What's Going On In Your Empire: C# Edition

[Father Tim]

Taxes.  Lots of taxes.

Now that that's done, hopefully I'll have time to get really stuck in to a 1.9 game.

[Ehndras]

Started writing a new AAR series today called 2100: Phoenix Rising - about the rebirth of Human civilization as we rise from the ashes of a dying world and reach for the stars. 

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After a series of plagues and famines lead to global economic collapse, Mankind dances on the brink of extinction as tensions culminate in full-scale thermonuclear war.

By the year 2100, all major cities on Earth have ceased to exist, and a new world order is born from the ashes of a dying world.  Our descendants inherit a devastated and depopulated world where once-great nations have long-since crumbled.

Our grandchildren's generation numbers less than a billion souls, spread across what we once considered the edges of civilization.  The third-world nations and fringe territories we once dismissed now form the essential backbone of Humanity's industrial might.

On the wings of a newborn fervor, survivors pool their resources to create 4 continental powers from what little escaped nuclear armageddon:

The United American Alliance, the Indo-Asiatic Federation, the New European Union, and the Pan-African Accord.

From the irradiated ruins of a broken world, they look skyward to Mars and stars beyond.

A second Space Race thus born: as metallic angels burn bright across the skies of planet Earth, carrying the hopes and dreams of all Mankind.

[Second Foundationer]

Brief United Planets follow-up: [As pessimists and Aurora veterans may have expected] Galilei had been sent to begin a gravsurvey in the outer Athena system when it suddenly stopped receiving the com beacon from Aristoteles in the inner system.  Visual long-range observation records told of several simultaneous explosions that tore the ship apart in an instant.  As it has itself only very limited sensors and no armament, Galilei's commander, under the standing rules of engagement for extrasolar missions, has to give the grim order to ignore the lifepods and rush home to report.  Unionists, Nationalists and Sapientists are bound to gain new supporters in the ranks. . .

(Funny thing is: As I have tried to avoid reading any related posts in the C devlog, and don't know what may have changed, it creates as much suspense as in my first VB Aurora encounter.  Aristoteles was a ship designed for intra-solar use, absolutely blind.  Even the Second Foundation=event log saw nothing but the explosion.  Do I panic-build defences with dwindling corundium? Any point in tugging the brand-new first Hydra on its own to the jump point? Those are what president Lee will order anyway. )

[Silverkeeper]

Made quick work on colonising our solar system but now I`m stuck for 6 hour turns and don`t know why. Any Ideas?

[Father Tim]

Made quick work on colonising our solar system but now I`m stuck for 6 hour turns and don`t know why. Any Ideas?

Somebody else is colonizing their solar system.  #:-]

Try a six hour turn yourself.  Try a few five minute turns with five second sub-pulses.  Keep trying shorter and shorter increments until you nail down exactly how long the interrupts are.  Five seconds is almost certainly a battle.  Five minutes is probably jump-point-related.  Two hours plus is likely someone going in and out of sensor range repeatedly.

[Ardis]

Made quick work on colonising our solar system but now I`m stuck for 6 hour turns and don`t know why. Any Ideas?

I've had this happen to me twice. Both cases lasted several months and concluded in long bursts of 5-second increments. So my guess is you just need to persevere until the filthy xenos finally get into that fight they're after.

[smoelf]

This is turning out to be one of the strangest maps I have yet had to experience. With random jump points in Sol, I ended up with three. One was a dead end immediately, and recently it turns out the second was also a dead end, but with a longer chain. It's really a huge shame, because HIP 103096 has a lot of minerals, including a few good geo survey sites and almost habitable moons, so I had planned to make turn it into a nearly self-sufficient system.

I'm really tempted to just add two jump points and resurvey it, since being at the bottom of a dead end system chain makes it worth very little. Groombridge 34 and Luyten 726-B gives me plenty of minerals for the forseeable future... Still debating that with myself. If Barnard's Star at the top turns out to be a candidate for extensive colonization, it might take the place of HIP 103096 in my long term plans.

[skoormit]

...being at the bottom of a dead end system chain makes it worth very little.

Why so? Because it takes a long time to move minerals/ships/colonists back to Sol?

But there are other uses.
Move all your research there, and devote more of your Sol workforce to manufacturing.
Also, once you have the gates built, you have a nice long chain of systems that civilians will ship to, making you lots of money, and you don't need to spend a nickel on defensive fleets for the entire corridor.

[smoelf]

Why so? Because it takes a long time to move minerals/ships/colonists back to Sol?

Mostly this. You are of course right that there are uses for it, but most of that can be accomplished in other, easier ways. If I want a research planet, it is easier and faster to colonize Mercury - perhaps slower to terraform, but that will be outweighed by the much, much shorter route of the colony ships, and I have plenty of infrastructure. Or just move it to Callisto, which is already being terraformed and has an MK anomaly and a handful of research facilities.

If I want to utilize the minerals anyway, I believe (but might take another look) that there are sufficient amounts in the nearby systems, and at this point, it makes little difference if I have access to 4 million or 24 million duranium. I can't mine either amount fast enough for it to matter for my current production levels.

I will probably want to colonize it eventually for the minerals once production levels increase, but if it had had more jump points, it would have been an invaluable investment as a staging point for further exploration with own shipyards, maintenance facilities and ground unit construction. But mostly I was just dissapointed that I couldn't do that, more than disparaging the usefulness of it entirely My last great game in VB6 died while I was preparing for such a satellite colony with the intention of giving it indepence when it was sufficiently developed and start a civil war. Looks like that'll happen in another system

[Father Tim]

Don't worry; as you continue to explore you will find (technically, create) closed wormholes into your supposedly safe backwater.

[smoelf]

Don't worry; as you continue to explore you will find (technically, create) closed wormholes into your supposedly safe backwater.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for 

[Second Foundationer]

One of my two 1.8 starts looked somewhat similar at first, only with four starting JPs and at maximum a four-jump dead end (roughly as if your Proxima were Sol). But later, I discovered a link back (almost immediately after I had finally managed to establish a functional forward refuel/resupply base...). Soon another elsewhere. And yet another, so it turned out well-connected. As Father Tim said: just keep exploring for a while.

And if it should stay that way for some reason. Entirely a matter of taste, of course, but my way to look at it would be: A nice beginning to a story. Humanity emerging from a dark, almost empty dead-ended corridor.... And it gives you a good reason to develop forward bases quickly. So far, there is only one way to go.

(Your secession/civil war plans appeal to me. I'd love to read how it goes if you should go through with them. I case you do I'd appreciate just a brief follow-up post here, if you have no plans for anything longer. I never really dared to go for controlling full-fledged multiple empires in VB with this Nuclear Thermal computer and the interface being what it was. But I plan to in C#. As posted before, my 1.9 universe is already headed that way. It began with an almost "vanilla" we-are-all-one-federation near future low-intensity setup in case any major bugs should still lurk around and spell doom. But after spending a while in an Aurora universe, I can't help but aim for some texture.... Once it happens I'll first hunt for suitable ideas and potentially: things to avoid in AARs and here.)

[smoelf]

On September 4th 2049 the last terraforming installation on Moon Market were dismantled. The once cold desert landscape of Luna had been transformed into a sub-tropical paradise serving as a preferred vacation spot and economic centre of the Terran Federation. While the few spots of oases could have been extended, with benefits, the decision was made to relocate industry and terraforming installations to other colonies, more desperately in need of the support the federation could provide. With the greater size of Callisto and the developing colonies in Groombridge 34 and Luyten 726-8, it is expected to demand a much greater effort to achieve similar results.

One of my two 1.8 starts looked somewhat similar at first, only with four starting JPs and at maximum a four-jump dead end (roughly as if your Proxima were Sol). But later, I discovered a link back (almost immediately after I had finally managed to establish a functional forward refuel/resupply base...). Soon another elsewhere. And yet another, so it turned out well-connected. As Father Tim said: just keep exploring for a while.

And if it should stay that way for some reason. Entirely a matter of taste, of course, but my way to look at it would be: A nice beginning to a story. Humanity emerging from a dark, almost empty dead-ended corridor.... And it gives you a good reason to develop forward bases quickly. So far, there is only one way to go.

(Your secession/civil war plans appeal to me. I'd love to read how it goes if you should go through with them. I case you do I'd appreciate just a brief follow-up post here, if you have no plans for anything longer. I never really dared to go for controlling full-fledged multiple empires in VB with this Nuclear Thermal computer and the interface being what it was. But I plan to in C#. As posted before, my 1.9 universe is already headed that way. It began with an almost "vanilla" we-are-all-one-federation near future low-intensity setup in case any major bugs should still lurk around and spell doom. But after spending a while in an Aurora universe, I can't help but aim for some texture.... Once it happens I'll first hunt for suitable ideas and potentially: things to avoid in AARs and here.)

Thanks. I'll be sure to follow up if it gets to that. I've never really tried a multi-faction campaign before, and the one time I tried it in VB6 it halted to a grind very fast due to the slow speed of VB6 - and it was a bit daunting to design multiple factions. I feel that this way is more managable, because the second faction enters a story already in progress without the need to design it from the bottom up. Although it does take a lot more game time to get a satellite colony developed far enough for a declaration of indepence to make sense.

[Second Foundationer]

I've never really tried a multi-faction campaign before, and the one time I tried it in VB6 it halted to a grind very fast due to the slow speed of VB6 - and it was a bit daunting to design multiple factions. I feel that this way is more managable, because the second faction enters a story already in progress without the need to design it from the bottom up.

Almost exactly my own experience and conclusion.

But, it seems our civil war ideas must wait. I should have checked before. But only a post by Father Tim made me realize that it's impossible to transfer ships or colonies or almost anything to another race in C# Aurora 1.9.5 ; the only workaround I can think of is to create the second race, then use SM to duplicate exactly what you want transferred, and finally delete the original. Rather tedious, and things like ship experience or commander history would be lost. I doubt these things will be added soon, and almost certainly not in a db-compatible update. I think I have already seen a changes for 1.10 thread pop up. So, most likely in another universe then.....

[JustAnotherDude (OP)]

I have just committed my first spot of orbital genocide. Semi-large NPR population got set up in a jungle and I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and nuked it.