C# Aurora v0.x Questions

[Hazard]

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.

[Steve Walmsley]

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.

[Kelewan]

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?

[Steve Walmsley]

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.

[Kelewan]

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.

[Kytuzian]

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)?

[Hazard]

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.

[TMaekler]

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... 

[alex_brunius]

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 ).

[Steve Walmsley]

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.

[Shuul]

Question on new Intelligence mechanics, will AI use them?

[Steve Walmsley]

Question on new Intelligence mechanics, will AI use them?

Yes, that is the plan, although I haven't coded the AI part yet.

[MasonMac]

Will every ship require a reactor to power life support, sensors etc.? Or is that too annoying.

[DEEPenergy]

Hi Steve.  Will we be able to decipher alien languages solely from monitoring a colony with the ELINT system?

[Steve Walmsley]

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.