So, was browsing the web, found this game, read reviews, and decided to make a forum account to ask these questions:
- Is this game still active (Fanbase, development, forums, Etc)
- How in-depth is the game?
- What can i do in this game?
- what is the difference between the portable and non portable download
- 7. 1 was recently released as "All in one pack. " What does this mean?
- I've heard that the interface is quite complicated, if so, is there any player created or developer created pack to manage the UI a bit better? (like Dwarf Fortress Lazy Newb Pack)
- Is modding available?
- Is multiplayer available?
- Is the game level based or survive-as-long-as-you-can mode?
Thanks to everyone who answers my questions, i'm really excited to download and get into this game
From another newbie who found this game this month:
- Yes, it's still active. Steve is currently in the process of porting to C#; it's unknown when he'll be done, but he's fairly close (as these things go).
Maaaaybe end of this year/early next? Don't expect the forums to hop too much, though.
- Pretty in-depth? That depends on what you mean. Most of the fiddly complexity is in ship-and-ship-component design. The 4x portion of the game truly exists; you can conquer and exterminate or enslave other races, or you can (if you're lucky) forge alliances and have them help you in war. But expect to have to navigate a terrible UI and micromanage a lot of stuff to do it.
(That's not a dig against the game; it's actually one of the things I
like. In other games, doing things is easy; in Aurora, doing things is hard, which means that if I've managed to accomplish something in Aurora, I've truly conquered something. Weird, I know.)
- Pretty much anything you could do in any 4x game, and a bunch of fiddly design customization to boot. Maybe a lot of the previous answer belongs here.
- The main difference is that the portable download is already nicely wrapped up for you to download and play out of the box, with some nice background pictures and music to boot. The non-portable download still works just fine (in fact, I'm using it myself), but you have to go configure some stuff to make sure it runs.
- Means you don't have to download previous versions and then update/patch them to 7.1
- Not that I know of. But it's better than Dwarf Fortress, actually; DF can't be played without Dwarf Manager; this can.
- Unfortunately, it seems not. Maybe this will change with the C# migration?
- Yes, though only technically. It's a kind of hot-seat or client-server multiplayer, where one player (the SpaceMaster) manages interface between the players. There are a few boards with previously-running multiplayer games if you want to check out how that works, or (I think) some people in the Aurora Chat board were/are trying to put something together.
- Survive-as-long-as-you-can, given those options. But that doesn't really make much sense as a question for this game, which is a 4x game.
Just in case: a 4x game is a sort of empire-management game. The 4 X's stand for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Civilization and its descendents are the classic examples of 4x. Aurora has some significant differences from Cvilization, but it's still a turn-based empire-management game all about exploring the galaxy, expanding your empire, exploiting the resources (and sometimes people) you find, and exterminating threats.
I'd say give it a go. Frankly, you'll probably wander away again; this game caters to a very,
very narrow interest band, but you never know if you're one of them until you try! Don't let the interface scare you away until you actually grapple with it. The learning curve (like Dwarf Fortress) is more a learning wall, with various eccentric design and mechanical choices that fit Steve's particular desires, rather than any broad-based design principles.
If you're the sort who learns by watching, I'd recommend Quill18's Let's Play from 2015, and I've attached the first video below. Watching him play, pausing the videos and doing things myself along with him, was a good way for me to get used to things. (Be warned, though: as a Let's Play it's somewhat disappointing; he sets up the universe not to bother him until he's ready, then turtles really hard, and finally loses interest before anything really happens.)
And once you've gotten used to things, even stuff you haven't tried starts to make sense with helping doses of
the wiki and
the reddit.
Here's hoping you like it! This place could use a few more bodies to liven it up, from time to time.