Aurora Thoughts

[SteveAlt (OP)]

I have been thinking long and hard about where I want to go with Aurora and the uses to which I might put the game once v4.0 is out and any bugs are fixed. Obviously I will continue to add functionality and I have a LONG list of player suggestions and my own ideas which will appear over the coming months. However, I am thinking in more general terms. It would be great if I could find a way to generate some income from the game so I could devote more time to it but I want the software to be freely available so I am not considering charging for it, mainly because I have always enjoyed the community aspect of both SA and Aurora and partly because I would feel obligated to provide a certain level of support if Aurora was commercial and that would take away some of the fun.

One option I have considered was to create a good quality manual as briefly discussed in another thread. In that case I would charge for the manual but the software would remain free and players could use the software without having to buy a manual. It would be an option for those who wanted a less steep learning curve. However, I know myself well enough to realise that adding functionality is a lot more fun than writing manuals so it would take a long time and the market for such a manual would be fairly small. Aurora is not exactly a mass-market game. The best option in terms of a manual is probably as suggested by Erik that players get together and create a tutorial or wiki page that is freely available.

In the end I have decided to pursue another course. The reason for Aurora was to allow me (and others) to write fiction. Although I have written up a number of test campaigns and I will continue to do so, what I really want to do is create a stand alone book that would be readable by someone who didn't even play the game. I considered a novel but after some self-analysis I realised that what I like to do is write detailed fictional histories. Sort of a fictional non-fiction book if that makes sense. It would be along the lines of The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett rather than something like Red Storm Rising (although the latter was a great book, I'm not Tom Clancy ). In this case I would play the campaign, write it up myself as I went along then go back and revisit everything so it made a more coherent whole. The book would include maps, chapters on the politics of the nations involved, "historical" events, ship design and weapon design for those who did play the game, and it would have a definite story line and conclusion, unlike the open-ended Rigellian Diary or current Commonwealth campaign. There could be more than one book in the series but each book would stand-alone in terms of the "historical" period it covered. I have no idea what I might charge for this book or even if I would self-publish or try and get published by someone else but I have reached the decision that I am going to (try to) write it.

To accomplish this goal, at some point after v4.1 I will be setting up a huge Aurora game featuring all the nations that might get involved if something like TN physics was a reality. In this case, I will probably have to play 30+ nations and the smaller ones would be NPRs or at least player races with heavy automation involved. The book would be a detailed history of humanity's expansion in space with all the associated politics, conflict and alien encounters. With this in mind, just setting up the starting parameters for each nation is going to be a challenge. Rather than have an EU "race", a South American "race" or America plus allies, I will play the individual countries such as France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Canada, etc. but bear in mind the existing political affiliations, so the EU nations might share technology for example.

With that in mind if there are any economists on the list, I would be very interested to hear their opinions on the best figures to use to simulate the comparative national economies. GDP seems better than GNP but I am undecided between a straightforward GDP based on dollar exchange rates or the purchasing power parity (PPP) version. The latter seems to me to be much more realistic in terms of representing a nation's economic potential but I haven't studied economics since sixth-form college 25 years ago so I could be completely wrong. Any advice in this area would be greatly appreciated.

I would also appreciate any comments or suggestions on the type of content that would appeal to people who might read such a book.

Steve

[waresky]

Compliment Steve,my english,u know,are very far from a good to explain u my apreciated posture toward ur "work". I try to read every time u write up some:).
Go ahead ma friend.

[Kurt]

To accomplish this goal, at some point after v4.1 I will be setting up a huge Aurora game featuring all the nations that might get involved if something like TN physics was a reality. In this case, I will probably have to play 30+ nations and the smaller ones would be NPRs or at least player races with heavy automation involved. The book would be a detailed history of humanity's expansion in space with all the associated politics, conflict and alien encounters. With this in mind, just setting up the starting parameters for each nation is going to be a challenge. Rather than have an EU "race", a South American "race" or America plus allies, I will play the individual countries such as France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Canada, etc. but bear in mind the existing political affiliations, so the EU nations might share technology for example.

Steve

Sounds interesting, and good luck with this, Steve.  I can say, from personal experience, that this is going to be a massive undertaking.  Currently, the Six Powers campaign has five human and three alien races, and this is right at the limit of what I can handle.  I understand that later versions of Aurora will have more automation, but this will still be a huge undertaking.  

Kurt

[Charlie Beeler]

I'm intrigued by this approach.  The scale your talking about is something I tried with v3.2 and found that my limited knowledge and time were not up to the task.  

For game purposes I used some general GDP, GNP, and PPP figures that I found on WIKI and have no idea if they are truely valid or not...I'm no ecomomist either.  I also used so general numbers related to active and reserve ground forces, armor, aircraft as well as warships.  The main issue I had was trying to rate the various forces and then create meaningful starting forces for the game.  Also there are general listing of the possible count of nuclear weapons which I used as a fudge factor for starting ICBM bases.  

All of that really isn't relevent to what your asking, at least I don't think it is.

From the POV of game play the scale is almost unplayable for me.  As the master controller of a universe to base fictional writing it should be a very functional tool...as it grows.  

The style of writing I think your aiming at is starting to find an audience.  If you haven't already check into John Ringo's "The Last Centurion".  It's not one of his best sellers, but I think the writing format is similiar to what your talking about.  Though probably more first person than your aim.  It's going to be very niche which will make finding a publisher willing to pick it up will be more problematic than other formats.  

I'm certainly interested in the changes forthcoming for Aurora to support your universe.

[Laurence]

Something I've done is to use the GDP, Pop and other information out on the internet (mostly Wikipedia) to make a spreadsheet.  I've then had the game generate a low-tech planet with the Earth's population to get the amount of conventional industry and starting wealth.  Then I deleted that game.

Using that information I divided the industry among the nations based on the GDP and other data I'd collected.  Then I built the alliances into player races using the totals and edited the starting industry and other items to match (relatively) the current situation.  Usually when grouping nations I went with what made sense to me, like the EU nations as one group (plus Switzerland), the US with Japan, Israel and Australia, China and Russia by themselves, Africa as one, South America as another, the Islamic nations, and the UN consisting of the rest, led by India.

The ICBM bases were pretty easy to lay out, with each having 10 missiles you can pretty much add as many as you need to equal the current nuclear stockpiles around the world.

[SteveAlt (OP)]

To accomplish this goal, at some point after v4.1 I will be setting up a huge Aurora game featuring all the nations that might get involved if something like TN physics was a reality. In this case, I will probably have to play 30+ nations and the smaller ones would be NPRs or at least player races with heavy automation involved. The book would be a detailed history of humanity's expansion in space with all the associated politics, conflict and alien encounters. With this in mind, just setting up the starting parameters for each nation is going to be a challenge. Rather than have an EU "race", a South American "race" or America plus allies, I will play the individual countries such as France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Canada, etc. but bear in mind the existing political affiliations, so the EU nations might share technology for example.

Sounds interesting, and good luck with this, Steve.  I can say, from personal experience, that this is going to be a massive undertaking.  Currently, the Six Powers campaign has five human and three alien races, and this is right at the limit of what I can handle.  I understand that later versions of Aurora will have more automation, but this will still be a huge undertaking.  

Some of the smaller nations would have populations in the 20m range so they would require very little effort. I am also considering some new functionality (for v4.1) to reflect what I think might happen, which is that nations might advertise for colonists from other countries. So if Australia for example founded a colony and needed more colonists, they could allow colonists from nations that perhaps had no space program of their own. I am not sure on the mechanics yet but it could involve some type of wealth payment per colonist, which in turn would stimulate civilian shipping lines to deliver those colonists. In that way Australia could potentially end up as a major power in future years depending on the success of the colonization program. This would be similar to the colonization of North America. Obviously this would only be possible for nations of the same species. There would be a way of preventing your own citizens leaving for someone else's colony but the associated penalty would likely be no, or very limited, external trade. This whole concept is still entirely in my head though.

Steve

[ShadoCat]

Steve,

I'm an economist by training but not by practice.  My area is commercial funding.

I'm afraid that I don't spend enough time paying attention to with world scene to know the current GNPs, etc. of the nations.  Though I could probably google it as fast as anyone.

Where I might help is in the brainstorming of how the economies and the business world will react to different changes.  

I can also help with figuring out how the mass populations and political entities will react to changes but there are likely others on this list who are more qualified in this area.

[ShadoCat]

Steve,

Another thought on turning this into a money making venture....

If you can work this into a multi player web server app, you can charge a membership fee for the web server (or have an ad supported web server).  Note that in this scenario, playing it on a local DB would still be free.  

My preference would be for an ad supported server that would take longer before showing a profit but it would make the game more accessible.

This would also give you a venue from which to sell your other products (books and, maybe, Aurora coffee mugs or t-shirts).

[rmcrowe]

On the question of finding a publisher, you might try the same one that published "the Last Centurion", to wit: Baen.  they seem much more flexible than most traditional publishers.  Access at baen.com, and I believe Toni Weiskopf is the who you need to "talk" to.

robert

[Erik L]

There is also the outfit I use for Astra Imperia, Lulu.com. No upfront costs, they publish anything and you get 80% of the post-printing costs. Buy an ISBN for $99 US, and it will show up in amazon.com and the like.

On a side note, I recently purchased an ISBN for Astra Imperia, so by this summer in addition to buying a PDF from my site, or hard copy from Lulu, you should be able to find it on Amazon.com and through special orders from a local brick & mortar outlet.

[Charlie Beeler]

On the question of finding a publisher, you might try the same one that published "the Last Centurion", to wit: Baen.  they seem much more flexible than most traditional publishers.  Access at baen.com, and I believe Toni Weiskopf is the who you need to "talk" to.

robert

IIRC Baen's 'slush pile' is in the Bar (Baen's forum) these days.  Complete with guidelines and a seperate section for comments.

[simon]

I tend to interpret open ended stories such as the Rigellian papers as promise rather than loose ends because If you can pull of a campaign on the Rigellian scale and intensity with the techno-strategy blend of Gen Sir Hackette's work, then you should leave strong expansion capacity kind of like Weber's Harrington saga. Why garrote the Fabergé laying goose anyway ?  If possible make it international rather than amero-western centric, there is a whole world out there. Hopefully we will see the campaign line branching out under some very talented writers on this forum.
P.s Add that special pinch of madnesss that Napoleon Fuchida and Mushashi had, because the very best were always slightly mad.

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Steve,

I'm an economist by training but not by practice.  My area is commercial funding.

I'm afraid that I don't spend enough time paying attention to with world scene to know the current GNPs, etc. of the nations.  Though I could probably google it as fast as anyone.

Where I might help is in the brainstorming of how the economies and the business world will react to different changes.  

I can also help with figuring out how the mass populations and political entities will react to changes but there are likely others on this list who are more qualified in this area.

I can get the figures for GDP, etc from Wiki or some other sources. The dilemma is whether to use the nominal GDP figures or the PPP figures. Nominal GDP is based on the US dollar equivalent of the national product whereas PPP is based on internal purchasing power for that GDP. In other words and assuming equal tech, while the Chinese nomimal GDP might buy a dozen US destroyers, it might buy 30 equivalent Chinese destroyers because in China they are cheaper to build due to lower manpower and raw material costs. So is the measure of economic power what you could buy from someone else in US dollars, or what you could build internally for the same cost.

For example, using the figures of the International Monetary Fund, the top twelve countries by nominal GDP are:

Code: [Select]

(European Union 16,905,620)
1 United States 13,840,000
2 Japan 4,381,576
3 Germany 3,320,913
4 China (PRC) 3,280,224
5 United Kingdom 2,804,437
6 France 2,593,779
7 Italy 2,104,666
8 Spain 1,439,983
9 Canada 1,436,086
10 Brazil 1,313,590
11 Russia 1,289,535
12 India 1,150,695Using the PPP Method they are as follow:

Code: [Select]

(European Union 14,712,369)
1 United States 13,843,825
2 People's Republic of China 7,034,8381
3 Japan 4,292,198
4 India 2,996,588
5 Germany 2,812,255
6 United Kingdom 2,167,837
7 Russia 2,089,607
8 France 2,067,707
9 Brazil 1,837,149
10 Italy 1,787,897
11    Mexico 1,486,302
12 Spain 1,351,521As you can see, while it doesn't make much difference for the US or the UK, it makes a huge difference for countries like India, Russia or China

Steve

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Steve,

Another thought on turning this into a money making venture....

If you can work this into a multi player web server app, you can charge a membership fee for the web server (or have an ad supported web server).  Note that in this scenario, playing it on a local DB would still be free.  

My preference would be for an ad supported server that would take longer before showing a profit but it would make the game more accessible.

This would also give you a venue from which to sell your other products (books and, maybe, Aurora coffee mugs or t-shirts).

LOL at the T-shirts . I think the fiction would be appealing to a wider audience. They wouldn't have to be able to play the game to read it and reading it might actually bring them into the game.

Steve

[SteveAlt (OP)]

On the question of finding a publisher, you might try the same one that published "the Last Centurion", to wit: Baen.  they seem much more flexible than most traditional publishers.  Access at baen.com, and I believe Toni Weiskopf is the who you need to "talk" to.

Thanks for the tip and the name! I always thought if I ever wrote a sci-fi novel I would approach Baen. When I look on my bookshelves, its amazing how many titles are Baen. They just seem to pick the writers I like.

Steve