Author Topic: Starting Questions  (Read 1309 times)

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Offline ArchRylen (OP)

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Starting Questions
« on: January 07, 2013, 02:33:29 PM »
I recently found Aurora and am beginning to learn how it fits together.  But I have a lot of questions. . .

--How do you build an Anti-Missile-Missile at low tech levels? I typically spend my SM points up to Nuclear Pulse or Ion.  With those, I can typically manage a fast burning, size 1, strength 1 AMM with a top speed around 4500 km/s.  I'm sure that if I launched enough of those the enemy would laugh so hard I could close in and board.  Suggestions?
--All officers have personality characteristics.  Do those do anything? Are they assigned based on bonuses - or bonuses more likely to increase corresponding to some characteristics? Or strictly role-play?
--What does it take to find ruins? Surveying the body with thermal detection? Are they visible from afar? I've been to about two dozen systems and found some drifting wrecks but no ruins yet.  Am I just unlucky?
--How much slowdown do a dozen mass drivers cause? My first serious game started running down and I wonder how much that was the cause.  Also, how much do people typically buy from Civilian mines?
--What are some good starting economic strategies? My current first actions are a Sector HQ,  an Academy, and torrents of factories.  Then moving automines to pretty asteroids.  Plus settling Mars (and maybe Luna); that is mostly for RP reasons, with a dash of getting my civilian economy started.
--Is there an arena mode? What if I want to see ships fight and don't want to wait to find them?
--How do I get Box Launchers? I've tried buying several ranks of reduced size missile launchers, and no luck.
--Do maintenance modules stack? If I have two ships, each capable of maintaining 1000 tons, can they support 2000 working together? If one is in the same place as the ship it maintains (ex.  at a planet) does it need to be in the same fleet? Do they help reload Box Launchers?
--Any good threads on formations? I'm starting to get the hang of Task Groups and am ready for the next step.  Right now, my fleets are all bunched up at the same point.
--A related note, the 4th tab in Task Groups deals with naval organization.  What is that about?
--Why do fighters typically need a Rank 3 officer? Is he supposed to be the wing leader?
--I typically wind up with dozens on unoccupied junior officers.  What can I do with them?

Thanks for the help.
 

Offline Nathan_

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Re: Starting Questions
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2013, 02:50:33 PM »
1)Missiles benefit from the enhanced powermod tech as well as engine tech, in particular they get double the bonus. Until I get to atleast 2.5x enginepower(5x for missiles) I find that I don't have decent missile speed.
2)Just fluff.
3)geo surveying, one of the spoilers tends to hang around ruins, so having them in helps.
4)mass drivers aren't typically the problem, though the sensor model can be. How much stuff is active depends on how quickly games start slowing down.
5)Mining is typically your bottleneck for production so be mindful of that.
6)Not officially, but you can use SM to create races, create ships, and hand those ships over to various factions to try them out.
7)They are their own tech level at the end of the reduced launcher size under Missiles and Kinetics. they appear after researching 25% size.
8)Yes,no, and I'm not sure, but they probably do reload those.
9-10)Can''t help you there.
11)Check DAC/Rank/Info and set fighters to a lower officer requirement level.
12)see above, though they can typically captain civilian vessels.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Starting Questions
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2013, 05:13:37 PM »
With missiles you need as said enough power modification as your researchers can provide you with. At a power modification for missiles of 3.5 you can start to create decent ASM missiles worth the name. AMM need both speed and agility so you need to research as much agility as you can afford if you want to start using AMM. There is not much point building AMM unless they actually have a decent chance of intercepting your own missiles at somewhere around 25% would probably be acceptable. The chance for your AMM to hit a missile is AMM speed / ASM speed * Manoeuvrability of AMM %. So if you had an AMM at 4500 speed with manoeuvrability of say 12 (very low value) you would intercept an ASM at 15000 speed (not particular fast ASM) with a 3.6% chance which is pretty pathetic... ;)

The naval organization tab is very useful for organizing your fleets and task groups. You can create task groups with a few clicks there and you get a good overview of how your fleets are structured. I put allot of effort into sorting my ships there.

Formations can become more important further into the game but at the start of the game it would most likely be OK to just run your ships in one task-group.
You could try to build scout ships or use minor crafts launched from hangars with active or passive sensors and have them follow your task-force as an example. That way you might avoid exposing your task-force immediately to any threat in the vicinity.
Later in the game you could experiment with using wide area point defence ships, although I don't know how effective they are since I never used them so far.
Its also common to use formations to have a support element trailing a bit further behind a larger task force and thus hoping that they can avoid being attacked. You might also not want to be attached to your support ships if you want to give chase to an enemy when you are inside their active sensor net, you will risk the support being blown apart once you leave them.

When it comes to strategy it seems you are doing most things as you should. My main strategy is almost always to concentrate on construction/production technology as my main focus and logistics as my second focus. I generally tend to put low priority on military technology early on and then raise the effort in military technology as time go by, but my main focus is always on civilian technology because it is the civilians that feed your military in the end. So, long term I find it a wise strategy. There is always a few years now and then where I rush some important military technologies though.

Be wary of your population, wealth, mineral production and fuel stock... always look ahead a few years and imagine what you need. Try to identify what is your most likely problem in the future and work out a plan to correct it.
I generally make up five to ten year plans all the time. I then organize my thoughts into minor projects and try to budget them to the best of my ability.