Finding alien races

[Charlie Beeler (OP)]

Question for veteran players.  What methodology are you using to find alien populations prior to your exploring race bumping into them?

The only thing I've found to work is to actually be exploring with a race with SM mode off.  The system prompts me for the SM password during system generation and then again if a race is to be generated.  

I thought that using SM Race with SM mode on and then using the jump point explore button in the system generation screens would work.  No luck with NPR Generation Chance set at 90 through about 21 systems.   My intent was to 'pre' explore 2 jumps out from Sol just to see what was there.

[sloanjh]

I always have the events window (ctrl-F9 IIRC) open in "SM" mode.  This will show an "alien population present" event that I have to notice, at which point I go "flesh out" the race.

I too have SM off for my exploring race, so it prompts me when generating a new system.  I don't recall seeing a prompt for race generation - OTOH, I haven't run a game for a few revs so maybe that's a new prompt (i.e. maybe Steve missed the event notification for a race that got auto-generated in one of his campaigns ).

I haven't tried "pre-exploring' through jump points in advance.

John

[Erik L]

SM mode is very useful, especially if you have more than one race. You can use the SM View on the Events window (Ctrl-F3) and select "Use race colors". Very easy to tell at a glance what's happening where.

[Charlie Beeler (OP)]

I have gotten myself in trouble a couple of times by having SM Mode on when entering new systems and not reviewing the events log.  But you both make good points about the usefulness of the log.

Steve,  I'm wondering.  Does the game code only check for planetary populations during the game cycle?  If so, that's probably why what I tried for pre-exploring didn't work.

[SteveAlt]

I have gotten myself in trouble a couple of times by having SM Mode on when entering new systems and not reviewing the events log.  But you both make good points about the usefulness of the log.

Steve,  I'm wondering.  Does the game code only check for planetary populations during the game cycle?  If so, that's probably why what I tried for pre-exploring didn't work.

The program checks for races during system creation. SM mode doesn't make any difference and pre-exploring will work the same as during the game cycle. Alien races are rare in Aurora, mainly because running a race is a lot of work and a campaign can get bogged down with too many races. Once I get more automation into running NPRs and eventually have races that will run themselves entirely, I will probably increase the chances. If you do want more races though, you can increase the NPR Generation Chance on the Game window or create them manually.

If you are in SM mode, you should get events telling you when a ship of one race enters a system containing pops or fleets of another race.

Steve

[Charlie Beeler (OP)]

I have gotten myself in trouble a couple of times by having SM Mode on when entering new systems and not reviewing the events log.  But you both make good points about the usefulness of the log.

Steve,  I'm wondering.  Does the game code only check for planetary populations during the game cycle?  If so, that's probably why what I tried for pre-exploring didn't work.

The program checks for races during system creation. SM mode doesn't make any difference and pre-exploring will work the same as during the game cycle. Alien races are rare in Aurora, mainly because running a race is a lot of work and a campaign can get bogged down with too many races. Once I get more automation into running NPRs and eventually have races that will run themselves entirely, I will probably increase the chances. If you do want more races though, you can increase the NPR Generation Chance on the Game window or create them manually.

If you are in SM mode, you should get events telling you when a ship of one race enters a system containing pops or fleets of another race.

Steve

Hmmm.  I keep at it then.  I did change from the default 30% to 90%.  Maybe there is something being bypassed when using the SM Mode jump point explore button in the system generation screen.

[sloanjh]

If you are in SM mode, you should get events telling you when a ship of one race enters a system containing pops or fleets of another race.

I've found that I don't have to actually be in SM mode while doing the exploration - I just need SM mode when I set the events window to "SM events" (forget the exact name) reporting mode, after which I turn SM mode back off.  Does one get more if actually in SM while entering the system?

[SteveAlt]

If you are in SM mode, you should get events telling you when a ship of one race enters a system containing pops or fleets of another race.

I've found that I don't have to actually be in SM mode while doing the exploration - I just need SM mode when I set the events window to "SM events" (forget the exact name) reporting mode, after which I turn SM mode back off.  Does one get more if actually in SM while entering the system?

Sorry that's what I meant. If you have SM Events selected you get the notification, not just if you are in SM mode.

Steve

[ZimRathbone]

I have gotten myself in trouble a couple of times by having SM Mode on when entering new systems and not reviewing the events log.  But you both make good points about the usefulness of the log.

Steve,  I'm wondering.  Does the game code only check for planetary populations during the game cycle?  If so, that's probably why what I tried for pre-exploring didn't work.

The program checks for races during system creation. SM mode doesn't make any difference and pre-exploring will work the same as during the game cycle. Alien races are rare in Aurora, mainly because running a race is a lot of work and a campaign can get bogged down with too many races. Once I get more automation into running NPRs and eventually have races that will run themselves entirely, I will probably increase the chances. If you do want more races though, you can increase the NPR Generation Chance on the Game window or create them manually.

If you are in SM mode, you should get events telling you when a ship of one race enters a system containing pops or fleets of another race.

Steve

Hmmm.  I keep at it then.  I did change from the default 30% to 90%.  Maybe there is something being bypassed when using the SM Mode jump point explore button in the system generation screen.

Ive noted that the probabilty of race generation seems rather lower than you would expect from the genration percentage in the front screen- in 3.1 I explored 78 systems, with  22 or so habitable planets, and only 1 alien race found (not counting the 4 sets of ruins).   Alien race chance was set to 50% after the 1st 5 Habs found (about 10 years into the game IIRC).

Could be flukey die rolls but...

Mike

[SteveAlt]

Ive noted that the probabilty of race generation seems rather lower than you would expect from the genration percentage in the front screen- in 3.1 I explored 78 systems, with  22 or so habitable planets, and only 1 alien race found (not counting the 4 sets of ruins).   Alien race chance was set to 50% after the 1st 5 Habs found (about 10 years into the game IIRC).

Could be flukey die rolls but...

When you say habs so you mean ideal habitable worlds (0 colony cost)?

Ruins are checked first (20% chance) and if the planet has ruins then it won't have an alien race. That is probably skewing the numbers. I have checked through the code I can't find any problems but I will step it through on the next few system generations and see if I can spot anything weird. What is supposed to happen is the following:

A check is made for ruins if the planet is terrestrial, the gravity is greater than 0.4G and the temperature is between 200 and 360 Kelvin

A check is made for an alien race if the planet is terrestrial and there are no ruins and the oxygen level is between 0.07 and 0.4 atm and there are no dangerous gases and temperature is between 233 and 333 Kelvin and the gravity is between 0.4 and 2.5G.

Steve

[Charlie Beeler (OP)]

Ive noted that the probabilty of race generation seems rather lower than you would expect from the genration percentage in the front screen- in 3.1 I explored 78 systems, with  22 or so habitable planets, and only 1 alien race found (not counting the 4 sets of ruins).   Alien race chance was set to 50% after the 1st 5 Habs found (about 10 years into the game IIRC).

Could be flukey die rolls but...

When you say habs so you mean ideal habitable worlds (0 colony cost)?

Ruins are checked first (20% chance) and if the planet has ruins then it won't have an alien race. That is probably skewing the numbers. I have checked through the code I can't find any problems but I will step it through on the next few system generations and see if I can spot anything weird. What is supposed to happen is the following:

A check is made for ruins if the planet is terrestrial, the gravity is greater than 0.4G and the temperature is between 200 and 360 Kelvin

A check is made for an alien race if the planet is terrestrial and there are no ruins and the oxygen level is between 0.07 and 0.4 atm and there are no dangerous gases and temperature is between 233 and 333 Kelvin and the gravity is between 0.4 and 2.5G.

Steve

I think those parameters explain what I've been seeing.  Most of the planets I that would be potental alien worlds fell outside 1 or more of them.

As an update, I did finally find an alien race with the "pre explore" method I've been using.

Charlie

[Father Tim]

So, does that mean there is no chance of Methane-breathing alien races or do they use the same formula just with 'Methane' in place of 'Oxygen'?

[Sotak246]

Just dropping my experience with alien race creation in the pot.  Right after I installed 3.2 I was testing it out and started several games one after the other.  In the first two, by the time I had expored 12 to 14 systems I had discovered 7 races in one game and 6 in another, it kinda had me worried that the game was going to be over populated for what I like.  I checked and had not changed the creation % any, turns out it was just two flukes in a row, as all my other games seem normal.

Mark

[Steve Walmsley]

So, does that mean there is no chance of Methane-breathing alien races or do they use the same formula just with 'Methane' in place of 'Oxygen'?

At the moment Methane races can only be created using the Create Empire button. I wanted to leave them as a manual option for a while to ensure they were no problems. I suppose one drawback to that approach is that if no one creates them I won't find out about any problems . I may try running one in my current campaign and assuming no problems I'll add them to the system generation.

Steve

[ZimRathbone]

Ive noted that the probabilty of race generation seems rather lower than you would expect from the genration percentage in the front screen- in 3.1 I explored 78 systems, with  22 or so habitable planets, and only 1 alien race found (not counting the 4 sets of ruins).   Alien race chance was set to 50% after the 1st 5 Habs found (about 10 years into the game IIRC).

Could be flukey die rolls but...

When you say habs so you mean ideal habitable worlds (0 colony cost)?

Ruins are checked first (20% chance) and if the planet has ruins then it won't have an alien race. That is probably skewing the numbers. I have checked through the code I can't find any problems but I will step it through on the next few system generations and see if I can spot anything weird. What is supposed to happen is the following:

A check is made for ruins if the planet is terrestrial, the gravity is greater than 0.4G and the temperature is between 200 and 360 Kelvin

A check is made for an alien race if the planet is terrestrial and there are no ruins and the oxygen level is between 0.07 and 0.4 atm and there are no dangerous gases and temperature is between 233 and 333 Kelvin and the gravity is between 0.4 and 2.5G.

Steve

No by Habs I meant Oxy-Nitro worlds - I will check to see of they fell within the other params you mention above.

(once I wake up....BTW hapopy New Year all  <hic>)