C# Aurora Changes Discussion

[alex_brunius]

Would be a nice feature if Steve is ever interested in adding it some day, but I'll note flat out I have no idea how much work it would be to code. Maybe we could tempt him with the potential of not having to play all 12+ empires in his games by himself :p

Yeah. That not the main reason why playing complex strategy games in multiplayer is awesome though.

The most awesome part IMHO is that feeling when your enemy manage to totally surprise/ambush you and you manage to scrape together what you have nearby and through ingenuity, improvisation and some bit of luck still somehow salvage the situation and win the day.

It's hard to explain but it's not something your going to experience vs an AI ( other then maybe the first game or so ), or ever when playing all sides yourself.



Any game with so much replayability like Aurora have could greatly benefit from some way of doing multiplayer to keep you challenged and invested so I do hope Steve gets around to it eventually sometime after C# feels solid.

[MuthaF]

Please dont remove PDCs, fix them or gimp them instead.  The new player accessibility argument sounds so . . .  fake.  I mean what player who sticks with Aurora would have ever quit the game because of THAT? I can only imagine someone chosing to NOT use them.   
I mean, missiles vs PDCs, if its okey to be practically forced to use missiles for every player, icant possibly see the issue with fully optional PDCs. . .  Its not like AI @ 10 000% is a challenge for an average human brain. . .
 

PDCs are too great to be removed - its the only interesting thing about ground combat/defenses at all; fix or adjust them please. .

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I have to say that I am a bit disappointed with removal of PDCs. I did not use them much on colony worlds, but I like my asteroid forts and bases. I hope some form of asteroid fortifications like Theban defenses in Crusade will be eventually implemented as partial replacement of PDCs.

In the game rules (as it were), they were just really stronk space stations, which you can still do.

[Gyrfalcon]

really stronk space stations that could be garrisoned by troops and besieged by other troops, among other things.

[Barkhorn]

They can still be garrisoned with troops.  The real difference was how they were constructed.  They were built by industry instead of shipyards.

I know you can still build orbital habitats with industry, but that's not the same.  OH's are weighed down by 250,000 tons of dead weight.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

..wouldn't that be pretty fitting for an asteroid fortress...?

[serger]

At this post:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104912#msg104912

There is no such temperature, as -1000 (nor Celsius, nor Kelvin, nor Fahrenheit).
Absolute minimum of temperature (when every molecule have zero velocity) is 0K or ~-273C.

I think it will be nice to use this minimal value in Aurora, as this game is such attractive for us, astronomy geeks, and we know about absolute zero.

[Zincat]

I'm really liking the changes to biomes and fortification level.

And yes, it seems it will be a really bad idea to try to bombard a deeply fortified ground force. 1 hit every 144 for jungle mountain. Yeah, not really going to happen XD

I like it. Makes ground troops much more of a necessity in many situations.

Serger: I would assume it's done exactly because of that. Means the terrain is applicable to any kind of low temperature, no matter how low. It's just an arbitrary number.... Since planet in Aurora cannot spawn with temperatures below -273 anyway.

[serger]

But they can be terraformed with antigreenhouse gas:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8144.msg104909#msg104909

[Steve Walmsley]

But they can be terraformed with antigreenhouse gas:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8144.msg104909#msg104909

That's a bug in VB6 Aurora that is fixed in C# Aurora. The -1000 and +100,000 are just arbitrary numbers to highlight any temperature is fine.

[swarm_sadist]

A couple other terrains I can think of:

Ice Crust: Bodies with deep ice sheets kilometres deep.
Glacier: Snowball Planets, Planets in nuclear winter, like ice sheets but have a rocky crust beneath the ice.
Metallic: Planets or asteroids mostly made of iron or other heavy metals.
Molten: Tidally locked planets close to a star, Planets that have recently collided with a large body, Very Seismic planets
Abyssal: Deep water covers the planet.
Neritic: Planets covered in shallow water, with a few small islands.

[Hazard]

1 hit every 144 shots against a fully fortified GtO weapon... yeah, that doesn't sound really favourable while it's engaging you anyway. Maybe, maybe if you have shields do tank the blows, but certainly not on an armour paradigm.

Is there any degree of consistency in dominant terrain? I mean, dominant terrain is nice and easy, if not realistic, but do battles on the same planet always have the same terrain barring terraforming shenanigans? If it doesn't a lot of the plausibility disappears. I would've liked to see, say, 6 different 'dominant terrains' on an Earth sized land, but I understand that would get needlessly complex.

I'm curious however; does the existence of a biosphere impact the chances for certain terrains? Because it should, given so many imply a biosphere. And frankly, we need a way to measure the size of a biosphere, and to change biospheres if these are our options. Because to me? It looks like the best option, defensively speaking that is, is to jack up the temperature as far as the settling species can tolerate without infrastructure support and a hydrosphere as extensive as you can get without limiting maximum population to get as much chance of generating a Jungle terrain as possible.


Oh, and another dominant terrain type; Urban, for those planets at their maximum population without hydrosphere based population limitation.

And with high enough tectonic activity, hopefully mountain jungle terrain. Because that's where the best defense values are.

[Steve Walmsley]

I've updated the terrain post with the impact on terraforming.

[Steve Walmsley]

A couple other terrains I can think of:

Ice Crust: Bodies with deep ice sheets kilometres deep.
Glacier: Snowball Planets, Planets in nuclear winter, like ice sheets but have a rocky crust beneath the ice.
Metallic: Planets or asteroids mostly made of iron or other heavy metals.
Molten: Tidally locked planets close to a star, Planets that have recently collided with a large body, Very Seismic planets
Abyssal: Deep water covers the planet.
Neritic: Planets covered in shallow water, with a few small islands.

I did have Molten and Lava Field at one point. However, I decided to remove them as the conditions would be covered by the rules on extreme temperature. Glacier is a possible. Archipelago covers the few small islands terrain and the Abyssal (at the moment I don't have water specific combat on the basis that combat would be centred on land with spacecraft filling the historical role of ships.

[Steve Walmsley]

1 hit every 144 shots against a fully fortified GtO weapon... yeah, that doesn't sound really favourable while it's engaging you anyway. Maybe, maybe if you have shields do tank the blows, but certainly not on an armour paradigm.

Is there any degree of consistency in dominant terrain? I mean, dominant terrain is nice and easy, if not realistic, but do battles on the same planet always have the same terrain barring terraforming shenanigans? If it doesn't a lot of the plausibility disappears. I would've liked to see, say, 6 different 'dominant terrains' on an Earth sized land, but I understand that would get needlessly complex.

I'm curious however; does the existence of a biosphere impact the chances for certain terrains? Because it should, given so many imply a biosphere. And frankly, we need a way to measure the size of a biosphere, and to change biospheres if these are our options. Because to me? It looks like the best option, defensively speaking that is, is to jack up the temperature as far as the settling species can tolerate without infrastructure support and a hydrosphere as extensive as you can get without limiting maximum population to get as much chance of generating a Jungle terrain as possible.


Oh, and another dominant terrain type; Urban, for those planets at their maximum population without hydrosphere based population limitation.

And with high enough tectonic activity, hopefully mountain jungle terrain. Because that's where the best defense values are.

It will be just one dominant terrain type. Not that realistic but much better than now. One interesting question is what is the dominant terrain type on Earth? At the moment I am leaning toward Temperate Forest, although I could perhaps add some form of mixed terrain type with a single set of values.

I like the idea of Urban becoming the dominant terrain type once the population hits a certain percentage of maximum.

There is no biosphere concept at the moment, although I will probably add indigenous lifeforms that could pose a threat to any colony. The new ground combat system will allow a wide variety of potential non-sentient foes. They would have to be cleared, or at least defended against, to ensure the safety of any colony. Any local wildlife would be adapted to the environment and have appropriate capabilities.