List of questions

[Nikolaj (OP)]

Alright, so I've started to grasp the basics of the game, mainly by reading the tutorials, although Hyfrydle's AAR has helped too. I still have questions, though. I started another thread about technical problems, but I thought it'd be better to have my gameplay questions in a seperate thread. Anyway, here goes:

1) It took me a couple of hours to find the event log (it would have been nice if that was covered in the first tutorial

[The Shadow]

2) I have yet to build jump gates, but I'd like some clarification on how they work. If I build one in the Sol system, does that mean that any ship of any size can travel through to whichever system it connects to? I assume I'd have to build a corresponding gate in that system to get back, though, is that correct?

Correct.  And they won't need jump drives at all.

3) In fact, I haven't done a whole lot of exploration thus far. I've mostly dealt with research, mining and colonization. But I'd like some suggestions for early game scout ships. What kind of engine, jump drive, etc? Do I put weapons on it, or can that wait? What about geological and gravitational scanners, to map out the systems I explore? Active scanners? How do people go about exploration in general?

Well, as usual in Aurora, there are a variety of different approaches to this.

Some people like to put a jump drive on every survey ship, because of the flexibility this affords.  Others like to create specialized jump tenders for this purpose, which allows the surveyors to save on space.

You will definitely want grav or geo sensors.  Or even both, if you want to go for a larger survey craft.  Specialization in this area is usually a good idea, though.

It's probably a good idea to put at least a few layers of armor on survey ships, in case they run into nebulae.  They probably don't need weaponry - if they run into trouble they're probably dead anyway.   (They use so much space on sensors they can't really be competitive, though people have come up with clever ways to try.)

4) Regarding geological teams, I read somewhere that it's a good idea to train them up to at least 150 before using them on important planets/moons. I have one team working on some asteroid, and they've been at it for about 7 years now (although I've disbanded and recreated the team a few times, due to death and the recruitment of better team members). Is it really supposed to take that long? At this rate, they're all going to die natural deaths long before the team gets to 150. Does it have anything to do with the asteroid? Should I put them on a moon or planet instead?

Geo teams are very hit or miss.  They can survey a planet in a few months, or they can take years, it's the luck of the draw.  I wouldn't worry about getting them up as high as 150, but I wouldn't start them on Earth, either.

[Judicator]

I would recommend sticking the survey team on any planets that have significant amounts of minerals and not waste their time puttering around on asteroids or comets. And yes, as soon as you have officers to spare, assign your best that you don't plan on using on a survey team. The higher the better. Have them practice on Earth and Luna until they can tell you they can't find any more minerals whatsoever. Then I would recommend having them cruise around on your geo sensor ship surveying planets for materials, or asteroids if you still need to build up their skill.

Incidentally, how high in terms of rating can a team go before they max out? Is it 150 as the quote said?

Grav sensors are solely for the task of surveying survey points to find jump points. In my untested opinion, wouldn't jump gates be better in the far run as they don't need tending to in terms of overhaul, and they're a bit more on the permanent side if you protect them with some token guards at the least.

In terms of hyperdrive engines, I would recommend researching efficiency so that they go down in size somewhat and won't take up an offensively large amount of space as well as better suiting them so they can be used on your larger ships.

[Nikolaj (OP)]

Alright, thanks guys. I've sent my team to Europa instead. Hopefully they'll find something good soon.

Concerning my scout design. What kind of sensors would you recommend, beyond the geo/grav sensors? Should I put some passive sensors on it? Maybe an active sensor (I'm not really sure if that one has much use outside of combat)?

[sloanjh]

I would recommend sticking the survey team on any planets that have significant amounts of minerals and not waste their time puttering around on asteroids or comets.

The reason this is not such a good idea is that the probability of a "nothing left to find" message goes up for low-quality survey teams.  150 is about the level at which this effect goes away, i.e. a 500 team has the same chance of depleting a body as a 200 team.  A possible reason that Nikolaj's team is taking so long is that its skill level is REALLY low (e.g. less than 100) - this means that the first time it finds minerals it's also likely to deplete the body - you don't want to do this on your home world.

I always use pretty much the best 5 survey officers I have for my geosurvey team.

Then I would recommend having them cruise around on your geo sensor ship surveying planets for materials, or asteroids if you still need to build up their skill.

Geosurvey teams (not instruments, the teams) are only working if they're in a colony on a body.  You can make an "empty" colony that will contain only the team, btw.  They won't do anything if they're sitting on a ship.  I tend to leave mine on the body they're on until they survey it out....

Incidentally, how high in terms of rating can a team go before they max out? Is it 150 as the quote said?

As far as I know there's no limit - I don't think skill levels are bounded above at 100 (although I might be wrong).  And the quote didn't say 150 is the max, the quote said that he'd seen that it's a good idea to train them up to at least 150, which it is.

In my untested opinion, wouldn't jump gates be better in the far run as they don't need tending to in terms of overhaul, and they're a bit more on the permanent side if you protect them with some token guards at the least.

There are a whole host of back threads dealing with the trade offs between jump gates and jump-engine-equiped ships.  The primary disadvantage of jump gates is that the bad guys can use them to attack your system - think of them kind of like bridges that can't be blown in ground warfare....  That and the time it takes to build them.

In terms of hyperdrive engines, I would recommend researching efficiency so that they go down in size somewhat and won't take up an offensively large amount of space as well as better suiting them so they can be used on your larger ships.

Why are you talking about hyperdrive engines?  Do you mean jump engines?  Hyperdrive engines are for rapid travel outside a star's hyper limit (mostly to distant binaries or planets/asteroids/comets).  New players should probably not bother messing with them.

John

[Nikolaj (OP)]

I would recommend sticking the survey team on any planets that have significant amounts of minerals and not waste their time puttering around on asteroids or comets.

The reason this is not such a good idea is that the probability of a "nothing left to find" message goes up for low-quality survey teams.  150 is about the level at which this effect goes away, i.e. a 500 team has the same chance of depleting a body as a 200 team.  A possible reason that Nikolaj's team is taking so long is that its skill level is REALLY low (e.g. less than 100) - this means that the first time it finds minerals it's also likely to deplete the body - you don't want to do this on your home world.

I always use pretty much the best 5 survey officers I have for my geosurvey team.

I read the post where the survey teams were introduced, and it said something about the teams chance of finding something depending on the chance of that planet/moon/asteroid generating a mineral when it was created (I think so, at least, but I can't find the thread anymore). Could it be that the team has a better chance of finding something on, say, a moon, rather than an asteroid? Does the team have any chance of finding anything, if the moon/planet/asteroid doesn't already have resources?

Basically, I'd like to build up my team's skills, and I'm trying to figure out how to do that asap, without screwing over Earth.

[Father Tim]

1.  Ctrl-F3 when you start each session, then just leave it open.  Especially because an event happens every time advance - you probably mean 'an event I consider important enough to be notified about' and figuring out what that entails is quite difficult.  Although you can turn on or off notifications about hundreds of categories of events, it still isn't split up the way I would want it.

Anyway, you can also get a list of the current time advance's events to show on the F3 'System' screen, if you tick the option box on the display tab.  Of course, taht only helps if you're the kind of person who plays Aurora from the F3 'System' screen.

As an aside, Steve plays on a dual monitor setup, with the events list always open on one side.  I play with the F2 'Population & Production' open on top and aligned to the top of the screen, which leaves just enough room at the bottom to display 5-6 lines of the Ctrl-F3 'Events' window.


2.  Yes, and yes.  Keep in mind that anyone can use anyone's Jump Gates, so building them is also known as 'building a highway for invasion'.


3.  Armour 4, commercial engine, 1-2 geo survey sensor, 1-2 grav survey sensor, fuel tanks, engineering, commercial jump engine big enough to move the ship (Note that the grav sensor makes it a military design, so it will need to be built in a military shipyard) - then adjust to taste.  If your ship is too slow, add engines.   If it takes forever to survey a location/planet, add more sensors.  If it runs out of fuel halfway through the second system, add fuel tanks.  If it keeps breaking down and exploding, add engineering spaces and maintenance storage bays.  If you encounter a thick nebula, add armour to keep the speed up.  If you add anything, you'll probably need to increase the jump engine, unless you overbuilt it in the first place.

If you want it to be good at First Contact situations, add powerful (large) Active, Thermal, and/or EM sensors.  Don't bother with weapons (though you can include CIWS if you really want to) because you can't mount enough of them to be useful.  Though I suppose if your empire is genocidal enough a planetary bombardment weapon of some sort (10cm Meson or Sz 1 missile launcher) can be useful 'pour encourager les habitants!'


4.  Geo teams only work on Colonies, so make sure you've added one to the asteroid in question.  (Colonies, not populations - there is a difference.)  Double-check that they didn't finish the survey years ago and you just missed the message - or if you aren't sure, move them to another colony.

Max team skill is 1275 (255 * 5 team members).

Personally I consider 'training up' Geo teams on less-valuable rocks to be 'cheating', but since the chance of exhausting a system body is illogically based on the team's skill, I can see the argument the other way.

[StratPlayer]

I read the post where the survey teams were introduced, and it said something about the teams chance of finding something depending on the chance of that planet/moon/asteroid generating a mineral when it was created (I think so, at least, but I can't find the thread anymore). Could it be that the team has a better chance of finding something on, say, a moon, rather than an asteroid? Does the team have any chance of finding anything, if the moon/planet/asteroid doesn't already have resources?

Basically, I'd like to build up my team's skills, and I'm trying to figure out how to do that asap, without screwing over Earth.

It's still a bit sketchy to me, but from what I can figure out, it seems to be that there's basically a random level of minerals set on a body when it's created, and the chance of a geosurvey team finding the maximum level of those minerals is based on its skill level.

The killer seems to be that once that team says it has found all the minerals, then that's it, even if there were more to find.  You can't later send a higher-level survey team to re-survey, giving that body the once-over to see if the original low-level team 'missed' any.

And since your home-world (Earth) is set to typically have a higher preloaded 'random' starting mineral level, you'll have much more you can miss if a survey team with a low skill level misses them during it's survey.  Plus, for a good while, your homewhorld is your only decent source of minerals, and missing any there really hurts.

At least that's my understanding.  Please feel to correct me if I'm off-base.

[Father Tim]

I read the post where the survey teams were introduced, and it said something about the teams chance of finding something depending on the chance of that planet/moon/asteroid generating a mineral when it was created (I think so, at least, but I can't find the thread anymore). Could it be that the team has a better chance of finding something on, say, a moon, rather than an asteroid? Does the team have any chance of finding anything, if the moon/planet/asteroid doesn't already have resources?

Basically, I'd like to build up my team's skills, and I'm trying to figure out how to do that asap, without screwing over Earth. :)

First - and sorry I forgot to say this earlier - a Geo Team can't find anything on a body that has not been surveyed yet.  Since geo survey has been an intrinsic part of the game from day 1, and geo teams were added years later, Steve never considered the possibility that people would try to send a team (which he conceived of as 'double-checking the survey results in an effort to see if anything was missed') to a place that hadn't been surveyed yet.  Now that he has considered it, I believe (due to the aforementioned conception) that he has chosen not to allow it - though possibly not yet added the error message that 'You must geo survey a body before a Geo Team can perform its job there.'

The initial mineral generation routines for a system include the mass of a body in two ways - it increases the amount of a particular mineral present, and decreases the availability.  Thus big, heavy planets tend to have tens of millions of tons at acc 0.1-0.4, whereas asteroids have a few thousand tons at acc 0.7-1.0

The size of a body affects Geo Team results, in that the 'event' of a discovery of 200,000 tons of mineral X on a planet  would be more like 2,000 tons on an asteroid.  It does not affect the chance of a discovery, nor of which particular 'event' is discovered.

There is still a chance of discovering something on an otherwise mineral-less body, though I do not know if the 'increased accessability of a random mineral' event becomes 'no event' or 'roll again' if there are no minerals.  So you might have only half the chance of finding something on a mineral-free body.

[Father Tim]

It's still a bit sketchy to me, but from what I can figure out, it seems to be that there's basically a random level of minerals set on a body when it's created, and the chance of a geosurvey team finding the maximum level of those minerals is based on its skill level.

Yup, except it's "more", not "the maximum level"  The body is created with a bunch of minerals at various accessibilities, and each Geo Team 'success' increases either the amount or the accessibility of a mineral.

The killer seems to be that once that team says it has found all the minerals, then that's it, even if there were more to find.  You can't later send a higher-level survey team to re-survey, giving that body the once-over to see if the original low-level team 'missed' any.

Yup.  Many people consider this a bug and have brought the matter to Steve's attention.  Various more 'realistic' solutions have been suggested.

And since your home-world (Earth) is set to typically have a higher preloaded 'random' starting mineral level, you'll have much more you can miss if a survey team with a low skill level misses them during it's survey.  Plus, for a good while, your homewhorld is your only decent source of minerals, and missing any there really hurts.

Not quite.  "Homeworld Minerals" gives almost all minerals at much higher accessibility than they would naturally have but at much lower total amount than would be 'realistic' because otherwise there wouldn't be much pressure to move off the homeworld.  It's designed to get you started, then run out.

The chance of your Geo Team discovering any more is independent of the amount you have, though it's convenient that anything they do discover is right there where all your mines are.

At least that's my understanding.  Please feel to correct me if I'm off-base.

Pretty close.

[Nikolaj (OP)]

Thanks a lot everybody, for all the comments. It's all very useful. My team found some tritanium on Europa, but then decided no more was to be found, so I moved them back to an asteroid. Ten years later, they're still there, apparantly doing nothing, although by swapping in better team members, they're now at 139. It's certainly a slow process. ?

Thanks again, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it, but I know there's still a long way to go. I still haven't seen any combat.

[dooots]

According to the topic on geology teams in the mechanics forum you only need to train the team up to 120.  At 120 each time the team finds minerals it has a 30% chance of deciding there are no more minerals to be found.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1172 for the info.  There is an update on page 2.

[randal7]

According to the topic on geology teams in the mechanics forum you only need to train the team up to 120.  At 120 each time the team finds minerals it has a 30% chance of deciding there are no more minerals to be found.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1172 for the info.  There is an update on page 2.

However, the chance per interval, and hence the time involved, to find a new deposit is a factor of the skill level as well. It is not clear in the link just how big a factor the skill level plays. Anecdotally, once my teams hit 150+ discoveries seem noticably faster; I've had a team find minerals three months in a row at high skill levels.

I've also wondered if smaller bodies take longer to find new deposits for some reason. Anecdotal evidence again, but chunks and asteroids seem much slower. I've never actually had the patience to leave a team on an asteroid long enough to find minerals; I give up and move after 3-4 years.

[Nikolaj (OP)]

However, the chance per interval, and hence the time involved, to find a new deposit is a factor of the skill level as well. It is not clear in the link just how big a factor the skill level plays. Anecdotally, once my teams hit 150+ discoveries seem noticably faster; I've had a team find minerals three months in a row at high skill levels.

I've also wondered if smaller bodies take longer to find new deposits for some reason. Anecdotal evidence again, but chunks and asteroids seem much slower. I've never actually had the patience to leave a team on an asteroid long enough to find minerals; I give up and move after 3-4 years.

That's my observation, too, although I haven't played for that long, so it could just be coincidence. I disbanded the team on the asteroid, where they'd been stationed for about 10 years with zero results, and moved them to Mars. The very next month they found a deposit, and again for the following two months. That's 3 months in a row, after a 10 year drought.

[dooots]

Yes higher skill increases the rate of mineral discovery, but I was pointing out that at 120 skill you can move the team to earth or any other prime colony site.