"Beam" weapons and asteroid mining

[TheCosmicKid (OP)]

Hi, a couple of quick newbie questions:

From what I'm reading in the tutorials and wiki, gauss cannons, railguns, and CIWS are considered "beam" weapons, and don't require magazines; magazines are for missiles only.   Is this right?

Also, is there an easy way to automate asteroid mining, like you can automate surveying?  The prospect of guiding my ships manually through hundreds of those little rocks does not appeal to me.   I wouldn't be playing this game if I weren't a little bit anal, but there are limits!

What's the difference between a search sensor and an active missile control?  All I see in the design screen is that missile control has a much longer range.   Is it more limited somehow?

Does point defense see what kinds of missiles are coming at it and prioritize, or can I spoof it with lots of tiny dummy missiles and couple of big shipkillers mixed in?

There'll be more questions as I think of them, I'm sure, but that's it for now.   Thank you!

[Hawkeye]

Hi, a couple of quick newbie questions:

From what I'm reading in the tutorials and wiki, gauss cannons, railguns, and CIWS are considered "beam" weapons, and don't require magazines; magazines are for missiles only.   Is this right?

Correct

Also, is there an easy way to automate asteroid mining, like you can automate surveying?  The prospect of guiding my ships manually through hundreds of those little rocks does not appeal to me.   I wouldn't be playing this game if I weren't a little bit anal, but there are limits!

Nope, but keep in mind that it will take months, sometimes even a year or more, to stripmine an asteroid. The ones with minerals in the 100s are not worth the effort IMO

What's the difference between a search sensor and an active missile control?  All I see in the design screen is that missile control has a much longer range.   Is it more limited somehow?

Active sensors are your regualar RADAR and is used to see alien ships and, even more important, is used to light up a target Without that, you can´t target it.
The Missile control system is, what guides your missiles in/tells ´em what to hit. Both are needed if you want to engage an enemy with missiles (the active sensor has not to be on the shooting ship, any acrive will do)
For beam weapons, you need the beam fire control system in a similar way to the missile Firecon

More about firecon here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2926.0.html

Does point defense see what kinds of missiles are coming at it and prioritize, or can I spoof it with lots of tiny dummy missiles and couple of big shipkillers mixed in?

It´ll engage the closest missile first. If different size missiles are at the same range, I belive it prioritizes the larger ones, but am not sure on that.

There'll be more questions as I think of them, I'm sure, but that's it for now.   Thank you!

No problem.

[TheCosmicKid (OP)]

Thanks!

So basically my missile fire control won't see anything on its own?


More questions. . .

If a planet doesn't have a hydrosphere, should I bother settling it?

And where did the other six or seven billion humans on Earth go between now and 2025?

[DatAlien]

(I speak about 5.2 but I dont think that has changed)
Hydrospheres dont matter for setteling, the only thing its do is freezing, smelting, vapourating and condensating according to the temperatur, changing the albedo of an planet.


And with the other six billion, I think thats from Steves Campains involving different Earth Nations/Blocks

[UnLimiTeD]

You can freely change the population and a lot of other stuff when creating a new game.

[sloanjh]

You can freely change the population and a lot of other stuff when creating a new game.

That being said, Aurora is "tuned" for starting population sizes of ~1 billion.  Starting with e.g. 10 billion results in 10x production rates, which burns through minerals 10x faster, generates 10x as many events (all those shipyards building all those ships) etc.

John

[UnLimiTeD]

Exactly. Something happening.
I mean, that AAR I had here I didn't play for two months because just nothing friggin happens.