Aurora C# Screenshots

[Stardust]

Might you consider adding a way to influence the specialty of scientists graduating from the academies?

Some ideas:

- Have the number of research labs assigned to a specific branch of technology influence the specialists graduating from the academies.

- Add an adjustable starting salary for each branch of technology that encourages budding scientists and affects research expenditures.

- Allow construction of different types of academies or even the ability to design academies as a research project.

[sloanjh]

- Have the number of research labs assigned to a specific branch of technology influence the specialists graduating from the academies.

I like this one - it has a nice nuanced positive feedback effect where a decision to focus on a particular branch of research causes the empire to only be good at doing that kind of research, but to be very good at it.  I'd devote a significant fraction e.g. 50% - 80% to the this current research fraction.

John

PS - If you wanted to do a time average to smooth the data out over the recent past, an easy method is X_t+dt = (dt/DecayTime)*X_current + (1-(dt/DecayTime))*X_t where X is the percentage (or count) for a particular research type.

[bean]

- Have the number of research labs assigned to a specific branch of technology influence the specialists graduating from the academies.

I really like this one.  It makes sense (you're going to have more PhD students where the money is) and it provides nice feedback.  And it gives you some reason to tailor your lab setup to the distribution of fields you want, rather than the distribution of talent you have.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The new missile design window. Very similar in principle to the VB6 version, although I have added a company name option and an instant research option. This design displayed includes a missile engine designed with the new fuel consumption rules and a thermal sensor with the new passive sensor model. As you can see, passive-seeking missiles are going to be far more effective in C# Aurora.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The new Turret Design window. Very similar in function to the VB6 version but with the addition of the company name option and instant research option. Both this window and the missile design window can be accessed via the Create Project Window (as in VB6) and via the main toolbar on the tactical map window.

Note that the changes to turret design, especially with regard to correcting the armour bug, result in this turret being significantly smaller than the VB6 equivalent. For comparison, the same twin turret with armour strength 2 in VB6 is 24.27 HS and 194 BP.

[Detros]

Note that the changes to turret design, especially with regard to correcting the armour bug, result in this turret being significantly smaller than the VB6 equivalent.

Do you mean armour tech level will now be considered for turret armour, together with multiweapon turrets offering higher reductions?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Do you mean armour tech level will now be considered for turret armour, together with multiweapon turrets offering higher reductions?

Armour tech level was considered in VB6 Aurora. However, there was a bug that resulted in 4x more armour being used than was necessary.

Essentially turrets are treated as small ships for armour. So a 500 ton turret and a 500 ton fighter with the same armour level should use the same amount of armour. The difference is in the damage model. Rather than being marked off as damage in the same way as a ship, for a turret the number of weapons * armour level is added to the HTK.

[chrislocke2000]

Armour tech level was considered in VB6 Aurora. However, there was a bug that resulted in 4x more armour being used than was necessary.

Essentially turrets are treated as small ships for armour. So a 500 ton turret and a 500 ton fighter with the same armour level should use the same amount of armour. The difference is in the damage model. Rather than being marked off as damage in the same way as a ship, for a turret the number of weapons * armour level is added to the HTK.

So do you pay for armour twice then for turrets. Ie you have the incremental armour for the tonnage of the turret added to the overall ship tonnage where you calculate the cross section of the ship and number of armour columns needed but which will also include the tonnage dedicated to the actual armour of the turret?

[Detros]

So do you pay for armour twice then for turrets. Ie you have the incremental armour for the tonnage of the turret added to the overall ship tonnage where you calculate the cross section of the ship and number of armour columns needed but which will also include the tonnage dedicated to the actual armour of the turret?

Yes, you need to use more ship armour for armoured turrets because they are bigger. But they will also have more HTK so it is OK. You can even put more layers of armour on them than just one.

Example: you can put more vases into a van if you put only vases in it. But if you pack each vase into a box, they will be a bit bulkier but better protected.

[alex_brunius]

So do you pay for armour twice then for turrets. Ie you have the incremental armour for the tonnage of the turret added to the overall ship tonnage where you calculate the cross section of the ship and number of armour columns needed but which will also include the tonnage dedicated to the actual armour of the turret?

That is how all armor work AFAIK, the tonnage need for each extra layer increase to cover all layers of armor underneath.

And for turrets it's not an issue to increase total armor since the ship armor layer ( counter intuitively ) also protects the turrets.

[Hazard]

It's not that counter intuitive. Turret armour is extra hardening of the turret, armour in Aurora is all ablative anyway.

[alex_brunius]

It's not that counter intuitive. Turret armour is extra hardening of the turret, armour in Aurora is all ablative anyway.

It's counter intuitive that the turrets which are external and outside of any armor belt, citadel or protection on all real warships is put underneath it in Aurora.

It's counter intuitive that the same identical turret design when I put it on my battleship with 15+ armor layers is super hard to knock out while if I put it on my unarmored scout it is super easy to knock out.


I realize that it's a simplification, but I still would love to see some more detail with separate ablative armor boxes for turrets, for outer hull and for inner thicker armored citadel ( I don't care about my crew quarters or fuel storage, but might want the engine, powerplants and ammunition under extra layers of ablative armor ).

[TCD]

I realize that it's a simplification, but I still would love to see some more detail with separate ablative armor boxes for turrets, for outer hull and for inner thicker armored citadel ( I don't care about my crew quarters or fuel storage, but might want the engine, powerplants and ammunition under extra layers of ablative armor ).

I think the extra HTK options are supposed to represent that, perhaps that system could be extended to all components, but at an exponentially increasing cost? I guess I'd want to encourage overall hull armor (to prevent a micro-management nightmare) will giving a little more flexibility for players to armor critical systems.

Tricky to balance though. I'd hate for the game to push me to have to individually armor every component in an unarmored hull, ship design is already pretty complicated.

[Detros]

I think the extra HTK options are supposed to represent that, perhaps that system could be extended to all components, but at an exponentially increasing cost? I guess I'd want to encourage overall hull armor (to prevent a micro-management nightmare) will giving a little more flexibility for players to armor critical systems.

Tricky to balance though. I'd hate for the game to push me to have to individually armor every component in an unarmored hull, ship design is already pretty complicated.

Well, there is going to be that shiparmour = 0 option in next version. And you surely don't _have to_ "armor every component", only some of them could offer that option (power plant, fuel storage, turrets... but not damage control or sensors) and mostly only for military ships.

[TCD]

Well, there is going to be that shiparmour = 0 option in next version. And you surely don't _have to_ "armor every component", only some of them could offer that option (power plant, fuel storage, turrets... but not damage control or sensors) and mostly only for military ships.

I was more meaning that I don't want to have to choose whether to armor or not armor every component. And its hard to justify why should I be able to armor power plants but not the bridge/ECCM/fire control etc.

What I really don't think adds anything is having to try and juggle individual armor allocations for half a dozen or more different systems for maximum efficiency, ie trying to avoid "If a take two layers of hull armor off then I can can add 4 layers of bridge and engine armor, and 3 layers of fire control armor. Or maybe 3 of bridge and 2 of fire control so I can add an extra layer to the missile launchers, etc etc"

But on the flip side I can see how being able to tick a box saying "Make it an armored foo and add 1 HTK" could provide a simple solution for people.