Aurora 4x
C# Fiction => Steve's Fiction => Escape from Earth => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on June 06, 2020, 11:21:25 AM
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Please post any comments in this thread
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So, I read the setup and it's relly brutal XD.
Will you actually bother with converting everything to TN tech, or not?
I imagine not, as you need to start building infrastructure as soon as possible...
At what rate can you build infra? Do you have some stockpiles of duranium even?
Then again, if you don't have enough stockpiles, I guess you are forced to convert anyway, to get mines which can net you more duranium...
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So, I read the setup and it's relly brutal XD.
Will you actually bother with converting everything to TN tech, or not?
I imagine not, as you need to start building infrastructure as soon as possible...
At what rate can you build infra? Do you have some stockpiles of duranium even?
Then again, if you don't have enough stockpiles, I guess you are forced to convert anyway, to get mines which can net you more duranium...
I think I am going to avoid infrastructure in the short term and accept the casualties. Dust settles at 250 per year so the temperature will start to recover at 2.5C per year. I think converting factories now will save more lives in the long run than building limited amounts of infrastructure. Eventually, I will wish I had the dust back :)
I suspect the 25% research rate is going to damage me more in the long-term. I certainly can't afford to be spending time on weapons and there are 3 NPRs and all spoilers out there. This could easily be a losing campaign, but I'll see what happens :)
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I think I am going to avoid infrastructure in the short term and accept the casualties. Dust settles at 250 per year so the temperature will start to recover at 2.5C per year. I think converting factories now will save more lives in the long run than building limited amounts of infrastructure. Eventually, I will wish I had the dust back :)
I suspect the 25% research rate is going to damage me more in the long-term. I certainly can't afford to be spending time on weapons and there are 3 NPRs and all spoilers out there. This could easily be a losing campaign, but I'll see what happens :)
Obligatory link ;D
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Losing)
I derped pretty hard, forgetting that dust would settle relatively fast. I guess you'll be converting only into factories and mines at least for the first few years.
What is your plan for evacuation? Try to explore nearby systems in hope of finding low colony cost worlds? Use infrastructure/orbital habitats and move the population to mars or similar? A mix of the two seems best, but I question what use nearby systems would be. I mean, you have very little time, and at low tech your ships will be very slow. You might find a low cost world, but say it's 5 billions km away... the travel time would be significant, so maybe it would be best to plan to colonize a planet in the solar system.
Mars seems the best best as the moon will too go boom very soon...
Terraforming does not really seem feasible in such a short timeframe and with only 25% research.
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I plan to explore and hope to find something relatively close. Otherwise Mars or even Mercury are the immediate options. One thing I hadn't considered is unrest due to overcrowding. Earth is now colony cost 0.7 so needs infrastructure. Ten days in and political stability is already 98.6% :)
I guess I need to build some cheap security troops very quickly.
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something highly non-newtonian has happened to terra's orbit. cambridge, you got some splainin' to do.
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That sounds like a fun campaign, so don't take this the wrong way. I just have to point out that no impact can cause an object in orbit to spiral in to its doom. An impact could certainly change the orbit from one ellipse to another, but making an object take a spiral path requires a continuous thrust on the object rather than a single impulse.
Perhaps the "asteroid" was actually a disguise for a giant reactionless drive that is now embedded in Earth's crust, slowly pushing the Earth to its doom. On the other hand, anything that kicked up that much dust in an impact should have been completely vaporized. On the gripping hand, trans-newtonian tech.
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Is there a way to add dust to a planet or did you fire a bunch of missiles at earth as part of setup?
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He is the dev, so could do it from within the code ;)
I'm interested by a few details here, as I'm faced with related questions in a RPG campaign I'm writing (a true, pen&paper campaign), with Aurora has the planned assistant for the global situation.
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What is the formula used for dust settling up? It seems 'nuclear winter' recovery is a fast process, from what I read (I mean, certainly not fast for the people dying from cold, but in a generation, dust has settled much I think)
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Temperature drop. How it works, compared to dust generation, I don't think it was published in the C# mechanics.
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Is there a way to add dust to a planet or did you fire a bunch of missiles at earth as part of setup?
You can modify dust and radiation in 1.12. They are new fields on the Modify Body window.
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That sounds like a fun campaign, so don't take this the wrong way. I just have to point out that no impact can cause an object in orbit to spiral in to its doom. An impact could certainly change the orbit from one ellipse to another, but making an object take a spiral path requires a continuous thrust on the object rather than a single impulse.
Perhaps the "asteroid" was actually a disguise for a giant reactionless drive that is now embedded in Earth's crust, slowly pushing the Earth to its doom. On the other hand, anything that kicked up that much dust in an impact should have been completely vaporized. On the gripping hand, trans-newtonian tech.
Yes, I know. In this case I am going for Hollywood instead of realism :)
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He is the dev, so could do it from within the code ;)
I'm interested by a few details here, as I'm faced with related questions in a RPG campaign I'm writing (a true, pen&paper campaign), with Aurora has the planned assistant for the global situation.
-- 1 --
What is the formula used for dust settling up? It seems 'nuclear winter' recovery is a fast process, from what I read (I mean, certainly not fast for the people dying from cold, but in a generation, dust has settled much I think)
-- 2 --
Temperature drop. How it works, compared to dust generation, I don't think it was published in the C# mechanics.
Dust falls by 250 a year, so in this case it will take 16 years for it to settle. Radiation falls by 100 per year.
Temperature is reduced by 1 degree for every 100 dust. 4000 dust (-40C) was the maximum I could do without the oceans freezing, at which point Albedo changes and the temperature drops a further 30+ degrees. At -60C, more than half the population would die per year.
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Actually Steve, what about civilians?
With the whole: "we're doomed, and we have an emergency world government that can do anything it wants" situation, they don't really make much sense here.
"Yeah, we're not going to ferry your installations unless you pay us" doesn't really make sense. Nor it makes sense for civilians to be allowed to mine TN materials and sell them to the civilian markets. Not with this situation.
Will you turn them off? Roleplay them as being state subsidized? Or... as them being criminal operations? I'm very curious about this ;D
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How does Luna work in this situation? Does it spiral in with Earth or does it become detached?
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How does Luna work in this situation? Does it spiral in with Earth or does it become detached?
Luna continues to orbit Earth.
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I am enoying this very much 8)
I think you're going to have to choose quickly.
Either choose to invest in researching and then building grav survey ships, in hope of finding something good very close by, OR terraforming. Either of them is not cheap to research.
Terraforming I think would take... too much time. You'd need to build a lot of huge orbital stations, in order to have an enormous amount of terraforming modules. Else it would be too slow, and I really don't think you could build terraforming ships. At any rate, if you want to go down the terraforming path, you need to do so very soon and decisively, in my opinion
The fact that you still have to convert a part of your industry does not help there.
I'm really loking forward to see what happens ;D
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This looks to be a fun and challenging scenario, can't wait to see what happens. :)
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The physicist in me can't let this go uncommented . . spiralling into the sun is physically impossible, it would require a constant force upon Earth. A single impact would "only" send it on an elliptical orbit. The geek in me reading Steve's stories since forever is telling the physicist to shut up and enjoy ;D
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The physicist in me can't let this go uncommented . . spiralling into the sun is physically impossible, it would require a constant force upon Earth. A single impact would "only" send it on an elliptical orbit. The geek in me reading Steve's stories since forever is telling the physicist to shut up and enjoy ;D
Yes, I know. However, Death Spiral Fun > Elliptical Orbit Fun :)
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There is a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation: Improper and unsafe TN mineral mining left a trail of raw material trailing behind Earth and the 'impact' was it finally snagging on the Sun. The Sun rotates faster than Earth orbits, so every rotation wraps it a little tighter, pulling the Earth that much closer to its doom.
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There is a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation: Improper and unsafe TN mineral mining left a trail of raw material trailing behind Earth and the 'impact' was it finally snagging on the Sun. The Sun rotates faster than Earth orbits, so every rotation wraps it a little tighter, pulling the Earth that much closer to its doom.
That sounds like an improperly configured mass driver.
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I wonder what will happen with orbital shipyards and orbiting ships when the Earth will reach the Sun? It could be possible to build cryogenic stations using construction factories to store humans before they can be transported to safe location with tugs.
But it seems that there is very little Mercassium in Sol, so it may not be viable.
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I wonder what will happen with orbital shipyards and orbiting ships when the Earth will reach the Sun? It could be possible to build cryogenic stations using construction factories to store humans before they can be transported to safe location with tugs.
But it seems that there is very little Mercassium in Sol, so it may not be viable.
I would assume Steve would destroy anything remaining in orbit, to simulate them being destroyed. But I'm sure he will move them all to mars well before it comes to that.
The cryogenic stations are an interesting idea that I had not considered. Not sure if feasible, but aside from the cost in mercassium it would be a really cool "emergency solution". Freeze everyone up, we will settle them somewhere once we can!
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I wonder what will happen with orbital shipyards and orbiting ships when the Earth will reach the Sun? It could be possible to build cryogenic stations using construction factories to store humans before they can be transported to safe location with tugs.
But it seems that there is very little Mercassium in Sol, so it may not be viable.
I would assume Steve would destroy anything remaining in orbit, to simulate them being destroyed. But I'm sure he will move them all to mars well before it comes to that.
The cryogenic stations are an interesting idea that I had not considered. Not sure if feasible, but aside from the cost in mercassium it would be a really cool "emergency solution". Freeze everyone up, we will settle them somewhere once we can!
I guess Mars can't support enough population anyway, so building some big orbital habitats in orbit of Mars might not be a terrible idea.
Looking forward to seeing how this pans out, it's a very exiting scenario. Might have to try one of these myself :D
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If Steve goes with orbital habitats then he can go for Venus or Mercury as those will be closer than Mars. :D
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He could also dump a bunch of installations there to save fuel by moving them on later when more efficient engines are available. Interesting scenario with how to balance out all the limitations you have to work within. Miss just one and it can be total disaster ;D
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Is the distance of earth you give RP, or do you actually change the orbital distance in the DB?
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Is the distance of earth you give RP, or do you actually change the orbital distance in the DB?
This is a new feature in 1.12.0
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Are Commanders tied to a certain location if they don't have a job?
If they do, most of them will be sitting on Earth when it falls apart, so you'll want to move them and I just had a quick look and I can't see a way to do that.
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Are Commanders tied to a certain location if they don't have a job?
If they do, most of them will be sitting on Earth when it falls apart, so you'll want to move them and I just had a quick look and I can't see a way to do that.
This is actually a super valid point!
I may be 100% wrong here but I always didn't understand why when you lose your homeworld by conquest or in this case because destroyed you still have access to the whole pool of crewmen and officers. It makes no sense, they should be killed or captured along with all the bonus due to interrogation etc.
Or it actually works differently?
This could finally give the pick up commander command more value than the RP one.
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I would have not expected that pumping Frigisium would be so effective in stopping the temperature increase on Earth. For now at least!
How do you plan to try to save the remaining population on Earth? Terraform one of the planes you found?
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Are you shipping people constantly or is fuel or available space on Mars holding you back?
You can lift 2 million people with the government ships alone.
And just remember to think positively, the maximum distance between Earth and Mars is shrinking! ;D
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I would have not expected that pumping Frigisium would be so effective in stopping the temperature increase on Earth. For now at least!
How do you plan to try to save the remaining population on Earth? Terraform one of the planes you found?
I was surprised too, but I checked the math several times. Although its not uncommon to bring one of the Jovian moons into the habitable range using greenhouse gas and they start at -161C. The temperature reduction on Earth is far less than that.
The anti-greenhouse gas is slightly less effective than greenhouse gas as well, as the pressure of any gas increases the greenhouse effect.
And yes, I plan to start terraforming in the nearby systems or perhaps terraform Io as it is much nearer.
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Why the "Saturn class Fuel Harvester Station" don't have a Refueling Hub but use a Refueling System?
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Why the "Saturn class Fuel Harvester Station" don't have a Refueling Hub but use a Refueling System?
Refuelling Hub has size of 100000 tons, Refueling System has size of 500 tons. It is waste to use it for common fuel harvester, especially when you need them fast. Normal tankers can transfer fuel from them to the location that serves as Fuel Hub.
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The anti-greenhouse gas is slightly less effective than greenhouse gas as well, as the pressure of any gas increases the greenhouse effect.
Would it be more efficient to remove nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere instead of adding more Frigisium? Maybe not right now, but at some point reducing the greenhouse effect by decreasing the atmosphere will be better than putting the same amount of Frigisium into the atmosphere.
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The anti-greenhouse gas is slightly less effective than greenhouse gas as well, as the pressure of any gas increases the greenhouse effect.
Would it be more efficient to remove nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere instead of adding more Frigisium? Maybe not right now, but at some point reducing the greenhouse effect by decreasing the atmosphere will be better than putting the same amount of Frigisium into the atmosphere.
Nitrogen isn't a greenhouse gas so only 10% of the atm contributes to the greenhouse effect. Adding Frigusium is about 9x more effective than removing nitrogen in terms of cooling the planet.
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The lack of significant mineral deposits is... concerning.
I wish we had an option at startup to change the mineral generation chance and/or amount.
I was taken aback by how many systems you surveyed. Then I remembered you're not running on reduced survey speed like I do. It has become a favorite of mine to be honest ;D
You're not usually one to start with conventional tech. As you said, in this game you don't have any weapon tech researched from the start. After you build those carriers, where do you plan to develop? More beam warships or will you move to missiles?
Considering the penalty to research you started with, I guess you'll have to specialize a bit?
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I highly approve of the Eagle Transporter icon 8)
Perhaps the campaign start date should have been 13th Sept 1999 ;)
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The lack of significant mineral deposits is... concerning.
I wish we had an option at startup to change the mineral generation chance and/or amount.
I was taken aback by how many systems you surveyed. Then I remembered you're not running on reduced survey speed like I do. It has become a favorite of mine to be honest ;D
You're not usually one to start with conventional tech. As you said, in this game you don't have any weapon tech researched from the start. After you build those carriers, where do you plan to develop? More beam warships or will you move to missiles?
Considering the penalty to research you started with, I guess you'll have to specialize a bit?
Yes, I think next time I might go reduced research and reduced survey. The reduced research makes decisions on what to research far more meaningful and each new tech feels like an achievement.
I plan to use a 10cm railgun for energy point defence and probably for an energy-armed fighter, then I will start with lasers. Can't afford to go for gauss or particle lances in this situation, at least not yet. I will also start with some basic missile tech as well. I've never been 23 years into a campaign without any weapons or offensive ground forces :)
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I highly approve of the Eagle Transporter icon 8)
Perhaps the campaign start date should have been 13th Sept 1999 ;)
It seemed appropriate for the scenario :)
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Yes, I think next time I might go reduced research and reduced survey. The reduced research makes decisions on what to research far more meaningful and each new tech feels like an achievement.
I plan to use a 10cm railgun for energy point defence and probably for an energy-armed fighter, then I will start with lasers. Can't afford to go for gauss or particle lances in this situation, at least not yet. I will also start with some basic missile tech as well. I've never been 23 years into a campaign without any weapons or offensive ground forces :)
I might even say, I think that reduced research speed and reduced survey speed (and maybe even reduced terraforming speed) are the way the game should mostly be played right now. It was different in vb aurora, because there games tended to slow down pretty quickly, and even have death by slowdowns.
But here, with the turn speed we have.... At 100% speed you tend to reach high tech levels and huge numbers of system explored VERY quickly. In just a few hours, comparately speaking, you'll reach the tech levels you might have reached at the end of a campaign in vb aurora. It really feels too quick. 10 years in game, and you researched 3-4 different engine techs...
Being 23 years in and not having a real military is very entertaining, as far as I'm concerned. Once again, same reasoning. At 100% speed it feels warships just magically pop into existance. Here, have these 4 new weapons tech. Not enough? Have another four.
At reduced speed it's a struggle instead ;D
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What would be for you a decent reduction in research and survey that makes the game much slower but not like 'marathon speed' of a Civ game? 20%
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What would be for you a decent reduction in research and survey that makes the game much slower but not like 'marathon speed' of a Civ game? 20%
My current game is 25% research and survey.
I find this research rate satisfying, but I could still stand to slow down the surveying. Next time I will probably have 10% survey.
This is partly a playstyle preference. I very much enjoy the challenge of exploring and expanding efficiently, more than I enjoy the challenge of defeating an alien empire.
If you prefer action, and don't enjoy being constrained on your options for expansion, you may prefer higher survey speed.
But research 25% or lower really does make each tech advancement meaningful very early in the game.
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I personally play 15% research, 10% exploration now. With all spoilers active and very unfavorable NPR settings, it really makes for a challenge.
It might be too much if you don't want "marathon speed". I'd say 25% research should be good for you then.
I definitely recommend 10% exploration, it really changed how I play my game. It's so much more entertaining, space feels vast. I might even try 5% next time...
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...very unfavorable NPR settings...
Would you mind specifying the settings you use? I might try your setup for my next empire.
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...very unfavorable NPR settings...
Would you mind specifying the settings you use? I might try your setup for my next empire.
I will start by saying that unfortunately it's been a few busy and unfun months, so I have not had time to play nearly as much as I would have liked. Because of that (and the research rates/survey rates I use) I have still not been in any major war yet. I preface this to make clear I don't know if these settings would result in a fun game long-term XD
I like to simulate a very "full and old" galaxy, and a dangerous one. Keep in mind, a lot of it it's RP, I'll explain what I mean by this later on.
So, let's start with the race.
Mine is a semi-conventional start. By this I mean that I start conventional, then SM-research trans newtonian tech AND SM change the conventional factories to TN factories/minets/etc. This way I do not have to slog through the conversion, while still starting with literally zero tech besides TN. And only 8 research labs and 2 shipyards.
Now, for the galaxy, to start with I activate all spoilers. Then I set research rate to 15% and exploration to 10%. This ensures that exploration and research are slow, and that spoilers remain relevant for a longer period of time. (Well, the invaders always are. You might want to deactivate them, if you don't like that. I don't mind losing a game so I leave them on)
Now come the part of the NPR. I want a "full" galaxy. I also generally want a galaxy where the race I play is last to the stars. The young upstarts, so to speak, or the few survivors of a disaster. Unfortunately in Aurora you cannot easily say: "the NPRs will have the first two tech levels in everything researched" or "the NPR will start with 3 systems controlled" or similar.
So the only solution I have is increase the difficulty. I roleplay it as the other races being advanced but "decadent". But once they do find potential enemies, they start to properly use their pregressed knoledge etc.
The settings I chose this last game were just one starting NPR (as I'm still a bit wary of performance) but 130% difficulty and NPR generation chance by player and by other NPR set to 66%. NPRs will also activate ancient races.
Basically, two thirds of suitable planets will be inhabited by NPRs, and it does not matter whether I'm the one discovering them or an NPR is. This should ensure that the galaxy will be "full" and dangerous, and that there will be very few unoccupied high value planets.
Incidentally, if you remember my posts in that thread about the fuel usage/retrofit of commercial vessels/importance of gas giants etc. These settings are the reason why I treat fuel as valuable. Unless I luck out in the very first few systems I explore... I am afraid of exploring TOO much.
While knowledge is important, activating a strong enemy early on can be instant death. So I explore within a certain "range" from my systems. The galaxy is a dangerous place. No reason to immediately risk activating a strong enemy while exploring systems that with my current engine tech are too far away to meaningfully exploit. This is also the reason why I make dual-task survey ships, I don't need infinite survey capabilities. It's much better to be flexible imo.
Once I can decently defend myself, I will start increasing my rate of exploration and go further away.
I understand it's a very... particular way that I play. It is likely not for everyone. But I have fun with this, and I think it explains why I may put value in choices that would seem un-optimal in a standard settings game.
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Hey Steve, why are the crew sizes for the Cobras around 21-23 per fighter? With a deployment time of around a week, I would expect it to drop to 2-3 crew
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Nice AAR, really!
Two remarks though:
1 - Terraforming happens to fast
2 - It seems the Colonial Alliance is betraying its mandate. I'm shocked that Earth evacuation is not given absolute priority on the pretext 'humanity is saved'. Do you want 2 billions people roast in hell really? ;D
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Nice AAR, really!
Two remarks though:
1 - Terraforming happens to fast
2 - It seems the Colonial Alliance is betraying its mandate. I'm shocked that Earth evacuation is not given absolute priority on the pretext 'humanity is saved'. Do you want 2 billions people roast in hell really? ;D
Terraforming is a lot slower in general than in VB6, but it can be done relatively quickly if you find a small world with high enough gravity. In this case, the moon was 2800 km, which makes terraforming 20x faster than an Earth-sized world (about 5x faster than VB6). Also, I had 46 terraforming installations on the surface and 96 terraforming modules in orbit. Finally, no matter how much effort you throw at a world, it can't be done in less than 5 years if you need to add 20% water.
The change in focus is necessary if I want to maintain a functioning economy. Once that problem is fixed, I can switch back to the faster evacuation. Also, I need the space because I can't fit everyone on Mars, Io and Mercury.
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I put it in the suggestions thread but thought I'd ask here too, have you considered an option to reduce or remove population growth on system bodies effected by a disaster? It seems annoying to have to play catch up to population growth when evacuating a doomed world.
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What about and exodus plan with space stations full of colonist/infrastructure to be tugged out of Orbit and just moved later on?
I dont see the civs being able to handle all traffic as your colonies grow wider in the galaxy and also you may want them to be focused in moving important factories.
You could just set all colonies to stable forcing them to build more freighters thanks to the logistic contracts.