handled differently in C# but no elaboration. Did that ever end up happening?
Spinal railguns will make an appearance in C#. I just haven't decided how to implement them. Leaning toward similar rules for lasers, with higher calibre available. However, I am also considering some form of weapon that has a higher chance of shock damage.Hey Steve, has your thinking vis-a-vis Spinal Rail Guns evolved since 2018? Since it seems we're in the final stretch before C# release and I'm starting to grow fond of the idea of Really Big Frigging Guns :D
Spinal railguns will make an appearance in C#. I just haven't decided how to implement them. Leaning toward similar rules for lasers, with higher calibre available. However, I am also considering some form of weapon that has a higher chance of shock damage.Hey Steve, has your thinking vis-a-vis Spinal Rail Guns evolved since 2018? Since it seems we're in the final stretch before C# release and I'm starting to grow fond of the idea of Really Big Frigging Guns :D
Spinal railguns will make an appearance in C#. I just haven't decided how to implement them. Leaning toward similar rules for lasers, with higher calibre available. However, I am also considering some form of weapon that has a higher chance of shock damage.Hey Steve, has your thinking vis-a-vis Spinal Rail Guns evolved since 2018? Since it seems we're in the final stretch before C# release and I'm starting to grow fond of the idea of Really Big Frigging Guns :D
Yes, I still plan to come up with some form of spinal railgun, although maybe not for initial release.
Spinal railguns will make an appearance in C#. I just haven't decided how to implement them. Leaning toward similar rules for lasers, with higher calibre available. However, I am also considering some form of weapon that has a higher chance of shock damage.Hey Steve, has your thinking vis-a-vis Spinal Rail Guns evolved since 2018? Since it seems we're in the final stretch before C# release and I'm starting to grow fond of the idea of Really Big Frigging Guns :D
Yes, I still plan to come up with some form of spinal railgun, although maybe not for initial release.
I remember seeing a post where you talked about possibly giving them enhanced shock damage, and one idea I had was what if spinal railguns had a chance to cause shield shock damage? That is to say, if they are absorbed by shields they have a chance of causing some of the shield generators to be disabled until repaired.
Regarding spinal mounts in general, I feel like it would be nice if you could actually have multiples of them, and the main tradeoff is purely the fact that you cannot turret them (so your tracking speed is limited to the speed of the ship). I think that would be a big enough tradeoff (they can be bigger but there is no way to turret them when they are built that way), the ship would need to be pretty fast to make them effective (whereas you could have a slow/stationary thing if you stuck to turreted weapons).
I also want to say I strongly favor the idea of shield shock damage wearing down the emitters, I think it makes sense that you would be beating up on the things if you are blasting away at them with huge nukes or lasers of equivalent power level. It also would be pretty entertaining if you had damage control crews frantically trying to keep the shields up as the generators blow out.
Regarding spinal mounts in general, I feel like it would be nice if you could actually have multiples of them, and the main tradeoff is purely the fact that you cannot turret them
I'll be honest I don't totally understand the rationale of that. Why limit it in that way?The default for all beam weapons is that they are hull-mounted. Turreted lasers/mesons/gauss are meant for PD. A spinal laser is a brute force approach for making a bigger than a normal weapon and the name implies (spinal as in spine-like) it's achieved by having the weapon run through the (entire/most) length of the ship. So that's why you can only have 1 Spinal weapon in VB6 and, AFAIK, C# is not changing that. If we can have as many spinal weapons as we want, it just means that they become the new normal.
I'll be honest I don't totally understand the rationale of that. Why limit it in that way?
I'll be honest I don't totally understand the rationale of that. Why limit it in that way?
As other said... regular weapons are already hull mounted like a spinal weapon... the difference is that the spinal weapon runs through the ship. The only scenario where I see that you could add multiple spinal weapons to any ship is by having a size limitations on them.
I'll be honest I don't totally understand the rationale of that. Why limit it in that way?
As other said... regular weapons are already hull mounted like a spinal weapon... the difference is that the spinal weapon runs through the ship. The only scenario where I see that you could add multiple spinal weapons to any ship is by having a size limitations on them.
I have considered adding a 'Twin Spinal' tech in the Spinal & Advanced Spinal tech line.
Spinal railguns will make an appearance in C#. I just haven't decided how to implement them. Leaning toward similar rules for lasers, with higher calibre available. However, I am also considering some form of weapon that has a higher chance of shock damage.Hey Steve, has your thinking vis-a-vis Spinal Rail Guns evolved since 2018? Since it seems we're in the final stretch before C# release and I'm starting to grow fond of the idea of Really Big Frigging Guns :D
Yes, I still plan to come up with some form of spinal railgun, although maybe not for initial release.
Yes, I still plan to come up with some form of spinal railgun, although maybe not for initial release.
If you could turret railguns, then missiles would be obsolete :)
I have considered adding a 'Twin Spinal' tech in the Spinal & Advanced Spinal tech line.
..any Admin Command with fleets directly attached requires a higher rank than the highest-ranked ship captain in those fleets.
A fleet that includes a ship with a flag bridge can assign a 'fleet commander' senior to the commander of the ship...
QuoteAlong similar lines of thought what I would love to see is a "Weapon battery" component you can design ( for all weapons including missile launchers ), which works alot like a turret but without having any ability to speed up targeting.IIRC this is already a “feature” for all turret-able weapon types. Just set the tracking speed of your desired battery to 0 km/s. You can even use any multiple of two and/or three weapons, since any researched turret-able weapon with 0% turret gear is eligible to be turreted!
Basically by grouping X weapons together permanently already in ship design you trade away flexibility ( since all must be connected to a single fire-control ) and redundancy ( since they are destroyed as a single unit ), to gain survivability ( they can be armored ) and efficiency ( savings with less size and crew needed due to weapon proximity ).
The last time I cruised a fleet to (0,0) -- i.e. the heart of a star -- nothing happened. Will flying into the corona (or even the heart) of a star have any effect on ships in C# Aurora? Is it something that's been shuffled into "interesting space terrain" and left for 2.0?
Will this version support 1366x768 screen resolutions?
This is the biggest problem I have at the moment.
I wish I could play on my notebook.
Will this version support 1366x768 screen resolutions?
This is the biggest problem I have at the moment.
I wish I could play on my notebook.
Will mass driver packets be routed through available LPs in huge systems, instead of taking the multi-year 0.2ly route?
Will mass driver packets be routed through available LPs in huge systems, instead of taking the multi-year 0.2ly route?
How is determined the CMC auto created military force? Can the player has any control on it, like there is a budget and you can create a template used for these installations?
How is determined the CMC auto created military force? Can the player has any control on it, like there is a budget and you can create a template used for these installations?
At the moment, no. The CMC 'Garrison Battalion' is pre-defined, but it shouldn't be too difficult for Steve to draw it from the 'ground forces design philosophy' pool. . . or even pre-define a dozen or so options and mix & match.
Does the template adjust with improvements of technology? That is, does the Personal Weapon or armour rating upgrade as weapons and armour technology improve?
And does the template draw from the empire's list of ground weapons which have to be developed by the empire, or does it simply always have the right weapons researched?
Really minor thing, but will the C# version support any degree of UI customisation for text colour, window background colour etc?
Reason I ask is because I can see the light blue background used across the various windows kind of burning my eyes after prolonged sessions.... I often play Aurora to unwind after a late night shift at work into the early hours and especially at night I can see the constant blue being a bit of a eye strain. (Joys of getting oldish heh)
Really minor thing, but will the C# version support any degree of UI customisation for text colour, window background colour etc?
Reason I ask is because I can see the light blue background used across the various windows kind of burning my eyes after prolonged sessions.... I often play Aurora to unwind after a late night shift at work into the early hours and especially at night I can see the constant blue being a bit of a eye strain. (Joys of getting oldish heh)
Not on launch but I will probably add it.
Really minor thing, but will the C# version support any degree of UI customisation for text colour, window background colour etc?
Reason I ask is because I can see the light blue background used across the various windows kind of burning my eyes after prolonged sessions.... I often play Aurora to unwind after a late night shift at work into the early hours and especially at night I can see the constant blue being a bit of a eye strain. (Joys of getting oldish heh)
Not on launch but I will probably add it.
Cool.
It may not be a actual problem that needs addressing once the actual C# release is out if the UI scales reasonably decently on larger 4k displays, it's something more coming from looking at screenshots like:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg119044#msg119044
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118725#msg118725
Which looking at everything just blurs together at a glance and requires focusing the eyes to read the list of text.... could just be a side effect of capturing part of a window taken from the game running at a entirely different resolution.
They aren't blurry to me. Could it be a monitor issue?
Not sure if I missed this information or if this has been considered but will there be a finer granulation of fighter engines now that the fuel economy are somewhat different from before. There will be a huge difference between a size 1 and size 2 engine now.
If it wouldn't be too much a trouble to make it like 1 and 0.1 increments to 2, 0.2 increments to 3 and 0.25 increments to 4 and 0.5 increments to 5 or some such.
Fighter engines start at 0.1 HS now.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109885#msg109885
Not sure if I missed this information or if this has been considered but will there be a finer granulation of fighter engines now that the fuel economy are somewhat different from before. There will be a huge difference between a size 1 and size 2 engine now.
If it wouldn't be too much a trouble to make it like 1 and 0.1 increments to 2, 0.2 increments to 3 and 0.25 increments to 4 and 0.5 increments to 5 or some such.
Fighter engines start at 0.1 HS now.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109885#msg109885
Will that follow the same increments as sensor HS currently does in 7.1? 0.1 from 0.1 to 1, 0.2 from 1 to 2, 0.25 from 2 to 5, and 1hs from there to maximum? Went looking, didn't find that detail anywhere.
Busily converting my excel workbook in prep for c#, already have it running c# numbers for sensors, missiles, and engine/fuel prescriptions, except for matching granularity in engine size options, its still integer HS engines only. Going to build in the sensor pattern until I know different, relatively easily changed once known.
Not important, but if you have a free moment? Thanks.
there is no need to keep using CIWS.
there is no need to keep using CIWS.
This is really a shame, I want to keep them for military ships too, I always RP them as powerful miniguns you see on nowdays naval ships, its a bit harder to imagine with regular gauss turret for me, as it seems more like a small-caliber naval cannon instead.
its a bit harder to imagine with regular gauss turret for me, as it seems more like a small-caliber naval cannon instead.I hear ye, but just name them something clever and that should fix it. I named my "Quad Gauss Turret" FlaK-Battery instead in one game and in another it was "Point Defence Turret" and you got used that term quickly which helps you imagine it the way you want it. You could name it Gatling Gun or Defensive Turret or anything that sparks your imagination.
its a bit harder to imagine with regular gauss turret for me, as it seems more like a small-caliber naval cannon instead.I hear ye, but just name them something clever and that should fix it. I named my "Quad Gauss Turret" FlaK-Battery instead in one game and in another it was "Point Defence Turret" and you got used that term quickly which helps you imagine it the way you want it. You could name it Gatling Gun or Defensive Turret or anything that sparks your imagination.
And of course nothing stops you from using CIWS, I was just saying that organizing PD is now faster and easier than before so from convenience/micromanagement POV there is no use for CIWS.
For my WH40k campaign, railguns were weapon batteries, gauss cannon were defence turrets, missiles were torpedoes and particle beams were lance batteries. You soon get used to it.
The Boarding Combat capability is required for a Unit to be able to board another ship.
Only a ship with a boarding-equipped troop transport bay can be ordered to make a boarding attempt
Any unit with a 'Boarding Combat' capability has double the normal chance of success.
CIWS is still useful for some situations, as it is more compact than having the weapon, reactor, fire control and ECCM as separate installations.
That's what Steve's original post says. However, his later post says that having that capability doubles your chance of success and that there is a new ship module for boarding combat.
That's what Steve's original post says. However, his later post says that having that capability doubles your chance of success and that there is a new ship module for boarding combat.
The latter is correct. I changed the mechanics in-between. I suspect that is true for quite a few posts. At some point I need to go through the change log and correct them.
That's what Steve's original post says. However, his later post says that having that capability doubles your chance of success and that there is a new ship module for boarding combat.
The latter is correct. I changed the mechanics in-between. I suspect that is true for quite a few posts. At some point I need to go through the change log and correct them.
What happens when a future prototype's required technology is researched? Does it turn into a normal prototype?
(Thanks for implementing the prototype system, looks awesome and very useful)
Regarding the new ordinance mechanics:
- If I have a Collier Fighter, 500 Tons(10HS) let's say, carrying 2 Size 10 Missiles, and it lands on a ship which has a magazine capable of receiving them, can I transfer them? Or does that ships ALSO need some kind of extra equipment? If so, can the mothership mount it, or does the Fighter need to? I would suspect that if the equipment to reload my Fighters from the mothership's magazine(s) exists in a hangar space, then the inverse would also hold true.
Regarding the new ordinance mechanics:
- If I have a Collier Fighter, 500 Tons(10HS) let's say, carrying 2 Size 10 Missiles, and it lands on a ship which has a magazine capable of receiving them, can I transfer them? Or does that ships ALSO need some kind of extra equipment? If so, can the mothership mount it, or does the Fighter need to? I would suspect that if the equipment to reload my Fighters from the mothership's magazine(s) exists in a hangar space, then the inverse would also hold true.
@Steve Walmsley
- So I don't need Ordinance Transfer equipment of any sort to do it then, even when the Fighter in question hasn't been landed? Well, alrighty then.
Is the game still balanced for a 500 million starting population? Are neutral NPRs still a thing? Basically, is there a mechanism in place for playing the modern Earth with a population of 7 billion without messing things up?
When the "Intelligence and Foreign Relations" window shows warship classes in the summary (such as the "3x Genghis" here:http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/Crusade/Space1889_VenusIntel.PNG (http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/Crusade/Space1889_VenusIntel.PNG)), is there any way for my empire to designate them, for example, Battleships and have it show "3x Genghis BB" instead?
Even if that's not what the foreign government calls those ships, and even if the window does identify them as such elsewhere, it's specifically the leftmost column and the "Known Ship Classes" dropdown where I'd like to see the hull type designators listed.
So, for example:
"Known Ship Classes"
- 3x Genghis BB
- 8x Hazara CA
- 3x Khan BB
- 1x Mongka CJ
- 12x Nevnizgiin H4
- 12x Nevnizgiin Small C4
- 12x Nevnizgiin Small F4
- 8x Timurad DD
- 10x Yuan FF"
It's fine if I have to set the "BB, CA, CJ," etc., myself.
How's the performance of c# comparing to old version?Massively better. C# runs faster than VB6 does and the game no longer writes into the database all the time. Civilian shipping will no longer be a drag. NPRs will still cause issues because there is no way to stop them from fighting other NPRs and/or spoilers but their mere existence will not slow things down. Steve has posted actual numbers here and there - things that used to take a minute now take few seconds.
On spoiler races: Are there any changes to any of them?Yes.
¿Is going to be possible to do some like that in Aurora C#?Yes, the database will remain and you can take it with you so you can play the same campaign at multiple places and on several PCs.
QuoteHow's the performance of c# comparing to old version?Massively better. C# runs faster than VB6 does and the game no longer writes into the database all the time. Civilian shipping will no longer be a drag. NPRs will still cause issues because there is no way to stop them from fighting other NPRs and/or spoilers but their mere e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . When, or does, the game really starts to slow down, like turns longer than two minutes?
@Steve Walmsley
- So I don't need Ordinance Transfer equipment of any sort to do it then, even when the Fighter in question hasn't been landed? Well, alrighty then.
Ah - yes you would need ordnance transfer.
Regarding the new ordinance mechanics:
- If I have a Collier Fighter, 500 Tons(10HS) let's say, carrying 2 Size 10 Missiles, and it lands on a ship which has a magazine capable of receiving them, can I transfer them? Or does that ships ALSO need some kind of extra equipment? If so, can the mothership mount it, or does the Fighter need to? I would suspect that if the equipment to reload my Fighters from the mothership's magazine(s) exists in a hangar space, then the inverse would also hold true.
At the moment you can do it without landing - just join the fleet with the collier and set it to transfer ordnance. I think it would also transfer if you landed, but the carrier would then transfer it back. Although if you set the collier to a zero loadout, it would work. So yes, but complicated. Easier to do it before landing.
AFAICT, the originating vessel needs transfer equipment for all transfers, unless the receiving colony/vessel has heavy duty transfer equipment available.
Well, not no time... You can only dock so many ships per hangar, meaning that while yes you could slap a Boat Bay or two and use that, it would end up taking a serious toll on your mouse, not to mention your sanity to issue so many orders AND micro manage the launch / landing processes to allow it to happen in just one increment.
You could build massive carriers w/ the replenishment gear, but that would defeat the purpose. So... yeah. I think we should have gear similar to Cargo Handling Systems, except it affects small ship launch rate. And have launch rate be a thing. Battlestars had plenty of fighters, but only a few launch tubes, meaning that they could sortie every last one simultaneously... if I recall correctly. Battletech ships also needed time to recover their small ships and had a launch rate tied to Bay Doors.
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=10097. msg119478#msg119478 date=1583765162QuoteHow's the performance of c# comparing to old version?Massively better. C# runs faster than VB6 does and the game no longer writes into the database all the time. Civilian shipping will no longer be a drag. NPRs will still cause issues because there is no way to stop them from fighting other NPRs and/or spoilers but their mere e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thanks, cant wait for it!
Point Defence Fire ControlWhat does that mean, exactly? I thought "salvo" is a single target. Do you mean that 1 FCS + 3 weapons can engage 3 different salvos?
VB6 has a restriction that each fire control can only engage a single target during point blank fire. I've removed that restriction for C#. Each weapon can still only engage a single salvo.
@lockandload
- A "salvo" in VB6 is any cluster of missiles fired by one Missile FCS System. So for example a ship with 18 Size 1 Launchers and 1 M-FCS would fire one "salvo" of 18 Size 1 Missiles. However, if that same ship instead has 18 M-FCS Systems, it would fire 18 "salvos" of one Size 1 Missile.
- As such, every Beam FCS in VB6 could only engage one salvo. So you would need only one B-FCS Systems to engage a "salvo" of 18 Missiles, but you would need 18 B-FCS Systems to engage 18 "salvos" consisting of one Missile each.
- So why this all matters so much is that if you had say 4 Beam FCS Systems with 4 Quad Turreted Meson guns against 12 Salvos, you could at most destroy four of them under the VB6 rules. Under the C# rules, your Mesons will re-target if they destroy a salvo, potentially allowing you to destroy every one of those 12 salvos under the right circumstances.
Hope that helps.
I personally prefer the existing system of one BFC per volley. It only makes sense that one fire control should be able to engage one target (salvo) in one tick. Plus, with the missile changes, I'm worried that the effectiveness of beam PD per ton will become greater than the effectiveness of ASMs per ton, especially considering that MFCs and the active sensors required to support them already tend to be larger than PD BFCs and the tiny active sensors required for beam PD. I suppose that should have gone in suggestions but I digress.Quote from: xenoscepter link=topic=10097. msg119510#msg119510 date=1583911740@lockandload
- A "salvo" in VB6 is any cluster of missiles fired by one Missile FCS System. So for example a ship with 18 Size 1 Launchers and 1 M-FCS would fire one "salvo" of 18 Size 1 Missiles. However, if that same ship instead has 18 M-FCS Systems, it would fire 18 "salvos" of one Size 1 Missile.
- As such, every Beam FCS in VB6 could only engage one salvo. So you would need only one B-FCS Systems to engage a "salvo" of 18 Missiles, but you would need 18 B-FCS Systems to engage 18 "salvos" consisting of one Missile each.
- So why this all matters so much is that if you had say 4 Beam FCS Systems with 4 Quad Turreted Meson guns against 12 Salvos, you could at most destroy four of them under the VB6 rules. Under the C# rules, your Mesons will re-target if they destroy a salvo, potentially allowing you to destroy every one of those 12 salvos under the right circumstances.
Hope that helps.
I have to point out though that a single turret still can only target ONE salvo. But if you have five turrets with one BFC you now can target up to five salvos with that single BFC. As BFC generally are allot more expensive them MFC this is an important change. You no longer can use cheap fighters to fire many small salvos and overcome the PD that way. Being able to fire large salvos with box launchers from fighters already is a massive problem for beam PD as is.
So, there's no actual way to replace losses in existing formation without changing its TO&E? You have to manually place new sub-formations of units? Or I'm reading it wrong?The second of three posts for today
...
A troop transport waiting in orbit unloaded four Ordo Xenos and four Ordos Machinum formations. The four regiments of the Catachan Jungle Fighters remained on the planet as a garrison, while the rest of the assault force was loaded on four Cetaceous class troop transports to begin the long journey back to Terra, where they would absorb replacements and new equipment. The Expeditionary Fleet remained in orbit for the moment to cover the forthcoming planetary survey and provide protection against any hitherto undetected Necron forces in the system.
...
After reading this I was, waiting for updates on how Ground Forces are managed/upgraded. But as you are planning to start the next test campaign waiting is not an option, so I was wondering
if you have implemented a system for managing reinforcement/upgrades of Ground Fores Formations jet. Also see my suggestion (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10498.msg116436#msg116436)
So far, I have been adding new units as reinforcements, usually the latest versions. So some armoured regiments have a mix of Leman Russ and Leman Russ II battle tanks for example while some Imperial Guard infantry regiments have some guardsmen with a later version of the 'lasgun'. Some successful regiments have been given extra units while in other cases, a regiment is broken up to reinforce others. Finally, I have been producing 'replacement' formations, which are used as reinforcements for the main formations. It feels very organic in that way because real-world formations in a war will rarely be 'standard'.
There is no 'upgrade this regiment to this TOE' command, at least not for the moment. I haven't missed that option though or it would be coded by now.
So, there's no actual way to replace losses in existing formation without changing its TO&E? You have to manually place new sub-formations of units? Or I'm reading it wrong?
Will c# be distributed with a license of some kind? If not I highly recommend it for obvious reasons.Most likely as Steve has said on several occasions that he wants to put in some sort of code obfuscation.
Do the same passwords from 7.0 work?The database will be completely replaced so no, your old campaigns (and their SM passwords) are not going to be carried over.
If I may ask about a smaller point, has Steve fixed the issue in V7. 1 where mass drivers on civilian mining colonies can handle infinite throughput?
The logic to work out when to build additional mines at the colony is already there, and at the very least there is a display issue, because on the summary page CMCs are shown as not having any mass drivers, even though they do possess one, and on the mining page, mass driver usage is always shown at 0 even though that isn't the case.Quote from: The_Seeker link=topic=10097. msg119566#msg119566 date=1584115435If I may ask about a smaller point, has Steve fixed the issue in V7. 1 where mass drivers on civilian mining colonies can handle infinite throughput?
Is this actually a problem?
All mass drivers are supposed to be able to catch infinite amounts, and I can see it being easier to code the 'built in' mass driver of a CMC to 'send all' rather than adhere to per-MD limits and try to work out when to build additional mass drivers at the colony.
Hey Steve, some people on the Discord were wondering if anything major was changing for Invaders in C#. Could you give us a vague idea of any major changes?
Is there a way to group ships together like we can do with missiles? Goal here is to have increasing numbers of ships according to the whole series, not by each class individually. I mainly use this for transport ships - simply use the class name plus number - but I would like to have it continue the numbering when I improve the class to the next design level. But at the moment it will start with 001 again.
Do lost contacts retain their velocity vector line so you can figure out where they probbably went?
Do lost contacts retain their velocity vector line so you can figure out where they probbably went?
Yes.
Question: If I conduct a planet invasion and after a period of time, I find that the combat isn’t going well and I want to withdraw off planet...or let’s say I’m defending from an invasion and it appears I’m losing, can I rescue the ground forces? Understand that I’ll have to contend with any enemy STO and space forces to pull it off but wondering if that is possible or us every ground combat a ‘to the death’ situation? Secondary question is will AI withdraw ground forces from untenable position?
Question: If I conduct a planet invasion and after a period of time, I find that the combat isn’t going well and I want to withdraw off planet...or let’s say I’m defending from an invasion and it appears I’m losing, can I rescue the ground forces? Understand that I’ll have to contend with any enemy STO and space forces to pull it off but wondering if that is possible or us every ground combat a ‘to the death’ situation? Secondary question is will AI withdraw ground forces from untenable position?
Yes, you can load ground forces during combat.
AI doesn't currently abandon invasions, but I'll probably code that at some point.
Hello! I would like to ask what version of the .net framework do i need to run aurora 4x c#? The .NET Framework 4.8 that comes with windows 10 or the 3.5 that is for download? Also do i need any other things? Like any Visual C++ Redistributables?
Ok thanks!Hello! I would like to ask what version of the .net framework do i need to run aurora 4x c#? The .NET Framework 4.8 that comes with windows 10 or the 3.5 that is for download? Also do i need any other things? Like any Visual C++ Redistributables?
I'm using NET Framework 4. I'll look at what is needed when I figure out the installation program.
As I understand it you aren't interested in donations, but do you have a preferred charity for people to donate to instead when they get their hands on the C# version?
To be honest, unless you've got a definite space side advantage any landed forces that cannot hold their ground are doomed anyway, because withdrawing them is extremely risky unless you unquestionably hold the orbitals.
And in such cases it'd be more likely to fail because you didn't bring enough forces in to hold the beachhead at the start than anything else, and if that happens you weren't doing an assault. You were doing a recon in force with a disposable unit to get a look at how much boom the enemy has in place to reject an attack.
Well it's possible that you as the attacker underestimated the defender tech level and/or size, and you might suffer a bunch of bad random rolls, leading to a situation where you know it's extremely unlikely for you to win but the defender is also unlikely to abandon their fortifications to come attacking you, giving you time to evacuate at least a chunk (if not most) of your troops. Sure, your rear guard has to be sacrificed but at least you can get the surviving expensive units out. Kinda like the Aurora version of Gallipoli.
Steve, regarding the tracking speed bonus for missiles, is it additive or multiplicative? If I have a turret tracking at 16,000 km/s and a tracking bonus of 6%, will the speed to-hit modifier be 59.3% (additive, 53.3% + 6%) or 56.5% (multiplicative, 53.3% * 1.06) against a target moving at 30,000 km/s?
Steve, regarding the tracking speed bonus for missiles, is it additive or multiplicative? If I have a turret tracking at 16,000 km/s and a tracking bonus of 6%, will the speed to-hit modifier be 59.3% (additive, 53.3% + 6%) or 56.5% (multiplicative, 53.3% * 1.06) against a target moving at 30,000 km/s?
The tracking bonus applies to the tracking speed, not the to-hit chance.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115708;topicseen#msg115708
Steve, regarding the tracking speed bonus for missiles, is it additive or multiplicative? If I have a turret tracking at 16,000 km/s and a tracking bonus of 6%, will the speed to-hit modifier be 59.3% (additive, 53.3% + 6%) or 56.5% (multiplicative, 53.3% * 1.06) against a target moving at 30,000 km/s?
The tracking bonus applies to the tracking speed, not the to-hit chance.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115708;topicseen#msg115708
I phrased that poorly. I understand that, but is it additive or multiplicative? Does the effective tracking speed become 17,800 km/s (16,000 km/s + 6% of 30,000 km/s) or 16,960 km/s (16,000 km/s * 1.06) against a 30,000 km/s target?
Just out of curiosity, are there going to be any changes to commercial engines? I couldn't find any information on the changes list about it, but considering that the starting tech engine max size is 25 HS and the min engine power modifier is 0. 5x: Does this mean there is a single commercial engine type available for research at the start or has the min engine size been modified/removed?
Yeah, it be a good idea to add NPR colonies to the intel window. It's relatively easy to lose track of something like a precursor listening post, and you might never find it again.
Hey Steve, are Diplomatic Ships still subject to the modifiers where ships being in NPR territory upsets them?
However, I don't want a complete free pass so you can send your planet-killer to the alien home system because it also has a diplomacy module :)
However, I don't want a complete free pass so you can send your planet-killer to the alien home system because it also has a diplomacy module :)
That requires that we can actually build a planet-killer
I don't remember planet destroying weapons being in the game ;D ;D ;D
Two things seem relevant to me here.
Its a good question. At the moment they area treated like any other ship, but I agree they should have some special status. However, I don't want a complete free pass so you can send your planet-killer to the alien home system because it also has a diplomacy module :)
Open to suggestions here, but I will maybe go with NPRs ignoring the first 10,000 tons of any diplomatic ship in any non-Core system.
Actually, I have seriously considering having planets with high tectonic ratings explode if hit with enough ordnance, resulting in an asteroid belt :)
Maybe in a later version.
Actually, I have seriously considering having planets with high tectonic ratings explode if hit with enough ordnance, resulting in an asteroid belt :)
Maybe in a later version.
That's not how that works.
Very cinematic and hollywood appropriate, but that's not how that works. To blast a planet so hard that it turns into a debris field would require dumping so much energy into it you start exceeding its gravitational binding energy, and that is orders of magnitude greater than any energy release that could come from constant high power earthquakes. You might be able to start blasting chunks off the planet with heavy enough ordnance, but in that case how tectonically active it is is irrelevant.
Two things seem relevant to me here.
Its a good question. At the moment they area treated like any other ship, but I agree they should have some special status. However, I don't want a complete free pass so you can send your planet-killer to the alien home system because it also has a diplomacy module :)
Open to suggestions here, but I will maybe go with NPRs ignoring the first 10,000 tons of any diplomatic ship in any non-Core system.
1) How much the NPR is willing to tolerate aliens inside its borders. That is, how high their Xenophobia rating is. A race with a sufficiently high Xenophobia rating would find the presence of your diplomatic ship in their system horrifying enough that just having it there and trying to talk is only going to make it worse.
2) How militarized your diplomatic ship is. If it's counted as a civilian ship and they aren't xenophobic enough to blast it from the sky for being a ship that's not theirs, there is no issue. The more militarized the ship however, the more problems it creates, and Planetary Protection Value is a stat that could be used to measure how militarized the ship is. I'd say that ship's PPV directly impacts your ability to talk peaceably with NPRs, but that more Militant NPRs are more willing to tolerate armed diplomatic ships so long as it doesn't get too ridiculous.
Actually, I have seriously considering having planets with high tectonic ratings explode if hit with enough ordnance, resulting in an asteroid belt :)
Maybe in a later version.
That's not how that works.
Very cinematic and hollywood appropriate, but that's not how that works. To blast a planet so hard that it turns into a debris field would require dumping so much energy into it you start exceeding its gravitational binding energy, and that is orders of magnitude greater than any energy release that could come from constant high power earthquakes. You might be able to start blasting chunks off the planet with heavy enough ordnance, but in that case how tectonically active it is is irrelevant.
Coolness > Reality :)
Actually, I have seriously considering having planets with high tectonic ratings explode if hit with enough ordnance, resulting in an asteroid belt :)
Maybe in a later version.
That's not how that works.
Very cinematic and hollywood appropriate, but that's not how that works. To blast a planet so hard that it turns into a debris field would require dumping so much energy into it you start exceeding its gravitational binding energy, and that is orders of magnitude greater than any energy release that could come from constant high power earthquakes. You might be able to start blasting chunks off the planet with heavy enough ordnance, but in that case how tectonically active it is is irrelevant.
Coolness > Reality :)
I have a shameful admission to make. I have always wanted a "That is not a moon" moment in Aurora ;D
In that regard, for all its VERY large flaws, Stellaris satisfies my craving for massive, planet destroying ships ;D
Even if you are happy to talk to someone you may not be willing to give any intel away in the form of letting them see your colonies or even systems.
Size is good, but of at some point the NPR finds out that class has weapons that should have some impact on its tolerance to its presence. Say your diplomatic ship fires at a third party while in sensor range of the NPR, or they've captured one somehow, or for whatever reason they find out what that ship is equipped with.
2) How militarized your diplomatic ship is. If it's counted as a civilian ship and they aren't xenophobic enough to blast it from the sky for being a ship that's not theirs, there is no issue. The more militarized the ship however, the more problems it creates, and Planetary Protection Value is a stat that could be used to measure how militarized the ship is. I'd say that ship's PPV directly impacts your ability to talk peaceably with NPRs, but that more Militant NPRs are more willing to tolerate armed diplomatic ships so long as it doesn't get too ridiculous.
how tectonically active it is is irrelevant.
NPRs will treat ships without detected military engines that have not demonstrated any weapon capability as 10% of the normal size when assessing their threat levelThis should be commercial engines, surely?
From the change list:QuoteNPRs will treat ships without detected military engines that have not demonstrated any weapon capability as 10% of the normal size when assessing their threat levelThis should be commercial engines, surely?
Quick question to Steve: This current playthrough is pretty cool, but how would one replicate it? It seems like all of the diplomatic mechanics only kicked in at the end of the "truce" which I assume is a RP construct only.
Quick question, Steve - is it possible to set a system as a 'demilitarized zone' banning entry of ships with military engines or known to possess weapons? Can we negotiate for transit access for starships through neutral/friendly space?
Quick question, Steve - is it possible to set a system as a 'demilitarized zone' banning entry of ships with military engines or known to possess weapons? Can we negotiate for transit access for starships through neutral/friendly space?
Not at the moment, although that would be hard for the NPR to handle as the player is quite capable of building commercial-engine warships.
Do NPR's understand proportionality? I mean, do all conflicts, no matter how minor they start, result in total annihilation for the loser? If I blow up a survey vessel for getting to close to me, will they try to glass my homeworld?
Do NPR's understand proportionality? I mean, do all conflicts, no matter how minor they start, result in total annihilation for the loser? If I blow up a survey vessel for getting to close to me, will they try to glass my homeworld?
It would be really cool to see a wider range of diplomatic options. Although the current system is way more fleshed out than VB6, all interactions still basically amount to adding or subtracting relations points. It'd be really cool to have the ability to have more involved interactions, peace treaties, and trading of systems, resources or information.
I don't think avoiding contacts is enough to reduce tensions, in terms of balance. If an NPR is winning a war, they will be on the offensive, actively seeking more contacts. It seems like you may be able to end a war you are winning before annihilating your foe, but your foe will never show mercy if they're winning. Maybe they need some sense of a war goal which, once achieved they'll stop/slow their assault.Do NPR's understand proportionality? I mean, do all conflicts, no matter how minor they start, result in total annihilation for the loser? If I blow up a survey vessel for getting to close to me, will they try to glass my homeworld?
Most of the time, probably not :)
It's worth reading the various Diplomatic updates in the changes log. Here is Part #1 of 8.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118258#msg118258
"If there is no contact at all, even via civilian ships, then Diplomacy Points will move toward zero, from either direction. The annual rate of change is the Xenophobia of the viewing race when the starting point is positive and 100 – Xenophobia when the starting point is negative. For example, the view of a race with 25 Xenophobia will only fall 25 points when the starting point is positive but will rise by 75 points when the starting point is negative. Low Xenophobia races are quicker to forgive transgressions and vice versa."
This means that a relatively minor incident will be forgiven within a reasonable time. If you wipe out a whole fleet, that would be a different situation but even then after a prolonged period without contact the situation will stabilise. Eventually, I may add some additional ways to reduce tensions - perhaps giving up systems for example.
I don't think avoiding contacts is enough to reduce tensions, in terms of balance. If an NPR is winning a war, they will be on the offensive, actively seeking more contacts. It seems like you may be able to end a war you are winning before annihilating your foe, but your foe will never show mercy if they're winning. Maybe they need some sense of a war goal which, once achieved they'll stop/slow their assault.
Long-time lurker here. About Particle lances, I saw that you unlock them when you reach Strenght-6 in particle beams, but can we build smaller particle lances? Or is the 12 damage the smaller one?
Steve, is there a species-level modifier for wealth produced per million workers or mining rate at gamestart? There's a modifier for factory production, but that only affects factories, refineries and shipbuilding. For high production modifiers (200%+), we'll run out of wealth and mineral resources really really quickly.
Was just reading back through the changes list and noted the open point on coding combat air patrols for fighters. Did that make it in and just not get refreshed? Also can ground attack equipped fighters target STOs specifically as with AA units or does that just come through the general ground attack order?
In vb6 invader and precursor ships did not have crew and were easy to steal and reverse engineer. Is that also the case for c#?
I assume the basic premise from when starting on Earth is still true, that is less resources in Sol system than in average system of similar dimensions to push you out exploring and expanding? If so, could we maybe get a toggle that would disable this and apply the usual calculation for resources when starting a new game (assuming it would not be too much work and there would be demand for it).
I always wanted to play Earth start but having to set up my mining elsewhere in quite short amount of time always made me play custom systems instead. Especially knowing my enemy wouldn't have this disadvantage.
Greetings.
I had a jumble of questions in my head, but only three come to mind right now. They regard civilian shipping lines.
If I understood correctly, subsidies for shipping lines have not been implemented in Aurora C#. In VB6, new shipping lines start with the same same amount of wealth, regardless of the current tech level. This means that they can create several ships on very low tech levels, but only one on mid-tech, and none at all on later tech levels (thus, new shipping lines in late game will not be able to grow with no player subsidies).
My question would be, "does the initial wealth of shipping lines scale with the tech level of the player (specifically, Engine Power, Fuel Consumption and Cargo Handling System) in Aurora C#?"
There is another quirk of shipping lines in VB6 that caught my attention. Different shipping lines might choose different base numbers of engines for their designs in a tech level (from 4 to 8 ), and would also change that number once the new Engine Technology rolled in. Subsidies thus were a way to "reward" the lines which chose the best number of engines. My second question would be: "Do shipping lines still choose different numbers of engines for their designs in Aurora C#?"
The final question is: "Are shipping line subsidies still discarded for Aurora C#?"
Say please about HDD space required for install and run Aurora C#
In other words, a Spaceport is a ground-based 'everything' station that combines all other logistics functions (possibly at a space and/or cost savings, depending on how many of those functions one actually needs).
In other words, a Spaceport is a ground-based 'everything' station that combines all other logistics functions (possibly at a space and/or cost savings, depending on how many of those functions one actually needs).
Also, construction factories can only build space stations if the colony has a spaceport.
In other words, a Spaceport is a ground-based 'everything' station that combines all other logistics functions (possibly at a space and/or cost savings, depending on how many of those functions one actually needs).
Also, construction factories can only build space stations if the colony has a spaceport.
Even so, isn't the population requirement of one million a bit excessive?
Even so, isn't the population requirement of one million a bit excessive?
Given that one of its "everything" functions is basically 'shipyard,' I don't think so. . . but if that's not the part you're interested in, I can see how it might seem so.
But a shipyard actually builds ships. A spaceport simply allows surface construction factories to build things in orbit, which is very different. I don't disagree with spaceports requiring workers, I just feel like it should require 250,000 rather than a million.
A spaceport can provide the benefits of a :
Refuelling station (no workers)
Ordnance transfer station (no workers)
Cargo transfer station (no workers)
That is, if the chart on page 12 of the changes list is correct about those facilities having no population.
However consider than in C# its workers that generate wealth, not total population, your shipyard is generating 100 wealth per annum with that million population, making it worth 3.3 Financial centers.
A spaceport does the work of 4,000 BP of facilities but only costs 3,000 bp. Quite a bargain if you can afford the workers.
The only reason I'm asking is that I prefer to RP needing to build large space stations on-site, so I'll concede on this request.
That a disadvantage of low colony cost rather than a disadvantage of the spaceport itself. If a shortage of workers is your primary concern then you really should be using the facilities which mysteriously require no workers. 600 BP more than the shipyard but 150 BP less than the infrastructure required. Though infrastructure is basically free once you start colonizing as its produced in stupid quantities by any inhabited system, transporting it is the major problem, which ironically having a spaceport will help with. The other major issue is the ability to construct space stations, I think it makes sense that a colony should be rather large and well developed before it can consider making space stations, in a similar way that significant development is needed for terraforming, research, ship building, or large scale construction itself.A spaceport can provide the benefits of a :
Refuelling station (no workers)
Ordnance transfer station (no workers)
Cargo transfer station (no workers)
That is, if the chart on page 12 of the changes list is correct about those facilities having no population.
However consider than in C# its workers that generate wealth, not total population, your shipyard is generating 100 wealth per annum with that million population, making it worth 3.3 Financial centers.
A spaceport does the work of 4,000 BP of facilities but only costs 3,000 bp. Quite a bargain if you can afford the workers.
That works only if the colony cost is zero. A spaceport on a planet with a colony cost of 2.00, which is where most near-habitable planets that are good terraforming candidates sit, will have an effective cost of 3,750 BP (3,000 BP for the spaceport itself, and assuming a total colony population of ten million, giving 1.87 colonists per worker, approximately 750 BP for the infrastructure needed to support one million workers).
This is 150 BP more than the 3,600 BP needed for the other three installations combined, with the added disadvantages that the spaceport is significantly less portable since you'll need to cart around a couple of million colonists and their infrastructure with it, and unlike the refuelling station, cargo transfer station, and ordnance station, a spaceport can only be in one place at once. Apart from the fact that you need one million workers for it that could be doing other things, of course. A spaceport will not be the most preferred option for most military uses, leaving it with only one unique function - the ability to build space stations.
But that's where the problem lies. I can see a lot of situations where I'll end up building space stations at small colonies of ten million people or less, in systems where it's not viable to transport a station built elsewhere using a tug either because the intervening jump links haven't been stabilised or because it would take longer than building one on-site. Forward military bases in recently conquered enemy systems, orbital mining stations or harvesters in resource-rich locations, terraforming platforms - all of these might sometimes need to built on-site, and it really hurts when 20% of your workforce of five million is engaged in crewing a spaceport.
Then again, though, this is probably not going to be a very common opinion, since I suppose most everyone else will just prefer to use ships with the needed modules instead. The only reason I'm asking is that I prefer to RP needing to build large space stations on-site, so I'll concede on this request.
The recent discussion on diplomacy brings a question to mind.
Let us take the following scenario - I construct a mine and deploy it in a system belonging to NPR 1. That mine activates and damages/destroys a ship belonging to NPR 2. Do I take the diplomatic hit because they somehow know it is mine, or does NPR 2 blame NPR 1 because it happened in their system?
The recent discussion on diplomacy brings a question to mind.
Let us take the following scenario - I construct a mine and deploy it in a system belonging to NPR 1. That mine activates and damages/destroys a ship belonging to NPR 2. Do I take the diplomatic hit because they somehow know it is mine, or does NPR 2 blame NPR 1 because it happened in their system?
But also, do mines work only against targets that are hostile? Will mines deploy on allied or neutral targets?
Looking at changes list to kill the time now, I think a solution to the spaceport issue mentioned above (although I generally dont think it's an issue because Im more a fan of roleplay than aggressive minmax and think spaceports are cool anyways) is to maybe make everything the spaceport does work at a 50% to 100% faster rate than the racial baseline for the tech (ordanace transfer / refuel / cargo transfer rate etc)
Shipping lines do not have subsidies. They do choose different numbers of engines.Thanks for answering.
I've not had any issues in the test games. You would have to start at quite a high tech level before the shipping line could afford a small colony ship.
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg120364#msg120364 date=1585993505Shipping lines do not have subsidies. They do choose different numbers of engines.Thanks for answering.
I've not had any issues in the test games. You would have to start at quite a high tech level before the shipping line could afford a small colony ship.
I do prefer to run campaigns into the very high tech levels, which is what motivated my questions. I noticed some new shipping lines not building anything at all, so I started running tests.
Around Plasma Core engine tech, they would only build small freighters, and small colony ships and spaceliners (those two being more expensive than freighters) would only be built if they had four or five engines. For Beam Core tech, the affordability threshold for small freighters was six engines, for colony ships and spaceliners it was four engines. I haven't gotten to Photonic Drives yet, but some quick maths suggest that only small freighters with five or four engines would be affordable for new shipping lines.
I just wanted to ask, I've always wanted to be able to put railguns on turrets - will C# aurora extend or otherwise change the types of weapons that can be put on turrets?Railguns not getting turrets is an intentional balance decision. Other weapons get 4x tracking speed with turrets, railguns get 4x the amount of shots, making them roughly equal in terms of point defense. If you could turret railguns, they would be massively overpowered compared compared to any other beam weapon.
Quote from: Droll link=topic=10097. msg120653#msg120653 date=1586446404I just wanted to ask, I've always wanted to be able to put railguns on turrets - will C# aurora extend or otherwise change the types of weapons that can be put on turrets?Railguns not getting turrets is an intentional balance decision. Other weapons get 4x tracking speed with turrets, railguns get 4x the amount of shots, making them roughly equal in terms of point defense. If you could turret railguns, they would be massively overpowered compared compared to any other beam weapon.
So can plasma carronades and particle beams also be put on turrets now, or has that always been the case?
I just wanted to ask, I've always wanted to be able to put railguns on turrets - will C# aurora extend or otherwise change the types of weapons that can be put on turrets?
I just wanted to ask, I've always wanted to be able to put railguns on turrets - will C# aurora extend or otherwise change the types of weapons that can be put on turrets?
The lack of turrets for some weapon is a design decision, rather than an accidental omission.
Turreted railguns would be very overpowered for example.
Is there any sort of auto save feature? Would it be possible to add one that auto saves the DB every X amount of time either real time or ingame time please?
Is there a warning to save on exit? Everyone is probably used to VB6 always autosaving every single increment so some people might forget and close without saving
Is there a reason for Genome Research being unequal in the final techs in VB6 Aurora?
There is for example a Base Oxygen Level +90% Tech with a cost of 160.000 RP but no equivalent -90%. Minus stops at -75%.
Same for Base Temperature. That goes up only to +75°C but down to -90°C at a RP of 150.000 RP (why not the usual double as all the others?).
And last but not least the Temperature Range +25°C also has 150.000 RP instead of the usual double... .
I had a question about the fleet manager.
Are there alternative methods of adding ships to a fleet or sorting fleets for admin commands besides drag and drop?
In VB6 if i am building something and the end date is for example 3 of August and the current time is 2 of August and i run 1 day increment, the end date is now 4 of August, and the delay continues forever if i keep trying 1 day increments, in order to complete the building i need to do a 5 day increment, this will be fixed in the C# version?
I had a question about the fleet manager.
Are there alternative methods of adding ships to a fleet or sorting fleets for admin commands besides drag and drop?
Yesus, you can also change the production cycle length from the Game Menu. As Father Tim said, the default is 400 000 seconds. I don't recommend dropping it to 86 400 seconds (24 hours) as I recall that has caused some issues but I've done games with 259 200 seconds (72 hours, 3 days) without any problems. I've also played it set at 432 000 seconds (exactly 5 days) and running 1-day increments works well for both.
Yesus, you can also change the production cycle length from the Game Menu. As Father Tim said, the default is 400 000 seconds. I don't recommend dropping it to 86 400 seconds (24 hours) as I recall that has caused some issues but I've done games with 259 200 seconds (72 hours, 3 days) without any problems. I've also played it set at 432 000 seconds (exactly 5 days) and running 1-day increments works well for both.
Do you recall the issues exactly? I remember reading an AAR where the player had lowered the cycle to about three hours so that land battles would play out faster, since they mostly took place on small bodies like comets or on small moons meant to have only one colony.
Thanks! I believe with join fleet orders i still would be able to form basic fleets and a navy structure till then.I had a question about the fleet manager.
Are there alternative methods of adding ships to a fleet or sorting fleets for admin commands besides drag and drop?
There are orders to join fleets but the drag and drop is used for manual transfers.
EDIT: Just realised that was a screen reader question. I hadn't considered that aspect. Post-release I will look at some non-drag drop options. This affects a few windows, not just Naval Organization.
On the theme of fleet organisation, and the fact ive never used it in VB6. Will there be updated guides to the wiki for C# about fleet organisation and such?
Quote from: Chris Foster link=topic=10097. msg120790#msg120790 date=1586605242On the theme of fleet organisation, and the fact ive never used it in VB6. Will there be updated guides to the wiki for C# about fleet organisation and such?
I don't actually edit the wiki. That is all done by players.
Fleet org in C# should be a LOT more intuitive than VB6.
Do you know of any other important windows that necessarily require drag and drop, so while i'm tinkering with the release i could ask for sighted assistance in those windows?
Yeah, If what i wanted to do was simple enough i guess, bunch of friendly people on that platform. also once aurora is released i'll make a dedicated topic for myself and other screen reader users and can ask for help from Steve and others there.Do you know of any other important windows that necessarily require drag and drop, so while i'm tinkering with the release i could ask for sighted assistance in those windows?
I assume you're familiar with the App "Be My Eyes"? I bet there's folks on this board who'd help in a similar fashion.
How to create "conventional new game"I'll make a step-by-step tutorial.
What's the function of the last two buttons on the controls panel? The blue orb and the red/green button.
How to create "conventional new game"
What is an "Underground Construction Factory"?
Are neutral NPRs implemented the same way as in 7.1? If I want to play a United Nations game, can I create a standard player race and then a neutral NPR to represent the rest of Earth's population? Also, do multiple race populations stack towards a planet's population cap?
Will games from v1.00 still be playable in future versions of C# Aurora?
So, a question.
Do I still need to set the system decimal seperator to "." in order to play?
My nation (and half the world ;D) uses , for number. So you have 13,57 billion km, for example.
In vb6 aurora, I had to set it to . (13.57) or it would crash.
Is c# aurora unicode compliant? Or do i need to change it like before?
Hi Steve, I never play a Sol starting empire and I cannot find how to generate a non-Sol empire to play, there is no button like it was in VB6 to start as SpaceMaster race and then generate your own.
Is it not possible or it should be done in another way?
So I figured out which button is auto turns but what does the light bulb do?
Hi Steve, I never play a Sol starting empire and I cannot find how to generate a non-Sol empire to play, there is no button like it was in VB6 to start as SpaceMaster race and then generate your own.
Is it not possible or it should be done in another way?
Create game as normal for now. Use Create System to generate your starting system, create your new race and then delete original race and system. That is how I setup my BSG campaign.
I'm probably a donkey, but i can't remove components in class design, only add them. If i remember correctly, in VB6 it was done by right clicking, but here it just add more components
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10645.0 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10645.0)
I whipped a quick tutorial together on how to design, research and build ground units and formations.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10645.0 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10645.0)
I whipped a quick tutorial together on how to design, research and build ground units and formations.
Can't seem to find it anywhere, do you know what GSP stands for?
Can't seem to find it anywhere, do you know what GSP stands for?
FS Pioneer mk1G 001 (Pioneer mk1G class Fighter-Scout) 500 tons 13 Crew 130.3 BP TCS 10 TH 12 EM 0
1200 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 1/0/0/1 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.62 Years MSP 36 AFR 20% IFR 0.3% 1YR 7 5YR 111 Max Repair 100 MSP
Kapitan tret'yego ranga Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 20 months Morale Check Required
Nuclear Pulse Engine EP12.00 (1) Power 12.0 Fuel Use 76.25% Signature 12.00 Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 37 000 Litres Range 17.5 billion km (168 days at full power)
Thermal Sensor TH0.2-1 (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
I have some fighters of survay class:QuoteFS Pioneer mk1G 001 (Pioneer mk1G class Fighter-Scout) 500 tons 13 Crew 130. 3 BP TCS 10 TH 12 EM 0
1200 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 1/0/0/1 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 2. 62 Years MSP 36 AFR 20% IFR 0. 3% 1YR 7 5YR 111 Max Repair 100 MSP
Kapitan tret'yego ranga Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 20 months Morale Check Required
Nuclear Pulse Engine EP12. 00 (1) Power 12. 0 Fuel Use 76. 25% Signature 12. 00 Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 37 000 Litres Range 17. 5 billion km (168 days at full power)
Thermal Sensor TH0. 2-1 (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7. 9m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
"no Maintance required" options is checked.
1. This fighters take internal systems damage in flight - why ?
2. I set conditional order - "Fuel less than 50%, refuel from Colony or Hub". But my explorer run "out of fuel" ! Why ? Earth has huge amount fuel and spaceport.
3. I set order one explorer join to another, with speed 0. Explorer no move direct to target, but choose crazy path, as drink docker. What i make wrong ?
4. How set order damaged ship to automatic return for repair ? How automatize repair for fighters ?
Is it currently possible to change from the current white text on blue background to black text on white?
Or is this something that's planned for the future cosmetic pass after this initial release has settled down?
How can you tell if a character has been successfully flagged as a story character?
I know there is a check box but when I checked it it shows the check for every character and when I reopen the officer menu its unchecked for everyone.
How would I go about starting with NPRs on Earth? There's a lot of new creation options, and most of the new ones don't have tooltips but there was a bit I saw that might be it?
I have a problem with fleet movement. My Fleets refuse to leave Earth orbit. They show Distance and ETA but they are not moving. Anyone encountered this problem?
I have a problem with fleet movement. My Fleets refuse to leave Earth orbit. They show Distance and ETA but they are not moving. Anyone encountered this problem?
Do they have fuel and engines?
SS Ikaros (Daidalos class Survey Ship) 9 000 tons 165 Crew 1 009,4 BP TCS 180 TH 600 EM 450
3333 km/s Armour 3-38 Shields 15-450 HTK 46 Sensors 6/6/0/2 DCR 6 PPV 32,88
Maint Life 2,84 Years MSP 420 AFR 108% IFR 1,5% 1YR 76 5YR 1 141 Max Repair 112,5000 MSP
Magazine 24
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Morale Check Required
General Motors LEP-300,00 Improved Nuclear Pulse Engine (2) Power 600,0 Fuel Use 14,61% Signature 300,00 Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 780 000 Litres Range 106,7 billion km (370 days at full power)
Beta S15 / R450 Shield Generator (1) Recharge Time 450 seconds (0 per second)
Phalanx P-160 CIWS (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16 000 km/s ROF 5
Twin 50mm Vickers Gauss Cannon Turret (1x6) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 30 000 km ROF 5
SPG-2 Gauss Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16 000 km/s 84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
VSL-4 Box Launcher (6) Missile Size: 4,0 Hangar Reload 100 minutes MF Reload 16 hours
SPG-120 ASM Fire Control (1) Range 62,5m km Resolution 120
SS-N-4 Katana (6) Speed: 17 500 km/s End: 62,3m Range: 65,5m km WH: 2 Size: 4,00 TH: 58/35/17
SPN-1 Navigation Sensor (1) GPS 2520 Range 31,2m km Resolution 120
SPS-60 Space Search Sensor (1) GPS 2520 Range 35,1m km Resolution 60
SQR-1 Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19,4m km
SDR-1 EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19,4m km
Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I have a problem with fleet movement. My Fleets refuse to leave Earth orbit. They show Distance and ETA but they are not moving. Anyone encountered this problem?
I have a problem with fleet movement. My Fleets refuse to leave Earth orbit. They show Distance and ETA but they are not moving. Anyone encountered this problem?
Is the task force / fleet perhaps set to speed 1? (This happens when a fleet has no ships in it, and it doesn't always fix itself when ships are added.)
No I checked that and speed was set to the maximum. I do not know what caused it. But the game wa killed by the white screen bug. So I made a clear install and it is working now.What movement and standing orders do you have them set to?
No I checked that and speed was set to the maximum. I do not know what caused it. But the game wa killed by the white screen bug. So I made a clear install and it is working now.What movement and standing orders do you have them set to?
Is it possible to measure distance in the tactical map? In VB6 I believe it was shift+drag, men no matter the combination of shift, ctrl, and alt, any dragging just moves the map around.
No I checked that and speed was set to the maximum. I do not know what caused it. But the game wa killed by the white screen bug. So I made a clear install and it is working now.What movement and standing orders do you have them set to?
I was using Survey Next Five System Bodies commad. Now in the new game this command is still not working for me, but I can give manual command and ship will do it without a problem.
Edit: Ok I am absolutely confused, I switched to Survey Nearest Asteroid and Survey Nearest Moon for secondary standing order and after few days my ships started to survey the asteroid belt. Now they all working correctly even with Survey Next Five System Bodies command.
No I checked that and speed was set to the maximum. I do not know what caused it. But the game wa killed by the white screen bug. So I made a clear install and it is working now.What movement and standing orders do you have them set to?
I was using Survey Next Five System Bodies commad. Now in the new game this command is still not working for me, but I can give manual command and ship will do it without a problem.
Edit: Ok I am absolutely confused, I switched to Survey Nearest Asteroid and Survey Nearest Moon for secondary standing order and after few days my ships started to survey the asteroid belt. Now they all working correctly even with Survey Next Five System Bodies command.
"Survey Next Five System Bodies" has been buggy for others, so I expect that's it. Also, that order is supposed to fail with a message if the "next" body is too far away (to prevent racing off after distant binaries). How close was the closest unsurveyed planet, and how close was the closest unsurveyed moon?
I was using Survey Next Five System Bodies commad. Now in the new game this command is still not working for me, but I can give manual command and ship will do it without a problem.The survey standing orders seem to need a manual survey order to be given before the ships start to act upon them. This goes for both Geo and Grav.
Edit: Ok I am absolutely confused, I switched to Survey Nearest Asteroid and Survey Nearest Moon for secondary standing order and after few days my ships started to survey the asteroid belt. Now they all working correctly even with Survey Next Five System Bodies command.
Weren't size 1 passive sensors supposed to not be commercial anymore due to detection calculation change? Or am I remembering wrong?Steve removed the size-1 passive sensors from all ships. But they are still commercial.
I can't find any posts about the differences between the "Spaceport" and the "Cargo Shuttle Station". Is there any?
Is there a way to see how many tons of ships are currently being maintained at a colony? I can see how much the capacity in the main window, but with the new system, it requires a bit more math to keep track of how close you are to the limit, unless there is an easy overview.
Is there a way to see how many tons of ships are currently being maintained at a colony? I can see how much the capacity in the main window, but with the new system, it requires a bit more math to keep track of how close you are to the limit, unless there is an easy overview.
...same window, the number under it ;)
Weren't size 1 passive sensors supposed to not be commercial anymore due to detection calculation change? Or am I remembering wrong?Steve removed the size-1 passive sensors from all ships. But they are still commercial.
Ahh, that makes sense. The number didn't show up in my game because I hadn't built any military ships yet, but once I had build one it did show :)
Is there any way to decrease planet temperature?
Great game, lightning fast and no game-breaking issues so far. Very playable. Some questions though:
1. Will the function to subsidize the civilian economy be added in the future? If not, how do I encourage development of civilian shipping and mining like in VB6 Aurora? The way it works now seems way too slow.
2. Is there a way to increase the number of days that events are tracked in the event log? It's much harder to use 30-day increments because the event log gets wiped, so I lose track of stuff happening.
Is there any way to decrease planet temperature?
Terraforming. Add Frigisium.
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg121750#msg121750 date=1586791691Quote from: DFNewb link=topic=10097. msg121741#msg121741 date=1586791191Is there any way to decrease planet temperature?
Terraforming. Add Frigisium.
What do you add to increase temp? Do you know if the different gases matter too much? I generally just use the water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Great game, lightning fast and no game-breaking issues so far. Very playable. Some questions though:
1. Will the function to subsidize the civilian economy be added in the future? If not, how do I encourage development of civilian shipping and mining like in VB6 Aurora? The way it works now seems way too slow.
2. Is there a way to increase the number of days that events are tracked in the event log? It's much harder to use 30-day increments because the event log gets wiped, so I lose track of stuff happening.
When you start with an NPR, what determines the level of tech they start with?
Hi guys, i'm trying to figure out how to get a ship to unload a certain amount of fuel to a colony or load a fixed amount. I wanted to set up a small tanker running between my harvesters and earth however the old unload to 10% option doesn't appear to be there for tankers.
is my only option to tell it to unload to colony then click hourly ticks checking after each till its around 10% then cancelling the order?
hope your all having fun :)
Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735Hi guys, i'm trying to figure out how to get a ship to unload a certain amount of fuel to a colony or load a fixed amount. I wanted to set up a small tanker running between my harvesters and earth however the old unload to 10% option doesn't appear to be there for tankers.
is my only option to tell it to unload to colony then click hourly ticks checking after each till its around 10% then cancelling the order?
hope your all having fun :)
Double check that you ticked the box to mark the design as a Tanker. If so, it should have the "Unload 90% Fuel at Colony" order.
How do Bombardment units behave in Frontline? Do they follow the Support/Rear bombardment rules or are they using normal Frontline combat rules?
How are Fleet organization rank requirements calculated? I noticed that my fleet rank requirement keeps going up and I tried to promote couple persons to be able to fill the roles but then the rank requirement for the fleet organization just kept going up
How are Fleet organization rank requirements calculated? I noticed that my fleet rank requirement keeps going up and I tried to promote couple persons to be able to fill the roles but then the rank requirement for the fleet organization just kept going up
After giving a brief look into Steve's AAR's I've noticed that he puts passive and active sensors on commercial ships ,so my question is what classifies a sensor either passive or active as a commercial variant?If I remember right it's just the size, and I think the size is 1 but you would have to test it to figure it out.
After giving a brief look into Steve's AAR's I've noticed that he puts passive and active sensors on commercial ships ,so my question is what classifies a sensor either passive or active as a commercial variant?If I remember right it's just the size, and I think the size is 1 but you would have to test it to figure it out.
How do you vary speed of a fleet? "Set speed" doesn't seem to be working for me but im using an old DB so wanted to ask if someone else is having problems.
A couple questions on ground combat.
-Should FFD be avoid combat?
-Do logistics units benefit from capabilities (Low gravity, boarding, Extreme Pressure, Extreme Temperature, etc)
-Does extreme pressure and temperature work in both vacuum and Venusian atmospheres? Does it have any effect in ship boarding with different species tolerances?
That I don't actually know. Steve never explained in detail what they mean.
That I don't actually know. Steve never explained in detail what they mean.Boarding Combat capability is required to conduct boarding operations at all.
Troop Capacity 300 tons Boarding Capable
Hi guys, i'm trying to figure out how to get a ship to unload a certain amount of fuel to a colony or load a fixed amount. I wanted to set up a small tanker running between my harvesters and earth however the old unload to 10% option doesn't appear to be there for tankers.
is my only option to tell it to unload to colony then click hourly ticks checking after each till its around 10% then cancelling the order?
hope your all having fun :)
Double check that you ticked the box to mark the design as a Tanker. If so, it should have the "Unload 90% Fuel at Colony" order.
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg122087#msg122087 date=1586817924Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735Hi guys, i'm trying to figure out how to get a ship to unload a certain amount of fuel to a colony or load a fixed amount. I wanted to set up a small tanker running between my harvesters and earth however the old unload to 10% option doesn't appear to be there for tankers.
is my only option to tell it to unload to colony then click hourly ticks checking after each till its around 10% then cancelling the order?
hope your all having fun :)
Double check that you ticked the box to mark the design as a Tanker. If so, it should have the "Unload 90% Fuel at Colony" order.
I am experiencing the same issue. It is a tanker and I don't get this option. Have you actually used this in the C# version? Just wondering if this is a bug, or if I'm being dense. Thanks.
Quote from: Kof link=topic=10097. msg124423#msg124423 date=1587119474Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg122087#msg122087 date=1586817924Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735Hi guys, i'm trying to figure out how to get a ship to unload a certain amount of fuel to a colony or load a fixed amount. I wanted to set up a small tanker running between my harvesters and earth however the old unload to 10% option doesn't appear to be there for tankers.
is my only option to tell it to unload to colony then click hourly ticks checking after each till its around 10% then cancelling the order?
hope your all having fun :)
Double check that you ticked the box to mark the design as a Tanker. If so, it should have the "Unload 90% Fuel at Colony" order.
I am experiencing the same issue. It is a tanker and I don't get this option. Have you actually used this in the C# version? Just wondering if this is a bug, or if I'm being dense. Thanks.
In the ship design window is a miscellaneous tab, there you can set a minimum fuel amount.
How do you undock fighters from a carrier - I have them as a sub fleet to the fleet containing the carrier, I detached it but the naval org tab still shows the fighters as docked and they only have a speed of 1.
And yes they have engines and fuel
How do you scrap fighters?
I know how you did it in VB6 but that doesn't seem to be an option here or have I missed something?
How do you scrap fighters?
I know how you did it in VB6 but that doesn't seem to be an option here or have I missed something?
In a shipyard, and people have reported it either not working, being incredibly fiddly to get it to work, or both.
I haven't seen anyone posting about problems scrapping fighters, but I have seen posts by people trying to figure out how to refit fighters.
Can someone tell me where the button to gift a ship to an NPR is please i can't seem to find it?
Cheers
Is it better to use a terraforming station or ground installations when terraforming a colonized planet?
The only disagreement I have with this post is 'easier to move'. Setting up a contract for the civilians to move a stack of terraformers is no harder than ordering a tug to move a stack of stations. I do agree that lower construction cost and not needing population are still major advantages.Is it better to use a terraforming station or ground installations when terraforming a colonized planet?
Orbital modules are far superior.
They are cheaper to build (even accounting for overhead cost of the station and tugs), easier to move, don't require population to work, and benefit from the terraform bonuses of your commanders. I like to put 10 modules per station, but it is certainly feasible to build them even larger.
Can you make civilian missile launchers or have them just 'drop' sensor buoyes?No and no.
The only disagreement I have with this post is 'easier to move'. Setting up a contract for the civilians to move a stack of terraformers is no harder than ordering a tug to move a stack of stations. I do agree that lower construction cost and not needing population are still major advantages.Is it better to use a terraforming station or ground installations when terraforming a colonized planet?
Orbital modules are far superior.
They are cheaper to build (even accounting for overhead cost of the station and tugs), easier to move, don't require population to work, and benefit from the terraform bonuses of your commanders. I like to put 10 modules per station, but it is certainly feasible to build them even larger.
Where can I find the civilian shipping lines window in the current version?
Is it better to use a terraforming station or ground installations when terraforming a colonized planet?
Orbital modules are far superior.
They are cheaper to build (even accounting for overhead cost of the station and tugs), easier to move, don't require population to work, and benefit from the terraform bonuses of your commanders. I like to put 10 modules per station, but it is certainly feasible to build them even larger.
Do Orbital Habitats generate income from shipping lines coming to visit them?Orbital Habitats don't support population or produce trade by themselves. The colony that they are orbiting is what gets the additional population and produces trade. Any major colony should have a spaceport or shuttle station to speed up trade. There is no benefit to having both types or multiple of either type.
Do they need cargo shuttle bays to help accommodate this?
Your beam ships become a new fleet so they will not gain any bonuses form the old fleet commander. They will still get admin command bonuses as long as they are in range.
Your beam ships become a new fleet so they will not gain any bonuses form the old fleet commander. They will still get admin command bonuses as long as they are in range.
Can Admin commands be based on a flag bridge on a ship?
Your beam ships become a new fleet so they will not gain any bonuses form the old fleet commander. They will still get admin command bonuses as long as they are in range.
Can Admin commands be based on a flag bridge on a ship?
The flag bridge are basically anything from a squadron to a task-force commander. So if you look at a real fleet hierarchy that would be a Captain up to a Rear Admiral, perhaps a Vice Admiral. Fleet commanders rarely set foot on actual ships and stay at naval headquarters to coordinate the doings of an entire fleet.
In aurora a Fleet is really more of a Task-force, Task-group or even as small as a squadron where you can place a flag bridge commander.
6) Primary Flight Control is 4 HS and 100 BP. Allows the assignment of a Commander Air Group to the ship who will apply his full Fighter Operations Bonus. The required rank for the ship commander is one above the racial minimum.The officer assigned to Primary Flight control helps speed up the refueling & rearming of fighters by the amount of their Fighter Operations Bonus. The officers assigned to the fighters use their Fighter Combat Bonus for actual combat.
You have misunderstood.Quote6) Primary Flight Control is 4 HS and 100 BP. Allows the assignment of a Commander Air Group to the ship who will apply his full Fighter Operations Bonus. The required rank for the ship commander is one above the racial minimum.The officer assigned to Primary Flight control helps speed up the refueling & rearming of fighters by the amount of their Fighter Operations Bonus. The officers assigned to the fighters use their Fighter Combat Bonus for actual combat.
So it doesn't matter that the fighters are in a different fleet from the carrier, no bonuses from the carrier would carry over anyway.
Source: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818
I get where you're coming from but that would be a departure from the Aurora commander bonus system.Are you sure about that on the admin bonuses? General and naval commands give admin bonus to reaction and tactical. I didn't think either of those skills had non-combat applications.
No other commander can apply their bonuses to combat when they aren't on the spot. The only exception is that the Senior CO on Flag Bridge brings their Reaction Bonus to play but that's only movement order. To-Hit chances are only affected by captain and tactical officer of the ship in question. All admin bonuses are "effective" only outside combat. Neither is there any sort of planning time or requirement for combat like some strategy games mandate.
So in that manner, it makes sense that the CAG is all about organizing the hangar bay(s) to work as efficiently as possible. Granted, the title might be bit misleading and it should be Crew Chief or something like that.
Guys, tell me. When does Steve plan to add explanatory tips in C #? It’s very difficult to understand when you are newbieSteve might eventually add more tooltips to the game but these are not a priority. The usual recommendation is to read the Wiki but that's not super useful as it hasn't been completely updated to C# version - so you could read the changes list here to see how C# A is different from VB6 A. There are also Youtube tutorials available in English and German, check the Tutorial forum for a post that gathers all Youtube content in one thread.
Hi,No ETA. However, there is AuroraMod over here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=294.0 that is up-to-date currently and allows customizing all colours.
I haven't followed the development for a while since I'll wait with playing until alternative color-scemes are a thing.
So short question: is there word about this being planned / having an ETA ?
Are you sure about that on the admin bonuses? General and naval commands give admin bonus to reaction and tactical. I didn't think either of those skills had non-combat applications.You're right - I forgot they improve Reaction and Tactical as well as Crew Training / Engineering.
Can I set my beam ships to kite an enemy and auto-acquire targets without having to go into their ship combat screen whenever they loose their current one?Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy. There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.
And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Can I set my beam ships to kite an enemy and auto-acquire targets without having to go into their ship combat screen whenever they loose their current one?Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy. There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.
And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Regular transports with shuttles (very slow) or drop pods. Boarding pods are for boarding ships and space stations.
You have to mark the target planet with 'Create Colony' first.Can I set my beam ships to kite an enemy and auto-acquire targets without having to go into their ship combat screen whenever they loose their current one?Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy. There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.
And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Regular transports with shuttles (very slow) or drop pods. Boarding pods are for boarding ships and space stations.
My transport has drop pods, but its still not giving me the option to drop...
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?Presently shipyards are the only option.
You're not seriously intended to use yards made for capital ships to repair one lousy fighter when you have hundreds of fighter factories, do you?
Also, said fighters keep having maintenance problems despite being in a fleet orbiting a colony with sufficient facilities.
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?Presently shipyards are the only option.
You're not seriously intended to use yards made for capital ships to repair one lousy fighter when you have hundreds of fighter factories, do you?
Also, said fighters keep having maintenance problems despite being in a fleet orbiting a colony with sufficient facilities.
Have you run out of MSP to run the maintenance facilities?
I haven't done much with training yet, but are any of the other ships in the fleet suffering maintenance failures or increasing their maintenance clocks? Do the fighters have maintenance clocks rated less than 5 days? Do the fighters carry enough MSP to repair an engine failure?Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?Presently shipyards are the only option.
You're not seriously intended to use yards made for capital ships to repair one lousy fighter when you have hundreds of fighter factories, do you?
Also, said fighters keep having maintenance problems despite being in a fleet orbiting a colony with sufficient facilities.
Have you run out of MSP to run the maintenance facilities?
No, it just during training some of the fighters randomly explode.
Why are civilians transporting my automines to a colony where I don't have any automine demands?
I'll do that, thanks.I can confirm that the production bonus applies to construction vehicles working as industry. I can't find anywhere in game that shows how it affects fortification, but if it doesn't then that would seem to be to be a bug.
Does the production bonus for ground leaders apply to construction vehicals fortifying units?
And what advantage to bombardment fighter pods have over anti-air pods?
I'll do that, thanks.I can confirm that the production bonus applies to construction vehicles working as industry. I can't find anywhere in game that shows how it affects fortification, but if it doesn't then that would seem to be to be a bug.
Does the production bonus for ground leaders apply to construction vehicals fortifying units?
And what advantage to bombardment fighter pods have over anti-air pods?
Bombardment pods are for attacking ground forces. Anti-air pods are for attacking other fighters.
I haven't done much with training yet, but are any of the other ships in the fleet suffering maintenance failures or increasing their maintenance clocks? Do the fighters have maintenance clocks rated less than 5 days? Do the fighters carry enough MSP to repair an engine failure?From my own mucking about with training, it appears that training always consumes MSP (and fuel) even while in orbit of a planet with maintenance depots.
They what?!? Did you have automine demands there at one time? If you have a database showing that then you might want to post it in the bug thread.
I haven't done much with training yet, but are any of the other ships in the fleet suffering maintenance failures or increasing their maintenance clocks? Do the fighters have maintenance clocks rated less than 5 days? Do the fighters carry enough MSP to repair an engine failure?From my own mucking about with training, it appears that training always consumes MSP (and fuel) even while in orbit of a planet with maintenance depots.
They what?!? Did you have automine demands there at one time? If you have a database showing that then you might want to post it in the bug thread.
After a while of training (in orbit of my planet with maintenance depots) the fleet will complain about deployment times, MSP will be below max, and fuel will be below max (despite not being ordered to 'move' anywhere).
I'm pretty sure this is because the fleet is carrying out maneuvers and mock combat for training.
I have not tried training on fighters. But I assume the same applies.Off-Topic: show
I haven't done much with training yet, but are any of the other ships in the fleet suffering maintenance failures or increasing their maintenance clocks? Do the fighters have maintenance clocks rated less than 5 days? Do the fighters carry enough MSP to repair an engine failure?From my own mucking about with training, it appears that training always consumes MSP (and fuel) even while in orbit of a planet with maintenance depots.
They what?!? Did you have automine demands there at one time? If you have a database showing that then you might want to post it in the bug thread.
After a while of training (in orbit of my planet with maintenance depots) the fleet will complain about deployment times, MSP will be below max, and fuel will be below max (despite not being ordered to 'move' anywhere).
I'm pretty sure this is because the fleet is carrying out maneuvers and mock combat for training.
I have not tried training on fighters. But I assume the same applies.Off-Topic: show
Putting your ships in a training admin does not mean they consume MSP... the effect if that the maintenance clock and deployment clock goes twice as fast. I think they also burn some fuel even if they stand still. This mean that you will have to tale them of training after a while and overhaul the fleet and give the crew some RnR.
While the ship is training they don't get any benefit of maintenance facilities and you can't overhaul them, you need to take the fleet into a different admin command to do any of that or benefit from maintenance facilities.
It really is as simple as that.
I haven't done much with training yet, but are any of the other ships in the fleet suffering maintenance failures or increasing their maintenance clocks? Do the fighters have maintenance clocks rated less than 5 days? Do the fighters carry enough MSP to repair an engine failure?From my own mucking about with training, it appears that training always consumes MSP (and fuel) even while in orbit of a planet with maintenance depots.
They what?!? Did you have automine demands there at one time? If you have a database showing that then you might want to post it in the bug thread.
After a while of training (in orbit of my planet with maintenance depots) the fleet will complain about deployment times, MSP will be below max, and fuel will be below max (despite not being ordered to 'move' anywhere).
I'm pretty sure this is because the fleet is carrying out maneuvers and mock combat for training.
I have not tried training on fighters. But I assume the same applies.Off-Topic: show
Putting your ships in a training admin does not mean they consume MSP... the effect if that the maintenance clock and deployment clock goes twice as fast. I think they also burn some fuel even if they stand still. This mean that you will have to tale them of training after a while and overhaul the fleet and give the crew some RnR.
While the ship is training they don't get any benefit of maintenance facilities and you can't overhaul them, you need to take the fleet into a different admin command to do any of that or benefit from maintenance facilities.
It really is as simple as that.
Ehhhh, that's kinda smeg. Unit in training should automatically take a break to refuel, resupply and have a shore-leave if they are above a planet that can support them. There is no reason the player should have to manually take them out of the training Admin whenever they complain about deployment times or maintenance equipment.
Honestly, there should also be a standing order for the ship telling it to take a shore leave until moral is restored when it exceeds deployment.
So I encountered a bunch of crab people just outside Sol, and they seem pretty advanced with their ships going over 6000 km/s. They parked at Mercury and are now slowing my game to a halt by making it go at 5 second intervals cuz they're supposedly firing at me. Only problem is they aren't, they're just sitting there. Menacingly....
How do I get my game to speed back up?
EDIT:
I think their engines are exploding from lack of maintenance. I occasionally see nuclear explosions going off in their fleet. Maybe I can just wait it out...
EDITEDIT: Its very strange; first of all I made it so no random NPRs would spawn in the first place and second of all I made it so the closest would spawn 50 light years away (which I assume means 50 jumps away). Yet here are these super-advanced aliens with a huge navy right at my doorstep. They don't seem like Ancient Threats or whatever. They certainly aren't Precursors and the Reaper-things aren't turned on. I think the game is punishing me for increasing the amount of minerals on Sol by 1000%...
EDITEDITEDIT: I turned on SM to look at their home system, and there are so many wrecks above what I assume to be their home world that they can't all fit on screen. I assume they are freshly killed cuz life pods are still alive. Wtf is going on?
So I encountered a bunch of crab people just outside Sol, and they seem pretty advanced with their ships going over 6000 km/s. They parked at Mercury and are now slowing my game to a halt by making it go at 5 second intervals cuz they're supposedly firing at me. Only problem is they aren't, they're just sitting there. Menacingly....
How do I get my game to speed back up?
EDIT:
I think their engines are exploding from lack of maintenance. I occasionally see nuclear explosions going off in their fleet. Maybe I can just wait it out...
EDITEDIT: Its very strange; first of all I made it so no random NPRs would spawn in the first place and second of all I made it so the closest would spawn 50 light years away (which I assume means 50 jumps away). Yet here are these super-advanced aliens with a huge navy right at my doorstep. They don't seem like Ancient Threats or whatever. They certainly aren't Precursors and the Reaper-things aren't turned on. I think the game is punishing me for increasing the amount of minerals on Sol by 1000%...
EDITEDITEDIT: I turned on SM to look at their home system, and there are so many wrecks above what I assume to be their home world that they can't all fit on screen. I assume they are freshly killed cuz life pods are still alive. Wtf is going on?
Do you have any form of advanced spoilers enabled and how into the game are you? Do any of your ships have fire controls set to fire without targets?
50 Light years does not mean 50 jumps im pretty sure.
So I encountered a bunch of crab people just outside Sol, and they seem pretty advanced with their ships going over 6000 km/s. They parked at Mercury and are now slowing my game to a halt by making it go at 5 second intervals cuz they're supposedly firing at me. Only problem is they aren't, they're just sitting there. Menacingly....
How do I get my game to speed back up?
EDIT:
I think their engines are exploding from lack of maintenance. I occasionally see nuclear explosions going off in their fleet. Maybe I can just wait it out...
EDITEDIT: Its very strange; first of all I made it so no random NPRs would spawn in the first place and second of all I made it so the closest would spawn 50 light years away (which I assume means 50 jumps away). Yet here are these super-advanced aliens with a huge navy right at my doorstep. They don't seem like Ancient Threats or whatever. They certainly aren't Precursors and the Reaper-things aren't turned on. I think the game is punishing me for increasing the amount of minerals on Sol by 1000%...
EDITEDITEDIT: I turned on SM to look at their home system, and there are so many wrecks above what I assume to be their home world that they can't all fit on screen. I assume they are freshly killed cuz life pods are still alive. Wtf is going on?
Do you have any form of advanced spoilers enabled and how into the game are you? Do any of your ships have fire controls set to fire without targets?
50 Light years does not mean 50 jumps im pretty sure.
No, the advanced spoilers are disabled.
EDIT: Might it be because I checked the option to 'Generate New Races and NPRs" at the start of the game that a race generated despite putting the number of Non-Player races to 0?