Anyone have patterns with how they start their games?

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Many strategy games have "build orders," or ways that players like to spend resources at the start of the game. Things are more loose for complex games like Aurora, but there are usually still patterns.

Do you guys tend to do similar things at the start of your games, or do you deliberately change things up? Here are some of the things I'm taking about:

Do you go for military tech right at the start, or do you wait until a few jump points have been explored? What installations do you prioritize at the beginning? Do you go for jump tech as quickly as possible, or wait until the home system is fully exploited? Do you go for the same starting weapon type? Do you go for automated mining outposts first, or straight for colonies?

That sort of stuff.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

I try to deliberately change things up, just to keep things from getting too repetitive.

That said, I usually immediately start building up a pair of commercial shipyards, including one that is going to get HUGE with tons of slipways. I rely heavily on mass producing fuel harvesters via shipyards, so I getting a yard to 100k with multiple slipways fast is a priority. The second shipyard is needed to fill logistics demands, since retooling the giant one is slow and expensive.

Later on, the giant shipyard can alternate between making fuel harvesters and orbital miners. Using shipyards to build "stations" is actually way more efficient than using industry, because shipyards can increase their output at the same time as they are building things. It's easy to get a commercial shipyard that can outproduce your entire industry.

I also immediately split my production between labs, construction factories, and some combination of mines, infrastructure, and either more shipyards or military academies. I like to keep crew training level at 5, and need lots of officers, so getting academies with a naval CO fast helps. And it's good practice to always be building labs and construction factories, since you can never have too many of either.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

I try to deliberately change things up, just to keep things from getting too repetitive.

That said, I usually immediately start building up a pair of commercial shipyards, including one that is going to get HUGE with tons of slipways. I rely heavily on mass producing fuel harvesters via shipyards, so I getting a yard to 100k with multiple slipways fast is a priority. The second shipyard is needed to fill logistics demands, since retooling the giant one is slow and expensive.

Later on, the giant shipyard can alternate between making fuel harvesters and orbital miners. Using shipyards to build "stations" is actually way more efficient than using industry, because shipyards can increase their output at the same time as they are building things. It's easy to get a commercial shipyard that can outproduce your entire industry.

I also immediately split my production between labs, construction factories, and some combination of mines, infrastructure, and either more shipyards or military academies. I like to keep crew training level at 5, and need lots of officers, so getting academies with a naval CO fast helps. And it's good practice to always be building labs and construction factories, since you can never have too many of either.

Already learned a ton of stuff. Using commercial shipyards for stations hadn't occurred to me and sounds genius. What do you mean about "filling logistics needs" with the commercial shipyard?

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Logistics needs=freighters, colony ships, tankers, troop transports

Stuff that you need in fairly large numbers, but also will want to change the design of periodically (when you get new engines). So you end up needing to retool more often. Retooling time increases with shipyard size, so I prefer to build more small versions of those kinds of ships.

But the production commercial vessels (mining, fuel harvest, terraforming, and I guess maintenance modules if you use them) aren't designs that ever really change. While you simultaneously need huge amounts of them, and want to have good officers on them. So it makes sense to make smaller numbers of big ones. Hence a really huge shipyard for them, since the increased retooling time is less of a hassle.

The final note is that shipyards are better for mass production of things than building via industry is. The "build a station via industry" feature is really great for one off designs where you don't want to retool a shipyard, but for pumping out lots of any one design a shipyard is pretty much always better. A commercial shipyard with 6x100,000 ton slipways builds at a rate of 10,000BP+. It takes a LOT of construction factories to match that.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Logistics needs=freighters, colony ships, tankers, troop transports

Stuff that you need in fairly large numbers, but also will want to change the design of periodically (when you get new engines). So you end up needing to retool more often. Retooling time increases with shipyard size, so I prefer to build more small versions of those kinds of ships.

But the production commercial vessels (mining, fuel harvest, terraforming, and I guess maintenance modules if you use them) aren't designs that ever really change. While you simultaneously need huge amounts of them, and want to have good officers on them. So it makes sense to make smaller numbers of big ones. Hence a really huge shipyard for them, since the increased retooling time is less of a hassle.

The final note is that shipyards are better for mass production of things than building via industry is. The "build a station via industry" feature is really great for one off designs where you don't want to retool a shipyard, but for pumping out lots of any one design a shipyard is pretty much always better. A commercial shipyard with 6x100,000 ton slipways builds at a rate of 10,000BP+. It takes a LOT of construction factories to match that.

Excellent; got lots of notes already!

[Zap0]

At the start, you typically need geosurvey capacity, gravsurvey capacity, a freighter, a colony ship, and something with guns on it to keep the first colony you found from bitching about PPV.

Survey ships can be fighters, which is cheap but doesn't scale well outside of your starting system. One freighter and colony ship is what you need to found a colony (move infrastructure and people there), then civilian shipping can start to get built and take over any new freighting needs.

Then there's the usual bunch of supporting ships every empire needs: a refueling ship (because something or other is going to get stranded at some point), MSP and ordnance movers, troop transports, salvagers, gate constructors, tractor ships etc., but those can usually be delayed somewhat.

For facilities I like to start with one or two military academies and yards. Depending on your start you may also need financial centers early on.

[xenoscepter]

 - Something I often do at the start is go into SM Mode breakdown one of the starting Naval Shipyards into a smaller version with more slipways. In other words, I'll take one of the 5,000 Ton or so yards and make it into a 500 ton with 10 slipways. It's not a good idea, per se, but I like building Fighters in shipyards.

 - Something perhaps more useful is that I tend to research Maintenance Modules very soon, along with Improved Control to get Sector Commands. I then build Maintenance Module Space Stations to increase my Maintenance Support w/o needing population to fill it. Then shift the workers freed up by that into other roles, or ship them out to the colonies. I tend to build a 1,000~5,000 Ton Survey Ship with both Geological Survey Sensors and Gravitational Survey Sensors and send it out to do everything inside of the Kuiper Belt and most of the Kuiper Belt itself. I like to have a Science Department on them, but you do you.

 - I'll also build out a big Commercial Shipyard to create a combination Freighter / Colony Ship / Troop Transport. 20,000 Tons of Cargo Supply, 4,000 Colonists and 5,000 Tons of Troop Transport is enough to jump start a Colony Cost 2 colony in twenty five runs, plus land enough PWL Infantry Formations to make Unrest not be a problem up until the pop hits somewhere North of 25 million. I'll typically create some rudimentary warships, roughly 5,000 Tons apiece while having a Naval Shipyard for cranking out fighter craft... it's faster than Fighter Factories if you build the components with industry first and then build the fighters using them. I'll also create a Diplomatic Ship and an ELINT ship just in case E.T. decides to phone in.

 - I typically turn fuel and MSP building off at the very start, then start them up for a year every ten years... at least early on. Later on I tend to build large stockpiles of both and then eat through them before building more. It's weird... I turn off Civilian Harvesters at game generation because that's MY SORIUM! I'll leave the Civilian Sector on most of the time, but sometimes I turn them off because CMCs annoy me... If I want a Civilian Sector I'll just makes some extra Player Races and role-play them myself.

[Froggiest1982]

I turn off Civilian Harvesters at game generation because that's MY SORIUM! I'll leave the Civilian Sector on most of the time, but sometimes I turn them off because CMCs annoy me... If I want a Civilian Sector I'll just makes some extra Player Races and role-play them myself.

Wouldnt this turn them off for NPRs as well? I sm not entirely sure NPRs can actually manage anything without civilians.

Regardless, I do sometimes like to turn them off. I just like the fact that I have to provide for everything myself while also managing the fuel reserves.

[Droll]

Wouldnt this turn them off for NPRs as well? I sm not entirely sure NPRs can actually manage anything without civilians.

Regardless, I do sometimes like to turn them off. I just like the fact that I have to provide for everything myself while also managing the fuel reserves.

It does not thankfully, I encounter 100s of the bloody things.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

So much good stuff here; thanks guys!

[Garfunkel]

Depends obviously on what sort of games you play. Solo TN-start is very different from Multi Conventional-start.

However, I echo some of the things, like the need to have 1 gigantic commercial shipyard for building big stations while 2+ smaller shipyards build the other stuff. You could do the same with your naval yards - grow the original to build your dreadnoughts and supercarriers on its single/dual slipway while you also build 6+ smaller naval yards that build the rest of your navy. It's a bit of an exploit but it can be worth it to build a naval shipyard up to a good size and then just preserve it for later use since the first re-tool is free.

You also need to maintain pace along all aspects of your empire. It's easy to surge ahead in one field and then realize you've got yourself in a jam because of that. So the expansion of your facilities needs to keep pace with your population and wealth, and your industry stick with mining, and your shipbuilding with your maintenance, and so on.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Depends obviously on what sort of games you play. Solo TN-start is very different from Multi Conventional-start.

However, I echo some of the things, like the need to have 1 gigantic commercial shipyard for building big stations while 2+ smaller shipyards build the other stuff. You could do the same with your naval yards - grow the original to build your dreadnoughts and supercarriers on its single/dual slipway while you also build 6+ smaller naval yards that build the rest of your navy. It's a bit of an exploit but it can be worth it to build a naval shipyard up to a good size and then just preserve it for later use since the first re-tool is free.

You also need to maintain pace along all aspects of your empire. It's easy to surge ahead in one field and then realize you've got yourself in a jam because of that. So the expansion of your facilities needs to keep pace with your population and wealth, and your industry stick with mining, and your shipbuilding with your maintenance, and so on.

Even more notes! The concept of "parallel expansion" is interesting. What parts of the game would you say are tied to each other?

[Polestar]

On the subject of using massive commercial shipyards to build ships without engines instead of stations using industry:

The net advantage of using shipyards over industry are, I will propose, overrated. The advantages are real - and I will provide some (introductory) numbers to show this. The disadvantages are also real. Aurora, in short, is more finely balanced in this regard than it is given credit for.

Example:
You want to build a suite of stations, each to be towed between jobs. For one of these jobs, mining, we design two orbital mining stations, each with 100 modules. The armorless (station) one costs ~14,940 BP, the armored (ship) costs ~15,480 (doesn't vary very much with tech).

We use build rate 25, shipyard rate 1300 as examples, but these comments apply for any equivalent tech levels.

The ship is built with a shipyard. It requires a shipyard of ~516k size, which at 30% shipyard time/cost savings, needs 2400 + (16.8 per k of shipyard size * (516k-10k)), 2400+8652 = 11,052 minerals to make and 12.9 million workers to man (regardless of tech). Assuming no components are made elsewhere, the shipyard (at 1300 build speed and no bonuses) takes approximately ~15,480 / 7450 = ~2.08 years to build. I ignore retooling costs here, which may be nothing ... or considerable.

The station is built using industry. Let's say we desire to match the speed of the shipyard. At equal tech, we'll need ~7450 build speed / (25 build per factory +no bonuses) = ~298 factories. Adjust for the only slightly different cost of the two vessels, and you end up with ~290 factories. These require 34,800 minerals to make and 14.5 million workers to man.

While the number of workers isn't vastly greater, a) the mineral costs and build time of factories are a LOT higher. This is true even at the beginning of the game - and the difference becomes even more stark as Shipyard Operations tech advances!


But factories are more flexible.
Say you want to change the model of vessel you produce (say, you now have a bigger empire and so want bigger orbital miners). Factories can do this instantly; shipyards require time and resources.

Devote scarce manpower to factories instead of super-shipyards and you get options you did not have before. You want to build one type of station quickly? A planet full of factories can crank them out more rapidly ... than anything short of a shipyard that chews up almost a planet's worth of manpower all by itself. The shipyard gears up far more quickly and efficiently, but at the expense of most other possible needs for the manpower.

You have a military crisis, or just want to turn new tech into a fleet in training more quickly? Use factories to make components for your military shipyards. You want to build more mines, more financial centres, more research centres, etc.? If you've put the manpower into additional factories, rather than super-shipyards, you can do all of this faster.

Aurora, as already stated by several posters in this thread, asks the player to continuously balance multiple desires and needs - manpower, mineral, and wealth growth; technological progression; military defence. Putting more manpower into factories - as opposed to super-shipyards - enables you to act more flexibly to match emerging needs and face down sudden crises.


None of this means you should not build ANY super-shipyards! I use them all the time. I've even got tugs to swap them in and out to use manpower more flexibly. Yet my main reliance will continue to be ... more factories.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Nothing you said is wrong, but I want to point out that you can build the armorless station in the shipyard too.

Other than that, what you said is correct. Shipyards for mass production, factories for one offs.

[Garfunkel]

The concept of "parallel expansion" is interesting. What parts of the game would you say are tied to each other?

Wealth and everything but most importantly research as that will soon eat the majority of your income and if you go into debt, it will literally affect everything.

Construction factories and mining income. You might have all minerals available and a lot of mines but are the minerals getting to where the factories are? There is no harm if mineral stockpiles on Earth are growing, that just means you are free to build more construction factories but building CF is wasteful if you're short on minerals already.

Naval shipyards and maintenance facilities. It's super-duper easy to build a battleship that you cannot maintain. In C#, maintenance facilities build maintenance supplies so you need even more facilities than you think. Rule of thumb is to have enough facilities on Earth/Luna/Mars to handle your entire military fleet even if it is dispersed across the galaxy, and then have smaller maintenance depots as needed elsewhere. That ensures that not only will you always have enough maintenance capability regardless of the operational situation of your fleets but you're also producing enough MSP to keep your ships fully stocked.

Fuel production and ship construction. Another super-duper easy mistake to make. Your naval ships are usually thirstier than a roomful of drunken fratboys at a strip club. Send them on a big operation far away and watch your fuel stockpiles plummet. Or you build a dozen big tankers without checking how much fuel you have available to fill them.

Population and facilities, but especially shipyards. Those can employ millions and millions and millions of people. If your mineral situation is good, it's again fairly easy to let shipyards grow and grow and grow until you're out of the population to work them without noticing it. And just like wealth, lack of population affects everything. At least you can tug the biggest shipyard to an empty body to "mothball" it.

I'm sure there are more. As Polestar said, Aurora is great for forcing you to juggle multiple balls at the same time and you might not even realize you're doing it because the pace is generally fairly slow.