Starter questions

[Vynadan (OP)]

Hi there ;o

In my rather short time of playing Aurora I so far encountered some strange things that confused me quite some. After searching through the forums I couldn't yet find anything fitting so here I go:

The sorium harvesters I'm constructing won't harvest any sorium. I've checked everything in the numerous threads about that, but my problem is that the harvesters won't drop their fuel at Earth. With the conditional orders of

Fuel tanks full
Unload Fuel at Colony and Move to Sorium Gas Giant

my harvesters won't unload. In the event log they first get the order; then execute it and report the succesful execution. However, they stay put at Earth, not moving to Saturn (which has a Sorium) and on checking them they all have 100% of fuel in their tanks. The next increment, they again get the order and execute it (making for a lot of spam in the event log), but still stay put. The ships are classes as 'Tanker' if that matters.
With a large enough (1m) capacity for fuel and no order to refuel at a colony I don't know where my problem lies. (I even tried looking for a manual way to drop fuel on a colony but didn't find any.)

A completly different thing is that I built a Luxury Liner for my civilian sector for roleplaying reasons and once I saw one in action it just took population from Earth to Mars - essentially fulfilling the same role as a colony ship (the liner's order even read transport colonists to Mars). I was surprised to see this and wonder whether it mechanically pays off to use liners instead of colony ships or vice versa if liners, should they only be small colony ships, are even worth the effort?

Again another point is that I was very confused with the missile system and how to design them properly. I haven't found any NPR or vagabond aliens in my current campaign so far (I restarted a couple times, always changing some details XD) and I'd like to ask of opinions about the following designs. Please note that I'm still at a very low tech level. (My engine tech is a little ahead of the rest)

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 34
Speed: 68000 km/s    Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 1.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.9833
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2312%   3k km/s 748%   5k km/s 462.4%   10k km/s 231.2%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   1.4753x Gallicite   Fuel x12.5

Missile Size: 3 MSP  (0.15 HS)     Warhead: 5    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 31
Speed: 42700 km/s    Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 20.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.9083
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1323.7%   3k km/s 434%   5k km/s 264.7%   10k km/s 132.4%
Materials Required:    1.25x Tritanium   3.4833x Gallicite   Fuel x500

Missile Size: 3 MSP  (0.15 HS)     Warhead: 5    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 31
Speed: 52800 km/s    Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 1.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.415
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1636.8%   3k km/s 527%   5k km/s 327.4%   10k km/s 163.7%
Materials Required:    1.25x Tritanium   3.99x Gallicite   Fuel x25

Missile Size: 12 MSP  (0.6 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 13300 km/s    Endurance: 31 minutes   Range: 24.9m km
Cost Per Missile: 16.0367
Second Stage: Penguin Size 3 Ammunition Missile x3
Second Stage Separation Range: 150,000 km
Overall Endurance: 32 minutes   Overall Range: 25.9m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 199.5%   3k km/s 60%   5k km/s 39.9%   10k km/s 19.9%
Materials Required:    3.75x Tritanium   15.9867x Gallicite   Fuel x2500

The Carrier packs three Ammunition Missiles and is intended for PDCs. I'm not sure about this design, because I realised the maximum seperation range is 150k km only after designing it, wasting a lot of space for fuel on the Ammunition Missiles (intended for 1m km). Another thought is about the whole long range thing and in worst case, needing half an hour to reach the target.

I'm using v5.20 on WinXP 32 and closely followed the installation instructions (didn't get any errors so far) and set my OS's language to english for the ./, change.

[Erik L]

I believe, but not sure, that Steve said the "unload/return to gas giant" orders were for NPR AI. Check in the Bug thread for 5.14/5.20.

Those missiles look good. Fast bastards. For the separation range, you can change that. Just remember the value is in 1000s of km.

[Vynadan (OP)]

I've tried setting the seperation range. Got three penguin carriers, each tried out with a different value. For "1000" it was set to "100,000"km; "999" and "1500" to "150,000" km.
After that I assumed 150 would be the max (?)

[Erik L]

I've tried setting the seperation range. Got three penguin carriers, each tried out with a different value. For "1000" it was set to "100,000"km; "999" and "1500" to "150,000" km.
I assumed 150 would be the max after that (?)

I'm pretty certain I've set the separation range higher.
 Not a missile, but a mine.

Code: [Select]

Buoy Size: 30 MSP  (1.5 HS)     Armour: 0
Reactor Endurance: 58.5 months
Active Sensor Strength: 1.05    Resolution: 100    Maximum Range: 1,050,000 km     
Cost Per Buoy: 24.95
Second Stage: "Sling" Light Missile x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 1,000,000 km
Materials Required:    4x Tritanium   11.7x Boronide   5.25x Uridium   2.75x Gallicite

Development Cost for Project: 2495RP

[UnLimiTeD]

Regarding that, try getting an additional tech level in just about anything, preferably fuel, and drop the freed size into range.
20m is not that long for an ASM.
Also, Armor penetration is always a square (pyramid crater), so unless your enemy is quite armored and you want to sandpaper him, WH 4 is probably not worse than 5.
(1, 4, 9, 16...)

[Father Tim]

I believe, but not sure, that Steve said the "unload/return to gas giant" orders were for NPR AI. Check in the Bug thread for 5.14/5.20.

Even if it isn't, the "unload/return" orders are a known bug and on Steve's list of things to fix.  Unfortunately, his first attempt at figuring it out was unsuccessful.

[Vynadan (OP)]

Continual tries still limit me to a max seperation range of 150k km and I dunno why D: I neither can go above this limit if i design buoys or drones.

In the research tab, I've looked for torpedoes or torpedoe beams. Yet I only found Particle Beams which aren't the same, are they? I've read about the torpedoes on the wiki (when it was still available) and on forum posts - Are they a tech only aquired through exploitation or am I missing something?

On an unrelated note, I've found but one system with active Precursor ships (who promptly wooped my arse), but I've found lots and lots of wrecks of their ships scattered around almost every system I've entered so far. I'm now happily scrapping a lot of 20k tonnage wrecks and exploiting three ruins, but with my settings there shouldn't be any NPR or Invaders around - Makes me wonder how all those wrecks turned up.

Regards,
Vyn

[martinuzz]

As far as I know, you cannot change the separation range on a missile thats already designed and researched.
You will have to research a new missile with the new separation range for that.

[Hawkeye]

Continual tries still limit me to a max seperation range of 150k km and I dunno why D: I neither can go above this limit if i design buoys or drones.

As martinuzz said, you have to design a new missile with a different seperation range, as the seperation range is hardcoded into the missile during the design stage

In the research tab, I've looked for torpedoes or torpedoe beams. Yet I only found Particle Beams which aren't the same, are they? I've read about the torpedoes on the wiki (when it was still available) and on forum posts - Are they a tech only aquired through exploitation or am I missing something?

Plasma torpedos (I am assuming you are looking for those) are a unique Invader weapon and can only be researched once you reverse engineere the basic level of them (i.e. you have to either capture some invader ships or salvage a bunch of their wrecks and deconstruct the captured torpedoes)

On an unrelated note, I've found but one system with active Precursor ships (who promptly wooped my arse), but I've found lots and lots of wrecks of their ships scattered around almost every system I've entered so far. I'm now happily scrapping a lot of 20k tonnage wrecks and exploiting three ruins, but with my settings there shouldn't be any NPR or Invaders around - Makes me wonder how all those wrecks turned up.

Regards,
Vyn

Can´t help you there

[Vynadan (OP)]

I designed new missiles, essentially copying everything but the seperation range, from the carrier missiles and researching them anew. I now have 6 different types of them to pick from I must overlook something somewhere.

[UnLimiTeD]

You can mark tech as outdated on the components screen when building ships.
The old "Particle Torpedoes" are now just called Particle Beams, likely for the Invader torpedoes not having the same name.

The wrecks could just be spawned, sometimes happens just as precursors.
Can't think of anything else to kill them, Swarm would use them up.

[Vynadan (OP)]

A curious thing: You can enter negative values for missile parameters. With a high enough engine technology this allows me to create ASMs with a high enough hit chance that I can sacrifice negative agility in favour of sensors, warheads, ECM, etc. I doubt this is intended, but it's not an issue unless you significiantly research down the engine tree.

Especially against larger targets (since only NPR gunboats come close to or exceed 10km/s as far as I have encountered them) this can come in quite handy for a missile based doctrine.

Has anyone else tried this so far? I only designed the missiles, never fired them. Could this produce errors? Gotta try out these warhead heavy fighter ASMs now 

[sloanjh]

A curious thing: You can enter negative values for missile parameters.

This is an bug/exploit - the values are how much of the missile's mass should be devoted to the corresponding system.  You should put it into the category of "cheating at solitaire". :-)

John

[Vynadan (OP)]

Oooooor I could try to technobabble it down to folding space or something ... XD

[Vanigo]

Wouldn't a negative-size sensor make more sense than negative agility? In terms of making a better cheat-missile, I mean; not making more logical sense.