Various questions...

[Elvin (OP)]

Hi, new Aurora player here, and loving (what little I can understand of) it so far.

However, I can't seem to work out a few problems i'm having:

1. I can't refuel my ships. I sent them out on training for about 8 months, their conditional order for <30% fuel to refuel didn't trigger, but after I noticed I stopped training and ordered them back to Earth. However, when I manually issue the refuel command, I get the Events message " Order not possible - Battle Task Group cannot load movement orders as there are shipyard tasks associated with the fleet"

2. Is there a way to get colony ships to automatically ship people around? I gave them Primary and secondary orders to pick up and drop colonists, respectively. I also tried it the other way round, and both times the ship just sits in dock over Earth.

Also, as a more general note, how should I make my first exploration through a jump point? Do I build a jump gate, get a jmp capable ship, what research do I need/should I have to do it, etc. The whole situation is slightly beyond me.


Thanks!

[Poojawa]

I've never seen ships refuel over the homeworld's orbit, I always I have to manually transfer fuel through the ship's screen

From what I've seen, player controlled colony ships are usually used just to jump start the colony, and civilian liners take over. Make a civilian colony ship with 1 cryo tray and 1 engine, basiclly as cheap as possible, then subsidize the shipping line till they build a few. they'll take over from there.

and I recommend jumpships, as you don't really want to waste time into a jumpgate building into a hostile system at a young empire stage.

[Shadow]

2. Civilian companies eventually start building colony ships and begin to shuttle colonists around on their own. But if you meant your own (government-owned) vessels, you've to give their task groups specific orders (say, Load Colonists Earth and Unload Colonists Mars) and check the Cycle Orders box.

As for early exploration, I prefer having jump-capable scouts so to check the systems on the other side of the points before I decide whether or not to build gates. This is primarily a safety concern: you don't want to accidentally pave the way for hostile aliens who might be just around the corner.

I've never seen ships refuel over the homeworld's orbit, I always I have to manually transfer fuel through the ship's screen

I do it all the time, from the Task Groups screen, through the Refuel from Colony X order. I don't know why it doesn't work for Elvin.

[sloanjh]

Hi, new Aurora player here, and loving (what little I can understand of) it so far.

However, I can't seem to work out a few problems i'm having:

1. I can't refuel my ships. I sent them out on training for about 8 months, their conditional order for <30% fuel to refuel didn't trigger, but after I noticed I stopped training and ordered them back to Earth. However, when I manually issue the refuel command, I get the Events message " Order not possible - Battle Task Group cannot load movement orders as there are shipyard tasks associated with the fleet"

I think you've got two issues going on here:

1)  You've probably got a SY building ships, and it's been told to put the ships into your TG ("Battle Task Group") when it's done.  This freezes Battle TG in place at Earth, since if it weren't the ships would magically teleport to it when they were done being constructed.  What you should do is transfer the ships you've got in the TG now into a different TG - you can do this by going to the 2nd tab of the F12 screen, selecting them all, and hitting one of the buttons (I forget the name, but it will make a new TG from the selected ships - "split" maybe).

2)  ISTR that there's a bug in training, that forgets to look for SY tasks.  In other words, you should have gotten an error message when you tried to give this TG orders to go train.  On the other hand, I thought this was fixed - are you sure you're playing with 5.01.  If I was correct in #1 above (that you've got ships building in the TG), and you've checked in the "about aurora" pulldown that you're really playing 5.0x, then you should go log this issue by posting into the "official 5.0 bugs thread" in the Bugs board (please do NOT open a new thread on that board - Steve uses the 'official' threads in Bugs and Suggestions as a filing cabinet).

2. Is there a way to get colony ships to automatically ship people around? I gave them Primary and secondary orders to pick up and drop colonists, respectively. I also tried it the other way round, and both times the ship just sits in dock over Earth.

Have you created a different colony for them to drop colonists off on?  I usually don't screw around with these orders - I just give them orders for a single round-trip (don't forget to refuel) and then hit the cycle-orders (or whatever it's called) checkbox.

Also, as a more general note, how should I make my first exploration through a jump point? Do I build a jump gate, get a jmp capable ship, what research do I need/should I have to do it, etc. The whole situation is slightly beyond me.

I usually build jump ships.  With 4.9, one can build small jump drives for e.g. a 1000 ton scout ship - that's one way to make transit but you'll have trouble sending geosurvey and grav survey ships after.

The downside of using a jump gate is that, unless you send through a jump-capable ship, you won't be able to get your ship back (unless you send through a jump gate construction ship to build a gate on the other side).  So jump gates for exploration = bad idea

John

[Elvin (OP)]

Thanks for the help guys, i'll get to work creating a jump-capable fleet.

But a further question: How do I subsidise the building of new ships? Without me doing anything ( to my knowledge) to support it, a shipping company has already built a freighter and a colony ship. In fact, is there a tutorial anywhere that's about the whole commercial/economic side of things? I've never been good at that. NOTE: I've read the tutorial by Steve about commercial shipping.

[ZimRathbone]

Also, as a more general note, how should I make my first exploration through a jump point? Do I build a jump gate, get a jmp capable ship, what research do I need/should I have to do it, etc. The whole situation is slightly beyond me.

I usually build jump ships.  With 4.9, one can build small jump drives for e.g. a 1000 ton scout ship - that's one way to make transit but you'll have trouble sending geosurvey and grav survey ships after.

The downside of using a jump gate is that, unless you send through a jump-capable ship, you won't be able to get your ship back (unless you send through a jump gate construction ship to build a gate on the other side).  So jump gates for exploration = bad idea

John

 Its quite possible to create 1000 ton Jump capable survey ships - they will be military however . The ship below can be a geosurv ship merely by exchanging the sensors

Code: [Select]

Nuestarr class Survey Ship    1000 tons     95 Crew     218 BP      TCS 20  TH 100  EM 0
5000 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 2-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/6/1/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 8%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 136 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP    Est Time: 5.33 Years

J1000(1-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 1000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E6 (1)    Power 100    Fuel Use 60%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 150.0 billion km   (347 days at full power)

EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
As the smallest civillian drive is 25HS, which all by itself takes you to 1250 tons and the smallest Civ j-drive is 10 HS so this would be the smallest civilian geosurv with J-capabilty early on (you can drop it to 2200 tons once you reach Jump eff 6 - you cant really get it any smaller than that as you also need 1HS for the Engineering bay, & 5HS for sensors)
 

Code: [Select]

Rockfinder class Geosurvey Ship    2750 tons     80 Crew     221 BP      TCS 55  TH 250  EM 0
4545 km/s    JR 1-25(C)     Armour 1-17     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 50 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

JC3K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 1
Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E0.6 (1)    Power 250    Fuel Use 6%    Signature 250    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 545.4 billion km   (1388 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes