C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[Bughunter]

Would be nice if a friendly race just trying to communicate generated the same unintelligible message before language has been translated so you cannot be sure what they are trying to say 

[JustAnotherDude]

That would sort of defeat the point, wouldn't it?

[Rabid_Cog]

No I think that would BE the point? You haven't translated their language, so you cannot use metagaming knowledge to deduce what the threat level is.

I don't think it would actually give you the gibberish message, though. I think the system would just tell you that you have received an unintelligable communication from somewhere.

My question is, are there other potential unintelligable messages you can receive such as "Hello! How are you? Welcome, friend!" so that the fact you receive such a message does not immediately make you realize that you are in another race's claimed space? Perhaps all "first contact" messages should look the same, so you can't tell the difference between a friendly greeting and a trespass warning.

[JustAnotherDude]

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood the original message. We're on the same page, lmao, I totally agree with you.

[Triato]

If an alien race suffers damage from one of your ships that it can't see (lasers/missiles from outside of detection range), do you still suffer the relationship hit?

I.e. is privateering a thing? 

Realistically I think you should suffer full relationship hit.

It would be fairly trivial for anyone smart enough for space travel to figure out who attacked you based on attack patterns, explosion signatures, analysis of wreck/ship damage, monitoring of jump point traffic and using logic/exclusion of who could have committed the attack. Even if they can't prove it being 95-99% sure you did it would be almost the same as having proof relationship wise.


There might be some edge cases like if you can emulate the attack originating from someone else or make it looked like a rogue vessel of the own forces did it, but these are one time and edge cases enough that just having SM options available to either disable relationship changes or resetting them back should be plenty enough.

If they haven' see you fire before they can't have signature data on your weapons. Weapon signature data could be part of the intelligence system.

[QuakeIV]

If I build a super sneaky stealthy assasination ship with custom built missiles that are only used on that ship, then I feel like I could probably get away with sniping somebody without them really knowing who did it.

I don't necessarily think that that is anything that NEEDS to get added to the game, but it seems perfectly feasible to me.

[Rabid_Cog]

If I build a super sneaky stealthy assasination ship with custom built missiles that are only used on that ship, then I feel like I could probably get away with sniping somebody without them really knowing who did it.

I don't necessarily think that that is anything that NEEDS to get added to the game, but it seems perfectly feasible to me.

In this particular case I feel the coding and complexity burden outweighs the gameplay/fun benefit. It's such a niche event that requires a ton for the program to keep track of and a lot of custom code. Perhaps as part of a greater "Stealth and Sensors Expansion" but not as a standalone feature. AI would struggle to deal with it too much I believe.

Yes I know it was me that brought up the idea, but I was half-joking 

[Bremen]

"Let's see. We can't detect anything, but ships on our border with the humans keep being destroyed by stealth missiles. Nope, no idea what could be going on."

I have to agree with the current version - if you destroy an NPR ship, even without being detected, you should take a relations penalty. They would eventually figure out what's going on.

[Jovus]

I'd be fond of a time-lag for the penalty based around whether or not you were detected, how much the NPRs know about your methods, and whether you're attacking from an obvious vector, but that seems like a lot of work for very little gain.

[QuakeIV]

I grant you its probably better for AI reasons if nothing else.

[Father Tim]

For a simple version, if the perpetrator is not identified the Diplomacy penalty could be reduced by half, or four-fifths, or something, and assigned to the 'nearest' (known) Empire.

This way a known neighbour might cop the blame at first for a new enemy, or a stealth force can stir up trouble between two other empires.

[QuakeIV]

I do like the idea of that, but I think it does suffer from similar issues of the ai not being smart enough to deal with that, making it excessively vulnerable.

[Kristover]

I like the changes discussed in latest Diplo 3 post - specifically I like the idea that in order to secure a claim on a world, you are best off doing a 'show of force' and that it actually means something in terms of game mechanics.  I think it is a nice synergy between the diplomatic and tactical/operational part of the game.  One side benefit is that I'm thinking 'galactic' reconnaissance in term of scout out adjacent systems and gathering intel on capabilities is going to be a very important component to making sure your diplomatic demands are well thought out and not a disaster in the making.

[Steve Walmsley]

I like the changes discussed in latest Diplo 3 post - specifically I like the idea that in order to secure a claim on a world, you are best off doing a 'show of force' and that it actually means something in terms of game mechanics.  I think it is a nice synergy between the diplomatic and tactical/operational part of the game.  One side benefit is that I'm thinking 'galactic' reconnaissance in term of scout out adjacent systems and gathering intel on capabilities is going to be a very important component to making sure your diplomatic demands are well thought out and not a disaster in the making.

Yes, one factor that will make this very important is that an NPR will regard a system as important because of its proximity to vital systems. The system you are in right now might be apparently useless, but if it is next door to the capital or a core system, the NPR will judge it to be valuable as a buffer, rather than because of any intrinsic value.

[Hazard]

Would be nice if we could tick a box that says 'restate system claim every day/week/month/year' with a notification in the log as to whether or not it was followed. Because there's no way any nation would let go of its claims that easily, it'd just keep making the claim until the matter is resolved in negotiations. That does mean that diplomatic relations can tank quite rapidly, depending on how loudly and often the claim is stated.



I understand things like 'maximum race PPV value allowed in system' negotiations are entirely too complex for the current intended incarnation of the diplomacy system, but it could be an interesting end point for contested systems between allied races. A forced relocation option for dumping populations you don't want from recently diplomatically acquired systems would also be nice.