Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: sloanjh on May 28, 2018, 10:55:35 AM

Title: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: sloanjh on May 28, 2018, 10:55:35 AM
Let's use this thread to ask simple questions about C# Aurora, so that:

1)  Important posts from Steve (like the recent progress update) don't get aged away so quickly by many tiny threads
2)  People can catch up in a single thread with the questions they missed - less clicking.
3)  The same question doesn't keep getting asked (in a new thread - see #1) over and over; people can review the thread before asking their own question.
4)  Steve can filter his attention by having all the questions in one place.  Note that he won't and shouldn't answer all of them - time he spends answering questions takes away from time coding :)

Please put still put suggestions in the suggestions thread; this is for questions that aren't suggestions.

Thanks!
John
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Odin on May 28, 2018, 12:25:51 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 28, 2018, 12:36:09 PM
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?

At the moment, it doesn't use multiple cores. Much of Aurora is sequential, rather than concurrent, so the opportunity to take advantage of multiple cores or multi-threading is limited. However, if I find performance is a problem, I will spend some time on this area.

You can see the new GUI on the many screenshots available:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8455.0

Currently C# does use tons in some places and HS in others. I am leaning more towards displaying tons, but there would be a lot to change and the game itself is mainly based on HS.

Multi-selection will be possible in some circumstances. The naval organisation function in VB6 has been integrated into the new fleet window. See the changes list for details:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.0

In fact, I would recommend everyone to check the changes list and the screenshots, as they will answer many questions.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MadHatter on May 30, 2018, 01:33:35 PM
Will C# Aurora have hyperdrive and laser warheads return? What will be the mechanics for each?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on May 30, 2018, 06:33:10 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: El Pip on May 31, 2018, 06:05:05 AM
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.
I had laser warheads down as working like this;

Missile Warhead in MSP = No. Laser Heads

Each Laser head has strength = laser head tech level (so 2 for Soft Xray, higher later)

The Stand-off feature is either buggy or just doesn't work in the last version of VB Aurora.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 31, 2018, 06:35:30 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on May 31, 2018, 06:54:41 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 31, 2018, 09:44:24 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on May 31, 2018, 01:18:37 PM
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.

I was talking more of the starting point, rather than the arriving one.

My scenario here is: star A is near the center of the system (and so near the jump points), and has no planets.
Star B is the very distant companions, and has planets

Since star A has no planets, I'd make the lagrange point start off near the star itself.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on May 31, 2018, 02:12:20 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Person012345 on May 31, 2018, 04:22:13 PM
It doesn't have to be absolutely guaranteed. At least imo. It's fine if this just majorly reduces the number of systems where this is a problem, rather than eliminates them altogether. If there are no planets around the A star then you're out of luck.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on May 31, 2018, 04:45:29 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 31, 2018, 06:13:25 PM
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.

It will be a Lagrange point and it will have to be in the normal position, so it can use the existing mechanics. I don't want to add an entirely new type of system object. I will make some adjustments in system generation to ensure no useless distant stars.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: swarm_sadist on May 31, 2018, 10:47:15 PM
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.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 01, 2018, 04:55:07 AM
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.
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MadHatter on June 01, 2018, 01:28:31 PM
So will it be possible to jump from a Lagrange point to a normal jump point then, or will that increase connectivity too much?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Profugo Barbatus on June 01, 2018, 05:51:57 PM
I don't believe you can currently jump from JP to system LP, you have to be at a LP to jump to another LP. Certainly, the auto pather doesn't go from JP directly to LP.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DIT_grue on June 02, 2018, 02:13:17 AM
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.

And any point trailing the main star (in its galactic orbit) would be disregarded as useless even if it existed, but I've never been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation for why fusion suppresses a gravitational effect. So companion stars should be valid system bodies for the existence/creation of Lagrange Points as long as they fall within whatever mass requirements are specified.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: tobijon on June 02, 2018, 09:06:40 AM
Wouldn't Legrange points of stars be useless due to it leading to the middle of nowhere?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on June 02, 2018, 10:23:35 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: swarm_sadist on June 02, 2018, 01:31:49 PM
I was suggesting that you could use the barycenter of a binary star system as a point to build a LP.

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.
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.

Ex 1: 61 Cygni are close to the same size, so their barycenter and L1 are only ~3 AU apart from each other. You would still have to make 96.2% of the jouney the hard way.

Ex 2: Sirius A is almost twice as big as B, so their barycenter and L1 are ~5 AU apart (but the system itself is much smaller). You would only need to travel 75.9% of the way.

So even if there are 0 planets and LP in the entire system, you could still shorten the trip. And in both of these examples, if there is already an existing LP around a gas giant in one of the systems, then you would save even more distance. Travelling from an LP around a gas giant to the half way point between two stars still saves you half a trip.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on June 02, 2018, 06:18:35 PM
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.

I may very well be misremembering, so forgive me, but don't you have this backwards? Won't L1 be closer to the star with more mass? If I remember aright, the Earth/Sun L1 is inside the Sun.

In either case your point still stands; ability to put an intra-system jump on L1 and the barycentre would be useful.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on June 02, 2018, 06:39:58 PM
You're thinking of the barycenter.  The larger the difference in mass between two bodies is, the closer the barycenter will be to the larger body.  The larger the difference in mass between the two bodies, the closer L1 will be to the smaller body.  Remember, lagrange points are where the gravity of multiple bodies cancel out.  If the Earth-Sun L1 was within the sun, that would mean the Earth is actually pulling harder on part of the sun than the sun is.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on June 02, 2018, 07:38:45 PM
Yep, I was. Thanks.

In case anyone else is curious, Wikipedia has an extremely helpful picture (https://infogalactic.com/w/images/e/ee/Lagrange_points2.svg).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DIT_grue on June 02, 2018, 11:52:28 PM
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.

True for binaries, barring extreme corner cases, though it still bugs me on a consistency level. It's much more likely to increase convenience once you have three or four stars in the system.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on June 03, 2018, 10:54:52 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on June 03, 2018, 11:09:34 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Erik L on June 03, 2018, 07:16:33 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on June 05, 2018, 03:25:06 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on June 05, 2018, 10:56:05 PM
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.

Super-Jovians, actually, according to Steve's post.

But since the largest super-Jovians overlap with the smallest stars, it's possible that the 'B' component might be one.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on June 06, 2018, 08:25:22 AM
Actually they don't.

You get super jovians, which are very heavy gas giants that don't fuse anything, brown dwarfs, which fuse deuterium (hydrogen-2) but can't fuse hydrogen-1, and heavier than those are red dwarfs, which fuse hydrogen-1, and all the other stars.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: mtm84 on June 14, 2018, 04:56:44 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 14, 2018, 07:13:53 AM
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?

No, they are built independently.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MadHatter on June 16, 2018, 01:13:36 PM
Will beam fire controls still have the same range limit?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on June 16, 2018, 08:35:44 PM
I believe that surface-based beam fire controls have 25% range bonus. It's in the change log somewhere with the ground combat rules.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 23, 2018, 06:22:08 AM
Will beam fire controls still have the same range limit?

Yes, except STO versions which have a 25% range bonus.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TheBawkHawk on June 24, 2018, 03:52:46 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 24, 2018, 05:49:08 PM
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?

Still subject to that limit, although you would have to be very high tech to hit that limit.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on June 25, 2018, 08:24:19 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 26, 2018, 10:11:58 AM
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.

He was asking about fire controls rather than weapons.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MasonMac on June 28, 2018, 10:05:52 AM
Are there any changes to Aurora AI?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bughunter on June 28, 2018, 10:11:13 AM
Are there any changes to Aurora AI?

A lot, I suggest you start by checking the C# changes thread: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.0 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.0)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on June 28, 2018, 12:43:28 PM
In addition to the above, this thread (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10096.0) has a lot of information on NPR AI changes in particular.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on July 05, 2018, 08:04:56 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 05, 2018, 10:25:11 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DEEPenergy on July 12, 2018, 07:49:27 PM
Hi Steve

Will there be any way to upgrade ground units with better equipment after they've been built?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 13, 2018, 04:46:55 AM
Hi Steve

Will there be any way to upgrade ground units with better equipment after they've been built?

Probably, although I haven't coded it yet.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on July 16, 2018, 11:50:57 AM
Not sure if I have missed this. Was just wondering how damaged or destroyed units in ground formations will be dealt with after combat. Will they be repaired / replaced over time or will you need to build individual replacement units to get them back to strength now the concept of readiness has gone? Is there still the concept of replacement units to speed up rebuild if you don’t need to replace one for one?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on July 20, 2018, 12:50:50 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 20, 2018, 01:02:21 PM
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?

I haven't added a non-jump gate NPR yet. I only have the first template operating at the moment (well, three similar ones with different weapons). As I add more I will look at how civilians handle no jump gates.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Wolf359 on July 27, 2018, 12:29:05 PM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg108826#msg108826 date=1530804311
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on July 28, 2018, 02:47:51 AM
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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 28, 2018, 04:42:29 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on July 28, 2018, 06:11:03 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg109123#msg109123 date=1532770949
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.

Like others in the community i'm also very excited to see the first version how how accessible it would be
cheers
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on August 01, 2018, 12:11:33 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg108826#msg108826 date=1530804311
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.

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.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Indefatigable on August 01, 2018, 01:24:24 PM
Dimensions, image format and naming policy of flags/leader pics?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 01, 2018, 02:41:37 PM
Dimensions, 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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Indefatigable on August 02, 2018, 04:59:39 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097.        msg109188#msg109188 date=1533152497
Quote from: Indefatigable link=topic=10097.        msg109185#msg109185 date=1533147864
Dimensions, 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.       
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?
example: https://imgur. com/a/hPZqefM
Thanks.       
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 02, 2018, 07:09:29 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097.        msg109188#msg109188 date=1533152497
Quote from: Indefatigable link=topic=10097.        msg109185#msg109185 date=1533147864
Dimensions, 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.       
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?
example: https://imgur. com/a/hPZqefM
Thanks.       

Stretched on all sides.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on August 02, 2018, 04:24:19 PM
Shouldn't the new button be to "add planet IX" rather than X?


 8) ;D 8)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Erik L on August 02, 2018, 04:48:04 PM
Shouldn't the new button be to "add planet IX" rather than X?


 8) ;D 8)

I need to find facebook like approval buttons for this. :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 02, 2018, 05:01:00 PM
Shouldn't the new button be to "add planet IX" rather than X?


 8) ;D 8)

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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Panopticon on August 03, 2018, 12:00:27 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 03, 2018, 02:15:27 AM
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.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064519/
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on August 05, 2018, 04:12:02 PM
With tthe ground overhaul, how are crew on ships accounted for in boarding g operations? And if your unsure could you possibly let us customize it a little bit?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on August 05, 2018, 05:26:27 PM
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.

and names it

MONDAS!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on August 05, 2018, 05:28:34 PM
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 :)

I think the origins might have been X as in ten and then, from that it also became X the unknown, but I wasn't there so can't say for certain!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on August 13, 2018, 07:06:56 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097.  msg109123#msg109123 date=1532770949
Quote from: hadi link=topic=10097.  msg109120#msg109120 date=1532764071
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. 

Sorry if this is the wrong topic to ask, but since you mentioned coordinates, I've been playing aurora lately probably 10 hours/days and I came up with an idea that might be much more superior to a coordinate system (which i really can't get myself to use). 
I want to know that how practical it is to implement a function which turns the map into a tactical grid-based system. 
Now I don't know how systems scale in aurora, but for example imagine a  15x15 grid system, from A1 to O15, each grid itself containing 9 numbers, positioned like a keypad. 
The advantage of this would be huge towards accessibility, e.  g.   we would be able to track/follow  everything you see on the map and visualize how close things are together based on the grid information we have and can even read on the map itself. 
I don't know if this can be done at all or if it requires much more effort than what it seems like, but it is the most fantastic
 idea i have ever thought of to make aurora's map system available to screen readers.
edit: i've been told by zack that the coordinates are set between units of 10,000 km.  it seems like the system map is much more bigger that i  thought
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 14, 2018, 09:01:57 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on August 20, 2018, 12:03:39 PM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg109360#msg109360 date=1534255317
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?
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tree on August 20, 2018, 02:40:49 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 20, 2018, 06:44:05 PM
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.

I already have a 'to do' list item for the galactic map to automatically position new systems but I haven't coded it yet.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 20, 2018, 06:44:33 PM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg109360#msg109360 date=1534255317
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?
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.

Yes, this is possible.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Caplin on August 21, 2018, 04:19:42 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 21, 2018, 06:37:59 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Caplin on August 21, 2018, 11:10:45 PM
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.

Thanks, Steve. :) I guess I won't know if it's truly a problem until I have a chance to play with the GUI a bit. The changes on the whole sound great, and I look forward to seeing what comes of them.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on August 28, 2018, 09:47:00 AM
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#?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on August 28, 2018, 10:54:59 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rich.h on August 29, 2018, 03:14:06 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on August 29, 2018, 06:21:28 AM
According to the description from Steve, that is already implemented.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 29, 2018, 12:35:58 PM
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#?

a) Visual Studio 2015

b) I haven't even looked at this. Not sure if C# handles by default or I need to do something about it.

c) I learned from searching on Google :)  I suggest starting a project and then googling for how to accomplish each part. You will soon pick it up. Of course, I already understood object-oriented programming in general, so that helped. The hardest part was probably getting my head around using LINQ with lambda expressions, which is very useful and very powerful. Just research and read a lot from any source you can find. The alternative is a programming book, but I find those less helpful because they teach you theory, when you will learn a lot faster from practical experience.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 29, 2018, 12:37:24 PM
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.

All ships only have a single rank for each office position.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 29, 2018, 01:07:24 PM
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 could add warning for no auto-assign, although I think that would get tedious with multiple similar messages over time. You can check the commanders window to see any vacancies.

If someone is promoted, they are removed from their current assignments (as all assignments have a specific rank requirement) and made available for a new role.

Unassigned officers and junior officers (not a ship commander) are available for any new position (so the exec of a larger warship could move to command of a smaller warship). Ship commanders are not available for cross-promotion, although if they gain a rank they will become available for larger vessels.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on August 29, 2018, 01:43:28 PM
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#? 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on August 29, 2018, 03:40:56 PM
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):
Lieutenants: 2222
Lt. Commanders: 2480
Commanders: 223
Captains: 192

These would man roughly 4000 air planes and 1.250 ships.
And if I would add the new modules for XO, CIC etc. to these ships, the lower numbers might climb even higher... .


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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 30, 2018, 03:47:30 AM
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#?

It is because of the movement mechanics. Sometimes the faster missile will move so far past the approaching slower missile that the latter cannot catch up. It isn't a bug though. It seems reasonable that a faster missile will sometimes avoid even the chance of interception from a slower AMM.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 30, 2018, 03:51:45 AM
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.

In real life, a destroyer is usually commanded by a lower rank (Commander) than an aircraft carrier (Captain). So in Aurora terms, a high quality destroyer CO would get promoted and become eligible to command the carrier. It would not be normal in real life for a destroyer commander to move to a carrier without a promotion.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Triato on August 30, 2018, 11:01:58 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on August 30, 2018, 12:02:09 PM
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?

I'm pretty sure that their training currently gets added back into the crew pool in the form of extra crew. IE: 500 crewman with twice as many points as a fresh crew would become 1000 sailors in the pool.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 01, 2018, 07:06:16 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 02, 2018, 04:50:00 AM
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.

I'm already working on something on these lines. I'll post an update later today.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kelewan on September 02, 2018, 07:28:22 AM
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?

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 02, 2018, 07:57:02 AM
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?

You can't move fuel or ordnance between two ships without the required equipment, even if a third ship is in the fleet that does have the capability. However, you could move ordnance to a collier from one ship and then transfer that ordnance to a third ship. Refuelling is one way - tankers can't draw fuel from other ships unless they are both equipped with refuelling systems.

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.

I haven't looked at moving POW and survivors around yet.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kelewan on September 02, 2018, 08:38:08 AM
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kytuzian on September 02, 2018, 03:19:32 PM
Quote
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

Will it be possible to turn this on for an entire fleet with a single click (so I don't have to individually enable it on a per-ship basis)?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 02, 2018, 05:58:02 PM
Regarding stored parasite craft damage control: Would it be possible to have the mothership divide its damage control rating by the number of parasite craft needing repair, thereby limiting the possibility of exploiting large DC ratings in motherships?


Regarding underway replenishment systems: I would propose that there's a 1 hullsize component called an Underway Receiving Station that can receive the efforts of 1 of the Cargo Shuttles, Refueling Systems and Ordnance Transfer Systems each, but the component is entirely passive; it cannot transfer out on its own. On the other hand it has no upper limit of its own; it's entirely dependent on the providing component(s) of the donating ship(s). This works well with Transfer Hub equipped stations by design. Every Cargo Shuttle, Refueling System or Ordnance Transfer System component can give 1 more 'dock' in their specific transfer form, limited to their own rating.

Ships would with this proposal need at least 1 Underway Receiving Station for craft to craft transfers and it would be part of any new design that is created, same with the bridge component. Ships without this component need to either enter a hangar, which allows them to draw from their berth as if they had a single Underway Receiving Station, or enter orbit of a planet with an appropriate ground side supply structure for the same, or land on said planet, again for the same benefit.

And yes, this means that a ship that has lost its supplies, fuel and its Underway Receiving Station, if they had any, would need to be tugged back to a station or planet for repairs. This does not seem like a flaw.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on September 03, 2018, 06:26:04 AM
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...  ;)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on September 03, 2018, 07:29:46 AM
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.

I don't think fleet wide cargo transfer makes much sense to be honest.

Consider for example a fleet of 100 identical ships each with a small shuttle bay capable of holding one cargo shuttle. Now we order two of the ships to transfer 10 shuttle loads worth of cargo from one to the other, what will happen?

Let's assume loading and unloading takes equal units of time ( and include dock/undock in that time ), and that the shuttle flight between the ships one way takes half the time of loading/unloading ( since the ships can easily be positioned right next to each-other it probably takes even less ).

The maximum amount of shuttles that could take part in this scenario effectively would be 3, since a roundtrip takes at most 3 times longer than loading one shuttle does ( which is our bottleneck here ). The minimum time to complete the transfer would be around 10x [loading time] + 1x one way flight time + 1x [unloading time]. This is close enough to the 10 shuttle loads we wanted IMO to simply use cargo capacity of a single ship as a good enough abstraction, and we also only can use at most 3 shuttles out of the 2 that the involved ships carry, so not having a third available is not a major loss of efficiency.

The only scenario where amount of shuttles available would become the bottleneck is if we either load or unload all ships at the same time in a place where extra shuttles are not available, or add a very long travel time to the shuttles ( for example say they need to spend a time much longer than loading/unloading to travel down to / up from a nearby planet that the ship orbit ). These "In orbit of planet" scenarios I suspect will be covered sufficiently by planet side Cargo Shuttle Stations or Spaceports, but it might make sense to have the baseline transfers to-from orbit of larger planets be a bit slower if it's easy to do ( which could promote RP to build space stations to resupply from faster ).

These scenarios IMHO also argues that it would make the most sense to not be able to do parallel transfers of any stuff that is using the same transfer mechanic ( if maintenance supplies and minerals or ship components for example both are moved by your shuttle system, you need to do one first and the other after it ).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 03, 2018, 08:23:09 AM
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...  ;)

The AI for C# Aurora will gather forces before attacking.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on September 08, 2018, 10:35:11 AM
Question on new Intelligence mechanics, will AI use them?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 08, 2018, 10:50:16 AM
Question on new Intelligence mechanics, will AI use them?

Yes, that is the plan, although I haven't coded the AI part yet.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MasonMac on September 08, 2018, 08:41:20 PM
Will every ship require a reactor to power life support, sensors etc.? Or is that too annoying.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DEEPenergy on September 08, 2018, 10:07:01 PM
Hi Steve.  Will we be able to decipher alien languages solely from monitoring a colony with the ELINT system?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 09, 2018, 06:21:07 AM
Hi Steve.  Will we be able to decipher alien languages solely from monitoring a colony with the ELINT system?

There will be a Diplomacy module, that will aid in translation and improving diplomatic relations. However, that will require both sides to participate. I guess ELINT could provide some assistance - I will give it some thought.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 09, 2018, 06:21:27 AM
Will every ship require a reactor to power life support, sensors etc.? Or is that too annoying.

No, just beam weapons.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on September 10, 2018, 01:28:21 PM
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#?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 10, 2018, 01:34:05 PM
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#?

No, they are still a military system.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: tobijon on September 12, 2018, 03:06:52 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on September 12, 2018, 10:54:04 AM
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.

True, I was not sure how much of a distinction was going to be maintained between commercial and military ships in the new version.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on September 14, 2018, 09:03:51 AM
What will be the extend as to what can be carried around by civilians?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on September 15, 2018, 09:34:48 AM
The Supply system for ground units looks great :)  but something bothers me (maybe I am understanding it wrong)..

it's about the "consuming" of the supply units...

Quote from: Steve Walmsley
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.

As far as I understand it, a unit will be consumed - and has (ideally) to be replayed sometime after the battle.. this sounds like a lot of micro management for me...
So my question is: How complicated will the replacement be?
Or am I understanding "consumed" wrong and the unit is still there just empty and just needs to be resupplied itself someday with an easy and single order?

A system were the logistic unit would be just be empty (or changed in "Supply Vehicle (empty)") which could just be "resupplied" with an order from an other stockpile after the fighting wouldn't be micro heavy.. redesign each formation to reattach supply vehicles for the "consumed" ones would be micro heavy I am afraid...

but maybe I am just in an error myself about "consumed"...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 15, 2018, 09:50:04 AM
The easiest method of replacement is to build a dedicated logistic formation, for example consisting of 500 supply vehicles. Once that formation is in the same location as the formations requiring resupply, you will be able to drag and drop those vehicles into any formations that need them. I haven't added the UI for the inter-formations transfers yet. I'll post a screenshot when I do.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on September 15, 2018, 12:38:04 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 15, 2018, 07:06:03 PM
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.

Think of the these types of formations as the equivalent of replacement units in VB6 Aurora.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kelewan on September 18, 2018, 04:12:29 PM
In which order do Formation Elements restock Ground Supply Points and
how is the supply distributed between Formation Elements/Formations
if there is not enough GSP to resupply all.




 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 18, 2018, 04:29:07 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 18, 2018, 05:37:54 PM
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.

I will probably add that at some point, as well as an option to change the formation's base template.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DEEPenergy on September 19, 2018, 11:58:53 AM
Hi Steve

How long will it take for a formation to fortify using construction equipment? Will it be worth it to dig in your army in an invasion and fight a big defensive slog?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 19, 2018, 03:34:32 PM
That is at least partially dependent on the type of planet you are fighting on.

Planetary environments that better support fortifications will better support such strategies.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on September 20, 2018, 02:13:50 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: davidr on September 27, 2018, 05:27:16 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 28, 2018, 04:39:57 AM
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

Not at the moment, but that could be added.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 28, 2018, 04:41:04 AM
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.

There will be morale recovery, which will increase effective strength, but no automatic replacement of lost soldiers or vehicles.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on September 28, 2018, 07:29:23 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 28, 2018, 09:57:58 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on September 28, 2018, 03:03:03 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 28, 2018, 05:48:05 PM
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.

I decided to limit the use of supply to combat operations to reduce micromanagement and have wealth-based maintenance instead for the rest of the time. There should be more ground combat in C# Aurora than VB6 and a correspondingly greater role for naval forces in supporting those ground operations, so the supply will be used fairly often.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 29, 2018, 03:00:44 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on September 29, 2018, 03:40:43 AM
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.

Sounds like "microwave" weapons could be a nice touch on ground-units specialised as "robot killers" ... such weapons could/would leave the ruins nearly complete intact...
... but they are not part of the weapon arsenal of ground troops atm or am I wrong?  ???
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 29, 2018, 05:12:26 AM
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.

I hadn't considered that but it is a really good idea. When I write the collateral damage code, I will handle it on those lines.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on September 29, 2018, 12:15:23 PM
This may have been asked before, in which case I apologize.

How much will we be able to automate resupply?  I worry it may end up somewhat like automating mineral shipments works in VB6 which is not very good.  I don't mind setting up the routes, but I should only have to do it once.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on October 01, 2018, 05:20:50 PM
In the new ground combat rules and logistics... when would I want to use one size 62 ton vehicle for 500GSP over 12 infantry with 1200GSP for roughly the same cost and slightly less than double the size?

Infantry seem in pretty much in all respect to be better at bringing supplies, size and cost. 12 infantry will also be harder to kill than 1 vehicle in pretty much all scenarios.

I might be missing some important key aspect of how supplies work.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 01, 2018, 05:51:36 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on October 01, 2018, 06:09:17 PM
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.
It might be nice to eventually also give a special purpose to airborne supply units.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bremen on October 01, 2018, 08:29:19 PM
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.
It might be nice to eventually also give a special purpose to airborne supply units.

I wonder how practical ground supply pods would be. They get used up (like missiles but not ground support pods) to provide supply, and the fighter can fly back to the carrier for more.

Probably not practical, especially since the fighters would be dealing with surface to orbit weapons on their runs, but kind of amusing.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on October 02, 2018, 12:35:18 AM
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.

That make sense.... thanks. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on October 19, 2018, 03:25:38 PM
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?  :-[
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2018, 03:52:04 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on October 19, 2018, 04:05:07 PM
It would be dead weight, so you need to design ground-specific weapons if you generally armour your turrets.

OK thanks :)

but an other thinking... wouldn't that mean that there is a lot of "weapon spam" in the weapon list?  let's say, 4-6 different (weapons, #shots etc) ship turrets with armour, 2-3 additional turrets without armour... and all listed in the weapon-field...

would it be possible/reasonable to add a "check" if a turret has armour and not list it in the weapon list for ground-units?

or maybe, add a checkbox at the weapon/turret designer to select "shipweapon", "Ground-weapon" or both to reduce the weapon spam in the lists?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 19, 2018, 05:35:45 PM
Will STO contacts fade away from being 'known' over time or if a faction loses Active Sensor coverage?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 19, 2018, 06:32:06 PM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bremen on October 19, 2018, 06:58:11 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 20, 2018, 02:54:24 AM
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.

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on October 20, 2018, 03:30:54 AM
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)
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2018, 04:24:53 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2018, 04:28:53 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2018, 04:33:46 AM
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on October 20, 2018, 06:10:36 AM
But for how long can the STO units be attacked?


And yes, I feel that it would be a good idea to have a "change positions" command/option for STO-equipped ground units which removes them from any identified lists, but also makes them incapable of firing for a week or two while they are moved to new locations and reinstalled. Then you could implement stuff like "if the STO units are actually being detected at the moment they are moved, the detector can tell that they were moved and that therefore the planetary STO is weak and ripe for a surprise attack"
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 20, 2018, 06:32:52 AM
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.

Except none of that has anything to do with armour technology and everything to do with targeting technology and techniques. Being able to park a 500 kg bomb directly on top of an enemy fortification to destroy it means you only need 1 bomb, but if you've got an 80% chance to miss you are going to drop at least 5 and probably 10, or more, because then you can be very confident it's been destroyed.

If anything, this is an argument that who has the ECM/ECCM advantage should have an impact in collateral damage calculations rather than armour or weapons technology levels.

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.

Well, given that the number of combat rounds and the number of shots fired per weapons category is likely to remain the same roughly speaking I'm not so certain about that. And there's a few units that get better armour relative to low level technology, so that's even more shots fired. If anything, more collateral damage is likely to accumulate during a planetary invasion relative to the population and facility numbers rather than less or equal.

And planets with high fortification modifiers suffer more collateral damage because it doesn't care about fortification, but unit combat calculations do.

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.

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.

Right. That's fair. And I get that the intelligence side of the game needs a lot more work. It'd be nice if extended ELINT observation would eventually let you target enemy formations directly with orbital fire.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on October 20, 2018, 07:17:37 AM
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.

I don't think it will get weird, because of how Colony Cost is calculated in the first place.  It isn't an 'everything into one value' formula, but a 'use highest vale of {A, B, C, D, ..., R}' selection.

If the population is living in hostile environment domes (Col Cost 2.0) due to toxic gases, raising the 'dust factor' (planetary albedo and therefore temperature) from 0.67 to 0.82 isn't going to have an effect.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 20, 2018, 10:03:29 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: tobijon on October 20, 2018, 10:20:08 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2018, 10:24:20 AM
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 20, 2018, 11:25:01 AM
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.

Unless you are terraforming the temperature down, in which case bring in the dust anyway. For humans you'd need to cause enough dust to drop planetary temperature by 28 degrees IIRC to go from the upper bound to the lower bound.

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.

Okay that's fair.

In that case, is (general) orbital bombardment going to face the same limitation with dust and destroyed buildings?


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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on October 20, 2018, 11:48:37 AM
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?

Rebuilding the destroyed installations seems the obvious way - especially if doing so offers a discount over new construction.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on October 20, 2018, 11:58:50 AM
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.
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bremen on October 20, 2018, 12:17:55 PM
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.

I don't necessarily agree with this, but I can accept it (as was pointed out, weapons get more powerful, but also more accurate). However, I'll point out that right now weapons are rising by the cube of tech progression; assuming tech progression keeps the roughly 20% increase per tier, that means every tech tier works out to something like a 70% increase in collateral damage, compounding. That's going to get huge fast.

And that's not tech tier over your enemy. That's tech tier in absolute, so by the time you're at tech tier 7, you're looking at ~46 times the collateral damage as base TNE tech.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Conscript Gary on October 20, 2018, 01:19:31 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on October 20, 2018, 02:44:41 PM
It's been answered, and the answer's yes.

You can in fact just drown the enemy in LPW equipped infantry.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 20, 2018, 08:27:34 PM
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.

Yes, they follow player supply rules.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: totos_totidis on October 21, 2018, 09:11:57 AM
Will there be surface to space missile weapons?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 21, 2018, 09:17:25 AM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on October 24, 2018, 01:07:12 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on October 24, 2018, 01:41:44 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on October 24, 2018, 02:59:27 AM
Wouldn't it be possible to have them fire munitions straight from the planetary stockpile to get around this if you wanted?

If you go this way, there would be the point "Why using supply units/trucks for the defender and not usesing a planetwide supply stockpile to resupply?" .. guess this would open a nasty can of worms like "if this.. why not that too..."
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 24, 2018, 05:16:21 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on October 24, 2018, 05:44:12 AM
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?
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on October 24, 2018, 07:17:31 AM
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

Ah... thanks... I think I missed that little tidbit of information. Great!!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on October 24, 2018, 08:06:53 AM
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

That reasoning leads to something interesting. I just realized that orbital missile bases should require proper ammo storage and shuttle bays now to handle the logistics of firing loads of missiles, and can't just instant transfer them from the planet anymore. That's going to change design strategy quite a bit, and make it more feasible to saturate even orbital AMM defenses if they don't have oversized logistics or deep enough magazines.

Perhaps proper missile logistics here is an advantage that adds interesting trade offs making it worth keeping them away from ground forces?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on November 05, 2018, 09:42:53 AM
How compatible will the databases be when you update the C# versions? Any plans to make them more compatible than in the past?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 05, 2018, 11:29:19 AM
How compatible will the databases be when you update the C# versions? Any plans to make them more compatible than in the past?

That issue won't really change.

it isn't a question of language or database type, but an issue caused by a mismatch between the database structure and what the program expects to see. I could spend time writing a conversion program for each release, but my time is probably better spent adding feature (more interesting too!)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rabid_Cog on November 06, 2018, 12:44:09 PM
I vote for more features and less database conversions.

Aurora does not autoupdate, so I am cool with it this way  ;D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 09, 2018, 06:00:53 AM
One question that I have for the C# Aurora.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on November 09, 2018, 06:08:02 AM
One question that I have for the C# Aurora.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 09, 2018, 07:53:02 AM
Having a dedicated RnR order would be useful for that as well. Basically wait until the timer is run down to 0.

That would be really good in addition to being able to give a specific amount of time.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on November 09, 2018, 12:15:42 PM
Agreed! That would also allow the creation of complex looping orders.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 09, 2018, 01:56:33 PM
Agreed! That would also allow the creation of complex looping orders.

This would be extremely useful in especially multi-faction games where you control several sides. The more you can automate individual sides ship movement the easier it will be to manage such campaigns.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Agoelia on November 13, 2018, 03:32:02 PM
Will Task Groups wait till the end of the cycle to check new orders?
Let me explain: If you set a ship to ''survey the next five system bodies" and then skip 30 days, the ship will execute the order and then idle for some time, sometimes for the large part of the month.  This of course only happens if the ship performes all 5 of the surveys inside the 30 days period, but the loss of time is extreme when, for instance, surveying an asteroid belt (asteroid are really fast to survey and kinda close to each other). 

Second question: When an NPR ships shoots missiles at you, it stops the game.  Now besides being annoying since you may want to skip an hour but the game stops after two minutes, most of all it gives away that the enemy is shooting missiles at you, way before your sensor actually pick it up.  I guess it's the same problems with NPRvsNPR conflicts stopping continuosly the game.  Will this be fixed?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on November 13, 2018, 03:50:08 PM
You can use 5-day or 1-day increments instead of 30-day increments. Since C# will run so much faster than VB, you're not losing out on playing time.

As for the second, you can never be sure if the increment slow down is because of missiles or something else. Yes, if you know there are no NPRs or spoilers active anywhere else than the new system you're exploring, then it's a bit of a giveaway, but only in that situation. And there isn't a way to "fix" it as otherwise, you run into a situation where the AI cannot shoot at you at all. Or do you mean that despite slowing down the time increments, the game should keep going without pausing until the player has a sensor contact or the missiles impact?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Agoelia on November 13, 2018, 04:40:36 PM
I know you can use smaller time increments (I do that too), but new players or ingenous ones or ones that simply don't pay attention to these details might never know about it.  I feel like the game should address the problem, not the players.  At least make it suggest to the player it might be inefficient, if it's not solvable. 

About the second, yes I meant something like that.  The game shouldn't stop, I don't even know why it was made to stop in the first place.  And yes, there will be a slow down in time increments while NPR do stuff, but it is a lot less noticeable than completely stopping everything.  It might even be humanly unnoticeable with the speed of C#.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on November 22, 2018, 08:54:13 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 22, 2018, 09:42:12 AM
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.

Their are a number of civilian mining complexes in my test campaign, all with these defence formations.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on November 22, 2018, 10:14:14 AM

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 Supply 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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 22, 2018, 10:18:21 AM

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?

I think I added supply (not at home atm). When supply runs out (for this or any other ground formation), they still function with 25% of normal attacks.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on November 22, 2018, 11:34:30 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bughunter on November 23, 2018, 03:26:01 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 23, 2018, 04:16:43 AM
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?

Boarding combat will be much faster (as it is in VB6). I haven't coded it yet so I haven't made a decision on the supply question. At this point I would guess probably not or minimal.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 23, 2018, 04:17:48 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 23, 2018, 06:43:08 AM
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?

Any plans to expand on the civilian part of Aurora any more in the future, such as they demanding TN materials to function optimally, needing some fuel in an abstract way etc... would make the logistical part of the game even more fun. Especially if the price of civilian TN material was based on a supply/demand model so you can sell or buy the minerals with the civilian sector. Civilian sectors of different factions could also interact and create a market with each other depending on diplomacy status. Should need to be overly complicated though.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on November 23, 2018, 02:12:32 PM

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 23, 2018, 06:39:34 PM

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.

You can always buy it from them if you like... they are after all sort of free mines that way.   ;)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on November 23, 2018, 11:07:58 PM
That can get really expensive, really fast, though.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 24, 2018, 07:28:08 AM
To be honest I have never really had much problem with this. Some CMC are not worth buying from and give me some wealth instead and then I buy from those I need the minerals from.

I think it would be more fun if we have to compete with the civilian sector for minerals more than what we have to do currently. In most societies the civilian sector consume the most resources not the state.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on November 26, 2018, 11:18:00 AM
I was just (again) going through my (possible) plans for an "order of battle" for my ground troops in C# and was coming up with a question that I might just have not found explained - so sorry if it was talked about before..

If I set up an "Order of battle" like this:

(numbers are for simplification)

3 Platoons  =  1 Companies

5 Companies = 1 Battalion

5 Battalion = 1 Regiment

3 Regiment = 1 Division

5 Division = 1 Corps

5 Corps = 1 Army etc...

so... if I want to use the "officer bonus" I plan to make the "platoon" as the smallest independent unit... if I "deploy" a Division that will mean ~225 platoons + maybe some support units, artillery etc... let's say 300 units...

now my question:

will I have to micro all the ~300 "units" or for which "orders" will there be a "help" in form of "do to all detached units commands"?

I am thinking mainly about:

Building - can I set a "layout" for a division which will be build at times with the included sub formations without me loosing the "sub-formations" and having to create and build a single unit without sub-formations?? it is just a little bit of a difference to manually give 300 "build orders" instead of "build 1 division with all included formations"...

moving - guess there will be an order as in VB like (embark all detached units of this HQ?) - will something like this be used for "moving in ground combat" (moving from front line to reserve etc) too?

fighting - same as upon

resupply/repair/reinforcement - Steve said that it will be easy to move "formations" between units - so I guess this will be the main way to resupply (with new trucks) or reinforce units after combat.. now I am afraid that I have to micro the resupply for all 300 sub-formations by hand -.-   will there be some kind of command like "resupply all units/units detached too" etc?

guess there are other points I am missing...

---

maybe it is just me that I have the wrong picture of how the ground-unit system will work in bigger formations... maybe it is just simple and I have something wrong...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 26, 2018, 11:37:03 AM
Yes, there will be orders that allow you to move large formation hierarchies. I haven't coded them all yet but I will as I run into these situations in the test games.

I will also add some form of build command for specified hierarchies.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SerBeardian on November 26, 2018, 03:53:04 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 26, 2018, 04:43:27 PM
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.

You could equally argue the penalty should be less if it was close to the end. However, I don't want to have to start tracking all that for the rare occasions when it will be relevant, plus going into overhaul should have consequences.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vivalas on November 27, 2018, 11:22:29 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 27, 2018, 01:37:54 PM
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?

There was a discussion and I have coded it. I haven't got around to writing the changes post yet. I haven't coded boarding though.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on November 30, 2018, 04:11:01 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on November 30, 2018, 06:59:14 AM
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.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kaiser on November 30, 2018, 01:18:09 PM
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.

That's what I'm expecting more from C Aurora, not plenty of new weapons/race/options which are useless with a boring AI, but a better, tactical, strategic and dynamic AI as possible which makes a game funny and unpredictable. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 01, 2018, 12:54:26 PM
I must say I enjoy it all... a better AI will mean that I can add some interesting AI NPR in my multi-faction Earth games and get an even better experience.

Must say I'm very excited for what this new version have in store for us, the new AI seem interesting and I hope Steve have the stamina and will to implement it the way he envision it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on December 01, 2018, 01:07:31 PM
I can't decide if I'm more excited about the AI or the performance improvements.  I mostly don't do much roleplay when I play; I'm interested more in playing well.  Better AI and better performance will make this much more rewarding.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rich.h on December 03, 2018, 01:52:45 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 03, 2018, 03:06:30 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on December 06, 2018, 10:15:18 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 06, 2018, 10:43:01 AM
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?

The difficulty is that everything the AI wants to do or build or design has restrictions based on technology. For a TN start, the AI has a definite set of starting tech that can be relied upon (the same TN starting tech that a player receives). For a conventional start, the AI is going to have to check what portion of that potential technology base exists. At the moment, the code doesn't check for technology that is provided for a TN start, so I would have to add those checks in every place in the code where it is needed.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on December 06, 2018, 11:43:21 AM
will it be possible to capture ground-combat equipment and to check it for research or intelligence results?

also about ELINT:

will it be possible for ELINT (or any ship at all) to "see" what kind of weapon etc a hostile ship is using and list this correctly in the intelligence database and the "known technologies" of the race?

for example: the player is in battle with 3 enemy ships ... 1 ship is firing missiles, 1 ship is firing lasers and the third is not firering at all...

can the intelligence report add the information which ship class is using which kind of weapon - (6x size 8 missile launcher for class A, 4x 30cm laser for class B) ? in VB we have to manually add this kind of information's - would be great if it could be added automatically IF the use of the weaponsystem by this ship is clear...

also it would make sense to add something like "30cm laser tech" to the race-infos if known ships of this race are using this kind of weapon...

long words short.. would it be possible to ELINT to "detect" used technology/ship modules and update the information's by itself?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: snapto on December 11, 2018, 10:02:01 AM
Loved the recent screenies of the npr ai in action.  On the Ground Combat->Order of Battle tab, I was wondering what the "Field Position" button did?  Thanks for all the hard work Steve. Can't wait to play!!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 11, 2018, 10:56:55 AM
Field position sets the formation to front-line attack, front-line defence, support or rear-echelon. It affects how the formation participates in ground combat.
Title: Boarding Combat / surrender
Post by: King-Salomon on December 29, 2018, 05:21:14 AM
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)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on December 29, 2018, 05:55:13 AM
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...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 29, 2018, 06:51:50 AM
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...

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.
Title: Re: Boarding Combat / surrender
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 29, 2018, 06:53:25 AM
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)

Yes, that is a good point. I'll look at surrenders and the possibility of self-destruction using the species stats involved.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on December 29, 2018, 07:51:46 AM
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.

Thanks :) the first sentence was new to me :)

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 29, 2018, 08:06:51 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on December 29, 2018, 08:18:04 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 29, 2018, 08:46:20 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on December 29, 2018, 09:03:05 AM
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.

I'd suggest (since it sounds like the checkbox etc are already in place) you should just leave it there and allow players to toggle it, but if someone adds a refueling system to a ship, turn it on automatically, and if someone takes all those systems off, toggle it off automatically.

If, as I suppose, the checkbox is already built and linked up as before, this seems both easier and a good way to avoid accidentally removing edge use cases. (Maybe, for example, someone wants to build a tanker that is huge and carries a lot of fuel itself, but relies on a small swarm of 'fuel movers' that themselves have 2 sets of refueling gear - one to connect to Big Momma, one to connect to the dry ship. I dunno.)

You can then sweep through and remove it later if it turns out nobody's using it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on December 29, 2018, 02:13:01 PM
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.

Thats not totally true, generally fuel trucks have fairly weak pumps and larger scale fuel depos will actually hook up a much more powerful pump to drain the truck quicker so that they can get on to draining the next truck.
Title: Spaceport
Post by: King-Salomon on December 30, 2018, 07:13:08 AM
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?
Title: Re: Spaceport
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 30, 2018, 07:25:38 AM
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?

The spaceport is ground based but provides ground-to-orbit transfer (cargo shuttles, etc.). You could effectively build a spaceport in orbit though, using refuelling hub, an ordnance transfer hub and (when I get around to adding it) a cargo transfer hub). In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.
Title: Re: Spaceport
Post by: sloanjh on December 30, 2018, 07:44:35 AM
In fact, you could build that spaceport in deep space.

Just be prepared for the first four of them to suffer unpleasant mishaps :)

John
Title: Re: Spaceport
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 30, 2018, 08:17:48 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on December 30, 2018, 08:47:00 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on December 30, 2018, 09:36:46 AM
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...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 30, 2018, 09:44:55 AM
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.
Title: Re: Spaceport
Post by: Kurt on December 30, 2018, 09:57:16 AM
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.


Darn it!  I'm getting an increasing itch to re-watch B5 and you guys aren't helping!

Right now I'm watching Legends of the Galactic Heroes Gaiden, so it'll be a while, but I really miss B5. 

Kurt
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 30, 2018, 10:00:54 AM
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.

Not sure which way around you mean. If the marines are on a boarding shuttle on the the attacking ship, that shuttle would need to be detached and be ordered to attack separately. If the marines are on a boarding shuttle on the defending ship, they will fight to protect the mothership.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kurt on December 30, 2018, 10:01:14 AM
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. 

Kurt
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 30, 2018, 10:06:05 AM
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. 

C# Aurora does have rules for under-manning, once the ship falls below half the normal crew. The morale will fall to a minimum of 25%, so that should simulate the prize crew or the marines getting the ship home.

What I don't have at the moment are rules or code for zero crew, which actually works out fine for the above, but if I ever want the concept of intact but abandoned ships (anti-crew weapons, plague, etc.) I will need to address that.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on December 30, 2018, 10:35:11 AM
Regarding boarded ships; prize crews should not be more than needed to run the bridge, engines, sensors, and the engineering command station, and then only partial. The point of a prize ship isn't that you turn it around and press it into service, it's that you bring it home so it can be studied and made compatible with your own control systems.

This includes a lot of relabeling of gauges and translating of manuals.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on December 30, 2018, 10:46:04 AM
Quite excited about the boarding changes. To my shame, I've never done successful boardings in VB6, so that will definitely have to change in C#.

This includes a lot of relabeling of gauges and translating of manuals.
Not to mention changing tentacle-controls to finger-controls  :P
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on January 02, 2019, 06:25:55 PM
While boarding is still on everyone's mind:

What happens if you abandon ship while being boarded?  Does the ship still become a wreck, or do the boarders automatically succeed?

If a ship is destroyed while repelling boarders, what happens to the boarders?  Do they have a chance to make it to an escape pod, or do they all die?

What happens to boarders who succeed in capturing a ship that does not have troop transport capability?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Panopticon on January 02, 2019, 10:15:49 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 02, 2019, 11:44:17 PM
What happens to boarders who succeed in capturing a ship that does not have troop transport capability?

They (probably) overload its life support capability and suffer the appropriate penalties.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104052;topicseen#msg104052 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104052;topicseen#msg104052)

And they need Cargo Shuttles (or the Troops equivalent) to get back off.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105591#msg105591 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105591#msg105591)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 02, 2019, 11:55:46 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Panopticon on January 03, 2019, 12:18:11 AM
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 am aware of how it was in the past, having done it myself a number of times, while fairly simple it was also not exactly intuitive either, but what if I want   to make a binary system with 3 asteroid belts and 4 Earths? I'd rather not rerun game generation until it gave me an appropriate system and then manually tinker with the atmosphere.

What I sort of envision is a "use custom starting system" on the new game menu, which then brings up a list of options that I mentioned above, that system is used as the start in place of Sol and the rest of the universe is generated normally. Could even save them as templates for future games. Not gonna be mad if it doesn't/can't happen of course, and I just realized this isn't the suggestions thread, but I figure it can't hurt to ask if he has any plans for customization like that.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 03, 2019, 06:10:41 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on January 03, 2019, 06:44:18 AM
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on January 03, 2019, 06:52:24 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 03, 2019, 09:58:43 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 03, 2019, 09:59:39 AM
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.

Yes, that would be straightforward.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rich.h on January 04, 2019, 03:20:44 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 04, 2019, 05:27:53 AM
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 :-)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 04, 2019, 05:42:38 AM
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?

That is Steve's stated goal.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 04, 2019, 07:03:12 AM
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?

Yes, that is what I hope.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 08, 2019, 10:07:37 AM
Is there an option to define a percentage of how many systems have any bodies at all? Most of the systems Aurora generates are filled with system bodies. For the new possibility of space stations it would be nice to have more system which don't have anything at all in them.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 10, 2019, 05:56:32 PM
In this posting
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg102701#msg102701

we can find the new active sensor model.
When I try to recalculate those values in excel, I get a difference.

For the first entry:
Racial Sensor Strength = 21
Hull Size = 1
Racial EM Sensitivity = 11
Resolution = 200

I get the result of your sheet: 50.146.549,1 km

However for the second entry:
RSS = 42
HS = 2

I get the result of 100.293.098,3 km - which differs from your value of 70.917.930. If I only enter either 42 OR 2 and leave the other at the old values of 21 OR 1, the result fits to yours. Is your sheet wrong or do I misunderstand the formula you have given?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 10, 2019, 06:00:08 PM
Ah, never mind. The "Sensor Strength" in the second tab isn't the "Racial Sensor Strength", but the Racial Sensor Strength multiplied by the HS.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on January 11, 2019, 12:28:46 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 11, 2019, 12:36:56 PM
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?

No, the manpower is provided automatically. Unless the population is very small, the size of Aurora formations is not going to make an appreciable difference. Also, I don't want to specify exact vehicle or static weapon crews. At the moment, there is no scrapping but I will include some reclamation when I add it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 11, 2019, 01:46:44 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 11, 2019, 02:18:02 PM
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?

You can only build space stations at a planet with a spaceport.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 14, 2019, 04:41:04 PM
2 Questions about Auto Assignment:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104046#msg104046

1) Which Priority for Auto Assignment have Admin Commands? Will they be selected before or after ship commanders? Before would make sense as they are pretty important - after would make sense as the rang depends on the highest ship-captain-rang.... Couldn't find anything about them...

2) If I get it right, Commanders will get assigned to all Fighters by the Crew Training Bonus as Priority 3 or 4 (or don't they count as "Warships" at all for this?)  ... Could it be possible to change this for Fighters with "Fighter Pod Bays" to the new "Ground Support Bonus"? Would make sense to man Fighters that are designed for Ground Combat with ground combat specialists..
I know that you can assign them yourself but assigning 100s of Fighterpilots... would be great to teach this to the Auto Assignment (maybe a suggestion for later: include a check were the player can select which Bonus for a class design commander should be used)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 14, 2019, 06:00:52 PM
1 - None.  It is assumed you care enough about these (and will have few enough) that you will assign their officers manually.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 15, 2019, 12:37:52 AM
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...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 15, 2019, 06:08:57 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 15, 2019, 06:20:05 AM
NPRs have their own code for assigning administrators.

sorry, I meant not civilian Administrators but the new Naval Admin-Command Commanders ... should have been more clearly
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 15, 2019, 07:56:54 AM
I'm pretty sure Steve's point stands.  'Auto-Assign' does not assign ship's officers to 'Flag' Staffs, for lack of a clearer term.  NPR 'Officer AI' is not the same thing as Auto-Assign, and despite significant overlap does not follow the exact same rules nor fill the exact same positions.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on January 16, 2019, 02:01:07 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 16, 2019, 03:49:46 PM
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.

Yes, there are a few additions:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107348#msg107348
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 16, 2019, 03:55:14 PM
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")
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 16, 2019, 04:46:34 PM
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 haven't coded the 'conquest' part yet :)

I will probably have something similar to VB6 where you need a certain amount of ground units to force a surrender. Fighters won't change that for attacker or defender.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 16, 2019, 07:45:32 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 16, 2019, 11:38:41 PM
It shouldn't. IIRC correctly, the front most line with troops is the actual front line. If the Attack and Defense lines are empty, that means the Support line is now your front line.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 17, 2019, 04:58:54 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: dukea42 on January 17, 2019, 08:43:49 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg112204#msg112204 date=1547722734
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 17, 2019, 08:59:39 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg112204#msg112204 date=1547722734
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.

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.

I would have no real problem with it in general... waiting to fortify your troops will take time and time might be just what the defenders need to have a rescue fleet arrive and drive the offenders off the planet.

But if this is the intention with the combat mechanic you could make it less micro and simply have a command toggle for the defensive front line to not engage and in turn the opponents defensive line can't engage you either, only units with attack orders (front-line attack position) can engage the enemy forces at that point (for either side).

This would actually make sense and not force you to micro the system as much. You could make it more likely for attacking units to hit support and rear echelon units if the defending front line is not actively trying to engage. The benefit being you will not be hit by the opponent defensive front line troops anymore.

I see no reason why forces on a planet must attack each other all the time... you could very well have long periods of stalemate in fighting where no side rally want to take the initiative.

At least this is something I will use in my multi-faction campaigns and I can just sett all front line troops into support line for both side to temporarily end hostilities, sort of a temporary truce.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 17, 2019, 10:25:23 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 17, 2019, 10:36:06 AM
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.

While that could be true you could also view it as a rather rigid and immobile defense that are quite passive, otherwise the front line is regarded as engaging the enemy with mobile counter attacks and such. That would be the whole idea of a fortified defensive front engaging the enemy with more active warfare.

I mainly suggested it as a balancing mechanic to the option of being able to not engage defensive units as a proper intentional effect.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 17, 2019, 12:47:58 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on January 17, 2019, 01:35:06 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on January 17, 2019, 03:16:08 PM
Of course, if you keep all your troops back "in Support" and just plug away with artillery, what's to stop the defenders from doing the same to you?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 17, 2019, 03:50:43 PM
The fact that it's far more efficient for the enemy to close in and attack, since that gives him much greater chances of murdering your artillery, which would normally be sheltered by your front lines?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 17, 2019, 05:33:53 PM
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.

Within the game mechanic that would be units set at Attacking Frontal Position... they would act like skirmishers in smaller numbers. So that would be well simulated in an abstract way.

You could very well have a few tank companies or similar keep harassing the enemy forces or some such.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 17, 2019, 05:44:56 PM
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.

You could represent this by setting your defensive line to passive by reducing the chances an element with actually do an attack during every 3 hour setting on both sides. You don't need to halt the conflict entirely. Whatever make sense and is easiest from a game mechanic perspective.

I do think that the potential way you can do it in the current iteration of the combat rules will require unnecessary micro and should be "fixed" since it is not intentional. Replace it with a way to reduce the tempo of the fighting. Sometimes you might just save on supplies for a  shipment of supplies to reach the planet or industry to produce it or something.

Especially when you role-play there can be many reasons for two sides to want to be throwing rocks at each other and never really engage their troops fully, just stall for time for some reason or just spare lives while diplomacy or some other conflict to resolve the issue.

Let's say I play a multi faction Earth and two factions go to war, perhaps they do not want to play out a full scale war on Earth and make it about a specific colony using mostly space marines and ships in the target system to deal with the conflict... I really think this is an important consideration.

There should be an easy mechanic to simulate this without having to micro units and shuffle them from front to support line.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rabid_Cog on January 18, 2019, 02:07:04 AM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 18, 2019, 09:10:07 AM
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 hope we will get something similar in C#... you don't always want to engage ground troops in all locations during every type of wars. There should hopefully be that option.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Nori on January 18, 2019, 11:54:40 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TCD on January 18, 2019, 12:38:27 PM
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.

Box launchers also got nerfed a bit I think, especially give them an explosion chance which makes the old size 1 box launch ship very vulnerable now.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 18, 2019, 12:54:48 PM
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.

You will eventually need to use electronics in them in order for them to be accurate, this will make them bigger in general. You are likely to use AMM at 1-2 in size for this reason.

Small missiles will probably have quite restrictive range as ASM as you will need allot of electronics in them now and smaller engines are less fuel efficient than before, especially with a high power setting. If the yield in them is too small you can also begin absorbing some of them on your passive defenses such as shields etc... this is something many don't consider as a viable way to combat missiles. You are not forced to stop them all, just enough to not hurt you too much.

These factors should make missiles grow relatively large in comparison to how they were designed before.

Although you will need a decent tech level before electronics is usable. The way I see it the first two levels and ECM and ECCM rarely make them better, rather worse in many cases. At 20% I think it is a toss up if they are usable or not, in some circumstances they perhaps is usable in others not so much. I think these techs should start at 20% and not 10%... the first level could be more expensive as a compensation.

I could see that you perhaps want to have both slower long range missiles and shorter ranged faster missiles against enemy ships, they would probably both serve a purpose in the game. You could also want larger missiles with smaller sub munition missiles (MIRV). But they have their own problems since they are very slow and subject to be intercepted before the sub munition is released.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Nori on January 18, 2019, 05:08:20 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on January 19, 2019, 09:01:15 AM
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.

The thing is that a high power setting will be MUCH more fuel costly so as ASM they will only be useful with the highest setting (x6) as either sub munition in a MIRV or very short ranged missiles. The problem with submunitio is that they will have problem fitting all the necessary electronics and will suffer from that and have either very low yield or extremely short range so you have many chances to intercept the first stage. Larger missiles will have more efficient engines but you are also likely to use lower power multiplier on long range missiles now as opposed to always using the highest setting as you did before. Now there will be a real choice.


This will probably make fighters a very good platform for delivering god mid to short range ASM missiles and be one of the stronger ways to conduct offensive warfare without huge losses in life and important equipment. Small missile fire-controls is also more potent now so fighters will have a decently good stand off capability to capital ships.

You will also be able to build much more potent self guided missiles since very small active and passive sensors will be really good now. This can make big long range missiles very potent.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 28, 2019, 03:17:13 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 28, 2019, 04:13:05 PM
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?

1.  Considering that the launcher app is not written, provided, endorsed, or bug-checked by Steve, I am 100% confident that C# Aurora will not require it.
     --  Though not being one to use French/German settings (i.e. comma for decimal separator, etc.) I have no idea how C# handles the "wrong" system settings.

2.  Auto-assignemnt has changed a lot.  "For auto-assignment purposes, each ship class now has a specific rank requirement for its commander, based on its command and control modules."
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818)

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on January 31, 2019, 06:56:41 AM
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?  ???
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 31, 2019, 09:30:28 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 31, 2019, 09:34:49 AM
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?  ???

As a baseline each million workers generates 100 wealth. The first wealth tech raises that to 120 wealth per million, the second tech raises it to 140 per million, etc.

The income from trade grows separately as shipping lines create more ships and populations grow and create more trading opportunities. Trade income should generally increase as a proportion of wealth over time.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on January 31, 2019, 10:40:48 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 31, 2019, 11:03:30 AM
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?

It is a one off increase in unrest at the point of creation.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105681;topicseen#msg105681
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 07, 2019, 02:57:01 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 07, 2019, 05:07:58 AM
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.

Not at the moment, but interesting idea.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on February 07, 2019, 05:37:22 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The Forbidden on February 07, 2019, 06:09:09 AM
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.

I don't remember well but I think it's upon taking damage, not being fired at (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Still I doesn't need to be coded in, a quid pro quo like that could be a nice RP scenario.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 07, 2019, 07:17:46 AM
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#.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The Forbidden on February 07, 2019, 07:43:31 AM
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 ?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 07, 2019, 09:22:10 AM
So the NPRs are always hostile in your campaign ?

I'll code it when I meet one :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on February 07, 2019, 04:12:22 PM
I'll code it when I meet one :)

That's kind of taking JiT to the extreme :D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on February 07, 2019, 05:44:11 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 07, 2019, 06:12:46 PM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: mtm84 on February 08, 2019, 02:50:49 AM
and probably dies horribly

Queue "Dozens of civilian colony ships dump a few million people on a world that just received its first batch of infrastructure" Flashbacks.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The Forbidden on February 08, 2019, 06:40:14 AM
So the NPRs are always hostile in your campaign ?

I'll code it when I meet one :)

Okay. And hey, at least it'll give your nations something to shoot at other than each other, especially with slight....Mars related issues that could come up. (the more I read the more I feel like this is the Trans-Newtonian campaign all over again, which is good, I loved that campaign.)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on February 08, 2019, 08:59:41 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on February 08, 2019, 09:24:53 AM
Population isn't assigned to individual habs. The habs contribute to an "infrastructure pool" that the population resides in. In your scenario the population would be fine so long as at least 1 hab is left.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 08, 2019, 09:28:16 AM
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

That depends.  Did you make one Colony and assign all ten Orbital Habitats to it, or did you make 10 different colonies on the same body and assign one OrbHab to each?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 08, 2019, 09:48:51 AM
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

Think of Orbital Habitats as infrastructure. When you remove infrastructure, you reduce available space for the population. When you move an orbital habitats, you are doing exactly the same. The population isn't 'assigned' to any particular hab, just like it isn't assigned to any specific part of the infrastructure.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on February 13, 2019, 02:26:39 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 13, 2019, 04:55:36 PM
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?

The same nation.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on February 13, 2019, 11:24:39 PM
If you're allied to someone can you purchase their fuel?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 14, 2019, 03:34:33 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on February 14, 2019, 03:40:44 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Titanian on February 14, 2019, 05:05:24 AM
Even just sm-accessible dialogs for transferring minerals or missiles would really be useful. For minerals, one currently has to manually add and remove them to populations when doing a trade. Missiles currently have to be loaded into some ship, the ship transferred, then unloaded, and then the ship transferred back (or removed if it was a temporary one), and then you have to remove the ship class from the other race. Also useful would be a way to sm-transfer populations without any technology transfer happening, and a way to set population status (subjugated and so on).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on February 14, 2019, 07:37:44 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on February 14, 2019, 08:46:53 AM
Could be setup where you designate items that could be traded but then have to wait for civilian shipping to actually pick up and deliver the goods before you get revenue.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on February 14, 2019, 10:11:50 AM
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.
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... .
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rich.h on February 15, 2019, 09:40:40 AM
Couldn't recall if this has been mentioned before. Will ship name lists be handled in the same way or will we be able to have multiple class name lists in one file, at present it can get somewhat clumsy having to constantly keep various copies of a shipnames.txt for each class.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DEEPenergy on February 15, 2019, 05:41:50 PM
Hi Steve. Are you planning any big changes to diplomacy?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Desdinova on February 24, 2019, 11:59:43 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 25, 2019, 11:40:58 AM
All unit sizes are available from the get-go, because there are no longer battalions/companies/brigades/divisions. What unit sizes players use is entirely up to them. Marines are infantry with the boarding combat special ability and all special abilities are also available from the get-go, if I'm remembering it correctly. So you can create a power-armour marines with genetic enhancements and personal weaponry and deploy them in squads of ten if you want. You don't need the boarding combat special ability either, but it makes things easier. Since the size of boarding units is restricted - you can't hardly expect to drop 10k grunts - it's better to have them be as high quality units as possible. You can have them board a ship with their own HQ as well, to get more combat bonuses.

Here are some relevant quotes and screenshot:
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.

Note the BOARDING COMBAT special ability, only for infantry, on the top right segment:
(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/SupplyVehicle02.PNG)

Post about Genetic Enhancement: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg112049#msg112049

The game mechanic for Boarding Combat: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751

Also, one thing to keep in mind is that the research cost for Maximum Engine Power Modifier has been halved, so it's easier/cheaper now to research high-speed, boosted engines for your boarding shuttles.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 25, 2019, 12:17:45 PM
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?

Boarding combat details are here. It is cheaper in RP terms than VB6.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 25, 2019, 12:51:27 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on February 25, 2019, 01:30:41 PM
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.
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... .

The interesting implication would be what happens if an alliance breaks down. To what extend can you service the foreign designed parts? I would be very wary though if a nation can completely skip techs, unless the entire maintenance is done by foreign specialists. Which could lead to interesting situations in proxy wars.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on February 25, 2019, 01:51:37 PM
Some more boarding questions.  I'm also curious to know how these work in VB6 as well:

If a ship is destroyed during boarding combat, can the marines use escape pods, or are they doomed?

If a ship is captured, how do I get the marines out?  The ship probably didn't have troop-transport modules.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 26, 2019, 03:23:59 AM
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?

It includes the HQ Unit. I've been doing this with test campaigns and it hasn't been a problem. The HQ is usually 2-3% of the total.

You can't change an HQ unit but you can swap it for a different one.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 26, 2019, 11:02:37 AM
I'm building an Excel sheet to ease the problem of creating formations and fiddling with their unit numbers, and one of the things that I'm aiming for is to have a semi-realistic chain of command from company to division level, and eventually corps/army/army group. That means that each formation needs its own, custom-tailored HQ unit as formation sizes can vary wildly. But I guess it's still helpful if the sheet doesn't include the HQ itself, since that way I'll at least get rough sizes and then just throw 2-3% on top for good measure.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: mtm84 on February 27, 2019, 03:52:35 AM
HQs are "command value divided by 50, plus the base unit size" large, to a maximum size of 500.  An infantry HQ with 5000 command value would be sized 100.  Not hard to account for in excel.  I use a big list of pre-made HQ units, but calculating for each formation so you can see it change on the fly wouldn't be hard either.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 27, 2019, 11:50:57 AM
Yes but an infantry company is different size than an armoured company so I wouldn't wan't to use the same HQ for both since it would be overkill for the former. Similarly, I will most likely use all 9 possible levels of HQs that C# allows (company-battalion-regiment-brigade-division-corps-army-army group-theatre) and each one will have different size requirement. So I'll be having loads of different HQ units. It's not too difficult if I set the composition of every formation in stone before I start a game, but what if I want to experiment with different compositions? Especially because if the size of a particular company changes, it affects the size of every larger formation that includes those companies, which affects every HQ on every level as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: mtm84 on February 27, 2019, 01:50:49 PM
Excel is great for this kind of thing, you just need to add up all the formation sizes.  Granted you would need to change the hq sizes as you go, but the spreadsheet would update all the formations down the line.  My spreadsheet already does this. I might change it to use an hq generator for every formation instead of using a premade unit. You are probably always going to have in issue chasing the correct HQ size, but in excel that’s just a matter of changing the cell with the command value from 5000 to 5100 or whatever.  the  unit would only increase in size by 1 for every 50 command.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 28, 2019, 11:09:14 AM
Maybe I need to learn Excel better  :D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: amram on March 01, 2019, 10:49:30 PM
Its a very powerful tool that can out-math anyone, and doesn't forget or tire of minutia, it just needs you to tell it what you want it to work out, how its worked out, and what it needs to know to work it out.  The rest is you putting that time you save to better uses, more turns played perhaps.....
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Lornalt on March 02, 2019, 03:19:22 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2019, 05:44:20 PM
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.

You can create and change ranks and their abbreviations.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 02, 2019, 05:44:44 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 02, 2019, 05:47:19 PM
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?

You can make smaller ones as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: King-Salomon on March 06, 2019, 02:29:49 AM
about your newest post

Quote
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

does the specification to >1000t ships mean that the rule

Quote
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)


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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on March 06, 2019, 04:16:49 AM
Hi, do you plan to implement "normal" NPR with some kind of hive mind feature?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 06, 2019, 05:39:15 AM
about your newest post

Quote
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

does the specification to >1000t ships mean that the rule

Quote
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)


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?

Good spot. Original rule is correct and I will fix the new post.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 11, 2019, 04:23:46 PM
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?
Personnel was one of the main benefit of having several slipways. Will there be some retooling benefits when you have more slipways or some other industrial benefits. I guess that yards with many slipways could or should be able to share allot of tools, machinery and expertise so some improvement in building multiple ships could be introduced with more slipways.

I understand that there can also be a one time benefit in building a new slipway than building a completely new shipyard, but that is a one time thing so might not be a huge thing in the long run, depending on how cheap it is to add a new slipway versus building a new shipyard. Certainly it can be viable for really small yards but for larger ships this cost difference might almost be insignificant.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: misanthropope on March 11, 2019, 08:34:52 PM
producing new slips instead of new yards saves you significant if hard-to-estimate costs in construction factory effort
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 12, 2019, 12:15:17 AM
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, the benefit to one shipyard with two slipways of X tonnage over two shipyards each with one slipway X tonnage will be less personnel, fewer minerals, and less Construction Factory time since the shipyard itself can build the additional slipway.

The drawback will be that both slipways are tooled for the same design.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on March 12, 2019, 01:32:27 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 12, 2019, 02:00:42 AM
Sorry; I must be tired.  I specifically went and checked that post before replying and I still saw a base, per-shipyard number of workers for C# Aurora as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 12, 2019, 03:42:15 AM
I don't think it matter all that much in which order things are built... by the yard or by factories. If the yard builds it you still looses time you could do something else. It also would just be a one time thing. A yard that will stand there for a LONG time will generally be better with one slipway in several yards over time unless there are some sort of bonus for building ships in serial. Many yards makes it way easier to build more specialized ship classes and make smaller incremental changes and slight (and different) alterations to classes.

It depends on how expensive it is to add new slipways in contrast of building a new shipyard. Currently you build a yard for 2400 and it cost roughly 2000 minerals to expand it to a size of 10.000 tons and building a new slipway at 10.000t will cost you 2000 minerals. So I agree that if you build smaller ships then having a few slipways will be beneficial but as ships scale up in size the initial cost will sort of get lost and mean less and less and the flexibility of more yards are more important.

Perhaps the balance is good as it is... I don't know.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on March 12, 2019, 05:53:14 AM
Maybe Steve can introduce a system where a repeat in slipway production increases the speed of production (to simulate experience). This extra speed then get's lost when you retool.

That would give you the choice of having multiple slipways for each class you build, but which might lay dorment for quite some time if you don't build there in series as well as the disadvantage of more workers needed in general, but give you the advantage of quicker construction if needed - vs. having fewer slipways you retool as you need, but have longer production times (and lesser need of slipway workers).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: misanthropope on March 12, 2019, 12:07:04 PM
with an 8% inherent interest rate, construction 16 tech and a 30% governor bonus, the overhead cost of a project done via CF is .857 per BP.  that is to say, the overhead on a new 1000 ton naval shipyard is higher than the *total* cost of a 10,000 ton slip, during the phase of the game where errors actually matter.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Darkminion on March 12, 2019, 01:52:10 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on March 12, 2019, 02:40:29 PM
In VB6 it does seem to give away that a contact is a missile.  I saw the AI spam about 1000 AMM's at a single sensor buoy.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 12, 2019, 04:46:06 PM
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.

I haven't decided yet whether to secure the DB for C# Aurora, but I will probably go for something similar to VB6.

AI should be smarter regarding target selection and will be able to tell the difference between missiles and ships, although I haven't finished coding it yet. I will have to get moving on that though because my latest test game just generated precursors during system generation (about 10 minutes ago) for the first time.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rastaman on March 20, 2019, 11:55:53 AM
Steve, in one of your posts a while ago you hinted at a new feature you called "active electronic warfare". Do you mean offensive electronic countermeasures (OECM), as employed for example by the USN with their Prowler/Growler aircraft? What are your plans and thoughts on this?

For those new to the idea, this would open up a whole other form of fascinating gameplay:

- OECM can affect an area or better a direction/angle, which would make necessary the proper positioning of ECM craft.
- A new support type of spacecraft.
- The capability of low observable spacecraft, supported by OECM forces, would be enhanced.
- The current form of Aurora ECM would be properly called DECM and its capabilities would have to be more limited/nerfed in contrast to OECM.
- OECM and DECM can be detected and analyzed by ELINT modules, so that stealth spacecraft better do not activate DECM.
- Active sensors, like modern AESA sensors in real life (AN/APG-81, AN/APG-82 etc.), could double as OECM.
- Possibly frequency bands?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Lornalt on April 11, 2019, 11:57:49 PM
So Just asking  ;D can we still give titles to the Officers? for Role Play purpose of course. . .  Hail to the Emperor!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2019, 02:31:34 AM
So Just asking  ;D can we still give titles to the Officers? for Role Play purpose of course. . .  Hail to the Emperor!

Not coded at the moment, but will be easy to add.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 17, 2019, 09:00:54 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 17, 2019, 10:16:12 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 17, 2019, 03:39:19 PM
Are you talking about creating many small salvos to confuse point defence?

Yes, that is one of the artefacts of the current mechanic.

You can get this artefact in a few ways... one is making PD very expensive through use of the often cheaper missile fire-controls or by loading different missiles and fire them from the same fire control and thus creating several salvos from the same fire-control.

I do think there could be some balance between needing FC to control and target missiles based on tech level rather than having fixed salvo sizes. This might also "solve" the extreme Box launcher salvos that also often can make PD very weak in the other direction, especially when these two are combined to make the PD very expensive to maintain.

There is also some issues (in my opinion) with the bonus you get to fighter beam fire controls. They are so much cheaper that it is more efficient to create small turreted Gauss or rail gun fighters. A Gauss turret with an 85% reduced Gauss turret can often be up to 50% faster in tracking than on a ship and still cheaper to operate by stuffing it in a hangar.

I would not mind an overview of how FC works at some point. Like engines now scaling I would like FC to work the same on all platforms and that abusing the mechanic less of an issue because sometimes it is hard to avoid even when you try to avoid it.

For example a smaller FC you would put on a fighter (or a ship with one or a few cannon turrets) are able to track or control fewer missiles in flight, thus being smaller and fit on a fighter. That fighter are going to fire a small volley of missiles anyway etc... This would also solve some other issues with fire huge volumes of really small missiles, this would be expensive since it would need allot of FC or very advanced ones etc.. so this would also indirectly help the small versus large missile debate as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on April 17, 2019, 06:09:45 PM
Given the greatly increased performance of the C# version, I'd propose doing away with the salvo concept entirely (or, mechanically, assign each missile to its own salvo).

This will slightly increase the propensity of AMMs to overkill when launching multiple AMMs per ASM, but it would remove the arbitrary distinction between 5 missiles fired by the same fire control in the same increment, and the same 5 missiles fired by 5 different FCs.

This would necessitate reworking the interaction between beam PD and missiles. My proposal would be to consolidate all missiles that are valid targets for beam PD during the increment, and resolve firing as if they had been one large salvo. The defender would need to be able to set how the PD should prioritize the missiles (which can be basically three attributes): Thermal signature, target cross-section (size), and speed, and whether they should be targeted in random order, lowest to highest, or highest to lowest.

If implemented in isolation, it would mean that no vessel ever required more than 1 FC for final defensive fire. However, to counter that, we could limit the number of weapons a single FC could control (with a single turret counting as one weapon, giving an additional advantage to turreting your PD weapons).

To balance this restriction, missile fire controls should be similarly restricted on the number of missiles they can have in space at any given time.

To begin with, I'd suggest letting an FC control 5 missiles or beam weapons, with a tech line for growing control capacity. Reducing this number during the component design phase should have an effect on size and cost (so FCs that only need to control one missile or weapon at short range get to claw their way down to fighter size without invoking special rules for fighters.).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on April 17, 2019, 09:44:50 PM
I like those ideas, but I would offer a counter suggestion which also involves ECM.
Firstly, don't give fire controls arbitary hard limits to the amount of missiles or salvos they can control, but instead add mechanics where controlling multiple salvos causes a malus to accuracy and ECM/ECCM.
In an environment where theres little ecm or risk of your salvos being shot down you should be able to commit massive alpha strikes, but in a more restrictive environment you may wish to make less but better controlled salvos.
In addition, allow individual fire controls to split salvos up if desired, add a drop down or something so it can be split in 2/3/4/5 etc.
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.
These 2 alone should do away with the exploit. However the AI will need to know how to deal with these mechanics, though already AI can be cheesed with the current salvo mechanics.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chokuto on April 17, 2019, 10:38:25 PM
I would be in favour of doing away with the salvo concept entirely as I think it adds unnecessary complexity and exposes an exploit.

With this approach I do think that something would have to be done about only need one fire control for final defensive fire.

Quote
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.

Maybe a railgun or guass cannon should have a to hit penalty for each subsequent missile it is targeting. Potentially a tech line to reduce this, but not sure whether this would be on the fire control or the weapon. Also would think this should apply to turreted weapons but not sure how
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on April 18, 2019, 04:39:27 AM
When on the topic of point defense.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 18, 2019, 06:51:37 AM
At this stage of development, I don't want to make any significant changes to combat, as it works well. The concept of salvos also needs to exist as it is used in many different parts of the code. The simplest fix is probably to allow fire controls to target multiple salvos in a single firing phase. I'm not at home at the moment, but I will check later how easy that would be to implement.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Whitecold on April 19, 2019, 12:42:56 AM
When on the topic of point defense.

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.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: misanthropope on April 19, 2019, 10:58:02 AM
if the parameter you're tweaking is relative speed, there is a fine line between "area defense is worthless" and "a FAC screen can kill ungodly waves with area defense".  beam accuracy at range seems the safer lever to pull on.  if the tracking time bonus is finally enabled in c# that should help beam defense considerably.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on April 19, 2019, 11:47:32 PM
But something will need to be done about the beam weapon range vs. missile speed ratio. Because as it stands, missiles of comparable tech level will cross the engagement envelope of beam weapons in two or three 5-second increments. Unless you have beam weapons suffer basically no accuracy degradation from engagement range, that renders final defensive fire strictly superior to area defense (1 shot at maximum accuracy vs. fewer than two shots on average, the first of which is at less than half accuracy). Changing the accuracy profile by range of beam weapons enough for that to matter under this attack geometry would radically modify beam combat as well, assuming it is even possible.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on April 22, 2019, 05:57:59 AM
Regarding salvos: PD FCS should probably consider all hostile missiles in range as fair game in a given increment.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Indefatigable on May 17, 2019, 06:22:09 AM
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#.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 18, 2019, 03:35:18 PM
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#.

It's probably a greater improvement than that. I haven't played my campaign for a few days (touring the Scottish Highlands at the moment) but I was running turns early in the week with 5 races in Sol and it was still less than 1 second for each increment.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on May 18, 2019, 04:37:37 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 19, 2019, 12:21:13 PM
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?

I haven't coded Diplomacy yet, It's the last major area to code. However, the AI already classifies systems based on their importance so a combination of that and species modifiers will probably determine how it handles that type of situation.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DEEPenergy on May 19, 2019, 02:56:48 PM
Anything big planned for diplomacy Steve? I would love something simple like Paradox war score to demand planets, systems, disarmament etc.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chokuto on May 19, 2019, 04:10:12 PM
Anything big planned for diplomacy Steve? I would love something simple like Paradox war score to demand planets, systems, disarmament etc.

That is not simple. Something like Paradox's warscore needs to be thought of from the start. It also wouldn't really work in Aurora because you could capture a planet and just freighter all the stuff away.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Marski on May 20, 2019, 03:32:10 AM
Either age is catching up to me and my search-fu has gone rusty, or there geniunely isn't an answer to this:
Has uncle Stevie mentioned if he fixed the "area defense" point-defence mode for beam firecontrol not firing on targets if its only one 5-second instance in range?
Currently fighting a war against a race for the 18th year now, and every battle in this miserable stalemate of a space-somme is a tedious process of having to spend an entire day manually assigning targets for firecontrol one after another.

(https://i.imgur.com/qFDR16n.png)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on May 20, 2019, 01:38:16 PM
I'm pretty sure he hasn't.

Generally, missiles move first -- and if they reach the target, they roll to hit -- then ships move, so it's entirely possible to fly out of Area Defense range of a salvo.

Area Defense never worked well, and therefore wasn't used much, and therefore didn't have much 'push' behind fixing/improving it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 20, 2019, 03:32:55 PM
Anything big planned for diplomacy Steve? I would love something simple like Paradox war score to demand planets, systems, disarmament etc.

I don't have a war score concept. Also it would be difficult to know how well you are doing without some idea of the capabilities and scale of your opponents. If France fights Germany, each will have a reasonable idea of how well they are doing. If two races that don't know much about one another fight over a few border systems, they don't have a frame of reference. I might be inflicting twice as many casualties as I am suffering, but that doesn't help if my opponent is 5x larger for example.

It will probably be more about claiming territory or setting up neutral zones. Having wars that can end with an agreement, or even understanding what your opponent wants will be a major improvement over VB6.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on May 29, 2019, 07:33:24 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 29, 2019, 08:59:27 AM
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?

At the moment it is for races the player only without SM. I probably should add SM requirement in case a hot seat game.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on May 30, 2019, 02:45:34 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 30, 2019, 03:52:47 AM
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?

The ELINT module will tell you over time what installations are at other populations, so something on those lines would be possible.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on June 08, 2019, 08:09:38 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: amram on June 08, 2019, 06:13:47 PM
probably how it has to be, though I think it would be sensible to have an option the player can enable, which allows auto incrementing the NPR interrupts until the player's intended increment is reached, kinda like the old force x increments before interrupting, except, force auto for NPR only interrupts.

in c#, I suspect we'll notice, but not 20 mins later kind of notice, just, oh look, that one wasn't instantaneous.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on June 10, 2019, 05:14:14 AM
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?

If they are firing on one another the game has to run in small increment to handle the combat. However, C# is much faster than VB6 so a few small increments should not be an issue. I am currently running five races in the same system, which causes a significant slowdown in VB6, yet C# is running increments (even the 5-day construction phases) in less than a second.

The only time the game should actually interrupt and require you to click an increment button will be for events affecting players.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on July 06, 2019, 12:19:26 PM
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 ...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 13, 2019, 05:14:27 PM
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 ...

Retooling rules are the same.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on July 18, 2019, 07:54:13 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 19, 2019, 03:04:48 AM
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 can assign the academy an administrator or scientist as commandant, which will produce more of that type.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on July 19, 2019, 04:39:13 AM
You are also always going to need a large number of naval officers anyway, just to crew all your ships.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on July 19, 2019, 04:25:25 PM
Quote from: Hazard link=topic=10097.    msg115391#msg115391 date=1563529153
You are also always going to need a large number of naval officers anyway, just to crew all your ships.   

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.     

The presentation of choice in managing such things is always better than just assuming everyone will play one set routine.   
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097.    msg115390#msg115390 date=1563523488

You can assign the academy an administrator or scientist as commandant, which will produce more of that type.   

That's great for a more 'hack around' solution to an design limitation, but it would be nice to see some proper separation and control over the different civilian and military branches rather than just having everyone trained by the same military academies.     If there are some potential restrictions in the existing codebase making it a nightmare to handle separate branches of training between military and civilian, even some kind of looser % break-up between civilian and military that the system tries to maintain within that can be adjusted in the empire details window would be a vast improvement over having dozens of leaders being generated for a branch your empire has absolutely no need in for the next 80-100 years or more.   

This is kind of becoming a suggestion more than a question at this point so apologies on that, but if the direct approach of the direct separation of military and civilian academy training is a code management headache then a alternative approach could be something like the player could set a % for graduates the system attempts to adhere to when deciding if a new leader belongs in either a military or civilian branch, so if the player has set their empire training to 80% civilian focus and 20% military focus, then each new leader when generated would have a 80% chance of belonging to a random civilian branch, and a 20% chance to belong to the military branch.   

There would clearly need to be some lower and upper caps to stop just setting one to some absurdly high % but heck maybe the limits of control could even be a civilian research tier if someone wanted to make it be one.   So there's still no direct assignment or absolute control, it would still be possible to have a year where nothing but military leaders or nothing but civilian leaders are generated despite because that's just how RNG decided, but at least the player could properly represent things in a direct and clean manner and influence the inner workings of the empire they're meant to be in control of without using less intuitive quirky workarounds to a design issue.   
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on July 20, 2019, 08:28:22 PM
I don't really see that as all that important at this point, what we had in the previous version of aurora worked fine even.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on July 21, 2019, 03:35:47 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on July 21, 2019, 06:51:27 PM
Except the merchant navy is a thing that's actively simulated and you can't stuff naval officers onto civilian company ships. I think.

OTOH? You absolutely should be seeing the officers who are assigned to fleet auxiliary vessels like colliers, tankers and non-combat stations as your active reserve, and you are going to be seeing a lot more officers needed for various jobs. A survey ship that's not equipped with a science officer is basically substandard already, and you generally just want to make sure there's at least 2 officers on any ship of 1000 tons or more.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on July 21, 2019, 08:40:37 PM
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.

That is cool, I never really considered it as a recruitment pool.  I always imagined that those officers were actively in non-combatant billets somewhere in the service.  In the real life Army (I was in for 23 years), there were command and primary staff assignments which were the 'main' jobs, but officers were also in a ton of non-main jobs - public affairs, contracting and services, force development, instructors at schools, recruiting and retention jobs.  I know in my career, half of it was spent in jobs like that.  When I looked at my list of officers in the pool, that was I always assumed those guys were doing.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on July 22, 2019, 02:42:36 AM
Has the population density modifier any effect on crew calculations or size of crew quarters?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 22, 2019, 03:30:57 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TheRowan on July 22, 2019, 03:38:46 AM
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.

That could be an interesting minor addition... it would mean that if you captured a ship from a race that likes higher densities, you'd need to refit the accomodation to use it effectively, which seems like it should be the case.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on July 30, 2019, 06:46:15 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on July 31, 2019, 05:04:10 AM
That's a really good point! I hope we don't get that sort of swelling/surge thing. It would be cool if emigration was a little more nuanced so that bodies with plenty of space don't really have much emigration, whereas bodies that are full or close to it have plenty.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on July 31, 2019, 11:51:02 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on July 31, 2019, 12:15:42 PM
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.
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?

So during each construction cycle, for each populated world, you would compute a score of ([unemployed pop] + [population in transit] - [population awaiting pickup])/[total pop], with unfilled jobs counting as negative unemployment (capped by available space remaining, to avoid accidental overcrowding). Then every time a colony ship was looking for a cargo, it would select the highest scoring colony to pick up from and the lowest scoring colony to drop off at. The additional overhead shouldn't be outrageous, and it would simulate population moving about in search of new opportunities. It would also encourage actually developing colonies, instead of just dumping population and watch it generate wealth.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on July 31, 2019, 12:23:36 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on July 31, 2019, 12:31:12 PM
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.

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on July 31, 2019, 12:53:49 PM
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'd be much more convenient to just have a new colony automatically get designated as a destination and let you change it to stable/source/source above 5% maximum population manually without it getting pinned back to 'destination' the moment it drops below an nonadjustable value. Just in case you want to empty a colony utterly for whatever reason.

For that matter, if it's possible in the system, give a colony a couple of 'source from this many colonists' and a 'destination up to this many colonists' lists, with the lists for a colony generating (millions of pop) values at colony founding and arrival/departure of orbital habitation stations but in the back end corresponding with certain percentage values of the body's maximum population that the lists refer to internally but use the exact amount of population calculation values only for display purposes so nothing breaks.

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?

They should. Which is good and useful, but putting them to work is even better for generating wealth.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on August 01, 2019, 03:18:58 AM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 01, 2019, 03:36:24 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on August 01, 2019, 11:25:54 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 02, 2019, 03:31:48 AM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TheRowan on August 02, 2019, 07:31:47 AM
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).

A +2 option would be good, that would let you model officers down to Lt (which always seems a better place to start for fighter pilots)... That would give you fighters and patrol boats being commanded by Lt. to Cdr. rank, corvettes etc. by Lt. Cdr. to Captain, most warships being a Cdr but with the option to have capital ships under a Captain and the pride of your fleet commanded by a Commodore (until he gets sacked for misusing his hire car, but that's another story). Presumably any ship where you didn't assign an officer is actually being commanded by a grizzled chief or a terrified Sublieutenant...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on August 03, 2019, 04:49:01 AM
A +2 option would be good for those nations/powers/races where the rank structure gets long and elaborate. Especially as fighters will probably become more common in C# what with sensor changes and the AI getting to use them and so on.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: sloanjh on August 03, 2019, 08:30:40 AM
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?

The named officers in Aurora are not the entire officer corps for your empire - they're the "exceptional" officers.  If a ship does not have a named officer in command (or in a staff slot), then it's assumed that an "average" officer (with all traits = 0) is in command.  (Unless Steve changed things while I wasn't looking :) )

John
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bartimeus on August 08, 2019, 06:32:49 AM
Hello people !

Do you know if Steve paln to add, one day, multi biome planets with a continetal subdivision of those planets ?

Thanks !
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on August 08, 2019, 12:04:47 PM
He hasn't said anything about it but it has been asked for in the past. Extremely unlikely to be included in C# 1.0 I'd say.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Profugo Barbatus on August 08, 2019, 07:22:44 PM
That would add complexity to the ground combat that I don't really think adds great benefit to it. There's absolutely no way your stationing enough troops on a planet that you actually need to station them on a different continent to make space. Given that, if any of the planet is comprised of jungle rifts, I'd just want to pack all my forces into there. I believe that's part of why the concept is 'dominant terrain', as opposed to literally monobiome worlds. If it has a significant jungle component, then its abstracted that planetary garrisons and defenses are focused in these defensible areas.

Any terrain past that is open to your RP needs. Just because the dominant terrain is jungle rifts, doesn't mean you can't RP the planet as also having verdant, green plains, prime for sowing crops.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on August 12, 2019, 01:50:15 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 12, 2019, 02:01:17 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bughunter on August 27, 2019, 10:30:58 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 27, 2019, 12:24:44 PM
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.

They are detected like jump gates.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on August 27, 2019, 04:55:16 PM
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.

You could call it the Babylon project
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on August 28, 2019, 10:41:31 AM
Just don't lose projects 1 through 4.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 28, 2019, 10:54:42 AM
Just don't lose projects 1 through 4.

Losing 4 is fine, because it helps you before you build it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: boggo2300 on August 28, 2019, 05:12:49 PM
Just don't lose projects 1 through 4.

Losing 4 is fine, because it helps you before you build it.

Scarily that also fits in quite well with your current 40K campaign :D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bughunter on August 29, 2019, 04:13:13 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 29, 2019, 06:24:34 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on August 29, 2019, 07:16:28 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 29, 2019, 07:31:29 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on August 29, 2019, 07:34:28 AM
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 would be totally in favor of option 2. That way have to work for it. Sounds sensible. I like the idea of having to build specific ships to survey (to discover if it's worth it or not) and eventually build a lagrange point.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on August 29, 2019, 10:15:33 AM
I would like option two only if NPRs will be able to do the same or if player will not get an advantage over NPRs using this system.
Otherwise option one is more attractive I would say.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Culise on August 29, 2019, 08:12:28 PM
I've personally been fond of the idea of stars themselves serving as "Lagrange points" for the purpose of intrasystem jumps.   As the gravitational bodies themselves fairly obviously aren't Lagrangian points, I understand that it likely doesn't even come close to signifying from a semantic standpoint, and what little lore there is on both interstellar and intrasystem jumps likely doesn't support dropping a point right on top of a large gravitational well.   Adding in artificial Lagrangian stabilization for intrasystem jumps does seem like a worthwhile option, and one that's far more extensible to other distant planets.   
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on August 31, 2019, 04:03:53 AM
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.

Maybe both options possible could be used?


I also hate going to Hutton Orbital in Elite Dangerous it's 0.22LY from the Primary and wish they allowed intra-system jumps in that game or being able to choose at which star to enter a system.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on August 31, 2019, 05:06:18 AM
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.

The mechanic would allow any planet to have a Lagrange point, even two or three within the same solar system. It would take a long time though for sub-gas giant worlds.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on August 31, 2019, 05:59:53 AM
that would be perfect, if overused without enough defense in a system then a potential enemy will be on your colonies doorstep in a heartbeat. it would also be allowing players to have a decision to make between shortening travel times in system/JCS utilization doing downtime versus accidental creation of an invasion highway/increased JCS workload while in a expansion phase.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on September 01, 2019, 12:31:20 AM
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. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on September 01, 2019, 04:32:42 AM
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.

Absolutely. It would be fun (If a little dangerous... your enemies can use those too!) to be able to make important planets "closer" by building lagrange points in the star systems.

Really hoping Steve will add this one :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on September 01, 2019, 07:11:28 AM
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.

Totally in support of this idea. It’s so „Expanse“  ;D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 01, 2019, 09:36:22 AM
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange points

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on September 01, 2019, 11:38:45 AM
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange points

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
Great news! Will NPRs use this mechanic?
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!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on September 01, 2019, 01:18:57 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 01, 2019, 01:20:30 PM
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?

Sixty degrees of arc. It is the position of the real L5 Lagrange Point. The general area of the L4 and L5 Lagrange points is where Aurora generates Trojan asteroids.

https://www.space.com/30302-lagrange-points.html
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 01, 2019, 01:22:00 PM
I've added the ability to create new Lagrange points

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg116230#msg116230
Great news! Will NPRs use this mechanic?
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 stabilise is ten years and I didn't want every asteroid to be listed with a ten thousand year timescale.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on September 01, 2019, 01:50:02 PM

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.

Right, but if you will add this option for NPRs it is no longer only mine decision:)
Anyway, thank you for this addition, its a rather welcomed one.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tree on September 01, 2019, 02:29:28 PM
Does it work on moons' L5s too? If I find one with a mass over 0.25 earth mass, that is.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 01, 2019, 02:56:10 PM
Does it work on moons' L5s too? If I find one with a mass over 0.25 earth mass, that is.

No, only planets.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on September 02, 2019, 08:05:24 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: sloanjh on September 02, 2019, 11:36:49 AM
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.

But inconveniently, the planet's L5 will be as far away from the planet as the start is, while the moon's L5 will be only the orbital distance of the moon away from the planet and hence would make a great shortcut to get to the planet.  Which from a game play point of view is a fine reason for Steve to decide either A) to support them or B) to not support them - I can see good arguments both ways :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: sloanjh on September 02, 2019, 11:54:16 AM
An observation (which I first noticed a week or two ago):

The intent of this "Questions" thread was to accumulate the random questions that people were asking as a way to avoid thread spam.  There is a different "Changes Discussions" thread which is intended to deal with discussion of the changes as Steve posts them (since the Changes thread is locked IIRC to everyone but Steve so it can be a noiseless rules repository).

This protocol appears to be breaking down.  People are discussing changes in this thread and asking questions in the other thread, which can lead to a lot of ninja posts, especially for the discussions.  An example of this is that right now we've got the "stabilize Lagrange points" discussion going on in both threads, and I just put up a post in Discussion that went over some stuff that was already covered in Questions.

Now the opinion:  I think we should either try to have more discipline in terms of keeping the threads distinct (and politely guiding people to the proper thread when they mis-post), or retire one of the two threads by locking it.  I think the worst choice would be to keep going as-is.  I prefer the first choice (try to keep two distinct threads), since I think there's value for newcomers in having a thread that acts as a pseudo-FAQ without a lot of discussion noise in it, but am ok with the second.

Thoughts?

John
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on September 02, 2019, 02:15:29 PM
I think if we have 2 threads, the same problem will happen over and over again. Might be better to lock this one.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on September 03, 2019, 12:03:23 AM
I think thats potentially reasonable since there is a thread called 'discussion' anyhow, and questions arguably count as discussion.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Froggiest1982 on September 05, 2019, 07:15:49 PM
It may have been already discussed and I missed it but is it possible to know if Dormient Jump points are now "sorted"? I never really liked the idea even if I understand why is actually there.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on September 06, 2019, 12:18:17 AM
I believe they are a byproduct of map generation being an ongoing thing.  You and any game-start NPRs are going around exploring systems, causing them to be generated.  They don't exist prior to someone visiting them, so when they are created they spawn in jump points.  These points can lead to already-surveyed systems, leading to 'dormant jump points' springing into being.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on September 06, 2019, 12:37:10 AM
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

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TheRowan on September 06, 2019, 02:35:56 AM
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)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 06, 2019, 03:47:32 AM
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.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Froggiest1982 on September 08, 2019, 03:31:21 AM
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.

Thanks, Steve would you able to integrate option 1 as a classic flag to thick on the game setup at the start or will be too much work?

Thanks again.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: bro918 on September 09, 2019, 10:00:22 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on September 10, 2019, 09:37:35 AM
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.

I believe that since C# Aurora does not have such a thing as a "missile engine"  (all engines are just "engines" now), the size limit has massively increased to five or six hundred missile size points (40 to 50 hull spaces).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on September 10, 2019, 12:14:58 PM
I was wondering about the possibility of taking over space stations etc. with the new station system and how population would react to that? Do they revolt, have to be pacified? Did Steve write anything about that yet?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on September 10, 2019, 12:42:01 PM
Steve did comment on it briefly before in a previous test campaign in regards to dealing habitats and the like.

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.

edited for spelling and grammar
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on September 10, 2019, 04:15:41 PM
Note; this means that a coordinated strike against every habitat a colony has without landing troops on the colony can result in a population without any protection from an extremely hostile environment. Millions of deaths are likely to follow.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Impassive on September 13, 2019, 11:59:11 PM
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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on September 14, 2019, 12:19:48 AM
So sayeth me and not the lord, but it seems like when you take population support infrastructure, you should also take its share of the population it was supporting.  Probably not truly necessary (especially for first release), but it kindof seems like thats how it aught to work.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 14, 2019, 07:40:55 AM
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 :)

1. Struggling for XOs :) but commanders are fine.

2. Yes, you can still do this manually.

3. Not yet. Only +1 for auto assignment.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on September 14, 2019, 09:57:30 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 15, 2019, 05:28:54 AM
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?

Yes, correct. I included the blank columns in case anyone was concerned I missed them out by accident.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on September 15, 2019, 08:24:15 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 15, 2019, 08:27:44 AM
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?

It is something I have been considering for a while. Most of the requisite code is already in place, so it probably will happen at some point.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on September 23, 2019, 12:17:55 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 23, 2019, 05:06:57 PM
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?

Tactical is used for combat to-hit bonus.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on September 27, 2019, 06:09:26 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on September 27, 2019, 10:13:37 AM
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.

They can only transfer between themselves and a ship. Although you could just have a magazine for temporary use as you transfer ship A -> hub -> ship B
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on October 26, 2019, 03:01:17 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 26, 2019, 05:25:18 AM
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?

You can split out forces into front-line, support and rear echelon (supply, artillery, anti-air, etc) and you can have forces with better leadership or better morale, plus you can assign artillery or orbital support to front line formations. However, two front-line formations with exactly the same elements, leadership, morale, and support will be functionally identical.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: IanD on October 31, 2019, 02:04:44 PM
Just playing V7.1 to remind me of some of Aurora's more esoteric points. It brought up a couple of questions.

1) I have been watching a couple of NPRs go at it hammer and tongs for approximately a couple of weeks game time (and the same amount of real time!). In C# under what circumstances will the NPR invade? I ask as I just watched 21000+ nuclear warheads impact the home world of the opposing NPR. (It didn't end the fighting and I wonder when turns will stop being every 5 seconds.)

2) The other question is as C#is so fast will we in future notice that two NPRs are fighting?

Ian
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TinkerPox on October 31, 2019, 03:49:34 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on October 31, 2019, 04:40:47 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on October 31, 2019, 05:41:41 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bremen on October 31, 2019, 07:19:06 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on November 01, 2019, 06:52:12 AM
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.

Yes I was just dividing 14 cubic meters with 20... while it is 50/20 tons times 14 so 35 cubic meters... or rather 2.5 tons per AMM. A far as I rememer 20 MSP are equal to size one (50 tons)... but I might remember wrong here.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on November 01, 2019, 12:54:17 PM
You remember right. From the Wiki:
Quote
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on November 18, 2019, 01:12:35 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Deutschbag on December 11, 2019, 06:33:54 PM
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?

I'd love an answer to this question as well. Artillery bombardment or something to that effect, perhaps? Combat engineers/sappers to degrade enemy fortification?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 12, 2019, 03:18:49 AM
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?

No, the fortifications aren't reduced. That is something I should look at for the larger weapons.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on December 12, 2019, 06:03:35 AM
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on December 12, 2019, 08:36:24 AM
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).

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.  In 2019 with precision munitions, we routinely take down fortified structures, bunkers, and other hardened sites in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan - albeit with some difficulty for certain types of targets.  One thing I do think you're on too is certain terrain types should have a harder modification for fortification reduction to simulate taking down mountain sites or urban rubble.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 12, 2019, 08:53:39 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 12, 2019, 09:42:11 AM
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.

I think that the ground combat system should first actually give a benefit to being the defender before we add even more benefit to a strong attacker. Given the current combat model are directly linked to "Lanchester's law" there are no benefit to defend as there are no definition of attacker and defender.

In a multi-faction game for example you only need to be slighty stronger to beat an enemy on the same planet if a war breaks out due to this. The problem is that formations in the defensive line can attack units in the enemy defensive line while still retaining its fortification level, thus there are no real defender or attack in such scenarios when both sides start with being in full fortification level.

In a more realistic scenario you should need at least a double or triple strength advantage to invade and take an enemy stronghold.

There should be a clear attacker and defender in the game in my opinion where the "attacker" can still have a defensive line but could not benefit from more than a fraction of the fortification level as long as they are in attack "mode". As long as two hostile forces are both in defensive mode there should only be token skirmishes going on between the forces, or something like it.'

If you were to add destruction of fortification levels on top of the current system then having the bigger force are just going to be even more of a decisive factor.

If I have two or three factions on a world I really would like for there to be a possibility of stand offs being relatively normal as no one want to attack as they don't have a decisive advantage in strength. Due to Lanchester's laws the current model will make sure only a minor strength advantage will be quite decisive.

Lanchester's law basically means that if I have an advantage of say 20% 1200 over 1000 in combat power in reality I actually have 12*12 versus 10*10 or 144 to 100 or a 44% advantage. In reality it is really difficult to apply this in a complete war situation because you can't always use your superiority in strength, sometimes it can even be a problem. Defending also usually give many different benefits that the game does not model as fortifications can be used by both sides to full effect.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on December 12, 2019, 10:10:20 AM
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.

The ability to destroy the target you are blasting is not the issue. The issue is that undirected bombardment will spend most of its time blasting things that do not matter very much. Making a combined arms bonus that lets fire support negate or attrition fortifications when used in support of an infantry assault would make sense, but this is a property of the joint combined arms formation, not a property of the artillery's ability to make stuff blow up downrange. (I'm abstracting away air power here, because for most actual use cases it is just expensive artillery.)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on December 12, 2019, 12:32:13 PM
(I'm abstracting away air power here, because for most actual use cases it is just expensive artillery.)

Expensive long ranged artillery that can act with considerable accuracy in areas normal gun and rocket artillery can't act and not with as much accuracy. Battle support aircraft aren't really of the 'remove this grid square' variety of operation. They're more for 'remove this specific target' jobs, be it buildings, bunkers, vehicles or infantry squads.


That said, fortifications should be considered for the job they're supposed to be doing, and that job is keeping troops safe from incoming fire while they deal with exposed enemy forces. There are a number of reasons why they were so successful in WW1, those included the low mobility of military assets, the general power of guns available to the troops relative to the strength of movable armour protection, the generally poor accuracy of the era's artillery (you may be able to turn a trench section into a charnel house with a direct hit, but how many shots do you need to fire to make that hit?) and the low capability of that artillery's shells when it comes to breaching fortifications.

This is decidedly different from modern day equipment, which are generally much more accurate, the much greater mobility of troops due to armoured personnel vehicles even across bad terrain and the fact that even the lightest bombs carried by aircraft on bombing missions carry more explosives than the heavy artillery did. This has resulted in fortifications being less useful as they don't last as long, either bombed to destruction with precision weapons of sufficient strength, or just outmaneuvered.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on December 12, 2019, 12:40:14 PM
In addition to Aurora having futuristic sci-fi weapons of unprecedented power and accuracy, it also has futuristic sci-fi defences of unprecedented strength and ability.

My vote is that Construction Equipment when in a formation that is in Attack mode, disables part of the defender fortification bonus as per some mathematical formula that I am too dumb to come up with.

This gives motivation to build both cheap construction equipment medium vehicles for fortifying your own troops and expensive construction equipment heavy vehicles for digging out your enemies.

Currently construction equipment (150) can be put on Vehicle (size 18), Heavy Vehicle (36), Super Heavy Vehicle (108) and Ultra Heavy Vehicle (216). That means we can build the following:

Mk I Bulldozer
Vehicle
Construction Equipment
Empty slot
Armour: 40
Size: 168

Mk II Armed Ram
Heavy Vehicle
Construction Equipment
Heavy Crew-served Anti-personnel
Armour: 60
Size: 206

Mk III Burninator
Super-heavy Vehicle
Construction Equipment
Heavy Crew-served Anti-personnel
Super-heavy Anti-vehicle
Armour: 70
Size: 358

Mk IV Tectonic Destroyer
Ultra-heavy Vehicle
Construction Equipment
Heavy Crew-served Anti-personnel
Super-heavy Anti-vehicle
Heavy Autocannon
Armour: 80
Size: 538

I didn't put in prices because we don't have them yet and the SHV and UHV armours are conjecture based on screenshots of lighter vehicle armour that Steve provided but you get the idea.

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.

Everybody knows that artillery bombardment in WW1 was largely useless when it came to fortified troops. Not many people know that it was the same in WW2 despite great improvements in both accuracy and destructive power of artillery. Air power was almost as bad. Smart munitions and better battlefield intelligence have improved things a lot more, but so have there been advances on the defending side. In Kosovo, despite overwhelming technological and numerical superiority, NATO was utterly incapable of destroying fortified and camouflaged Serbian units. In 1991, the Allied Coalition had to dig up the fortified Iraqi troops the hard way and the massive "turkey shoot" happened only when the Iraqis were routed and sitting ducks out in the open in massive traffic jams. Israel is very good at popping Syrian radar stations but has not been able to root out the primitive rocket launchers that Hamas and Hezbollah use despite having no issues when it comes to bombing civilians.

We shouldn't make sweeping generalisations based on what has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last two decades because they are not illustrative of actual modern combat
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on December 12, 2019, 01:49:33 PM
The reason WW2 didn't become the stalemate of WW1 isn't improvements in artillery or because of airpower. It's because of improvements in movable armour; tanks and half tracks offered much better capabilities for pressing the attack and exploiting a breach in the defenses while at the same time not needing more than an effective suppression barrage of the defenders to get through the minefields and barbed wire to get close enough to attack.

Kosovo is largely the result of not being able to find targets. Properly identified targets could be engaged to generally good effect. FFD units are important in Aurora for exactly that reason.

Likewise with the Iraqi in 1991, proper target identification to get the right munition where it'll hurt rather than blowing up the general area is important.

The problem with Hamas and Hezbollah are the same as with dealing with any guerilla movement; if you can't press the counter attack to inflict casualties or otherwise deal with the attackers you aren't going to get anywhere. One effective if morally bankrupt manner to deal with the attacks by these groups is to level the areas they attack from so they're a featureless wasteland that they can't hide in. Then just gun down anybody that seems to be carrying a rocket or the means to launch them.


Generally in warfare, you first have to find the enemy before you can engage him instead of wasting effort.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on December 12, 2019, 02:30:32 PM
Quote
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
Kristover did, that futuristic weapons would be so effective that they should be able to reduce fortifications in short order. And all of your examples do is emphasise the importance of FFD, which already exists in Aurora C# and we can't really judge whether it will be suitably effective until we get to play it.


Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rabid_Cog on December 13, 2019, 01:04:51 AM
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.

Of course the more guys with satchel charges you have, the greater the chance of this happening, so your army composition logically has an impact as well. I think the correct way to do this is that every attack reduces a small amount of fortification. Less for backline (artillary or orbital bombardment) and more for front line troops.

Even if we assume everyone was armed with pistols and were completely incapable of harming a concrete structure, attackers can still drive defenders out of their hardened structures, thereby capturing an opponent's fortifications, thereby reducing the enemy's level of fortification without really gaining any in response since those buildings point the wrong way.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on December 13, 2019, 10:52:58 AM
It really bears mentioning that artillery in world war 1 could reduce fortifications just fine and generally speaking infantry had to abandon their trenches and then try to come back and defend whatever was left after the bombardment.  Trenches were effective however that was mainly against lighter bombardment and infantry attack.  They tended to reduce infantry assaults to total futility unless there was a preparatory bombardment, and usually the poor coupling between enemy infantry and the enemy guns meant that you had a chance to come back and rebuild your defenses to some extent prior to the enemy attack arriving.

As the war went on better coupling between guns and ground forces was a really significant factor in making breakthroughs, in addition to tanks (which were not even involved in many of the offensives that ultimately ended the war).

As has been pointed out already though, directed artillery fire was absolutely necessary (at least in that era) or else it was pretty ineffective.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on December 13, 2019, 02:03:51 PM
I'm sorry guys but you are repeating a bunch of myths and mistakes about WW1 and modern warfare vis-a-vis fortifications now.

Quote
It really bears mentioning that artillery in world war 1 could reduce fortifications just fine
No, 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.

Quote
generally speaking infantry had to abandon their trenches and then try to come back and defend whatever was left after the bombardment
Misleading 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.

Later in the war, the Germans started using the Tripwire-method, where the first trench would always be lightly manned and reserves would be brought up to actually defend the second and third trench lines, which I think is the source for the confusion about how it worked.

Quote
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.

Quote
attackers can still drive defenders out of their hardened structures, thereby capturing an opponent's fortifications, thereby reducing the enemy's level of fortification
Not 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".
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on December 13, 2019, 11:00:03 PM

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".

Okay, but you should be able to wipe some of it out "just because" -- just because some of it is camouflage and natural formations and piles of dirt, rocks, & vegetation moved from over there to over here to hide a 'tank' in a hull-down position.

Rule one of entropy is "it's easier to destroy something than to build it."  To me, that means combat should degrade fortification levels faster than troops (even construction troops) can (re)build them.  That's also the way every wargame I've ever played has handled it -- generally "plus 1 fortification level per turn; minus 1 fortification level per attack."

I'm fine with there being some minimum level of fortification that bombardment, or direct attack (or differing levels for each) does not further degrade -- or that units instantly rebuild to each combat cycle; whatever mechanics we want -- to represent the 'urban rubble makes great defensive terrain' maxim.

But if there isn't a way to reduce an enemy unit's fortifications, we're never going to get them out of Front Line Defense.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on December 13, 2019, 11:44:27 PM
We don't need to reduce Fortification to zero because shots can still hit and deal damage through them, they are not making the defender immune. The absolute worst-case scenario is that 1 out of 144 shots hits and that requires jungle mountain planet and sufficient construction troops for the defender to reach maximum fortification level.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: sloanjh on December 14, 2019, 10:29:02 AM
Allow me to go meta:

Having paid almost zero attention to this thread, based on the last two posts it sounds like this discussion is a "two right answers" issue: In some conflicts (WW1 & possibly/probably US island hopping vs Japanese in WWII) static trench warfare and grinding attrition was flavor.  In others (WWII ground in general, Iraq I & II) it was maneuver warfare (flavored by targeted air support attriting defenders, sometimes severely).  Actually there's a third: insurgency suppression.

So to me it seems like this is a gameplay decision by Steve: which era/mode is more fun/interesting for Aurora.  Once he's made that decision, he can tune the mechanics to support it.  (Note: this is very similar to Steve's response in a recent "please get rid of the 5 light-second limit for beam weapons" thread: he said (paraphrasing): "The 5 light-second limit is NOT fact/realism-based; it's technobabble to support my belief that increasing the range of beam weapons would lead to a less interesting game".)

Given Steve's vision when he first started Aurora that controlled worlds would be bastions that would be difficult to take, plus his like of choices, I suspect that he's going to want something similar to island hopping and/or siege warfare (requiring overwhelming force on the part of the attacker, grinding combat, and possibly starving defending troops logistically) rather than maneuver warfare.  On the other hand, his ground combat model does have the possibility of breakthroughs, so I could be completely wrong.  I suspect the resolution of this is, per Garfunkel's suggestion, that in order to break through heavy defenses you need specialized assault troops.

John

PS - It feels like there's been a lot of back-and-forth here; perhaps this conversation should be moved to a separate thread?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on December 15, 2019, 06:33:59 PM
Having paid almost zero attention to this thread

Then allow me to summarize:

I asked if ground troops' fortification levels were reduced by assaulting them, bombarding them, or some form of air/space support mission.

Steve replied that they weren't currently, but that it was something he should consider. . . though possibly only for the larger [damage] weapons.

Several people argued about whether this was a thing that had historically happened.

One person raised the excellent point 'would this make Aurora more fun?'

Two people discussed (maybe argued) whether it was sensible game mechanics for the attacker to have some ability to reduce the fortification level of defending troops; and if not, whether 'dug in' troops would ever leave their defenses.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on December 17, 2019, 03:47:48 PM
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... .
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ciphascain on December 17, 2019, 04:31:50 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 17, 2019, 04:43:25 PM
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?

You will only need maintenance facilities now, hangars are no longer needed to house fighters. You can also designate them to ground support at which time they can not be targeted by enemy space ships and will count as only operating on the planet.

As long as you build planet based maintenance facilities you can house fighters there during an invasion even if you don't control space.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on December 17, 2019, 05:25:56 PM
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... .

I'd also be interested in evacuating people sometimes through that means.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 18, 2019, 04:51:21 AM
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 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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on December 18, 2019, 06:50:10 AM
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.

Will that flag remain set even after the colony drops below ten million again due to colony ships ( civilian or player ) moving population away faster than the growth?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 18, 2019, 07:10:14 AM
I think that perhaps there could at least just be a flag for civilian companies to shuttle new population to a colony even if it is below ten million for those rare cases you want to ship the colonist from that world.

I mean you might want to build up a "temporary" military base somewhere and later want to move it someplace else and don't want to maintain that colony anymore
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 18, 2019, 08:03:35 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on December 18, 2019, 08:22:09 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 18, 2019, 09:53:08 AM
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.

Yes, that would be easy to add. Although at the moment they are providing about 20% of my wealth :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 18, 2019, 03:42:48 PM
I suppose you can forbid them to enter a specific system as well, you could do that in VB6 if I remember correctly. That would have the effect they will not ferry more colonist to any colonies in that system.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on December 19, 2019, 04:29:45 PM
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 😉.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on December 19, 2019, 04:31:19 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 19, 2019, 04:35:58 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 19, 2019, 04:39:15 PM
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?

It would function as an allied force. Each race attacks all enemies in their attack phase. So in the above scenario, each of the two allies would attack their opponent and then that opponent would treat the combined allied force as a single enemy force when allocating attacks.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 19, 2019, 04:40:30 PM
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.

Yes, that's correct. Although that last sentence does conjure the image of an Entish civil war.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on December 19, 2019, 04:56:05 PM
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 😉.

Not quite random. It would prioritize the one that is closest and has room for more people, because IIRC that's how the civilian 'search for job' code works. This can mean that the 6.45 colony eats your entire civilian shipping and infrastructure production market.

The only way to decolonize a colony below the stable/source threshold is doing it manually. At least you have the 'don't go here' marker option for civilians in C# Aurora. Without that you'd have to either capture or destroy civilian ships that are being inconvenient by shipping new people in.

Frankly, an 'empty colony' option would be nice as a hard override option that would result in the civilians shipping everything away from that colony.

Yes, that's correct. Although that last sentence does conjure the image of an Entish civil war.

Wouldn't even be that unrealistic. There's some pretty fierce competition in the forests between the various species of tree. Only reason it hasn't developed to physical violence is because trees can't move like that, yet at the same time, some trees have some truly insidious ways to fight their competition. Eucalyptus trees for example are very flammable, but they tend to be much better about surviving and exploiting the resulting forest fire in comparison to other trees in Australia.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rabid_Cog on December 20, 2019, 01:53:38 AM
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.

I think the restriction that only government vessels can "force" this evacuation (and not civilian vessels) for the last 10 million colonists is a reasonable compromise. 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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on December 20, 2019, 07:25:14 AM
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.

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.
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... .

Your second point is interesting. 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...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 20, 2019, 08:09:39 AM
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...

The limit exists because the civilian companies are meant to be 'independent'.. 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. If the minimum was only 100k, it wouldn't really make any difference. I lowered it from 25m to 10m to compensate for colonies growing more slowly since the jump point changes increased the average distance between colonies.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: mtm84 on December 20, 2019, 08:58:50 PM
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 ?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on December 21, 2019, 12:35:46 AM
It seems like ideally you could at least offer big bounties to the civilian companies to try to entice them into evacuating a colony.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 21, 2019, 04:43:13 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on December 21, 2019, 07:07:05 AM
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

I would say they are exactly 4x as efficient as the same active sensor... ;)

Fire-controls are actually really effective in C#... for example...

A fighter with a 50t missile fire-control R120 (Stength 21, Resolution 11) have a range of roughly 84mkm, a R5 active sensor to spot and target the fighter at that range need roughly a size 35 active sensor. If you increase the missile fire-control to 75t it outrange any R5 sensors you could ever make at the same tech levels. So not really economical to do that rather than try to spot them with a picketing scout carrying a much smaller active scanner.

This is what I like about C#... it removes the put all ships in one formation strategies as the optimal strategy. Instead you will picket your task-forces with scouts. The enemy will have to deal with the scouts before they can deal with your task-force. This will force an escalating war of defending the picket and eventually running multiple task-forces and a layered defence as the one that can peal of the other sides layer first will be able to strike without retaliation on the main force and/or logistical train.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: misanthropope on December 21, 2019, 08:08:43 AM
back when starfire was a thing that some people did, i had a playmate who had nerd wood for the same mechanic.  having it all be computer moderated will make a difference of course, but the play went from "new and interesting" to "i have a solution but i still feel really clever playing it through" to "oh god i have to manage a dozen stacks of counters in every contested system FOREVER" within, like, a week.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 22, 2019, 05:14:44 AM
I'm not too clear under which circumstance a colony will receive population from civilian ships. Say I need to install a small surveillance outpost and I role-play the thing by adding 50.000 pop. It's a military colony or at least a state owned one, for military surveillance and scientific experiments.

How can I prevent the unloading of unwanted populations, that would go beyond the infrastructure what's more?

If I forbid the entire system, I guess that would work. Would that reroute ongoing civilian ships?

I just don't want to have this kind of outpost becomes bloated by 'stupid civilians' that should not be allowed there.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on December 22, 2019, 07:13:41 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on December 22, 2019, 08:02:42 AM
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.

Hopefully I'll not have to fight against the system as in the previous Aurora. It felt like I had a leak in a ship and I evacuated water: civilian would dump colonists to the point they would start dying from being too numerous, and I had state colony ships that removed them at regular interval and put them back from where they came, it felt silly.

Not sure why we can't have a checkbox: don't accept colonists in any case.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 22, 2019, 10:00:45 AM
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.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on December 25, 2019, 01:17:52 PM
Minor question/request.  It has been awhile since I played VB6 but last I remembered, military academies had a generic name that was unchangeable, 'Earth Military Academy' or something like it.  Can it be possible in C# to give academies a custom name like 'Yale University', 'Earth Forces Academy', or 'Terran Science School'?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on December 28, 2019, 06:21:11 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on December 28, 2019, 06:49:35 PM
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?

You are going to know fairly accurately within a few rounds anyway. If you happen to get one extreme and then the other in the first round or two, you will know a little sooner, but that is unlikely. This isn't intended to hide enemy numbers but to create uncertainty in the first few hours and days of an engagement. Also, bear in mind this is done separately for each type of enemy unit, so you might be high on tanks and low on infantry at the same time.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ogamaga on January 01, 2020, 07:49:56 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 01, 2020, 08:11:35 AM
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?

It will be a completely new installation and will be a separate game to VB6 Aurora.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on January 01, 2020, 11:38:12 PM
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.  :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 02, 2020, 03:39:58 AM
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.  :)

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Alsadius on January 02, 2020, 04:54:52 AM
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.

How about flagging a colony as military-only drops wealth production there by 50%? Irrelevant for truly military bases, because their wealth will be minimal, but it's not something you'll want to do on a civilian colony just to stop its growth.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on January 02, 2020, 04:55:35 AM
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 can see your point Steve, I could counter that just about all real world governments, in all periods of history, had military restricted zones where civilians were not allowed no matter what. Personally I think it would make sense, for any kind of possible government, to say that some systems are restricted to government ships only. Obligatory: "You are not allowed to walk into Area 51" joke here.

Ultimately it's a matter of interpretation and game balance. You seem to prefer a "corporate" government, where civilians have very few limitations. Also, you prefer this solution for gameplay balance, in order to "have more chaos"
As a player, I would very much prefer to be able to have more control, not to game the system, but in order to be able to
1) Create military-only colonies and installations (for roleplay!) and
2) Be able to expeditely evacuate a small colony in case of severe threat. Because when enemies are coming, I'd like to be able to tell the civilians to go away right now. Not to see them bringing MORE civilians to a system I KNOW will be invaded in a matter of months

Basically I would like to be able to play with civilians on, while having control in the aforementioned situations. I will also add that as a single player game, ultimately if some players decide to game the system, that's only their problem, not mine.

I do not have any magical solution, I do have a possible one, if you're willing to code it. Once again, a switch.
At game start, allow players to decide whether they want to be able to restrict this civilians behaviour. With this switch off, everything would work as it does now. With this switch on, players would be able to restrict systems and/or forbid planets for migration no matter their size. Maybe with the added caveat that a restricted colony or system has a severe income penalty, 50% or 75%, to simulate the wealth loss/malcontent of the population.

Yes I know, it's ANOTHER switch. It's the only solution I can think of though.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 02, 2020, 05:16:54 AM
Yes, on reflection, I think I am being too restrictive in order to avoid an exploit and it is becoming dogmatic on my part.

If I add an option to declare a system or a colony as military, then it would be down to the player if he wants to abuse that in the way described in my previous post. After all, there are many ways to exploit Aurora if that was the goal of the player. I'll take a look at some options this evening.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 02, 2020, 06:33:54 AM
Productivity penalties as a result of a colony's political status isn't anything new in Aurora either, and I for one wouldn't mind the ability to shift it around. There's a lot of history about how colonies are treated by the originating country, and how that impacts a lot of things on the social and economic level. Seeing that reflected in Aurora would be nice.

For example, a newly established colony could have a wealth and trade generation penalty and a lower demand of PPV, but have a garrison demand instead. We already effectively see trade generation penalties; smaller populations produce not only less goods, but a smaller variety of those goods as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 02, 2020, 08:20:48 AM
I've added the restrictions on civilian movement. Change link below and a screenshot from the galactic map showing two restricted systems near Tyranid space.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg117794#msg117794

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/Crusade/Restricted.PNG)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Alsadius on January 02, 2020, 08:45:45 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 02, 2020, 09:37:27 AM
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?

Yes, correct. Restricted systems are removed from the path-finding algorithm when a civilian ship is calculating a course.

I had already added a similar option to block specific systems from the new Auto-route option for player fleets. This is for those situations when there are multiple routes to a destination and you want to force the algorithm to choose a specific path, like blocking toll roads on satnav :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on January 02, 2020, 10:59:12 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hubgbf on January 03, 2020, 03:33:29 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 03, 2020, 04:10:26 AM
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?

It will only block civilians if there is no trade treaty (as I just fixed that after reading your post) :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 03, 2020, 04:12:21 AM
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.

You can restrict a colony without affecting traffic through a system, or you can restrict the whole system and stop all traffic.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on January 03, 2020, 01:15:54 PM
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?


Alien controlled is a dropdown YOU (the player) set, not Aurora.  It's what causes the little foreign flags to show up on the Galactic map.

So if it's causing behaviour you don't like, switch it back.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Rabid_Cog on January 03, 2020, 01:55:22 PM
A possible impact of setting a colony to "restricted" could be a simple hit to unrest? Doesn't mean much for a military base, there are probably more than sufficient troops to combat said unrest anyway. And it doesn't really impact much. But if you are using that to micro-manage your civilian colonies you're going to take a hit to productivity.

From an RP perspective, it also makes sense. If you are working in a restricted zone, your access to entertainment and human contact might be a bit more limited than you would like (no family/friends allowed to come over).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on January 07, 2020, 05:53:09 AM
I may have missed it but has the rules for Civilian Operations changed in the C# version?

Playing VB version campaigns over and over, I notice that even after having colonies in other systems with 250+ million population, Civilian companies still won't be drawn to establish mining operations or send gas mining ships to said systems even once all their initial operations in my home system have dried up.

In one scenario I had a 2nd system with a main 0 cost colony with some 200 million living there, a 2nd 0 cost colony in the system with around 80 million acting as a mining and financial colony sending its resources to the primary colony, and the system had at least a half dozen other planets on it with high volumes of resources. All but 1 of the Civilian mining operations in my home system had dried up and been dismantled/disbanded, yet the Civilian companies never established anything more even after a 2nd company established itself.

Threw all the currency in the galaxy at them to try see if it was a funding issue, and all they would do was churn out further pointless ships.


Would be good to hear that in the C# version Civilian company logic has been improved so that they will quickly try to push to establish themselves on rich opportunities in well populated systems. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on January 07, 2020, 07:40:22 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 07, 2020, 07:59:17 AM
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.

Gallicite has been added as a triggering mineral in C# and the required population for CMC in the same system is ten million.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on January 07, 2020, 08:44:21 AM
CMCs are not connected with shipping lines so throwing money at the lines is not going to make more CMCs appear.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on January 07, 2020, 05:32:14 PM
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.

Yep, 2nd system had stockpiles of everything from its own mining and the mining from the 2nd colony, access for the potential CMC sites were also high, around the 0.6-0.8 ranges for most resources from one planet or another.

Must have really been silly bad dice rolling then, as it went decades with no civilian assets establishing.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on January 22, 2020, 07:15:35 PM
Quick question, Steve: How granular is the A.I with it's ground forces? We talking one big blob or company level, here?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on January 22, 2020, 10:17:33 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 23, 2020, 03:19:09 AM
Quick question, Steve: How granular is the A.I with it's ground forces? We talking one big blob or company level, here?

Different Design Themes use different templates for ground forces and there is some variability in size and composition within each theme. Each theme may have multiple formation types, such as infantry, armour, HQ, etc. and each formation type will generally include multiple unit types.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on January 23, 2020, 03:35:58 AM
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

The NPR will have a fixed set of formation types. However, it will determine what it needs in terms of numbers for each type and then build accordingly.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on February 02, 2020, 08:38:28 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 03, 2020, 04:13:28 AM
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?

I can't remember if I coded it :) but the intention was that you could set a fleet up with sub-fleets and have an order to "Squadron jump by sub-fleet". I'll check tonight.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on February 03, 2020, 06:37:43 AM
Thank you! I was hoping it was something that like that, very nice QOL feature.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 03, 2020, 01:23:42 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 03, 2020, 01:34:18 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bremen on February 03, 2020, 02:03:31 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on February 03, 2020, 02:33:27 PM
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.

Shock damage to shields seems like something a spinal mounted microwave weapon could be specialised in... seems sort of thematic for such a weapon. A spinal mounted microwave beam would drain shields quicker and would be able to sometimes cause shock damage to the shield generators.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on February 04, 2020, 12:29:09 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on February 04, 2020, 12:57:37 AM
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.

As they are spinal mounted I would instead suggest that a ship can have no more than 10% of their total weight in Spinal mounted weapons. So really small ships have to use regular beams as spinal mounted ones require a certain volume to even be mounted... but huge ships could potentially mount several of them.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on February 04, 2020, 01:21:29 AM
I'll be honest I don't totally understand the rationale of that.  Why limit it in that way?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 04, 2020, 01:23:32 AM
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

Except all the weapons we're talking about can't currently be turret-mounted in the first place.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on February 04, 2020, 01:24:57 AM
Well, in terms of spinal mounts in general, you most definitely can turret lasers.  As to the others I'll freely admit I didn't know that, that seems like it makes them kindof useless by comparison (I never really used railguns or carronades or whatnot in any big way).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 04, 2020, 04:47:09 AM
If you could turret railguns, then missiles would be obsolete :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 04, 2020, 05:49:39 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on February 04, 2020, 07:55:28 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 04, 2020, 08:18:40 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 04, 2020, 12:39:53 PM
Could be like this:

Spinal -> Twin Spinal -> Advanced Spinal -> Advanced Twin Spinal
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 04, 2020, 01:30:00 PM
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.

But are you considering spinal mount rail guns as well, or will they stay 'laser-only' for now?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 04, 2020, 01:46:56 PM
From previous page:

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on February 04, 2020, 11:53:13 PM
I'll be honest my main basis for griping about the single-beam limit for spinals is the fact that I tend to imagine spinal weapons as things that go on really big ships, not something reserved for tiny ones (such as fighters).

I do however fully grasp the arguments against doing that for railguns since they apparantly already cannot be turreted.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on February 05, 2020, 04:32:11 AM
Yes, I still plan to come up with some form of spinal railgun, although maybe not for initial release.

Spinal railguns would be awesome to see one day!  ;D

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.

Along 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.

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 ).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Akhillis on February 05, 2020, 07:51:26 PM
Quoting from this post http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103849#msg103849

Quote
..any Admin Command with fleets directly attached requires a higher rank than the highest-ranked ship captain in those fleets.

Does this mean a fleet with a (full) Admiral acting as Fleet Commander from a flagship can be attached to a Commodore-level Admin Command?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 06, 2020, 12:55:18 PM
I would think so because this is what Steve wrote about Flag Bridge in here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818

Quote
A fleet that includes a ship with a flag bridge can assign a 'fleet commander' senior to the commander of the ship...

And so, putting it together with your quote, it would seem that you can have a full Admiral as Fleet commander, and then have that fleet assigned to an admin command commanded by a Commodore, as long as that ship commander is at least 2 ranks above racial minimum AND at least 1 rank below Commodore.

Only reason to do that is if you have an Admiral with really good Reaction Bonus but really crappy all other fields, making them best suited for combat command.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: rcj33 on February 06, 2020, 04:56:50 PM
Quote
Along 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.

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 ).
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!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on February 06, 2020, 09:12:43 PM
He was requesting to do that to all weapons ineligible for turrets
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 11, 2020, 07:10:13 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 11, 2020, 10:32:06 AM
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?

For the moment, no impact. Same with planets and other bodies. The assumption is that ships fly above or below them. Having tactical terrain would complicate combat and the AI would need to add checks to every planned course. I'm not convinced the game play would benefit from the extra micromanagement and slightly lower performance.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: linkg on February 14, 2020, 04:36:40 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 15, 2020, 06:03:34 AM
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.

At launch it will require 1440 x 900. I may have a look at smaller windows at some point, but probably not quickly. Because of the amount of information that is displayed, Aurora isn't well suited to smaller windows.  In fact, if anything I am heading the other way For example, the ship class window has a Wide Mode option, which changes it to 1850 x 900 and allows you to see more information. I play on two monitors with 3440 x 1440 and 2760  x 1440.

On option might be a cheap, external monitor for the notebook.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on February 15, 2020, 08:44:44 PM
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.

It depends heavily on the specifics of the device but if you have a dedicated GPU in your notebook take a look into DSR/VSR to simulate a higher resolution and then have it downsampled to whatever your display resolution is. (DSR for Nvidia GPUs, VSR for AMD GPUs)

However even if you have a dedicated GPU there's a good chance you have a Intel CPU with a iGPU and it will be the CPU (and as such the Intel iGPU) that's connected directly to the display rather than the dedicated GPU so DSR/VSR won't be a option, in which case it may be worth looking into 3rd party downsampling software solutions, there's a few out there.

I believe if you have a AMD CPU regardless to if you have a dedicated GPU or are using a iGPU on board the CPU chip then VSR should be available to you. So it's only if you're using a Intel CPU that you would run into issues and need to find 3rd party software work arounds as I don't believe Intel have yet to bother offering the functionality (And show no interest in ever doing so)


Most applications have zero issues with downsampling higher resolutions... Nvidias solution is a bit more temperamental than AMDs when using it outside of fullscreen applications from my experience switching between the two at various points, as Nvidia don't officially recommend DSR be used for desktop/windowed use.

How Aurora would react to having 'fake resolutions' fed to it that are actually downsampled to native resolution would certainly be something interesting for Steve to look into before C# releases if he hasn't already though.... as in terms of what the software thinks, it will think you're using whatever resolution you have DSR/VSR/Misc set to, as even the OS thinks you're running at say 1440p when actually it's 1440p downsampled to 720p or similar.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ranged66 on February 18, 2020, 03:40:18 AM
Will mass driver packets be routed through available LPs in huge systems, instead of taking the multi-year 0.2ly route?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 18, 2020, 04:08:10 AM
Will mass driver packets be routed through available LPs in huge systems, instead of taking the multi-year 0.2ly route?

I hope not, and given that they are not ships and have no engines I don't see how they could take advantage of LaGrange jumping anyway.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on February 18, 2020, 07:39:39 AM
Accelerator packages will take the long route. Yes, that takes a long time.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 18, 2020, 03:11:19 PM
Will mass driver packets be routed through available LPs in huge systems, instead of taking the multi-year 0.2ly route?

They won't use LG points. Long distances will require ships.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: LoSboccacc on February 21, 2020, 12:18:30 PM
idk if this is a question that can become a suggestion or a suggestion that might be jsut a question about colony mechanics but

what's going to happen if you grant independence to every colony of the empire? do you keep control of whatever navy is in space? can you still use ally's maintenance facilities to resupply and refuel?

I ask because I was thinking at some scenario I used to play in distant world where I automated everything and just took a supercapital around discovering anomalies and generally trekking space
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: vorpal+5 on February 24, 2020, 08:20:31 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 24, 2020, 12:52:25 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 24, 2020, 01:02:50 PM
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.

There is a template for CMC garrison forces which includes some random elements. Once the template is set for a particular race, it stays the same. Different races may have different CMC forces though based on that same original randomised template.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on February 24, 2020, 04:57:47 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 25, 2020, 02:57:14 AM
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?

Yes, it updates with tech and yes it only uses what is available to the Empire.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on February 25, 2020, 06:05:26 AM
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 yellow text on dark blue background used across the various windows kind of straining the 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 yellow on blue being a bit of a eye strain. (Joys of getting oldish heh)

I suppose a second part of this may be how the UI text scales across larger resolution displays, perhaps it won't be as bad as some of the recent screenshots suggest it may be on a 4k display.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 25, 2020, 06:07:42 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on February 25, 2020, 06:11:38 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 25, 2020, 08:35:58 AM
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.

The screenshots seem much more blurry than the actual text. I don't know why I get that effect.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 25, 2020, 11:24:13 AM
They aren't blurry to me. Could it be a monitor issue?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on February 25, 2020, 01:08:17 PM
They aren't blurry to me. Could it be a monitor issue?

Would vary depending on display size and resolution yes.

I'd guess the screenshot factor is probably image compression being performed on upload, depending on the size of the display and resolution being used then you'll notice the side effects of such compression to differing degrees.

1080p on a 5" display would make things look sharper than 4k on a 90" display to use a extreme disparity scenario. :p
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on February 26, 2020, 03:17:16 PM
Question:  If you have a large Battalion size ground formation with many disparate elements and you research out some new technology, or think of a new variation of organization scheme, can you modify an already existing formation?  Like lets say I want replace all the MG sections because I can produce a new version or I decided that I want to add a half dozen AA tanks to each Armor Battalion, can I do that  or am I limited to the template for the organization?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on February 26, 2020, 03:58:40 PM
You can change the template and all new builds will follow it, but based on what Steve was saying about replacements and after-combat damage, it doesn't sound like there's nay sort of 'Rebuild to Template' functionality yet.

So you can add six more MG teams to each existing battalion by hand, but not automatically.

- - - - -

(Once a ground unit exists, you can add anything you like to it within HQ limits.)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on February 26, 2020, 05:14:23 PM
Or, IIRC, outside HQ limits.

It just results in the various bonuses you get from commanding officers getting penalized.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: amram on February 26, 2020, 05:54:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on February 27, 2020, 04:15:20 AM
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.

Engines are in 0.1 HS increments up to 10 HS, 0.25 HS increments to 20 HS and then 1 HS increments thereafter. A lot of components have more granular sizes in C#. Beam fire controls also have more steps for tracking speed multipliers

(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/Crusade/TrackingSpeed.PNG)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: amram on February 27, 2020, 04:32:33 PM
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: WA Lancer on February 27, 2020, 10:30:05 PM
Will there be a fleet exercise or weapon testing option in this game so I can see the effectiveness of the weapon systems I design?

I'm sure this has been asked and answered somewhere but idk where to look and it appears that more searching may take hours, sorry.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on February 28, 2020, 11:49:11 AM
No.

You can do it via SM mode - you can use SM to conjure "target drones" out of thin air as part of a human-controlled "alien race" and then attack them with your own ships.

AFAIK, that's the only way to do testing in C# as well.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on March 03, 2020, 11:02:10 AM
Hi, in my games I used mostly CIWS for PD due to the general chore of managing PD fire control systems etc.
With the update on how final defense works in C# will CIWS get some rework? They seem like redundant system now to me (only way to use now is to equip civ ships with it)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 03, 2020, 12:09:58 PM
Since you can set PD and BFC automatically now and final fire will catch all missiles, there is no need to keep using CIWS.

It'll still protect you during jump shock and of course it's the only option for commercial ships. With the introduction of Structural Shell for space stations, and commercial hangars as well as magazines, I foresee CIWS remaining useful and necessary.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on March 03, 2020, 12:15:36 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 03, 2020, 01:00:29 PM
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.

CIWS is still useful for some situations, as it is more compact than having the weapon, reactor, fire control and ECCM as separate installations.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 03, 2020, 02:33:26 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 03, 2020, 03:26:34 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on March 04, 2020, 02:14:06 AM

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.

Seems I can live with that, thanks.
Would still be cool to see some additional utility in CIWS in future though.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 04, 2020, 02:14:00 PM
Was there a change to boarding combat capabilities?

This post from 2 January 2018 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105824#msg105824) says the following:

Quote
The Boarding Combat capability is required for a Unit to be able to board another ship.

but this post from 30 December 2018 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751) says otherwise:

Quote
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.

I would assume that the newer post is more accurate and that when you made the earlier post, you hadn't included the Troop Transport Bay change, but you know what they say about assuming...  :D Plus, the old post could then be edited for accuracy.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 04, 2020, 03:30:58 PM
CIWS is still useful for some situations, as it is more compact than having the weapon, reactor, fire control and ECCM as separate installations.

The CIWS is only useful in situations where you expect a ship to operate on it's own consistently. Now, I can see allot more situations this will be true in C# combat though... as scouting will become more important in a more spread out fashion.

As soon as you add another ship to the same formation you always want a full Gauss cannon even if it is slightly less efficient and more expensive.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on March 05, 2020, 02:07:16 AM
I think he meant that the boarding combat capability is something you need to add in the ground unit design in order for it to even be able to make the attempt.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 05, 2020, 11:54:22 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 05, 2020, 12:52:18 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on March 05, 2020, 03:55:19 PM
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.

You can lead a millitaman to the boarding cannon but you cannot make him decelerate
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on March 06, 2020, 02:17:00 AM
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.

As SerBeardian is currently doing a daily C# series of videos going through the entire change note thread covering each post to help make people aware of the specific changes coming, I am sure he'll love to hear that some of the posts there are now inaccurate and likely to change.  ;D

At least it gives some of us more to do whilst we wait for C# I suppose. lol
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vizzy on March 06, 2020, 01:38:40 PM
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)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 06, 2020, 03:18:22 PM
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)

Not at the moment, although I could probably code that in.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: xenoscepter on March 08, 2020, 12:56:45 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 08, 2020, 01:51:47 AM
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.

Wow.

You may very well be the first person in the history of Aurora to plan reloading a carrier via small craft.

I would guess the current version is one of the following:
1.  Impossible - Steve hasn't coded unloading a fighter's magazines
2.  Bugged -- Steve hasn't coded unloading a fighter's magazines, and the missiles are deleted by the attempt
3.  Instant -- Steve hasn't directly coded unloading a fighter's magazines, but assigning said fighter a 'missile loadout template' of 'no missiles' and then issuing a 'reload to template' command removes delivered ordnance from the fighter and puts it into the carrier's magazine
4.  One-way -- the designated Collier is the only ship checked for ordnance transfer equipment, so the fighter unload is slo-o-o-ow.
5.  Versatile -- both ships in the transaction are checked for ordnance transfer equipment, so the carrier's increased rate applies.

- - - - -

In any event, thanks for the fantastic question.  I had planned a form of COD* small craft for my supercarriers, but it never occurred to me to move ordnance or fuel that way.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: xenoscepter on March 08, 2020, 03:45:16 AM
Reload a whole freakin' carrier!? Oh heck no! I just wanna reload my Missile Corvettes via a pair of Boat Bays, they only carry six shots anyway, so even at around Ion Tech I could reload them back to full in three trips. ...Well, maybe some other ships with Jump-Capable colliers, but that's still more along the lines of a dedicated utility carrier of them then just a few.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 08, 2020, 06:55:44 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: xenoscepter on March 08, 2020, 10:59:57 AM
@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.

@Father Tim

 - Finding novel uses for Fighters seems to be my thing around here...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 08, 2020, 11:10:24 AM
@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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Desdinova on March 08, 2020, 04:10:07 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 08, 2020, 05:30:06 PM
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?

Probably more than 1000m. Yon can play with 7b but it will be a huge game.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 08, 2020, 11:53:40 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 09, 2020, 02:05:32 AM
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.

Yes, you can already set the hull designation and it shows up in the contact details on the map and in the alien class description. They all start as XX designation. I'm going away for a few days but I will add it to to the tree view when I get back.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: KurtWulfgang on March 09, 2020, 08:37:56 AM
I have two questions.  Tried searching for them but found nothing.

1.  How's the performance of c# comparing to old version? When, or does, the game really starts to slow down, like turns longer than two minutes? And how do NPR's affect the performance, is it significant or can one play with multiple NPRs at start?

2.  On spoiler races: Are there any changes to any of them?
Title: Portable campaign
Post by: muraug on March 09, 2020, 08:39:38 AM
Hello.

I play Aurora 7. 1 in more then one PC.  I copy the "Stevefire. mdb" archive in a memory, or i send it by mail, or. . .  and then i can play the same campaign in more than one place.  ¿Is going to be possible to do some like that in Aurora C#?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 09, 2020, 09:46:02 AM
Quote
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.

Quote
On spoiler races: Are there any changes to any of them?
Yes.

Off-Topic: show

There is a whole new spoiler race that is entirely planet-bound
and
Star Swarm now has ground combat and ship boarding capability
and
Steve has speculated about changes and additions to Invaders but we have nothing concrete yet


Quote
¿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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: KurtWulfgang on March 09, 2020, 10:40:57 AM
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=10097. msg119478#msg119478 date=1583765162
Quote
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 e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thanks, cant wait for it!

Off-Topic: show
  Im getting a massive tyranid vibe from the star swarm here.   
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 09, 2020, 11:07:51 AM
. . . When, or does, the game really starts to slow down, like turns longer than two minutes?

None of Steve's C# campaigns have reached this point, so we don't know.  But the answer is likely "a thousand times further on than VB Aurora."
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: papent on March 09, 2020, 04:33:21 PM
@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.

Pingback to this question. Does the fighter-collier or any other parasite ship needs ordnance transfer equipment to transfer to the mothership while docked?

And what about parasites transferring fuel to motherships?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on March 09, 2020, 06:56:31 PM
AFAICT, the originating vessel needs transfer equipment for all transfers, unless the receiving colony/vessel has heavy duty transfer equipment available.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 10, 2020, 02:59:02 AM
AFAICT, the originating vessel needs transfer equipment for all transfers, unless the receiving colony/vessel has heavy duty transfer equipment available.

I'm pretty sure you will not need any special equipment to transfer inside a hangar between the parasite and the mother ship... that would be a bit weird.

If you want to have small shuttles and every ship has a 500t hangar bay to dock ships then you could in theory build 500 ton refuel/ordnance/maintenance carriers without any transferring equipment needed. Not sure if there is any specific time needed to load and unload MSP, fuel or missiles from parasite to mother ship in C#... perhaps Steve could clarify if there is any time involved here as well as between ships.

I could assume a hangar simply act like a refuelling hub or the equivalent for the other for anything in a hangar and that would imply that it does take time to load and unload, at least it should in my opinion. If not you can bypass the load/unload time by shuttling stuff with small shuttles this way taking no time. Now... if it takes time will I be able to transfer twice the amount of missiles/MSP from parasite to mother ship if I dock two 250t shuttles instead of one 500t shuttle?!?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: xenoscepter on March 10, 2020, 03:35:17 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 10, 2020, 04:31:14 AM
Steve, would it be possible to add locations hosting more than one million tons of station tonnage to the NPR banned bodies list? I'm asking because C# is going to make deep space fleet bases and orbital maintenance/mining/refuelling facilities more ubiquitous , so you'll often end up with vital colonies with minimal or zero population (large fleet bases without ground-based maintenance facilities, strategic fuel harvesting or mining platforms, etc.), that you really don't want NPRs parking a fleet over.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 10, 2020, 05:10:13 AM
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.

We have time for ordinance, MSP and fuel... I think it is about time we also get some more hangar/carrier love... ;)

Different types of hangar, docking and launch bays so both parasite size and numbers matters for launching, docking and maintaining parasites. I know Steve have been a bit reluctant adding more complexity to parasites but I don't think it has to be more complex and problematic to handle than ordinance, fuel or MSP exchange will be.

You then also would have to install ordnance and refuelling system in carrier so rearming and refuelling take time depending on the systems you have installed. You would the see differences between a fleet carrier configuration and one just carrying some scouts or survey vessels. A fleet carrier would need allot more internal/external space for servicing/launching military operations while carriers with more simple hangar system can be more streamlined and less complex and cheaper.

As smaller ships in general have become more potent I think that it is about time carriers and especially military fleet carriers become a bit more expensive. I also think that parasites perhaps also should have a small MSP cost to maintain as well. I know the hangars themselves needs maintained so the cost should not be big but it could be at least some small cost as the cost of fighters will rise quite rapidly with technology advancement.

You also could differentiate civilian and military hangars more with different system. Perhaps civilian hangar can install larger launch bays far easier and cheaper while they can't fit internal ordinance systems but have to rely on maintenance facilities to do that.

Anyway... I would enjoy more complexity in parasite management in the future as long as the tools are there to manage them properly which I think we will get in C# Aurora.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Frick on March 10, 2020, 12:27:11 PM
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=10097. msg119478#msg119478 date=1583765162
Quote
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 e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thanks, cant wait for it!

Yeah, this is the first game release in a really, really long time I'm genuinely excited about.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MasonMac on March 10, 2020, 05:15:24 PM
Do the same passwords from 7.0 work?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: L0ckAndL0ad on March 10, 2020, 11:53:36 PM
Two questions.

1.
Quote
Point Defence Fire Control

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.
What does that mean, exactly? I thought "salvo" is a single target. Do you mean that 1 FCS + 3 weapons can engage 3 different salvos?

2. Was there anything said about how ground force formations are restored/healed/repaired? And how do you upgrade/replace newer equipment within your formations over time? Can't find any information about it.

Thank you!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: xenoscepter on March 11, 2020, 02:29:00 AM
@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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 11, 2020, 05:19:59 AM
@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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The_Seeker on March 11, 2020, 08:28:40 AM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB link=topic=10097.   msg119513#msg119513 date=1583921999
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.   
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. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Agm-114 on March 11, 2020, 09:08:30 PM
Will c# be distributed with a license of some kind? If not I highly recommend it for obvious reasons.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: L0ckAndL0ad on March 11, 2020, 11:51:12 PM
Thanks for clarification about my #1 question.

But what about #2?

The only thing I found so far is this

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 12, 2020, 05:11:40 AM
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?

Correct.  If you have a unit of 1200 PW INF and they take casualties down to 1078, you can leave them at that strength, or manually transfer in 122 PW INF as replacements, or manually transfer in 610 tons of other ground units (such as LV CAP).

Currently there is no 'Rebuild to Template' order or 'Transfer Units from the General Replacement Pool' or designated replacement formations (and currently no way to designate a formation as 'replacements').  Steve has said it's on the list for C# Aurora 1.1, or maybe 1.2.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 12, 2020, 12:58:24 PM
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 you mean whether the Designer Mode password will remain the same, that's unknown.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The_Seeker on March 13, 2020, 11:03:55 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 13, 2020, 11:14:23 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: The_Seeker on March 13, 2020, 11:46:32 AM
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg119568#msg119568 date=1584116063
Quote from: The_Seeker link=topic=10097. msg119566#msg119566 date=1584115435
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?

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.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JustAnotherDude on March 13, 2020, 12:04:07 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 13, 2020, 01:55:44 PM
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?

At the moment, there are no invaders :)

All the hooks are in the code for when they are added, but I haven't got around to it yet. I may replace them with the 'Black Crusade' idea that was discussed in another thread, which includes a way to eventually defeat them.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on March 14, 2020, 04:47:49 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 14, 2020, 07:08:27 AM
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.


Quick work-around:  Use 'Fast OOB Creation' to produce X number of the new design, start regular construction, then delete the extra ships.

- - - - -

But yeah, it would be great if C# Aurora recognized ordinal numbers and let us specify one to count up from.  I can remember a few campaigns where I ended up with Mule class freighters named Mule 001 001 and Mule 001 002 and Mule 001 003, etc.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 14, 2020, 01:54:11 PM
What you could do, is use the new suffix- naming system.

So make a naming theme that is literally just
001
002
003
...
997
998
999

and then combine that with a suffix name theme that only has a single name
Mule

Then when you build your first freighter it'll be Mule 001. When you make your upgraded freighter, just have it use the same themes. Because the suffix theme only has a single name, it'll get reused but Aurora will not reuse already used names from the "main" theme since there are unused ones left, so then you'll get Mule 075 for example.

I already do that in VB6 as some naming themes have loads of names in them so for example my cargo ships and tugs and tankers often share the same naming theme. With the suffix thing that C# brings us, what I wrote above should be possible.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on March 19, 2020, 08:42:00 AM
Do lost contacts retain their velocity vector line so you can figure out where they probbably went?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 19, 2020, 12:11:44 PM
Do lost contacts retain their velocity vector line so you can figure out where they probbably went?

Yes.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on March 19, 2020, 01:22:57 PM
Do lost contacts retain their velocity vector line so you can figure out where they probbably went?

Yes.

Haxs!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Inglonias on March 20, 2020, 11:09:54 AM
I understand that the performance in C# is much better than VB6, but I wonder how saving works and performs. My current understanding is that the game no longer automatically writes all DB changes to the drive after each time increment, but does that mean I need to remember to save manually? How long does a save operation take?

EDIT: Found this post that answers all my questions (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115956#msg115956).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MasonMac on March 20, 2020, 09:23:04 PM
How many lines of code so far? Lol.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on March 22, 2020, 11:02:17 AM
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 is every ground combat a ‘to the death’ situation?  Secondary question is will AI withdraw ground forces from untenable position?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 22, 2020, 11:40:07 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on March 22, 2020, 11:50:46 AM
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.

Thanks!  I imagine doing it for the AI will be a complex chore - teaching them the logic of 'abandoning' a force rather than putting a bunch of ships in danger to rescue would be an interesting problem.  One thing I'm considering knowing withdraw is possible is the value of conducting raids and deep strikes where I land a ground force, tear up some ground defenses and do some collateral installation damage, and then withdrawing.  Sure, I could just bombard from space but I might want to avoid screwing up a planet which I might want to invade later or because of RP reasons.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: totos_totidis on March 22, 2020, 11:57:27 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 22, 2020, 11:59:38 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: totos_totidis on March 22, 2020, 12:05:31 PM
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.
Ok thanks!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: clement on March 22, 2020, 05:13:36 PM
If Steve is using. Net 4.x, any version equal to or higher than the version he targeted will be fine.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on March 22, 2020, 08:09:13 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Expy on March 23, 2020, 06:27:10 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 23, 2020, 06:46:41 AM
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?

Good idea. The British Legion would be my preferred charity.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 23, 2020, 10:54:46 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on March 23, 2020, 04:30:05 PM
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.

Size is something you can detect from orbit and how much the fortification modifier adjusts that is something that is known per planet type, so you should have some idea of how large an enemy force on planet is.

I'll give you the tech level though. It's harder to get information on that.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 24, 2020, 05:40:29 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 24, 2020, 06:12:24 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 24, 2020, 09:31:01 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zhatelier on March 24, 2020, 10:23:35 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on March 24, 2020, 10:34:10 AM
Question:  Been spending some time looking at dedicated ground support fighters and noted in earlier posting on changes list that they can be outfitted with air-to-air fighter pods.  Will/can ground support fighters engage each other?    I noted in a subsequent post Steve had a place holder for possible CAP missions and wonder if that had been coded?   
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 24, 2020, 11:36:20 AM
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?

If the tracking speed is 16,000 with 6% bonus, it will be 16,960 km/s.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 24, 2020, 11:37:11 AM
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?

If you don't research larger engines, then you will only be able to create a 25 HS commercial engine.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on March 24, 2020, 02:16:44 PM
Is there a quick way -- on the galactic map or a separate window --  to highlight all the {insert empire here} colonies that my empire knows about?  Is there a "Show me the Martians" button or setting or summary window?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Desdinova on March 24, 2020, 06:40:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 25, 2020, 05:46:39 AM
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.

Alien populations are already on the intel window.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on March 25, 2020, 07:21:14 AM
C# must be almost ready, cause the number of questions where the answer is "Its already in the game" seem to be outweighing questions where it isnt  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on March 25, 2020, 07:57:34 AM
Steve has been saying March 2020 for a while now IIRC.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: space dwarf on March 28, 2020, 06:02:12 AM
Hey Steve, are Diplomatic Ships still subject to the modifiers where ships being in NPR territory upsets them?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 06:18:08 AM
Hey Steve, are Diplomatic Ships still subject to the modifiers where ships being in NPR territory upsets them?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on March 28, 2020, 06:19:49 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 06:23:01 AM
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

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on March 28, 2020, 06:33:37 AM

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.
Two things seem relevant to me here.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 06:42:22 AM
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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 06:44:31 AM

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.
Two things seem relevant to me here.

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.

The NPR would not necessarily know the armament of the ship unless it observed it firing at something, so size would be a more consistent way to handle things. I agree about the Xenophobia though. Maybe that is a modifier to the acceptable size.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on March 28, 2020, 07:18:11 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bughunter on March 28, 2020, 07:32:23 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on March 28, 2020, 08:13:58 AM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 08:17:36 AM
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

Wait until I get around to adding the Craftworld Eldar to Aurora, or the Black Crusade idea :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 08:18:31 AM
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.

Yes, I agree. That is why I suggested that Diplomatic ships would only have no penalty in non-core systems.

The issue will be that when you generate a new NPR during exploration, it will only have a capital system, so that would prevent diplomacy until it explored. Maybe there should be a penalty in core systems, unless the NPR doesn't have any non-core systems.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 08:20:29 AM
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.

Yes, true. Maybe it is based on size, but a diplomatic ship loses its benefits once the NPR finds out it is armed.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: obsidian_green on March 28, 2020, 09:33:56 AM

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.

Good logic that might seem counter-intuitive. What's good for the goose ... or Minbari might find it suspicious if you don't show up with your "gun ports" open.

The inclusion of planet-poppers aside (I gave up opining about a lot of features since I won't know what I think until I play it),
Quote
how tectonically active it is is irrelevant.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on March 28, 2020, 12:10:07 PM
IF NPR system count = 1
THEN diplo-ship penalty = 0
ELSE diplo-ship penalty = something

Combined with the size restriction, would work.

And hey, we still need space elevators too!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Scandinavian on March 28, 2020, 01:52:23 PM
From the change list:
Quote
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 level
This should be commercial engines, surely?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 01:54:37 PM
From the change list:
Quote
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 level
This should be commercial engines, surely?

Its says without military engines.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vivalas on March 28, 2020, 04:31:24 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: alex_brunius on March 28, 2020, 04:37:30 PM
Does "demonstrated any weapon capability" include CIWS firing on missiles?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 28, 2020, 04:46:00 PM
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.

Truce is a game mechanic. You can set everyone with the same capital to have fixed relationships for a set period.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: QuakeIV on March 28, 2020, 05:53:05 PM
Regarding planet killing, I do personally tend to build a stealth ship with a size-50 box launcher and a huge nuclear missile in it.

I fully favor exploding planets with high tectonic rating.  I also favor raising the tectonic rating via bombardment...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 29, 2020, 05:11:22 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 29, 2020, 05:31:58 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on March 29, 2020, 08:51:41 AM
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.

I don't think it should be focused on before release obviously, but this objection strikes me as a feature rather than a bug. States building warships that technically adhere to naval treaties while trying to get an edge while being creative is a well-known phenomenon.

That still probably requires work so NPRs would do the same, but the roleplay potential there seems really cool.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on March 29, 2020, 12:21:03 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 29, 2020, 12:28:51 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on March 29, 2020, 12:54:57 PM
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?

What? Is there anything else you can do to other races except glassing their homeworld?
That's news to me ;D

On a more serious note,I'm glad that there will be a mechanism to reduce tension over time. So the dumb aliens will forgive my ... occasional hostile actions.
While I prepare a fleet to glass their homeworld  8)

... I will probably not do that, it would be boring. I'll just roleplay the whole thing like a good boy , and then if needed declare war and glass their homeworld.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Desdinova on March 29, 2020, 12:58:25 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 29, 2020, 01:06:51 PM
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'm playing the first few months of 1894 in my current campaign and it is very different now. I feel like I am jockeying for position with other races so I can make my claims stick when I make them, while watching for claims coming from other races. So far (7th March), no one has made a claim yet, although everyone is using Diplomatic ships to improve relations at least in the short term. The next phase of heavy code walk through will happen when I or one of the NPRs decides to push it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Barkhorn on March 29, 2020, 01:47:47 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 29, 2020, 02:04:33 PM
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.

Yes, I will add something on those lines eventually. Not for launch though or I will never get this done :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 30, 2020, 01:19:59 AM
In terms of war the NPR should have some form of war exhaustion meter that it uses in conjunction with how successful it is. If it is conducting a war and keep throwing assess without making much headway it should be inclined to stop the war.

So having a primary goal seem appropriate form many reasons so the NPR can measure its success both in terms of what it want but also in terms of losses. Depending on how advanced the NPR it could even care about both material and people losses differently.

The NPR should be way less likely to accept many losses in a skirmishing war than if it decides it is fighting a total war... so some sort of war intensity should also be part if the picture as well.

When we look at history... intensity and the willingness to accept losses usually go hand in hand.

There also should be a point when losses don't worsen relation ship... once the NPR commit to hostilities it should accept losses as part of that commitment so we don't end up in death spiral relationships too often.

But these are all things that can be done as the new version of the game evolves. I understand that these things are complex and need to be tested and we need to find a god balance through experience to get the best and most interesting results.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on March 30, 2020, 01:31:03 AM
I have not followed all of the latest Diplomacy updates but how about cooperative deals with the NPR... can you make deals to build colonies on the same worlds and system when and if you have good relations with each other. I mean, we could even build colonies on the same worlds if relations is good enough?!?

Even at neutral or slowly building up good relations we might be able to build colonies in the same system but perhaps not on the same planets?

There could actually be some trust built up between species that build in the same system as if economies intertwine with positive trade and species start living side by side they will trust each other more and more over time.

It obviously should also depend on xenophobia of both races involved if this is possible or not, but given low enough xenophobia this should be possible.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on March 30, 2020, 02:12:34 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Protomolecule on March 31, 2020, 06:42:37 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 31, 2020, 07:01:22 AM
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?

You can build smaller ones.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 31, 2020, 07:02:15 AM
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.

There isn't a wealth modifier at the moment.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: chrislocke2000 on March 31, 2020, 07:48:25 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: totos_totidis on March 31, 2020, 08:27:43 AM
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#?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 31, 2020, 08:48:14 AM
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?

No, not in yet.

Fighters can only attack STO directly in normal naval combat.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on March 31, 2020, 08:49:46 AM
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#?

No invaders yet. Precursor ships have 'crew' in the same way as normal ships.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ri0Rdian on April 02, 2020, 12:37:28 PM
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.   


Edit:
Long time lurker, finally decided to register, seems like I might have some input now.   8)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 02, 2020, 12:39:54 PM
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.

Sol uses normal mineral generation (same as any other system) and Earth uses the normal Home World mineral generation. That is true for both VB6 and C#.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MasonMac on April 02, 2020, 12:47:15 PM
Is Wiki updated to C#
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 02, 2020, 01:07:53 PM
No but there is a C# name space and some pages have been created.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JuergenSchT on April 03, 2020, 09:48:33 PM
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#?"

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2020, 04:45:05 AM
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#?"

Shipping lines do not have subsidies. They do choose different numbers of engines.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: littleWolf on April 04, 2020, 06:43:40 AM
Say please about  HDD space required for install and run  Aurora C#
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 04, 2020, 06:55:38 AM
Say please about  HDD space required for install and run  Aurora C#

It will depend on how large your game is. The installed version on my PC is 260 MB with the current campaign. That includes the exe, all the image file such as race and flag pictures, plus the database.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vasious on April 05, 2020, 02:37:45 AM
Dumb question but what is the difference between
Space Ports
&
Cargo Shuttle Stations

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105591#msg105591

Cargo Handling Systems have been replaced by Cargo Shuttle Bays. They function in a similar way, although they are larger (10 HS) and more expensive.

So those are ship based and if a ship lacks them then it relies of planet based facilities, either a Spaceport or a Cargo Shuttle Stations

Now my understand is that additional Spaceports speed up loading and unloading

What role do Cargo Shuttle Stations have in this, or do Spaceports now have a different role

Sorry for the confusion
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 05, 2020, 03:27:11 AM
"Spaceports have doubled in cost to 2400 BP but can now be moved by freighters. They are equal to four research facilities for transport purposes (or 80 factories). They retain their existing bonuses to loading and unloading cargo."

"A ship can only refuel at a Spaceport, a Refuelling Station, a ship with a Refuelling System or a base with a Refuelling Hub."

"In addition, Box launchers can only be reloaded in a hangar, or at an Ordnance Transfer Point (a Spaceport, Ordnance Transfer Station or Ordnance Transfer Hub)."

"A ship can only receive ordnance at a Spaceport, an Ordnance Transfer Station, a ship with a Ordnance Transfer System, a base with a Ordnance Transfer Hub or in a military hangar bay."

"Space Stations can be built by construction factories at any population that includes a Spaceport."

". . . a freighter or colony ship cannot load / unload unless it has at least one Cargo Shuttle Bay, or the target population has either a Spaceport or a Cargo Shuttle Station (new installation, 1200 BP)."

"For C# Aurora, box launchers can only be reloaded in a hangar, or at an Ordnance Transfer Point (a Spaceport, Ordnance Transfer Station or Ordnance Transfer Hub)."

"A ship can only resupply at a population with a spaceport, a cargo shuttle station or at least one maintenance facility, or from a ship with cargo shuttles."

"Conventional Start

. . .The player now receives:

. . .
Spaceport
. . . "

"Installations without Required Tech

. . .The full list of the installations that can be constructed before Trans-Newtonian Theory is researched is as follows:

. . .
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).
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 05, 2020, 05:19:26 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on April 05, 2020, 06:02:13 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 05, 2020, 06:21:40 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on April 05, 2020, 07:06:19 AM

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 05, 2020, 08:21:48 AM
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.

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion.

- - - - -

I don't know that I have a 'feel' for how many workers a Spaceport should require.  I've never sat down and listed out all the features one has and the necessary number of other installations required to duplicate those functions and the number of workers that would require.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on April 05, 2020, 09:17:28 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 05, 2020, 10:42:14 AM
Also, this way it is an actual investment when it comes to colonies.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on April 05, 2020, 10:48:06 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on April 05, 2020, 11:07:11 AM
Proposal.

That might be solved, after release, with another building type that I'll call Space Elevator for purposes of this post. A Space Elevator would do nothing other than let you use ground industry to build space stations. Make the population and BP costs such that if you want three of the four functionalities of a Space Port you're better off with a Space Port, but if you only want one or two you're better off building the individual specialized buildings (Refueling Station, Ordnance Transfer Station, Cargo Shuttle Station, and Space Elevator). Base that balance point around whatever colony cost makes sense. Decide whether or not it makes sense for a Space Elevator to be movable with freighters. (I vote not.)

That way it still makes sense to build Space Ports where you plan create real colonial capitals, but if you're just building a stripped-down FOB or colonial defense, you could consider the specialized buildings.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 05, 2020, 11:31:09 AM
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.

I am intrigued and would like to hear more. Do you mind making a thread where you explain this in detail in one of the other sub-forums?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: MarcAFK on April 05, 2020, 09:20:28 PM
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.
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.
Spaceports have advantages and disadvantages to the alternative, but I think they're balanced in cost, although perhaps a somewhat smaller worker requirement might make sense considering the equivalent facilities don't need any workers at all and not counting shipyards the other large facilities only require 250k. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Hazard on April 05, 2020, 09:38:17 PM
I'd be entirely okay with the Refueling/Ordnance Transfer/Cargo Shuttle facilities taking 500 000 population each and declaring that if you want those capabilities without a civilian population you better build and place a station/ship that can do it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 06, 2020, 03:54:04 AM
The individual stations are intended to represent facilities out on the frontier, or a military installation, so I didn't want to include population requirements. The spaceport is the sign of a more developed colony and has the same pop requirement as a single research facility. BTW being able to build space stations is VERY useful.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Gnoman on April 07, 2020, 09:07:28 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Chris Foster on April 07, 2020, 09:47:46 PM
Quote from: Gnoman link=topic=10097. msg120574#msg120574 date=1586311648
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vivalas on April 07, 2020, 09:53:10 PM
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)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 07, 2020, 10:17:27 PM
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?

You take the hit.  For now, NPRs auto-magically know the origin species of any damage they take.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 07, 2020, 10:21:41 PM
But also, do mines work only against targets that are hostile? Will mines deploy on allied or neutral targets?

Mines will attack anyone that isn't you -- including your own commercial shipping -- unless you're careful.  And sometimes even if you are.  The VB Aurora "only attack units belonging to factions with which we have HOSTILE relations" code is still a bit buggy, but hopefully the C# Aurora rewrite will solve those problems.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 08, 2020, 06:57:46 AM
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)

I think it make sense for the full space station to be more efficient than the individual stations meant to service small colonies or as military outposts. A large civilian station with a million workers should be able to accommodate allot more traffic.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JuergenSchT on April 08, 2020, 11:52:48 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg120364#msg120364 date=1585993505
Shipping lines do not have subsidies.  They do choose different numbers of engines.

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.
Thanks for answering.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 09, 2020, 02:47:01 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg120364#msg120364 date=1585993505
Shipping lines do not have subsidies.  They do choose different numbers of engines.

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.
Thanks for answering.
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.

Shipping Lines will buy whatever is affordable when they decide to buy. If nothing is available at the current wealth balance, they will buy nothing and wait for that balance to increase as their existing ships generate more wealth.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 09, 2020, 10:33:24 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on April 09, 2020, 10:45:27 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 09, 2020, 11:18:26 AM
Quote from: JacenHan link=topic=10097. msg120655#msg120655 date=1586447127
Quote from: Droll link=topic=10097. msg120653#msg120653 date=1586446404
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.

So can plasma carronades and particle beams also be put on turrets now, or has that always been the case?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on April 09, 2020, 11:20:52 AM
I don't think you can or could turret plasma carronades or particle beams. They wouldn't make good PD weapons (too large and slow-firing), but I agree that it would be nice to be able to build anti-fighter/FAC turrets.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 09, 2020, 11:24:32 AM
So can plasma carronades and particle beams also be put on turrets now, or has that always been the case?

Plasma carronades and particle beams can NOT be turreted, and that has always been the case.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 09, 2020, 12:05:10 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Nori on April 09, 2020, 01:05:51 PM
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.

Have you seen the turreted railguns in the expanse? Crazy big and powerful.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 09, 2020, 01:53:04 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 09, 2020, 02:25:43 PM
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?

No auto-save right now. In game time is too varied to put a time on it (sometimes every few minutes might be the best option and sometimes every couple of months). Real-world time could be annoying if you are halfway through doing something, plus if you leave it open it would wipe out your automatic backup saves. Maybe number of increments would be a possible option for post-launch.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Vivalas on April 09, 2020, 02:47:03 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 09, 2020, 03:16:18 PM
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

Not at the moment, although would be an easy addition.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on April 09, 2020, 04:19:51 PM
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... .
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 09, 2020, 04:27:28 PM
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've added the two missing techs. The temperature techs all have 150k max, so I changed the oxygen to 150k to match.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tikigod on April 10, 2020, 11:23:21 AM
Most definitely not something for any kind of public release timeline, but looking at the latest turn time video one of my first reactions was that I really hope the display frame and other tabs get organised cleanly in the future so that options are grouped into segments not just a long sprawling list.

Just curious if that is already on the QoL things to do much further down the line or not? I imagine it probably is, but ya never know what someone might get so used too that they don't even notice it anymore and forget it's a thing. lol
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on April 11, 2020, 05:05:48 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Yesus on April 11, 2020, 05:19:42 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 11, 2020, 05:24:20 AM
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?

The join fleet and sub-divide fleet and form new fleet and similar orders should all still be there for individual issue.  I believe "change parent fleet" is still a drop-down, so maybe not that great an option for a screen reader.

You may need to use SpaceMaster on the Fleet Orders or Individual Unit Details window and change the current fleet assignment of a ship.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 11, 2020, 05:29:52 AM
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?

No, because this is not a bug.

The default production cycle is (almost) 5 days -- actually 400,000 seconds.  The production cycle code is only called if the time advance exceeds this amount.  (The code then uses the actual number of elapsed seconds since the last production cycle, thus no progress is lost.)

If it is absolutely critical to your empire that an item finish on the date in question, then run your one day advances earlier and do a five-day advance on July 29 (July only has 30 days in Aurora). . . late on July 29, because you don't want to come up a few hours short.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 11, 2020, 05:42:55 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 11, 2020, 05:55:49 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tree on April 11, 2020, 06:12:37 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 11, 2020, 06:15:44 AM
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.

For most activities, the length of the production cycle is considered. So shorter cycles mean less production, etc. However, for some activities it happened once per cycle, so faster cycles changed the rate at which that activity happened. I think I have avoided that for C# but widespread use should prove that either way.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 11, 2020, 06:19:54 AM
I vaguely recall that the production cycle didn't actually run properly - some things were not done - but it was so long ago that it might have been a pre-7 version. I don't have Aurora installed at the moment so I can't test.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on April 11, 2020, 06:23:20 AM
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.
Thanks! I believe with join fleet orders i still would be able to form basic fleets and a navy structure till then.
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Chris Foster on April 11, 2020, 06:40:42 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 11, 2020, 07:13:48 AM
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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Impassive on April 11, 2020, 07:16:49 AM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=10097. msg120791#msg120791 date=1586607228
Quote from: Chris Foster link=topic=10097. msg120790#msg120790 date=1586605242
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?

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.

This is one of the features I'm very excited for as it allows for a very robust hierarchy and a great tool to keep track of all the fleets.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 11, 2020, 07:48:59 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hadi on April 11, 2020, 10:02:47 AM
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.
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.
Just really waiting for the release to see which parts are going to be very tough to work with, I do hope the events window is back, I 100% rely on that one to play the game......

edit: Now that i think about it, i think the ship designer may have been also effected by drag and drop, but not sure. on vb 6 you could just click on the modules and parts and they would transfer around.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: L0ckAndL0ad on April 12, 2020, 07:44:19 AM
What's the function of the last two buttons on the controls panel? The blue orb and the red/green button.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Demonides on April 12, 2020, 07:46:42 AM
How to create "conventional new game"
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 12, 2020, 07:59:15 AM
How to create "conventional new game"
I'll make a step-by-step tutorial.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: dj756 on April 12, 2020, 08:04:14 AM
Is there a "reduced height windows" setting? Can't find it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 08:04:43 AM
What's the function of the last two buttons on the controls panel? The blue orb and the red/green button.

SM Mode and Automated Turns
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 12, 2020, 08:07:00 AM
How to create "conventional new game"

Here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10639.0
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Inglonias on April 12, 2020, 08:27:58 AM
What is an "Underground Construction Factory"?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Punt on April 12, 2020, 08:32:16 AM
Game looks great so far, but is there a way to set notifications for construction completions and research projects being finished? EDIT:Nevermind. . . didn't realize the message log was only showing 30 days. . . and I was just not seeing the updates.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:13:27 AM
What is an "Underground Construction Factory"?

Something I forgot to remove before release :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SevenOfCarina on April 12, 2020, 09:22:16 AM
Will games from v1.00 still be playable in future versions of C# Aurora?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Zincat on April 12, 2020, 09:23:54 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 12, 2020, 09:27:06 AM
It runs without changing, no idea if it causes problems later. I changed my system to the British, just in case.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Desdinova on April 12, 2020, 09:37:55 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:38:35 AM
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?

Yes and Yes.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:40:32 AM
Will games from v1.00 still be playable in future versions of C# Aurora?

I'm already changing the DB to fix some bugs so they won't be. It is going to be a little chaotic for the first day or two as I fix bugs. I'm actually very happy so far. A lot of small bugs, but no consistent game-breaker so far. The more serious bugs are because I left things in that I shouldn't, such as the Design Philosophy button.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on April 12, 2020, 09:41:27 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:41:59 AM
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?

I haven't made any special provision for decimal separators for launch. I'm in the other half of the world :)

When things calm down a little I'll check to see if I can do anything straightforward to fix in code.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:43:16 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 12, 2020, 09:45:12 AM
So I figured out which button is auto turns but what does the light bulb do?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 12, 2020, 09:46:24 AM
So I figured out which button is auto turns but what does the light bulb do?

SM Mode
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Shuul on April 12, 2020, 09:53:25 AM
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.

Thanks! Just one more question, how the game will place the new system? adjacent to Sol? as i ant to use the function of NPRs generation and min-max distance in LY (does it even work without Known Systems? if not, does the game places NPRs randomly if Known Stars are disabled?)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kristover on April 12, 2020, 10:03:06 AM
Question:  In VB6, I believe it was possible to add a manual note to the Commander, something you could write history towards.  You could also add/subtract the flavor qualities they had (courteous, science fiction buff, etc).  Can you still do that in C# or has that functionality been removed?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Energyz on April 12, 2020, 10:04:29 AM
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

Nevermind, you have to check class components instead of race components, or use the wide view.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: smoelf on April 12, 2020, 10:11:09 AM
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

It also took me a while to find. In the top there is an option to select either "Race Components" or "Class Components". The first shows you components to add and the second shows you the components that class already has and lets you remove them.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 12, 2020, 11:15:11 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 12, 2020, 11:34:50 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Impassive on April 12, 2020, 11:50:22 AM
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?

Ground Supply Points, I believe
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 12:04:31 PM
Can't seem to find it anywhere, do you know what GSP stands for?

Geological Survey Points, if you're talking about GeoSurv equipment on ground units.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: littleWolf on April 12, 2020, 12:05:19 PM
 I have some fighters of survay class:

Quote
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

"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 ?

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DocBrown13 on April 12, 2020, 01:11:10 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 12, 2020, 01:15:38 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 12, 2020, 01:19:18 PM
Quote from: littleWolf link=topic=10097. msg121155#msg121155 date=1586711119
I have some fighters of survay class:

Quote
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

"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 ?

Idk if it is but i feel like this might belong in the bug report thread
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 01:39:12 PM
Is it currently possible to change from the current white text on blue background to black text on white?

No.

Quote from: DocBrown13 link=topic=10097.msg121248#msg121248
Or is this something that's planned for the future cosmetic pass after this initial release has settled down?

Yes.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 01:40:19 PM
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.

That's probably a bug.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: johiah on April 12, 2020, 01:44:58 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 01:53:09 PM
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?

One way is to turn on SpaceMaster (crystal ball button, 2nd from right), open the System View (not the Tactical Map, but the black space-y button in the middle with the orbital circles) and select Earth, then down at the bottom right click "Create Race" -- you should get a new window with dozens of click-boxes and options.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Black on April 12, 2020, 04:11:25 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Erik L on April 12, 2020, 04:12:15 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Black on April 12, 2020, 04:17:18 PM
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?

Yes, they have engines and fuel tanks at 100% capacity. I will post the design just to be sure, but I do not think I missed anything during construction:

Code: [Select]
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

Edit: I got the white screen after I launched Stellaris again. So I made new install and it is working now. I have no idea what caused it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Inglonias on April 12, 2020, 04:21:17 PM
I have a dumb question.

If Aurora doesn't like it unless at least one game is loaded, how did you get the first game running?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 12, 2020, 05:06:28 PM
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.)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Black on April 12, 2020, 05:11:33 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 13, 2020, 12:24:51 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: smoelf on April 13, 2020, 01:03:16 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Black on April 13, 2020, 02:26:31 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 04:29:30 AM
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.

Not yet, but it's on the list with all the other cosmetic improvements like tool tips and double-clicks and so on.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 04:34:17 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Black on April 13, 2020, 04:49:02 AM
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?

It was in Sol, so distance should not be a problem. I only surveyed Luna and Mars with manual command.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 06:38:45 AM
How does the Colony:Industry button "SM Add" work?  Does the "SM Add" button work?  I can't get it to do anything.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 13, 2020, 06:49:29 AM
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.
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.

Haven't tested if some other orders also allows ships to start surveying. Movement orders at least didn't seem to trigger the surveying
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 13, 2020, 09:12:56 AM
Weren't size 1 passive sensors supposed to not be commercial anymore due to detection calculation change? Or am I remembering wrong?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: TMaekler on April 13, 2020, 09:14:38 AM
I can't find any posts about the differences between the "Spaceport" and the "Cargo Shuttle Station". Is there any?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 13, 2020, 09:15:19 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: smoelf on April 13, 2020, 09:18:39 AM
I can't find any posts about the differences between the "Spaceport" and the "Cargo Shuttle Station". Is there any?

According to the wiki, a spaceport fulfills the same functions as a cargo shuttle and much more. An all-inclusive suite of logistics: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Installations#Spaceport
Looking at it, I'm not sure why anyone would want to build anything else, other than cost.
EDIT: Also, it is required to build space stations. I suppose you can save resources by building cargo shuttle stations or refuelling stations, if you know that the colony will have that specific purpose indefinitely, but otherwise spaceports do it all.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: smoelf on April 13, 2020, 09:33:29 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Resand on April 13, 2020, 09:42:17 AM
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  ;)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: smoelf on April 13, 2020, 09:55:55 AM
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  ;)

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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 10:05:44 AM
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.

Steve removed the free, STRENGTH-1 passive thermal & EM sensors from all ships.  But yes, SIZE-1 or smaller sensors (regardless of strength) are supposed to be civilian systems.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 13, 2020, 10:07:19 AM
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 :)

I imagine this has been the reason why I also missed this one
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 13, 2020, 10:19:51 AM
Is there any way to decrease planet temperature?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 10:28:11 AM
Is there any way to decrease planet temperature?

Terraforming.  Add Frigisium.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JFCG222 on April 13, 2020, 11:00:02 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Resand on April 13, 2020, 11:09:20 AM
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.

1. If I remember correctly from previews, the civilians don't really get going until you have multiple systems. So if you're still just in Sol that might be why
2. You can change the number of days shown in the event log, but it doesn't remember that setting atm if you close it. Should be fixed next release
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 13, 2020, 11:13:11 AM
Is 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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JFCG222 on April 13, 2020, 11:16:33 AM
Quote from: DFNewb link=topic=10097. msg121782#msg121782 date=1586794391
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg121750#msg121750 date=1586791691
Quote from: DFNewb link=topic=10097. msg121741#msg121741 date=1586791191
Is 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.

Aestusium raises temperature. 
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 12:16:53 PM
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.

1.  No.  You encourage commerical shipping by having many ten-million-plus and twenty-five-million plus populations in multiple systems (with stabilized wormholes between them).  The way it worked before was way too fast, which is why it has been slowed down and made less profitable.

2.  As mentioned above, click on the "30" and type your own number.  I like 33.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: NuclearStudent on April 13, 2020, 02:52:42 PM
When you start with an NPR, what determines the level of tech they start with?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kashada on April 13, 2020, 03:28:55 PM
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 :)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 05:42:50 PM
When you start with an NPR, what determines the level of tech they start with?

Random roll multiplied by the total cost of all non-racial research known by the player's empire multiplied by racial traits.

With the caveat that non-TN NPRs will never progress to TN tech, as that hasn't been coded yet.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 13, 2020, 05:45:24 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 13, 2020, 06:27:12 PM
Just to make sure, in ground forces OOB, does light blue indicate that the formation is being supported by artillery or that it is supporting another formation?

I have an infantry battalion with a single mortar company as its subordinate. The infantry battalion is in the front line defense field has no bombardment units of any kind but the mortar company does (obv). The mortar company has no subordinate formations of its own and is in the support field.

When I drag the mortar company on top of its superior I get nothing (its already assigned to the battalion) but when I drag the superior formation on top of its child mortar company, the battalion becomes light blue and the mortar company orange.

Am i doing this right? Will the mortar company support the battalion or have I done it the other way around, and if I have done it wrong how would I do it right?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ektor on April 13, 2020, 06:30:47 PM
I think support only goes downwards in the OOB. You need to be the same level or above to support.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kashada on April 14, 2020, 03:28:37 AM
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg122087#msg122087 date=1586817924
Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735
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.

Yeah I doubled checked its not there, I made a new tanker class which also doesn't show it.  Thanks for clearing up that it should be there I'll install the new patch and see if it works but if not I know to report it as a bug now.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 14, 2020, 04:58:41 AM
How do Bombardment units behave in Frontline? Do they follow the Support/Rear bombardment rules or are they using normal Frontline combat rules?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 14, 2020, 09:35:13 AM
How do Bombardment units behave in Frontline? Do they follow the Support/Rear bombardment rules or are they using normal Frontline combat rules?

I think they behave the same, just remember that Light bombardment weapons will fire in the normal combat round.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 14, 2020, 12:13:44 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Energyz on April 14, 2020, 12:20:36 PM
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

I'm not 100% sure, but if one of your ship has a R4 officer, then it's admin must but at least R3. If you have an Admin Command with a R5, then it's parent must have a R4 at least, etc...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Resand on April 14, 2020, 12:22:16 PM
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

Every Command require a commander that is a higher level then every commander in every command/ship under it

Edit: What might be throwing you is that the fleet org window doesn't update all the time. So click refresh after you've done some changes
Edit2: Ships have their own rules. Some stuff adds to the needed rank. Like weapons adds +1, Flag Bridge adds +2
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Doren on April 14, 2020, 01:36:57 PM
Thank you so much. Turns out one of the people I was promoting was on a ship which then pushed the requirement up the chain much to my disbelief
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Awazruk on April 14, 2020, 01:47:01 PM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DFNewb on April 14, 2020, 01:49:26 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 14, 2020, 04:57:49 PM
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.

Correct.  Size (not strength) one or smaller (a.k.a. 50 tons or smaller) are civilian systems.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jovus on April 15, 2020, 08:59:49 AM
Steve, do you happen to know what font you're using? We're trying to find a look-alike for Linux support. Thanks!
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 15, 2020, 09:06:48 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Resand on April 15, 2020, 09:11:06 AM
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.

It should work I believe, but there's also a keep max speed checkbox. Make sure that's deselected
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: swarm_sadist on April 15, 2020, 11:42:14 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 15, 2020, 11:58:07 AM
FFD should always avoid combat so that it survives as it's only purpose is to paint targets for your orbital bombardment ships and your planetary atmospheric fights.

Supply units also should not fight so capabilities are wasted on them.

That I don't actually know. Steve never explained in detail what they mean.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 15, 2020, 12:15:23 PM
A couple questions on ground combat.

-Should FFD be avoid combat?

Do you mean automatically?  No, you have to set them to do so.  Do you mean "Is it a good idea?"  Yes.

-Do logistics units benefit from capabilities (Low gravity, boarding, Extreme Pressure, Extreme Temperature, etc)

Only in combat.  It is not required to have Low-Grav training to send a unit to a low-grav body.

Since you probably care almost zero about the combat ability of supply units (they can't shoot, only get hit) and the benefit they receive is very small, it's almost certainly an extravagant waste of money & minerals.

-Does extreme pressure and temperature work in both vacuum and Venusian atmospheres? Does it have any effect in ship boarding with different species tolerances?

It works outside of environments the race in question finds 'Habitable' -- both high and low.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on April 15, 2020, 12:17:26 PM
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.

All other capabilities double the unit's hit chance in the appropriate environment.

If multiple apply (such a Jungle and Mountain training in Jungle Mountains) then the hit chance is doubled twice.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 15, 2020, 08:13:35 PM
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.

IIRC from the 1.00 changes, its not that they need it for boarding - the chance to make it to the enemy ship is dependent on the speed ratio between the assailant and the defender, boarding. If the attacker is 10x as fast as the defender every soldier will reach their ship and start breaching, if they are boarding capable it only needs to be 5x as fast as the defender.

Basically boarding capability does not determine the ability to attempt boarding - it doubles how many actually make it to their target.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on April 15, 2020, 09:01:35 PM
You're both wrong or rather you forgot one little update from Steve.

The only thing you NEED is a shuttle with:
Quote
Troop Capacity 300 tons     Boarding Capable

That is different from Drop Capable which is used for planetary hostile landings.

What HELPS is using infantry that is Boarding Capable as that doubles your chances of successfully landing on the target ship. What also HELPS is that your boarding shuttle is much faster than the target ship. If you are 10x times faster, it's an automatic success and Boarding Capable infantry halves that to a mere 5x speed.

So C# changed the 20x velocity to 10x velocity and the new GU ability halves even that - but the only thing you absolutely need is a shuttle/ship with the Boarding Capable module.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kof on April 17, 2020, 05:31:14 AM
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Bubbaisagod on April 17, 2020, 06:11:00 AM
Quote from: Kof link=topic=10097. msg124423#msg124423 date=1587119474
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg122087#msg122087 date=1586817924
Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kof on April 17, 2020, 07:03:25 AM
Quote from: Kof link=topic=10097. msg124423#msg124423 date=1587119474
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10097. msg122087#msg122087 date=1586817924
Quote from: Kashada link=topic=10097. msg121994#msg121994 date=1586809735
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.

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.

Cool thanks, that works.

Just FYI for others - you set this in the "Miscellaneous" tab of the class design & the amounts are in tons, not percent.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on April 18, 2020, 07:11:16 PM
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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on April 22, 2020, 02:47:06 AM
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

Things like Carrier operations and escort management is not really fully added to C# at this moment. I have not found a good way to operate fighters from carriers yet. For now we have to stay clear of more complicated and complex fleet operations until Steve have time to add these things to the game properly.

I don't think the game will be fully playable in a serious campaign until at least 2.0 of C# when he have had time to add most of the missing stuff from VB6 and added some QoL changes to the game as a whole. We just have to be patient... ;)
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kashada on May 09, 2020, 07:55:42 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on May 09, 2020, 08:18:35 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Demonius on May 09, 2020, 09:44:42 AM
I scrapped 24 old fighters on my shipyards yesterday without Problems. You have to have the slipways to the capacity, ofc
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: skoormit on May 09, 2020, 10:25:56 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: kenlon on May 09, 2020, 10:28:54 AM
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.

You have to tool the shipyard for them, but you can use the Auto Refit option to have the yard go through all the fighters of a particular model and upgrade them. It's not a bad idea to make a fighter/FAC yard for those sorts of upgrades with only 1K capacity and lots and lots of slipways.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Kashada on May 21, 2020, 01:00:38 PM
Can someone tell me where the button to gift a ship to an NPR is please i can't seem to find it?

Cheers
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Father Tim on May 22, 2020, 06:31:43 PM
Can someone tell me where the button to gift a ship to an NPR is please i can't seem to find it?

Cheers

Most likely it has not yet been implemented in C# Aurora.  If it's not on the Ship Details window (probably tucked away in the Miscellaneous tab or something) or on the Intelligence & Foreign Relations window it's 99% likely not to exist.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 23, 2020, 08:04:40 PM
Is there a way to tell a ship to go to a planet in another system without having to give them system transition orders all the time? I'm only two systems deep out of Sol and its already getting annoying and confusing.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: JacenHan on May 23, 2020, 10:29:19 PM
You can use the Autoroute feature to make getting to a system easier, but you will have to know the destination system first. It should be an option directly above the movement orders box.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 26, 2020, 07:27:27 PM
Is it better to use a terraforming station or ground installations when terraforming a colonized planet?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: skoormit on May 26, 2020, 08:22:11 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 27, 2020, 01:06:07 AM
Can you make civilian missile launchers or have them just 'drop' sensor buoyes?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on May 27, 2020, 07:05:07 AM
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.
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.

Can you make civilian missile launchers or have them just 'drop' sensor buoyes?
No and no.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: skoormit on May 27, 2020, 07:52:53 AM
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.
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.

Fair point on using civvies to move TF installations.
In terms of micro, that's certainly the "easiest" way to move TF capacity.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Oriolus on May 27, 2020, 10:42:39 AM
Where can I find the civilian shipping lines window in the current version?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: skoormit on May 27, 2020, 11:30:56 AM
Where can I find the civilian shipping lines window in the current version?

It is no longer a separate window.
Instead, you will find the civ lines at the bottom of the Naval Organization window, below all of your own naval admin commands.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: davidr on May 27, 2020, 11:37:22 AM
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.

skoormit,

you advise that you use 10 modules in your orbital terraformers. That equates to at least 250,000 tons weight.  At 10,000 tons upgrade at a time per slipway , how long did it take your shipyard to become large enough to produce the terraformer?
 in my game each 10,000 to upgrade can take from 12-18 months to complete.

DavidR
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 27, 2020, 11:44:55 AM
You don't use a shipyard.

Tick the "no armor" box on the right and that makes the "ship" use structural shell, making it a space station. You can then put 10 Terraforming Modules on it, remove the Fuel Storage and voilá, you can now build your terraforming station with your construction factories.

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: davidr on May 27, 2020, 12:39:28 PM
Garfunkel,

Thanks , never knew that - will now try it with 1.10.

DavidR
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 27, 2020, 02:42:03 PM
Do shipyard modifications draw on the BP of construction factories at all?

I've shipped all my yards to Luna and it feels they are being modified slower than on Earth despite having enough minerals.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 27, 2020, 03:27:37 PM
No, they do not.

You probably have an administrator on Earth that sped up the process.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 27, 2020, 04:45:05 PM
Do Orbital Habitats generate income from shipping lines coming to visit them?

Do they need cargo shuttle bays to help accommodate this?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on May 27, 2020, 05:11:10 PM
Do Orbital Habitats generate income from shipping lines coming to visit them?

Do they need cargo shuttle bays to help accommodate this?
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 28, 2020, 12:57:16 AM
Is it possible to detach my beam ships to close with the enemy while my carriers and missile ships stay behind while keeping the chain of command in tact to rack in bonuses?

EX: Beam/Missile squadron commander => Fleet commander in system but in other task group => Admin Commander

Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 28, 2020, 04:15:26 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 28, 2020, 11:07:24 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 28, 2020, 12:57:47 PM
No, only on Naval Headquarters Buildings.

Flag Bridge gives you a Senior Commander but their bonus only applies to the fleet. So your beam ships would need their own flag bridge equipped ship.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on May 28, 2020, 01:23:54 PM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 28, 2020, 09:51:17 PM
What about ground HQs? Does the entire chain-of-command need to be on the same body or in the same TG to not have its chain-of-command broken? Is it possible to, say, have a Marine company HQ on a ship be connected to 4 or 5 Marine platoons currently deployed and boarding an enemy vessel?

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.

I hope Steve adds an in-between system-wide command so you can unify all the TG's you might have fighting in one system under a unified command. What does the Flight Control module do, for example, if its commander doesn't effect the fighters you have detached from the main group?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 28, 2020, 10:53:04 PM
You have misunderstood.

Quote
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.

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
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on May 28, 2020, 11:08:18 PM
You have misunderstood.

Quote
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.

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

A pity. The CAG should effect the performance of the fighters assigned to it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 28, 2020, 11:17:58 PM
I get where you're coming from but that would be a departure from the Aurora commander bonus system.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: DawnMachine on May 31, 2020, 06:35:33 AM
Guys, tell me.  When does Steve plan to add explanatory tips in C #? It’s very difficult to understand when you are newbie
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Tyrell on May 31, 2020, 03:09:32 PM
Hi,
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 ?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Ulzgoroth on May 31, 2020, 03:18:02 PM
I get where you're coming from but that would be a departure from the Aurora commander bonus system.

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.
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on May 31, 2020, 08:03:17 PM
Guys, tell me.  When does Steve plan to add explanatory tips in C #? It’s very difficult to understand when you are newbie
Steve 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,
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 ?
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.

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 02, 2020, 01:28:33 AM
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?

And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on June 02, 2020, 10:57:13 AM
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?

And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy.  There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.

Regular transports with shuttles (very slow) or drop pods.  Boarding pods are for boarding ships and space stations.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 02, 2020, 01:12:29 PM
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?

And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy.  There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.

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...
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on June 02, 2020, 03:46:10 PM
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?

And how do I drop armies on enemy planets? Do I need Drop pods? Do boarding pods not work?
Use the 'follow' order with a distance to kite an enemy.  There are auto-target MFC and BFC buttons.

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...
You have to mark the target planet with 'Create Colony' first.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 03, 2020, 08:21:48 PM
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on June 04, 2020, 12:55:45 AM
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?

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.
Presently shipyards are the only option.

Have you run out of MSP to run the maintenance facilities?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 04, 2020, 07:36:15 PM
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?

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.
Presently shipyards are the only option.

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on June 05, 2020, 05:46:08 PM
Is there a way to scrap and repair fighters and stations without using a shipyard?

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.
Presently shipyards are the only option.

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 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?

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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 06, 2020, 08:39:21 PM
I'll do that, thanks.

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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: SpikeTheHobbitMage on June 08, 2020, 01:01:42 AM
I'll do that, thanks.

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 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.

Bombardment pods are for attacking ground forces.  Anti-air pods are for attacking other fighters.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 08, 2020, 03:15:44 AM
I'll do that, thanks.

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 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.

Bombardment pods are for attacking ground forces.  Anti-air pods are for attacking other fighters.

Whoops, I meant what advantage d bombardment pods have over auto-cannons?

I can answer that myself: Bombardment does more damage but auto-cannons pierce more armor.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: UberWaffe on June 08, 2020, 02:52:44 PM
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?

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.
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.

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

30 days ago that fighter pilot was told to start training. His fuel tanks are nothing but fumes, his engine is on fire, there are a bunch of blaring lights, and the muck in the cockpit has spawned at least 3 new virulent diseases.
But he hasn't received the order to stop training yet, and come hell or high water, he is going to complete his 745th barrel roll.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on June 08, 2020, 03:35:07 PM
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?

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.
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.

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

30 days ago that fighter pilot was told to start training. His fuel tanks are nothing but fumes, his engine is on fire, there are a bunch of blaring lights, and the muck in the cockpit has spawned at least 3 new virulent diseases.
But he hasn't received the order to stop training yet, and come hell or high water, he is going to complete his 745th barrel roll.


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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 09, 2020, 12:14:39 AM
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?

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.
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.

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

30 days ago that fighter pilot was told to start training. His fuel tanks are nothing but fumes, his engine is on fire, there are a bunch of blaring lights, and the muck in the cockpit has spawned at least 3 new virulent diseases.
But he hasn't received the order to stop training yet, and come hell or high water, he is going to complete his 745th barrel roll.


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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on June 09, 2020, 03:52:36 PM
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?

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.
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.

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

30 days ago that fighter pilot was told to start training. His fuel tanks are nothing but fumes, his engine is on fire, there are a bunch of blaring lights, and the muck in the cockpit has spawned at least 3 new virulent diseases.
But he hasn't received the order to stop training yet, and come hell or high water, he is going to complete his 745th barrel roll.


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.

And I full agree with this... I sort of complained about this to Steve too when he announced the feature and that it would be a bit too much micro management otherwise. I actually do think it is too much micromanagement and I simply have not used training admins all that much. Since I tend to have 6-12 month deployment on most capital ships I have to switch them out and in too often and overhaul them to bother with it.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 10, 2020, 02:05:10 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on June 10, 2020, 05:58:03 AM
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.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Borealis4x on June 10, 2020, 11:19:23 AM
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?
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Droll on June 17, 2020, 09:19:33 PM
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?

The edit doesn't explain the fact that your crab friends are spontaneously combusting. If you still have the DB it might be interesting to look at because I've got no clue why their homeworld is a graveyard. You might try SM building a ship with sensors to see if there are any contacts above their homeworld.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hostergaard on October 21, 2021, 06:24:54 AM
I really liked being able to subsidize civilian corporations as I enjoyed having a significant civilian sector. I hope it will return, my suggestion is related to that. Generally speaking I would enjoy seeing a more active and civilian sector able to handle various tasks automatically.


Suggestion: ability to subsidize the creation of civilian mining colonies.

One way would be to pay a given cost to have on created on a body immediately, but that might be too powerfull, instead I suggest that the player should be able to select a body in the system view screen and put a chosen amount of wealth on that body (without creating a colony or anything). This then affects the chance of a mining colony being established on the body, giving it a bonus depending on the wealth placed there. The player can add and remove the wealth as they please, but when a civilian colony is created that money disappears as it is paid out to the mining corporation established.  Similarly, one could consider being able to subsidize the expansion of mining colonies in a similar manner.


Suggestion: Civilian whatever

Generally speaking, there is a high level of entry to this game, and there is also people who enjoy them. To ease that and enable people to focus on parts they prefer, and also making larger empire management easier, make automated civilian solutions a thing so people can select what aspects they want to personally solve and work on and what they want the game to take care of.  It should not be too difficult as there is already a basis for it in the game, with how civilian mining colonies are created with armies, and you can generate ship design and armies at game start. To expand:


- Civilian security/Private armies

Simply like the armies generated for the mining colonies, a player can elect, for a wealth cost, to have civilian armies generated on the planet to take care of defending the planet and policing it. Of course, they are not so finely tuned as a player designed army could be, but at least you don't have to learn the system in its entirety to make viable armies. In the simplest form it could be a checkbox at the beginning in the game that decide for the entire empire that you can uncheck at any time, a checkbox for each colony under the ground units that decide if has a private army.


The exact details of balancing it of course needs to be tested. Fx, the armies don't just appear or disappear immediately but take some time to do so and while costing wealth to simulate time to hire/train/transport individuals. Perhaps there would be some mineral requirements. They player could let the game completely generate armies on their own, or you could give them an option to decide certain aspect on their own like, size, police strength, what they should be able to defend against, etc.

Or perhaps more simple, private security companies could generate various armies of different sizes according to colony size. Possibly then you could ship private armies from populated colonies to unpopulated colonies if necessary.

- Civilian Fleets

Similarly civilian fleets could be generated tough likely with both wealth and mineral costs. The level of control the player have needs to be balanced, either by selection on game start, trough science or the same. Furthermore, how much the player can control the design and at what granularity would have to be figured out, but basically its so new players can have the option of just generating fleets that work more like NPR fleets that works for the player. However, it can enable roleplaying and give the ability for the player to design empires with more interesting government types. An interesting consequence would be that privateer fleets could be generated, basically independent fleets, with no or little colonies, that can be given letters of marquee to raid enemies of civilisations. Or just good old pirate ships :D Tough, of course, a checkbox to generate such things or should be there at game creation like the spawning of civilian fuel harvesters.

--Civilian defence bases (or rather, civilian PPV)

More or less extension of the previous suggestion, but limited to creating fleets for defensive purposes of a planet/system to fulfil PPV. So probably just bases of various kinds.

- Civilian designed ships

Again to make things easier for new players who wants to make their own fleet, but not yet delve into designing ships, this is more of a functionally thing, they can have ship design be automatically generate classes of ships with current technology. And again, at various level of granularity ranging from, generate cruiser, to ant-ship destroyer to more exact specification like ship size, engangement range and so on.

- Civilian racial tech

I remembered I made a similar suggestion once, so I found the link here:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9630.msg103714#msg103714

- Investing in Civilian companies

This more for roleplaying sake than anything, let be able to buy stocks in the companies. Owning a company completely would give you all of its profits, and costs. This way, players with communist civilisation could use the system, but not have it conflict with their roleplaying. Then its more civilian iniatives rather than companies.

- Civilian government of planets

The idea for me at first was roleplay, its a common trope for galactic civilisations to have planets sold or governed by private companies. So you could offload various responsibilities to a civilian government, ranging from specific responsibilities like constructions to everything like armies, PPV fleets and so on. You could set various targets for them to meet at various level of granularity, say, pop size, construction ability and so on and they will try to meet them with the recourses available. One could expand this to also be defined on a system and sector basis

- Subject Empires

At this point if you have entire, planets systems and sectors be civilian controlled with civilian armies and fleets, you are reaching a point where they are basically non-player vasal empires. So why not give the player ability to make them independed actual vasals empires if they so choose. The level of independence could of course be defined of various level of granularity, from near independed paying a tite of wealth and minerals possibly, to near integrated where they player can direct colonies, armies and fleets more or less as they please. This would also allow you to concur enemy races as have them become vasals instead of being completely destroyed.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: Garfunkel on October 21, 2021, 06:33:49 AM
You should copy & paste this into the Suggestions sub-forum and thread.
Title: Re: C# Aurora v0.x Questions
Post by: hostergaard on October 21, 2021, 12:14:18 PM
Ups, meant to post it in the suggestion threat, I guess I clicked the wrong threat and did not notice haha