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Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: July 16, 2018, 01:25:59 PM »

True, that could do it.  In general dropping spies on highly populated worlds could concievable produce truckloads of data about production sites, other population centers, navigational data, mineral quantities, et cetera.  IIRC the new version will have some degree of that which I am failing to remember at the moment.  Mainly I argue it shouldn't take overly Herculean efforts to find places that employ like 10% of some empires population.  Maybe even just existing near foreign civilian ships with good EM sensors and listening in on comms once you have their language translated would be enough to quickly pick up on the big things.
Posted by: Triato
« on: July 16, 2018, 08:48:40 AM »

Maybe spy reports? Specially if you have trade relations with them or with someone who has.
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: July 14, 2018, 08:00:19 PM »

I think those sorts of planets would work a lot better if there were more ways to learn that those existed even if they are deep in enemy space.  Its mildly absurd that an empire could keep such a huge mining operation remotely secret, especially if its the majority of their production.  You can pretty much indefinitely fend off surveying operations with minimal defenses as it is now.  I think I remember the new version having something like that.

In general I approve of such planets because they are most definitely something valuable to fight over, you just need some way to locate them reliably.
Posted by: Bremen
« on: July 13, 2018, 08:54:19 PM »

Actually 'running out' or resources is a major pet peeve I have with many similar games.  (Along with research trees that can be exhausted. ) It is both very frustrating for a player when it happens and 100% unrealistic.  We never 'run out' of resources in reality, what happens is that as they get more and more scarce.  Without creating an economy model that simulates the economic effects (changing prices, affecting extra resources going into finding and extracting more, etc. ) the ideal way to handle this is to simply have resources get progressively more scarce over time.  After X amount of time, the resource output goes down by a certain percentage 'of what remains', not the original amount.  This way what remains never actually reaches zero.  It may get really low over time, but you never actually run out.

Something I often house rule in my games is a maximum number of mines on each planet. Since otherwise it's often easy to find that planet with 200,000,000 accessiblity .4 duranium and drop 3000 mines on it to end your duranium problems forever. It's not quite what you're looking for, but kind of works out similarly.
Posted by: ulf
« on: July 09, 2018, 09:31:59 AM »

The biggest mineral issues in Aurora are:
A) Civilians do not need any TN materials to build TN ships and structures?
B) Recycling is very inefficient.
C) That advanced tech often requires massively more minerals to build
D) More advanced mining processes do not find any new materials
Posted by: Hazard
« on: July 05, 2018, 05:16:07 PM »

Actually 'running out' or resources is a major pet peeve I have with many similar games.  (Along with research trees that can be exhausted. ) It is both very frustrating for a player when it happens and 100% unrealistic.  We never 'run out' of resources in reality, what happens is that as they get more and more scarce.  Without creating an economy model that simulates the economic effects (changing prices, affecting extra resources going into finding and extracting more, etc. ) the ideal way to handle this is to simply have resources get progressively more scarce over time.  After X amount of time, the resource output goes down by a certain percentage 'of what remains', not the original amount.  This way what remains never actually reaches zero.  It may get really low over time, but you never actually run out.

This is slightly wrong.

While it's true most mineral resources aren't mined to complete exhaustion but until it's unprofitable to continue, if the deposit is sufficiently conveniently placed it can literally run empty of the resource it was exploiting except possibly for the trace amounts you find throughout the crust. But in that case you might as well start digging up the soil somewhere anyway and start refining that, it'd be cheaper.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: July 05, 2018, 04:35:01 PM »

Actually 'running out' or resources is a major pet peeve I have with many similar games.  (Along with research trees that can be exhausted. ) It is both very frustrating for a player when it happens and 100% unrealistic.  We never 'run out' of resources in reality, what happens is that as they get more and more scarce.  Without creating an economy model that simulates the economic effects (changing prices, affecting extra resources going into finding and extracting more, etc. ) the ideal way to handle this is to simply have resources get progressively more scarce over time.  After X amount of time, the resource output goes down by a certain percentage 'of what remains', not the original amount.  This way what remains never actually reaches zero.  It may get really low over time, but you never actually run out.

Aurora works along these lines. You should always be able to find everything if you explore, just not necessarily at high accessibility. Also as you mine resources beyond a certain point, their accessibility starts to decline.
Posted by: Panpiper
« on: July 05, 2018, 03:39:47 PM »

Actually 'running out' or resources is a major pet peeve I have with many similar games.  (Along with research trees that can be exhausted. ) It is both very frustrating for a player when it happens and 100% unrealistic.  We never 'run out' of resources in reality, what happens is that as they get more and more scarce.  Without creating an economy model that simulates the economic effects (changing prices, affecting extra resources going into finding and extracting more, etc. ) the ideal way to handle this is to simply have resources get progressively more scarce over time.  After X amount of time, the resource output goes down by a certain percentage 'of what remains', not the original amount.  This way what remains never actually reaches zero.  It may get really low over time, but you never actually run out.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: July 02, 2018, 04:50:53 PM »

Some advice from some of the more regular campaigns that I have played with no problems with minerals to expand in any of them.

Don't build warships for offensive operations until they are needed and before you encounter any aliens at all their should not really be any need to build ANY fleet other than some patrol ships to satisfy your colonist against insurgent or pirate forces.

Don't use the strip mining mentality, instead try to get a stable economy running so you can make long term plans and commitments.

Make a list of what types of minerals different types of components in the game uses and look over your mineral income and base your strategy around what you can support while also make plans what to exploit next.

Never over consume... like in real life if you spend more than you earn you will eventually find yourself bankrupt. If you save and spend wisely you can often use your resources more efficiently and when really needed you have a buffer to solve different problems. As they say you need money to make money.
Posted by: plasticpanzers
« on: May 28, 2018, 01:45:48 PM »

Thanks!
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 28, 2018, 01:43:23 PM »

I haven't found a problem in my own games with long-term minerals, even with several starting nations. It is definitely true that Earth runs out relatively quickly, but that is intended. As you expand and find new mining sites outside Sol, there should be sufficient minerals for any length of game. Some planets have millions of tons, sometimes tens of millions. My last game had 23 races and while many of them had short-term problems, none were faced with a long-term shortage of mineral deposits. You just need to manage your resources so the initial crunch doesn't hit too hard. Don't build large fleets until you have the resources to support them.

You can use the existing Sorium harvesters as a fuel scoop. If anything more capable was available for ships, then it would also be used for the harvesters.
Posted by: plasticpanzers
« on: May 28, 2018, 01:31:40 PM »

perhaps some change in mineral usage.   when you get near 20 colonies at times your first ones start running out and it
becomes harder and harder to expand or solidify your current position if there is not a abundance of minerals.  Of course
you can always SM them (does the AI create them for its NP so they don't have to mine?).  Perhaps less (alot) on minerals
used in maintenance and more dependence on creating maintenance supplies.

One of the major elements of the game is managing your mineral resources. Early on, unless you get very lucky, you will have to make decisions about where to allocate those resources. That pressure on resources is also one of the reasons for expansion to other systems. If resources were easily available, it would remove a large part of the challenge of the game.

That I understand.... thats strategy gaming 101.   My intent was to point out this game can only be played to the limit you can access adequate minerals.   Once you pass that you will be in
a slow spiral down having to scrap items to free up minerals.  Eventually all empires will fall from using up all available minerals.  I am 30 years into the game and Earth is out.   There probably would not be a game of 60-75 years as I could not mine enough within my empire to continue to support it.   I am thrifty with my minerals but just putting 8 BCs into the game with supports is eating up minerals to just support them and their maintenance.

My point is.  One is that maintenance supply should go more for any constructs than just plain minerals.  The production and movement of adequate maintenance supply becomes
therefore as important as ordinance supply.  You pay for maintenance supply and for maintenance minerals with the latter should be reduced to minimal and the effort put into building a system to process and create maintenance supplies.   Another point is that as far as I can see you could never really expect to have dozens of capital ships in an empire because of the raw material shortage that will only continue to get worse past a certain time.  The curve in supply and demand of minerals will rise slowly but descend quickly, I think faster than many can expand their empires.   I am doing darn good in my current game so minerals is not a problem tho it is tying up alot of shipping for support.

I would suggest a Sorium scoop (Ramscoop) that can be built into any ship and be used to skim gas giants and produce a limited amount of fuel per hour used.   In some manner building
a mobile Sorium gatherer with a super-scoop and refining ship for a fleet to be more mobile.  I have seen this in quite a number of novels.

Second would be an increase in the amount of minerals obtained by level of mining.   More useful amounts out of raw material by more careful mining and refining for less wastage.  A special 'deep mining' facility that would be able to increase mineral mining on .1 planets making them more useful.   Larger than a regular mine it may take up to 250,000 tons of transport per unit but would allow more access to hard to obtain quantities and better refining than a regular mine bringing all minerals to at least a .2 or .3 across the board for each facility.

The finite amount of minearls drives the game and you begin knowing your empire will not be a 1,000 year one but would slip back into pre-interstellar status.  Sorry about being long winded.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: May 28, 2018, 10:59:23 AM »

I just made a "C# Aurora v0.x Questions" thread: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10097.0

Going forward, could everyone please put questions like this one in that thread?  If we don't, then Steve's posts will age off the front page VERY quickly, which I don't think any of us want.

Thanks,
John
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: May 28, 2018, 05:55:07 AM »

perhaps some change in mineral usage.   when you get near 20 colonies at times your first ones start running out and it
becomes harder and harder to expand or solidify your current position if there is not a abundance of minerals.  Of course
you can always SM them (does the AI create them for its NP so they don't have to mine?).  Perhaps less (alot) on minerals
used in maintenance and more dependence on creating maintenance supplies.

One of the major elements of the game is managing your mineral resources. Early on, unless you get very lucky, you will have to make decisions about where to allocate those resources. That pressure on resources is also one of the reasons for expansion to other systems. If resources were easily available, it would remove a large part of the challenge of the game.
Posted by: plasticpanzers
« on: May 28, 2018, 01:09:05 AM »

perhaps some change in mineral usage.   when you get near 20 colonies at times your first ones start running out and it
becomes harder and harder to expand or solidify your current position if there is not a abundance of minerals.  Of course
you can always SM them (does the AI create them for its NP so they don't have to mine?).  Perhaps less (alot) on minerals
used in maintenance and more dependence on creating maintenance supplies.