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Posted by: Erik L
« on: May 03, 2008, 02:08:19 AM »

de-stickying.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 21, 2008, 03:33:47 PM »

I have added a new Absorb Fleet order to v2.5. This functions in the same way as Join Fleet except the moving fleet absorbs the ships of the destination fleet and then continues with the rest of its orders.

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 18, 2008, 03:09:51 PM »

On the mineral report window you can now search for the primary mineral with a requirement for one or two additional minerals to be present. For example, you might search for Duranium with a minimum amount of 5000 tons and an accessibility of at least 0.8 but only where there are also deposits of Neutronium and Mercassium

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 18, 2008, 07:16:36 AM »

One of the issues created by splitting race and species has been the need for players to create a population before delivering factories, mines, etc. In v2.5, if you issue an installation delivery order to a body with no pop, a population will be automatically created for that world based on the most populous species in the Empire.

Steve
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: January 11, 2008, 12:56:56 PM »

Quote from: "Kurt"
Steve -

I'm at work, so forgive me if the things I'm suggesting are already available in 2.41.

I've had a nifty idea for a new campaign.  I probably won't use it for a while, particularly if I can get the Quad-System campaign back up after 2.5 comes out, but I like it enough that I'll let it percholate around in my head to develop for a while.  

The thing is, multi-system NPR's would be necessary for this new campaign.  Therefore, I'd need the following:
1.  Some way to link systems together via their warp points.  IIRC, SA already has something like this for linking warp points in two different systems, and will also allow you to either delete warp points or create them, which would be nice too.  

2.  Some way to grant survey data to a race, both geo and gravitic.  This could either be done on the system view, where you could give this information to the race viewing the system, or could be done during race creation, for whatever race is active at the time.  I'd really like something that would let me do this at any time, not just during system creation.  

As far as I can see, these two things are the bare minimum necessary for the creation of a multi-system NPR, as you would need to link systems and you'd need to have explored the systems to exploit them.  

Kurt


Both of these are already available.  You can do a grav, or geo survey while in SM mode in the system display screen (F9)  on the first tab that shows the system bodies.  The warp points can be connected while in SM mode if you are in the Jump point tab.  

I have set up a 25 system and 18 inhabited planet government in the past.

Brian
Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: January 11, 2008, 11:31:58 AM »

Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Well... Most ground units I build get R3 ranks... I'd like to reserve R3/R4 for HQ, then move the rest down. Similar for fighter squads. Maybe R2 for them.
At the moment, fighter squadrons of 18 fighters or less are R2 and squadrons with 19 or more fighters are R3. It's probably easiest just to make all fighter squadrons R2 anyway, regardless of the number of fighters. I'll do that for v2.5.

As far as ground units go, HQ are currently R3, Heavy Assault and Assault Infantry are R2, Mobile Infantry, Garrison and Engineer are R1. I have changed them within the last few weeks so if you are seeing a lot of R3 ground units in version 2.41, I must have changed them since that was released.

Steve

I was wondering about that.  I've built some light carriers that had squadrons of only 5 fighters with squadron commanders that out ranked the ships commander.

I've been thinking about this one some more.  It would perhaps be better to allow the player to determine the rank requirements vs program hardcoding.  At least I think it's hard coded since I didn't find a control on the database tables I looked related to commanders and fighters.

At least modifiable in SM mode, preferably a player/race setup control.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: January 10, 2008, 09:52:56 PM »

On a similar note to Kurt's post, I just encountered an NPR 10 years into a campaign.  I'd like to do the equivalent of the rules Steve made for making NPR races more powerful with time in SF.  What I've thought of so far is the following (mostly using SM mods):

1)  Allow the NPR to shift some percentage of factories from ordnance/fighters to construction
2)  Put in some sort of exponential growth rate for the economy for the 10 years I "wasn't watching".  I'm thinking of something like 3% or 5%, even though the actual rate of economic expansion in Aurora is a lot lower, especially at lower production techs.  I'll do this by just figuring out the multiplicative factor and multiplying the various factory/mine types by that factor.  I should probably do the same for population - maybe that rate (2%) should be the growth rate for the economy.
3)  Give additional research, ship construction, and ground unit construction points.

I can do all of this on my own using SM mode (I think); I'm just putting it out there for people.  It would be good to be able to do multi-system too, but that's a lot harder.

The other thing I've been thinking about is some sort of "war check" rules.  It would be nice to be able to hit a war check button at first contact, or if negotiations are dragging on, or if the negotiation modifier goes exceptionally low.

John
Posted by: Kurt
« on: January 10, 2008, 11:47:03 AM »

Steve -

I'm at work, so forgive me if the things I'm suggesting are already available in 2.41.

I've had a nifty idea for a new campaign.  I probably won't use it for a while, particularly if I can get the Quad-System campaign back up after 2.5 comes out, but I like it enough that I'll let it percholate around in my head to develop for a while.  

The thing is, multi-system NPR's would be necessary for this new campaign.  Therefore, I'd need the following:
1.  Some way to link systems together via their warp points.  IIRC, SA already has something like this for linking warp points in two different systems, and will also allow you to either delete warp points or create them, which would be nice too.  

2.  Some way to grant survey data to a race, both geo and gravitic.  This could either be done on the system view, where you could give this information to the race viewing the system, or could be done during race creation, for whatever race is active at the time.  I'd really like something that would let me do this at any time, not just during system creation.  

As far as I can see, these two things are the bare minimum necessary for the creation of a multi-system NPR, as you would need to link systems and you'd need to have explored the systems to exploit them.  

Kurt
Posted by: SteveAlt
« on: December 28, 2007, 07:37:05 AM »

Quote from: "Kurt"
Steve -  

I've been playing around with 2.4, and I've got a question/comment/request.  I'd like a little more flexibility with the races/governments, but it is possible that I'm just missing things.  

Mostly, I'd like to be able to create a new government, seperate of any race, then once the government is created, be able to assign an existing race to the government.  This would facilitate setting up multiple governments on the same planet for the same race.  

Like I said, it's possible that this can be done now and I just haven't figured it out.

I have added an extra step to the manual race creation process so you can select an existing species for the new Empire or generate a new species based on the environment of the selected planet.

Steve
Posted by: SteveAlt
« on: December 28, 2007, 07:29:05 AM »

Quote from: "sloanjh"
It would be nice to have a query for all known alien ruins/installations.  Maybe through the "potential colony sites" screen?

There is a list of known ruins on the display2 tab of the system map

Steve
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: December 16, 2007, 09:00:50 AM »

Could we possibly have a line in the ship display screen (f5 or f6) that shows a missles chance to hit against set speeds.  This would be the same info you get when designing a missle.  It would help when I am loading up to not have to switch screens constantly to see what my missiles can do.  This is especially true when there are multiple generations of missles for special purposes.

Brian
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: December 09, 2007, 04:54:39 PM »

It would be nice to have a query for all known alien ruins/installations.  Maybe through the "potential colony sites" screen?

John
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: December 08, 2007, 06:53:37 PM »

Is there a way to have a ship or task group "hail" an alien race, so that they show up as a contact even if the aliens don't have good enough sensors to see them?  I'd like to have an NPR rendezvouz with my contact ship for negotiations outside the exclusion zone, but I'm not showing up on his contact list.  I think the granularity has to be at the ship/TG level, since one might want to keep an armed force nearby in stealth.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: December 08, 2007, 06:34:38 PM »

Quote from: "SteveAlt"
What you are describing is similar to the method I used before the current one :)
Quote
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Puts the interaction between active sensors and passive detectors on a more understandable footing - passive always has a huge range advantage.
With the current system, as in the real world, GPD (Real world ESM) sensors do have a huge range advantage over active search sensors. Also, as in the real world active sensors outrange thermal sensors. EM sensors are just an Aurora-ism used vs shields. I think one point of potential confusion in that in the real world, EM sensors are used to detect radar emissions and in Aurora that role is taken by GPD sensors that are being used to detect gravitic emissions (to explain FTL sensors). One option is for me to combine EM and GPD sensors into a single system that accomplishes both tasks, which would avoid confusion and simplify things a little.
Sorry - my bad.  By "passive" I meant "GPD" throughout the post.
Quote
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You can't squeeze more and more range out of an active sensor by going to coarser resolutions.
But I want players to be able to do that :-)  Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many radars there are on an Aegis CA or DDG?  I suspect there's a LOT fewer - my recollection is that the electronic steering/phased array nature of the system lets it pretend to be a whole bunch of different antena types that used to require different systems.
Quote
Going back to the idea of multiple modes. How about an active sensor that has one or more alternative modes which are less effective. For example, a sensor with a strength of 50 and a resolution of 40 would have a secondary antenna with a strength of 25 and a resolution of 20 (although that might be over-generous). This would automatically function when the system was activated. This provides a shorter range ability against smaller targets. In fact, this secondary (and perhaps even tertiary) ability could be another tech line and form part of active sensor design. For example, the baseline might be a secondary function with 10% strength and 80% resolution. The next step would be a secondary function with 15% strength and 75% resolution, etc.

I really want to avoid a straightforward more strength = more range vs all sizes of target (which is the case even if we use active focusing as a second type of "strength"). In the real world, radars are specialised for different tasks and I want to reflect that within Aurora.

Steve

That would help - thanks.  I think I'm pushing the line "Aegis-like systems (phased array) are a lot more tunable (multi-mode) than those with mechanical antennae, plus we've already got complexity in fire control."

I realize I'm probably not going to convince you on this, which is ok :)  The main thing I was concerned about was the "GPS" vs. "detection strength" confusion in GPD range, which then triggered me on the multi-mode issue.  I would prefer not having to explictly specify additional modes (e.g. have the range go up like the square root of the resolution difference), but I realize that's probably too far away from your design philosophy.  The multi-mode idea seems like a good comprimise that, as you say, has basis in the real world.

One side note - you could still have GPD tech help improve active range if you wanted to (simulating more sensitive detectors).  I think I confused you by saying "passive" rather than GPD in my discussion.

Thanks,
John

PS - Thanks for spending time on the detailed reply.
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: December 08, 2007, 05:49:05 PM »

Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "sloanjh"
Hi Steve,

If I'm interpreting the class summary page correctly, I think Grav Pulse Detection Sensors need to be a LOT more sensitive.

I've got an active sensor MR15000-R15, which the tech report page (ctrl-F7) says has detection strength 100 and a max range of 15m km.  I'm at lowest sensor tech, so this thing takes up 10 HS.

I've also got a GPD10-50 sensor that takes up the same hull size (again, lowest tech), which the class summary page says has a detection range of 5m km at strength 100.  It seems to me that this means that the active sensor has a range that's 3 times as big as an equivalent size passize sensor.  For the same hull size (and tech level), I can make an active MR500000-R500 sensor, which has a range of 500m km - 300 times as large as the corresponding passive sensor.
I want to tackle this first and then I will respond to the rest of the post. In Aurora I want active sensors to generally outrange equal tech/size thermal and EM sensors but generally be outranged by equal tech/size GPD sensors. I think the reason you believe GPD sensors are outranged is a misunderstanding over mechanics.

Nope - I was confused by names.  I thought that the "detection strength" rating for an active sensor was filling the role of what you call GPS - that it was the "Strength" that is used to calculate GPD range.  Since GPS is proportional to range, this gets rid of a lot of my concerns - if you double the range and halve the resolution of an active sensor (which keeps the GPS the same) the pulse is just as easily detected by a GPD.

Another naming confusion - everywhere I said "passive" in my initial post, I meant "GPD", not thermal or EM.

Thanks,
John