My little questions thread

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

Hi,

Instead of spamming the Academy forum with my many newbie questions, I'll regroup them here 

a) I have assembled a geo team, because the wiki says it can improve mineral accessibility. I left him on Earth. Will he works automatically and sometime improve access? How do I activate him otherwise?

b) If I arrive at orbit of a planet, do I need to wait a bit so to spot a potential alien colony, or can I tour rapidly a system without pause at each orbit to do such task?

c) I would want to stop colonists arrival at Mars but they keep coming, how can I do that? The 25 millions mark is not reached, so the colony can't be checked as source of colonists. I would like to do so, so that the civilian ships focus on others new colonies, but I can't!

[ZimRathbone]

Hi,

Instead of spamming the Academy forum with my many newbie questions, I'll regroup them here  

a) I have assembled a geo team, because the wiki says it can improve mineral accessibility. I left him on Earth. Will he works automatically and sometime improve access? How do I activate him otherwise?

works as soon as you put him on a planet - may take quite a while tho - I've had one team at 150% on a planet in the home system for almost 7 years that hasn't found anything yet.  

b) If I arrive at orbit of a planet, do I need to wait a bit so to spot a potential alien colony, or can I tour rapidly a system without pause at each orbit to do such task?

Seems to work fairly instantly once you go into orbit.  

c) I would want to stop colonists arrival at Mars but they keep coming, how can I do that? The 25 millions mark is not reached, so the colony can't be checked as source of colonists. I would like to do so, so that the civilian ships focus on others new colonies, but I can't!

Theres a Ban button on the System Generation window (F9) for bodies where you have no population - there is no facility to stop adding colonists once you have put some there

[Vanigo]

Seems to work fairly instantly once you go into orbit.

Unless it's a small outpost with a small enough signature that your ship can start a sub-pulse too far away to detect anything, reach the planet, turn around, and get too far away to detect anything. It's not likely to happen with real colonies, but sensor outposts aren't hard to miss this way.

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

thanks everybody... Regarding the geo team, why then Earth summary indicates that there is no geological survey even after several months of presence of a geo team?

d) What is the use of a commercial spaceport? Does it improves commerce? But then, why Earth don't start with some levels?

e) Fleet training: if I move out of a fleet a ship, does its fleet training goes to 0% ?

f) what is grade % for a crew? What is the use of it?

g) !important!   I'm confused by preplaced jump gates... They are shown as a red square, but are they not two-ways? Why I have a red square showing on system A, but on the exit point, system B, the red square is not there ... does it means they are one-way?

[welchbloke]

thanks everybody... Regarding the geo team, why then Earth summary indicates that there is no geological survey even after several months of presence of a geo team?

g) !important!   I'm confused by preplaced jump gates... They are shown as a red square, but are they not two-ways? Why I have a red square showing on system A, but on the exit point, system B, the red square is not there ... does it means they are one-way?

The survey flag will stay like that until the survey is completed.

The red square indicates a jump gate that has been built by another race.  It doesn't have to be a precursor gate.  A gate just opens the JP for transit. To get back you need another gate or a jump drive equipped ship.

[UnLimiTeD]

Don't know about TF training, I think it shouldn't, but Fighters lose part of their training when carriers are switched, I think.
The % grade for Crews increases the hitrate with beamweapons, and I'm not sure, but it might also increase reload rate or something of missiles. Or maybe also hitrate.
Comercial spaceports, as far as I know, work like Cargo Handling on the Planet, they speed up loading of Freighters and the like.
I think they are also required for Civilian trade at a certain point, but I don't know about that.

[On_Target]

Don't know about TF training, I think it shouldn't, but Fighters lose part of their training when carriers are switched, I think.
The % grade for Crews increases the hitrate with beamweapons, and I'm not sure, but it might also increase reload rate or something of missiles. Or maybe also hitrate.
Comercial spaceports, as far as I know, work like Cargo Handling on the Planet, they speed up loading of Freighters and the like.
I think they are also required for Civilian trade at a certain point, but I don't know about that.

I seem to recall missile hit rate being affected by crew grade.

[Steve Walmsley]

thanks everybody... Regarding the geo team, why then Earth summary indicates that there is no geological survey even after several months of presence of a geo team?

The No means the geological survey is not complete. You're not the first to ask the question so I have changed the text to "Geological Team Survey Completed" for v5.30

d) What is the use of a commercial spaceport? Does it improves commerce? But then, why Earth don't start with some levels?

A commercial spaceport reduces loading time. The load time for a spacecraft is divided by the number of commercial spaceports +1. So if you have 1 spaceport, loading time is halved. 2 spaceports reduces loading time by 2/3rds, etc..

e) Fleet training: if I move out of a fleet a ship, does its fleet training goes to 0% ?

No, you won't lose it

f) what is grade % for a crew? What is the use of it?

It affects quite a few things such as chance to hit, chance of maintenance failure, speed of recovery from transit effects, etc.. It also increases the rate of fleet training

g) !important!   I'm confused by preplaced jump gates... They are shown as a red square, but are they not two-ways? Why I have a red square showing on system A, but on the exit point, system B, the red square is not there ... does it means they are one-way?

A red gate indicates that some other race built the gate. That might be an ancient precursor gate or one that an NPR bulit last week. You can only transit a jump point through a gate on your side. So no gate on the other side means no way back without a jump drive.

Steve

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

Thank you so much Steve, seeing you reply made the sun shines  

Seriously, thanks.

About spaceports ... they don't attract more the civilians ships thus? Mmmh, I would have said so, but this is your call.

So about jump gate, they are two sided and I need to build 2 on each jump point? Oh my, I'll stick to Jump drive then!


h) it is said that Administrators should be always put at a colony, this can improve their stat, but then, the easy exploit would be to declare any dead moon as a colony and stick an Admin to it, right? So in the end, this is a non-choice ...

i) I just noticed something. On purpose I obsoleted all civilian designs except the ones with a Jump Engine. For 2 years, the 5 civilians companies did not build any ship. Then I designed 2 new designs without jump engine, and in manner of day they launched some. So ... is it on purpose that civilians only use jump gates and never venture by jump engine?

[Steve Walmsley]

About spaceports ... they don't attract more the civilians ships thus? Mmmh, I would have said so, but this is your call.

No, but they do enable those civilian ships to deliver their cargo much faster and therefore make more runs in the same amount of time, so it does result in more income from civilians over time.

So about jump gate, they are two sided and I need to build 2 on each jump point? Oh my, I'll stick to Jump drive then!

Jump gates are really for civilian traffic, or if you have huge warships such as the carriers in my current game that are too large for jump engines.

h) it is said that Administrators should be always put at a colony, this can improve their stat, but then, the easy exploit would be to declare any dead moon as a colony and stick an Admin to it, right? So in the end, this is a non-choice ...

Administrators will only increase their skills when they are in charge of a colony. Yes you could create a lot of useless colonies to exploit that but Aurora is a game with a lot of potential exploits. You could just go into SM mode for example and give yourself twice as many mines. However, as it is primarily a single-player game you are just exploiting yourself .

i) I just noticed something. On purpose I obsoleted all civilian designs except the ones with a Jump Engine. For 2 years, the 5 civilians companies did not build any ship. Then I designed 2 new designs without jump engine, and in manner of day they launched some. So ... is it on purpose that civilians only use jump gates and never venture by jump engine?

That's correct. Originally I allowed jump-capable civilian ships but they tended to upset NPRs and attract precursors . Jump gates allow you to have some control over where civilian traffic is allowed to venture.

Steve

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

ok thanks


j) Another one, why I'm forced to use Rank2 officer on my FAC? I try setting them to use rank 0 and it switches to rank 2... Can't a captain suffices on a FAC?

[Erik L]

ok thanks


j) Another one, why I'm forced to use Rank2 officer on my FAC? I try setting them to use rank 0 and it switches to rank 2... Can't a captain suffices on a FAC?

Did you click the Set button?

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

duh ... moment of shame    ok, I said nothing!

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

k) Is it possible to use an experienced crew for another ship? Say I have an old geo survey vessel with a highly experienced crew, and I want to equip a shiny new survey cruiser (think Enterprise) with this crew. Refit the old hull into the cruiser being not an option...

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, thats pretty much the only option, so if it is none, no, there is no way to transfer crews.