Sadly, I am vastly overqualified for my current job but hey, it pays the bills while I keep trying to get into academia. Fingers crossed!

Should I take this to imply that there will be mucking about with ground support fighters at some point in the campaign?

Yes, it will happen. I have never done them before so I definitely want to get some first-hand experience.

---

1957

In January, Soviet scientists manage to create Geological survey sensors that utilize TN-materials, making them five times more effective than previous survey sensors. Vostok-M2 will carry such a sensor and also the more powerful Glushko RD-103 engine to boost its speed to 300 km/s. Its range is thus shortened to mere 4.4 billion kilometres but there is no helping it. Better armour will not become available until 1961 due to poor Soviet competence in that field and Stalin wants the survey program to continue. Earth also runs out of Mercassium. On the American side, the design for the colonist transport shuttle is locked down:

Aphrodite class Shuttle      500 tons       2 Crew       39.8 BP       TCS 10    TH 4    EM 0
375 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0-0      PPV 0
Maint Life 3.05 Years     MSP 4    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 1    5YR 10    Max Repair 5 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 1,000   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 18 days    Morale Check Required   

Rocketdyne C-125/9 Engine F-3 (1)    Power 3.8    Fuel Use 287.05%    Signature 3.75    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 44,200 Litres    Range 5.5 billion km (171 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a Colony Ship for auto-assignment purposes
Finally, the Jamestown colony will get inhabitants and it only took until 12 March when the first colonists stepped inside the half-buried dome of their new home. Sure, the Soviet Union had over half a million people in their colony but at least the Americans were back in the race. And with a bang, because already in mid-April the Jamestown population passed one million mark. And in May, the USMC commandant finally realized their wet dream - the USMC Assault Company. Armed with 8 M25 medium machine guns, 20 M26 assault rifles and 18 M27 submachine guns, the Marines were clad in menacing gray-black armoured suits that allowed them to survive the vacuum of space, assault a Soviet vessel through its hull, defeat the crew and bring the captured prize back to a friendly port. The Hermes class security shuttles had been waiting for this moment and training of the companies started immediately. By late August, the first ten companies were ready.

Both NASA and Soviet Survey Bureau resumed limited geological survey of the inner system. Neither had vessels with the endurance or range to fully explore the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter, not to mention the outer system, so they contended themselves with the planets, comets and asteroids inside or near Mars orbit. In September, the Soviets opened a new research laboratory complex but production of DSTS had to be paused as the budget had gone deep into the red and thus a crash build program of financial centres was started. After a brief investigation, the KGB declared that several hundred counter-revolutionaries had infiltrated the Soviet system and these enemies of the state were promptly purged. Earth also ran out of Uridium.

In December, Glushko Design Bureau celebrates their triumph of breaking into the next level of engine technology as they showcase three new engines:

RD-105 is only a modest increase in power compared to the previous fastest engine, RD-104, but it is vastly more fuel efficient. In fact, it is the most fuel-efficient engine the Soviet Union has ever created. It will power the next generation of survey and transport shuttles, allowing them to reach previously unheard-of distances. The RD-106 is twice as powerful yet still more economical than all the older engines. It will be employed by sensor shuttles. Finally, the RD-107 is a thirsty beast but that thirst comes with incredible power, allowing future Soviet gunships to easily outperform any American vessel.

For example, the Vostok-M3 will, in comparison with the M2 model, increase its endurance from one to four months, its speed from 300 km/sec to 500 km/sec, and most importantly, its range explodes from paltry 4.4 billion to a whopping 51 billion kilometres! Similarly, Luna-M2 can carry the same number of troops but faster and much farther and in greater comfort. Progress-M2 increases its cargo hold size from 250 tons to 300 tons, while also gaining in speed and endurance, though only a modest increase in range. Soyz-M2 carries more colonists, faster and slightly farther, in greater comfort and with increased maintenance capability. Finally, the Krivak-M2-10B1 leaps ahead at the speed of 3500 km/sec, a revolutionary step since the previous model could only reach 700 km/sec.

The year ends with NASA surveying the comet Encke but disappointingly, no TN minerals are found. The military buildup on Luna continues.

Adding an informative event (without interruption) that a given ground troop has been unloaded/transported from a transport to a given planet.

This is useful especially for me when I am distributing several ground defensive troops in several places and it takes time for the transport to reach the destination and return (which I may forget), however what It would be important is the unloading info and that's missing.

A list of names either pulled from or inspired by the ship naming screen in Helldivers 2, with some of the more universe-specific (ie "Super Earth") and satirical (ie "Elected Representative of Family Values") names removed. All names are in the format "X of Y", with 7150 total combinations from 130 "X" and 55 "Y" phrases. Examples include:

• Master of Law
• Blade of the People
• Titan of Audacity
• Wings of Redemption
• Queen of the Stars

Not all the combinations sound as cool (ie "Patriot of Patriotism"), but most are pretty good, and there are plenty to re-roll.

Hi All,

I've encountered a weird issue with the game which started this morning

When opening Aurora I'm getting error pop-ups, the first one is '2. 5. 1 Function #1170: Object cannot be cast from DBNull to other types'.  This is then followed by hundreds of '2. 5. 1 Function #3040: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
I can click through the pop-ups and eventually the game will load, but I've saved and exited and tried again and the errors simply start again.

I have no idea what the cause might be as I haven't done anything unusual in my playthrough and don't really know what it might be.  I'm wondering whether it's an NPR issue?

Any advice would be really appreciated as my current game has been working brilliantly until now and I've been really enjoying it so I'm desperate to save it!

Here's an old detailed thread with worker count mechanics: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12258.0

Since Io's colony cost is 6.2, you will need to either use terraforming to get your CC below 5 or deploy orbital habitats. This is because the proportion of your population working in the manufacturing/mining sector will over time drift towards (25-5*colonyCost)%. This means that it is possible to have your worker pool shrink over time even as your population increases.

• A 0 CC home world will eventually settle into 25% of its population as TN workers
• A 2 CC plant will have 15% as TN workers
• A 5 CC plant will have 0% as TN workers

A couple of implications which may be relevant for OP and others:

• With a small amount of calculus, you can find that the peak manufacturing population occurs for a (total) population in billions of P = (0.76 - 0.04*C)^4, where C is the colony cost. For an Io colony cost of 6.2, this means the maximum manufacturing population will occur for a total population of about 69 million (nice!).
• For a colony cost less than 5.0, once you reach a population of about 240 million the services sector hits a maximum of 70% and manufacturing population increases linearly with total population. This means that, in theory, growing a colony with C < 5.0 will eventually allow you to exceed the maximum manufacturing population from the previous point, although for higher colony costs this may not be economical and the "lower maximum" may be a more realistic target. I would say colony cost of 3.0 or 3.5 roughly marks this boundary, but it depends on how willing you are to invest in growing a population beyond 240 million.
• A colony with C > 5.0 has a hard maximum manufacturing population, and you should not grow it beyond this point. In practice, you probably want to be within a couple million population in either direction and draw off pops/infrastructure from normal growth every so often to maintain the level. This rule applies for Io!
• For a colony cost less than 1.5, manufacturing population will always increase with total population.

Since ark modules do not have any agricultural population, the rules work a little bit differently, but suffice to say since the colony cost factor disappears you will always gain manufacturing population when expanding an orbital (total) population. Since Ark Modules cost a bit more than 500 infrastructure per million population, this means that Ark Modules are probably the most cost-efficient way to support a population for a colony cost greater than 5.0; for lower colony costs it depends on the relative importance of the infrastructure costs vs improved population efficiency, but probably a colony cost of 4.0 is a good approximate break point as a rule of thumb. I would therefore recommend using orbital populations to colonize Io if you have researched and built Ark Modules.